Inception

[ray243]

Who knows. They might be criticising the movie as confusing because they think the general public would think so too.

After all, what's the point of being a movie critic if your views are not shared by the general public and no one finds your reviews to be useful to them.

[e1ement]

Originally Posted by IXJac

Yeah, but he was using it as his own totem after she died.

But that doesn't make sense. The totem is only supposed be something known to you. That's why Ellen Page can't hold that guy's loaded die, because a totem is something only you can know.

[De La Chretiens]

I liked the part where they were in Robert Fischer's dream, second level, in that hotel. Eames (disguised as a blonde hottie) walks into a lift and flirts with Saito, and then turns off the mask. I lolled so hard in the theatre that people looked at me. Tom Hardy is epic funny in that movie, and a bit plumper than the time he played Shinzon.

[IXJac]

Originally Posted by e1ement

But that doesn't make sense.

Sure it does because she's dead, so only Cobb knows that totem now. Besides, Cobb's totem is different from the ones used by Arthur or Ariadne. Theirs relied on no one else knowing the peculiarities of their totem so no one else could fake it. Cobb/Mal's relied on the totem doing something impossible while in the dream world. One assumes he'd still avoid letting other people handle it so as to reduce the risk of someone pulling a fast one, perhaps replacing it with a normal top, but his totem seems to be less vulnerable to meddling.

[mutantmagnet]

I wouldn't go that far with how the others worked.

It was obvious both the chess piece and die were designed to work one specific way in the real world so in the dream world the totem would defy that rule.

[A. Bettik]

GREAT MOVIE!!! LOVED IT!!! WATCH IT IF YOU HAVE NOT. Best movie, period, since Batman: TDK. Damn, Christopher Nolan, you are AWESOME. I plan on re-watching this soon, within the week if possible.

Let me also note that this movie was downright scary and creepy in many places... perhaps even truly terrifying when you think deeply about some of the concepts.

Originally Posted by Shockz

-Some of the dream-rules set up seemed to be used or ignored for plot convenience. e.g., how come, when they're under the sedative, killing yourself sometimes sends you into limbo but sometimes sends you up one layer?


-Why was Saito an old man in the first sequence? Didn't really make any sense.

Same answer for both, really. This was explained, and made sense in context of the plot. The tailored tranquilizer they took was so powerful that they would stay asleep even if they "died" while in dream. The only way to wake them "correctly" was from outside stimulus, like falling. If they died in-dream, they would, instead of waking, be sent to Limbo which is the theoretical limit of "dream-within-dreams". It's like thousands of years per real-world second. This presents a major problem because if you send someone to limbo and you wait just a few seconds before waking them up, they are likely to be long crazy and completely mentally broken by the time you wake them. This is why everyone was all freaking out that Cobb didn't tell them this before they got in-dream. This is why Cobb had to follow Saito into Limbo as soon as he died, even in the 1440x (or whatever it was) faster time they were already in, and even THEN Saito was already an ancient, elderly, old-beyond-old, nearly insane guy who had all but completely forgotten everything regarding the outside world.

Originally Posted by OmegaLynx

As for Limbo Killing yourself only got you out of Limbo, if you died in any other layer you went there

Not true. Read the above.

-The OR IS IT?!? ending felt like a cheap shot. A cheap shot that was almost necessary given the plot and themes of the movie, but still a cheap shot.
-Music was awesome.
-I need to see this again.

Agreed, but maybe not. At first glance, there are only TWO possibilities, and it's not a big deal that the director didn't pick which one it really is. On second glance, and I'll have to watch it again for this, I can think of THREE more possibilities for what was really going on the whole time.


--Easy Answer 1: Cobb is truly awake, was awake whenever we thought he was for the movie, everything is fine and happy, except of course his wife is dead. Evidence for this is, well, the jist and plot of the entire movie, and that the spinner wobbles at the end. Also that the spinner does fall over several times throughout the movie when he checks it.
--Easy Answer 2: Cobb was truly asleep the whole time, his wife was right and they were really in some deep dream. He still is at the end of the film. Evidence for this is that the kids didn't seem much older than when he last saw them. They were even in the exact same position doing the same thing. Also, the spinner went for quite a long time at the end of the movie.

--Deeper Answer 3: Cobb never left Limbo after going after Saito. He's still in that same Limbo at the end of the film.

--Deeper Answer 4: Cobb is still asleep in the Opium Den. Evidence: The "sleep" was supposed to be long, but was mere seconds to the viewer. He never got the top to work after that dream, especially in the bathroom right afterwards. He also seemed to catch a glimpse of Mal in the bathroom mirror, and that would make it the only time we see a hallucination within the Real World. Not sure why the director would do this, unless there is something even deeper or he does a sequel.

--Deeper Answer 5: Everything is actually MAL's dream, and she's trying to get Cobb awake. He's living in her dream.

[Stargazer]

Originally Posted by De La Chretiens

I liked the part where they were in Robert Fischer's dream, second level, in that hotel. Eames (disguised as a blonde hottie) walks into a lift and flirts with Saito, and then turns off the mask. I lolled so hard in the theatre that people looked at me. Tom Hardy is epic funny in that movie, and a bit plumper than the time he played Shinzon.

...that's the guy who played Shinzon?

Well, I'm glad the guy's career didn't drop on that sour note.

[OmegaLynx]

@Bettik: How am I wrong? Killing yourself in Limbo gets you out of it, that's how cobb got out the first time.

[IXJac]

Originally Posted by OmegaLynx

@Bettik: How am I wrong? Killing yourself in Limbo gets you out of it, that's how cobb got out the first time.

Yeah, but when he went there with his wife I assume he wasn't as heavily sedated. The problem with killing yourself not waking you up was unique to the drug they were using on that mission.

[OmegaLynx]

Originally Posted by IXJac

Yeah, but when he went there with his wife I assume he wasn't as heavily sedated. The problem with killing yourself not waking you up was unique to the drug they were using on that mission.

Right, but I never said that the first time he was there was because of heavy sedation

[IXJac]

Originally Posted by OmegaLynx

Right, but I never said that the first time he was there was because of heavy sedation

No, but I'm pointing out they were under heavy sedation the second go round, which meant they couldn't kill themselves to wake from Limbo. The only way out was to stimulate the inner ear with a "kick," which was the one backdoor built into the sedative.

How Cobb got out of Limbo the first time - being killed by a train - wouldn't have worked on the Fischer mission because of that sedative. That drug changed the rules of the game, which is why everyone was so pissed Cobb didn't tell them about it before the mission.

[OmegaLynx]

But the whole conversation Cobb has with Saito is about him killing Saito so that they can return to the world

[Thanatos]

Originally Posted by OmegaLynx

But the whole conversation Cobb has with Saito is about him killing Saito so that they can return to the world

Except he never said he was going to kill Saito, Saito asked him if he was there to kill him. Saito had been trapped there for so long that he basically forgot he was trapped there and said that Cobb reminded him of someone he knew a long time ago

[A. Bettik]

Originally Posted by Thanatos

Except he never said he was going to kill Saito, Saito asked him if he was there to kill him. Saito had been trapped there for so long that he basically forgot he was trapped there and said that Cobb reminded him of someone he knew a long time ago

So, what was the end of the movie??? How did they wake up??? Did they just spend thousands of years in Limbo and wait to be woken up? Did they NEVER wake up, and my "Deeper Answer 3" is the correct one? (Cobb is STILL in Limbo at the end of the film?) How did Ariadne, Robert Fischer get out of Limbo by dying?? My guess is that you CAN get out of Limbo by killing yourself, but its really really hard to remember where you came from/where you're at in Limbo.

@Omega Lynx I think we're just miscommunicating. I'm just saying that you're wrong because 99% of the time, killing yourself will get you out of a dream. It was only in the one case, the one with the particular sedative, where it would send you to Limbo instead.

[jimthegrayy]

Originally Posted by ray243

Has anyone seen it yet? I find the movie to be one of the most immersive movie I have watched.

Yeah it was great, really one of the best movies I have seen

[Sean21]

So is this a must see?

[IXJac]

Originally Posted by A. Bettik

So, what was the end of the movie??? How did they wake up??? Did they just spend thousands of years in Limbo and wait to be woken up? Did they NEVER wake up, and my "Deeper Answer 3" is the correct one? (Cobb is STILL in Limbo at the end of the film?)

That's the question, isn't it.

How did Ariadne, Robert Fischer get out of Limbo by dying?? My guess is that you CAN get out of Limbo by killing yourself, but its really really hard to remember where you came from/where you're at in Limbo.

As I recall, Ariadne jumped off the building, probably using the whole inner ear loophole to yank herself back with the fall. Fischer was to be pulled out by Eames using the defibrilator pads, and the whole fortress exploding under him, and then sequentially kicked up the next levels by the exploding elevator and the falling van.

We really have no idea how Saito and Cobb got out, which is why the whole ending sequence is such a mind-fuck. "Do you remember how you got here?". . .

Anyway, I'm gonna go see it again with another group of friends, because it seems the kind of movie that rewards repeat viewings - and I'm all for financially supporting one of Hollywood's few original ideas.

[CrayAK-47]

WARNING: THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS Spoiler tags are cancer on my eyes. If you're just browsing the thread to see whether people recommend it or not, my two cents is DEFINITELY FUCKING RECOMMENDED, the rest of this post is full of plot stuff.



- - - - - - - - - -



I didn't quite understand the finer details pertaining to the rules of dreaming and whatnot, can someone enlighten me?

1. Is the following correct? - There is always only one "dreamer." The dreamer is the one who populates the dream-world designed by the architect with projections of his subconscious. Other people can hop along for the ride, but they can only project a limited amount (i.e. Cobb's freight train and Mal, the forger's grenade launcher and disguises). The dreamer has much greater large-scale control, like the pedestrians and weather.
   
   
2. In the movie, Fischer was the dreamer. If I recall correctly, (I may be mistaken, having only seen the movie once thus far) Cobb says that because they're under sedation, if they die in the dream, they will fall into and be trapped within Fischer's Limbo. Is that right, or am I misremembering?
   
   
3. This part confused me because Fischer died in the third level snow world, and yet somehow ended up in the abandoned metropolis. That empty city cannot be Limbo, because Cobb and Ariadne reached it simply by going to sleep again in the snowy third level of dreaming, not by killing themselves. Also, that city was dreamed by Cobb (and Mal), not Fischer, so why was Fischer there, apparently tied up and being held prisoner by Mal, in a city that is definitely not his own personal Limbo?
   
   Was that because Fischer had been killed by Mal, a projection of Cobb's subconscious, and thus somehow got dragged into Cobb's mind? Or something else?
   
   This might explain why when Saito died, he didn't end up in that city, but someplace else entirely. Because he was killed by one of Fischer's projections, not Cobb's.
   
   
4. Even if the above isn't entirely correct, I take it that it's possible to switch the main dreamer between levels. That is, in the snowy place, Fischer was still the dreamer and the soldiers were his projections. But when Cobb and Ariadne went to sleep, even though they were still in Fischer's dream, they took a side-trip into Cobb's dream-world, the abandoned city.
   
   
5. How the hell did the whole defibrillation thing work? Why did shocking Fischer's chest to restart his heart bring him back to consciousness, after he had been shot and killed? Why did Cobb and Ariadne chuck Fischer off the skyscraper in the abandoned city? Was that also part of waking Fischer up? And yet it couldn't have been the kick, because the kick only works when applied in a higher level than the one where you're currently conscious--and I believe Fischer was semi-conscious in the abandoned city. The defibrillator couldn't have been the kick either, since it has nothing to do with the inner ear. Then Ariadne jumped off the building as well, and eventually woke up in a higher level.
   
   I didn't completely understand what her plan was, or even hear it properly, after Fischer died--she said a bunch of stuff that came out in a jumble, and Cobb was like hey that might work, and I was like what? That probably has a lot to do with my confusion.
   
   Yeah, this entire section of the movie messed me up.
   
   
6. Were the series of different kicks (the falling van, the rocket elevator, the collapsing snow fortress) supposed to be synchronized, so as to happen relatively simultaneously across all levels of dreaming? Why was that necessary? I thought a kick in a higher level would knock you out of all lower levels, e.g. even if you were stuck in the third level of dreaming, if someone tipped your chair over in the real world, you'd shoot all the way back up to wakefulness. But maybe only real world kick has that kind of priority--while dreaming, the kick only works across a single layer, which is why somebody in the snow world said that they missed the first kick, and why Arthur had to improv the elevator kick.
   
   
7. Why didn't Cobb wake up at the same time as Ariadne? If his body was sleeping in the snowy world, when the c4 detonated and brought the snow fort down, and when the van hit the water in the second level, that'd be two simultaneous kicks for Cobb. Unless he wasn't fourth level (empty city) world anymore, and had already entered the Limbo where Saito was trapped. In which case the kicks only being able to reach across one dream level would explain why he remained asleep in the submerged van.
   
   
8. What happens if you die in Limbo, but your real world body is still under sedation?
   
   
9. Assuming that Cobb and Saito did really wake up at the end of the movie, they couldn't have woken themselves up, correct? (Unless even under sedation, offing yourself in Limbo will wake you up. But I don't see why that'd be the case.) They would either have had to remain in Limbo for god knows how until the real world sedation wore off, or until someone in the real world administered the kick to their sleeping bodies. Now, even if we suppose that Limbo is "only" the fourth level of dreaming, given the exponential time-dilation (5 minutes to 1 hour is 1:12) carried to the fourth level, a second in the real world would have been two weeks in Limbo.
   
   Are we to assume that Cobb and Saito just sat around that dining room table for next several weeks or months or years, carrying on their broken, halting conversation, and attempting to piece their memories together?
   
   
10. How does dream amnesia work? Because I know that Fischer was kidnapped and asked to remember a safe combination number in level two, but when he got to level three (the hotel) and Cobb convinced him that he was dreaming, Fischer had trouble remembering what the kidnappers wanted. So in a lower level of dream, the untrained forget what happened in a higher level.
    
    I believe the opposite is supposed to be true as well. Because after all, when Fischer awakes in the real world, he's not supposed to remember any of this, and "spontaneously" come upon the idea of dissolving his father's company. Or am I wrong about that? Is Fischer actually supposed to remember his father's "will" and the imaginary deathbed reconciliation that took place between them? I figured Fischer was only supposed to retain some subconscious positive emotion towards his father, but not really know why. What confused me about this is Cobb, since he's so highly trained he just seems to remember everything.
    
    Anyway, dream amnesia in the higher levels is the only explanation I can come up with for how Saito still remembered the phone number he was supposed to dial, to drop the charges against Cobb, even after fifty goddamn years (or however long it was) stuck in Limbo. You'd think he'd forget by then.
    
    But on the other hand, Saito obviously doesn't forget everything, because didn't he say that he used the dream in the opening sequence as a test to "recruit" Cobb and his boys, to see whether they could carry out Inception? You probably just forget more the deeper you go, or something.
    
    But in that case...why was everyone so worried about being trapped in Limbo, and waking up in the real world as a madman or mind-wiped vegetable? With dream-amnesia, you'd just forget Limbo ever happened.

Whoo boy.

[tato82]

Best movie I've seen all year! I'm going back to the IMAX screen on Wednesday.

[A. Bettik]

Originally Posted by IXJac

That's the question, isn't it.

See, I always thought that they definitly got out of Limbo. The only question was: Was his wife right? Was the whole movie, his whole life, a dream?? But no. I'm almost positive now that he's stuck in Limbo with Saito at the end.

Originally Posted by CrayAK-47

-snip-

Good questions.

A lot of them go away if you believe that they're still in Limbo at the end of the film.

[Sean21]

I just got back from it. Damn. Quite a lot of details to take in all at once.

PS:
I want my own special alpine dream security force.

[e1ement]

Originally Posted by Sean21

PS:
I want my own special alpine dream security force.

You mean you want your own Modern Warfare level?

[Gravity Allen]

Originally Posted by CrayAK-47

WARNING: THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS Spoiler tags are cancer on my eyes. If you're just browsing the thread to see whether people recommend it or not, my two cents is DEFINITELY FUCKING RECOMMENDED, the rest of this post is full of plot stuff.



- - - - - - - - - -



I didn't quite understand the finer details pertaining to the rules of dreaming and whatnot, can someone enlighten me?


-snip-

I've gotta see this again before I can answer with much confidence, but here's what I understood:

You're right about each level of dreamng having one dreamer; each level has a different dreamer (and, I suspect, each level must have a different dreamer). The first level's dreamer is, I believe, Yusuf the Chemist's. He remains "conscious" while everyone else goes one level deeper, in the van. The next level's dreamer is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Arthur. He remains "conscious" in the hotel, while the rest go yet another level deeper. The third dreamer is Eames, the Forger (Tom Hardy). He sticks around while everyone else either dies or goes to sleep.

Granted, bits of this have to be reconciled with what happens in the film. For instance, they all tell Fischer that he'll be the dreamer when they go under in the hotel (into that ice fortress level). I think that this is just a lie, to make him think he's in control (the whole point is to make him think the idea's his own, right?). Another point is that of the act of inception itself. My supposition is that you don't need to have the mark be the dreamer in order to steal (or implant) an idea. Shared dreaming allows the dream to be interpreted as just that: everyone's.

Then, there's limbo. One possibility is to think of limbo as a state of shared consciousness, amongst everyone. Whoever last left determined the shape of it the next time someone comes for a visit. Otherwise, sticking to the idea that everyone has their own limbo, so to speak, we might guess that Fischer's experience is shaped by Mal (who is, of course, a projection of Dom's mind). My belief is that Saito was in limbo, but just far away from the city . . . if that even makes sense.

I can't address your fifth question yet; I, too, find the mechanics of the deeper levels confusing.

I think you're right that a kick in a dream only goes one level down. The van falling off the bridge would only have "woken them up" had they been "awake" in the hotel, but they weren't yet. I could also guess that Arthur didn't wake up when the van fell precisely because there were currently several "unconscious" people in his own dream, anchoring him there. More exposition on this would have been welcome.

On question seven: maybe because he had been stabbed at that point?

On question eight: you go to super limbo, where eveyone looks like John Malkovich.

On question nine: I smell sequel!

On question ten: maybe you remember the shared dreaming experience as well as you remember any dream. You can hold onto it with greater and greater difficulty as time passes. But, maybe such amnesia won't help if you haven't managed to hold onto your own mind in limbo. If Saito had gone crazy (i.e., if Dom hadn't found him and rescued him, somehow), he wouldn't really have come back at all.

These are the things I will pay attention to when I see it again!

[A. Bettik]

Originally Posted by Gravity Allen

Granted, bits of this have to be reconciled with what happens in the film. For instance, they all tell Fischer that he'll be the dreamer when they go under in the hotel (into that ice fortress level). I think that this is just a lie, to make him think he's in control (the whole point is to make him think the idea's his own, right?). Another point is that of the act of inception itself. My supposition is that you don't need to have the mark be the dreamer in order to steal (or implant) an idea. Shared dreaming allows the dream to be interpreted as just that: everyone's.

I think you're wrong here.

First, you have the Architect. This isn't the dreamer, just the person who creates the Dream World. This is Ariadne for the final sequence.
Second, you have the Dreamer. This person populates the Architect's world with objects and a populace full of subconscious dream-people. This was Fischer for every dream in the final sequence. We know this because it was HIS subconscious people trying to attack everyone (including himself, in the Snow dream).
Third, you have everyone else. They can modify the dream world to their choosing, but the more they do so, the more the Dreamer's subconscious is going to get angry at them. Modify it WAY too much and the dreamer will realize they are dreaming, and the world will blow up. A little thing like creating a bigger weapon isn't going to set off any alarms, but creating a transformer to fight for you would.

Fischer's subconscious was used for the Snow World but he didn't realize that. In the first (car chase) dream, Eames had impersonated Browning and told him about the secret Will. However, in the hotel dream, Browning was just another one of Fisher's subconscious people. Eames was no longer impersonating him. And yet, he talked about the secret Will and plot to steal the combination and stuff because that's what Fischer's subconscious was thinking. So Fischer thought that Browning was real and was trying to hack into his mind, and so Cobb told him that they would hack into Browning's mind and find out what he wanted. In reality, they were having Fischer explore his OWN subconscious, and finding something he really wanted to find: the idea they were trying to incept.

[Dessolution]

My friend kept raving on and on about how great the movie was *rollseyes* Now I gotta go watch the movie.