Inception
 

Whoa.

WHOA.

Whoa.

After seeing Inception, I have to say it's easily the best summer movie so far. What a mindfuck. It's brilliant and confusing and has so many good actors (Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger)...uh, and Leonardo DiCaprio, who achieved a rare half-decent performance (sub-Catch Me If You Can, better than Shutter Island).

I have no idea why this was released in the summer; summer movies are supposed to be dumb, and Inception is more confusing than Memento or The Prestige.

Let's just give Inception the Oscar for editing, shall we, and pray that the rest of the year produces movies that can live up to it.

Damn, I didn't know this was out! I'm so looking forward to it, especially after your response. I've had a reserved hope for this film since seeing the trailer. I was hoping for "the next Matrix but better." It being without Keanu is just a bonus.

I agree with Guy. The movie was absolutely amazing.

Oh Good to hear! This might be one film I'll go see in a theater, instead of waiting for ages and a decade to rent. All the reviews I've read so far say, "It's James Bond meets the Matrix" etc. Several writers from The Gate in San Francisco are touting as being "more clever than most viewers will be able to comprehend..." <- Hmmm, this could be a fine precursor!

I could really use some clever, trippy, thought provoking distraction today and I appreciate hearing more from those who have seen it already!

No spoilers, please.

Okay, I'm totally seeing this tonight.

I was hoping to see the midnight release but that didn't happen. Maybe I'll join Baraka and see it tonight too :)

Wait, you're in Chicago, Ontario?

I'd be joining you in spirit ;)

Meh. I'm sure it's a great film, but I'm not in any real rush to see it. Different strokes and all.

Great movie. I think I'll go see it again in a week or two. Chris Nolan is really growing as a creative force in Hollywood.

That does it! If Will liked it, it must be quite amazing!!
(to those of you new here at tfp, he's one of the real smart ones....with talents too.)

We're probably going tomorrow.

Amazing movie. Makes you think. 9/10. Definitely worth paying the overly expensive theater prices.

Brilliant. Fantastic. Completely engrossing.

It's been a while since I've been this satisfied by a film.

Go see it.

Spoiler: You're all aware that the inception was actually being done on Cobb, right? Or am I the only one?

That Chris Nolan is clever. Reminds me of Memento.

Spoiler: I don't think it's entirely clear, and that is intentional I think. I don't think we can ever know for certain. I could be wrong. I might need a second or third viewing to be sure of that. I'm not sure if Cobb is the subject or if what happens to him is merely collateral damage. *shrug* There's a lot to keep track of the first time watching it.

Maybe you caught something I missed?

Spoiler: Imagine that your best extractor, one of the only people in the world capable of inception, breaks down after the suicide of his wife. Now imagine the ultimate inception job comes your way and you find yourself in a pickle. We can't do inception without our extractor, Cobb, but he's too distracted by his wife to be an effective member of the team.

Spoiler: An idea: double-inception. If a clever enough person, Ariadne, can convince Cobb that he never stopped, and can arrange an inception for him, too, they might be able to pull it off. At the beginning of the story, they're already in a dream. Ariadne has Cobb and the rest of his old team under with the second mark, Robert Fischer, Jr. Notice how Cobb and his cohorts are being pursued by every government? It's a 'Mr. Charles' on Cobb so he can protect the rest of his team from his own dream agents. Then, inside the first dream, Ariadne convinces Cobb to take this one last job, giving him the ultimate incentive: seeing his kids again. He takes the job, verifying that his kids are the tool they need, so step one is in place.

Spoiler: Still, they need to set up inception for Cobb to get over his wife, so they arrange for, during his inception mission, a situation in which Cobb must decide between holding on to his dead wife or seeing his kids again. This is the sniper situation in the ice base. Cobb, seeing his phantasm wife about to kill his chances of being with his kids again, makes the choice to let her go. Then, they have Cobb join her in the place where she's been holding on to, their shared limbo. Once Cobb is able to finally let go of his dead wife in their limbo, his own inception is complete and they're able to pull out. Simultaneously, the inception created by Cobb for Robert Fischer, Jr. plays out, so they're able to finish both missions successfully.

The only question mark I had left at the end was this: Spoiler: Could Ariadne be Cobb's daughter? How long was Cobb separated from his kids? It's quite a trip.

Referencing Will's spoiley-ass post:
THANK YOU. That all makes sense and I'm happy now. And ready to go again. We left that theatre and my poor brain was buzzing.

I could be wrong. It might all just be what you see. Spoiler: I'm having trouble reconciling the totem.

Here's my question: Spoiler: Did he actually ever wake up? Those kids were exactly the same the whole time, clothes and all, and that totem never stopped.
This is why I need to go again. This and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt. He's delicious and that whole hotel scene just twisted my head.

Spoilers suck. Thank Gawd someone blanked 'em.

(What it's too complex to figure out???? Oh c'mon)

Honestly, Spoiler: I'm not sure it matters whether or not he was awake in the last moment. It was just more of a jab at the audience, one more little mindfuck just to give you a superficial twist to distract you from the big one. I think we're supposed to assume in the end, things turned out okay for Cobb. I kinda like that.

See-- I like it too, but I like it because Spoiler: it did all turn out happily in the end for Cobb, but I think he was too broken to wake and leave his own head. His wife is dead and he knows that all too well, so at least now he has his dream children back. Unfortunately, that leaves me back at the beginning- who is real? At what point do we descend completely into his head and where did the dreams splinter?

---------- Post added at 06:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 PM ----------

Que pasa, baby? Did I forget somewhere? :confused: It's impossible, I think, to talk about this movie at all without spoiler tags, unless all you say is, "Oooh, fun and shiny!"

Sorry I was pms-ing.

Spoiler tags! ;)

Today I need a gigantic "Spoiler Alert" to wear on my tee shirt!!! Ha!

I gotta say Will, I don't think that's right.

Spoiler: If the first thing you need to do is perform inception on Cobb, why do it during a difficult and dangerous mission to perform inception on Fischer? If you do it on Cobb first, the whole point is that he will have the idea that he's capable of being a successful extractor again, AND he will think it came from inside himself. He'll have no clue that his team members went into his subconscious to plant the idea. Then, at a later date, you could perform inception on Fischer at their leisure.

Also, as to the ending, I'm pretty sure that there is no right answer. It's left deliberately open so you can pick whichever ending you would prefer.

That said, I'm hardly confident about anything and I'm going to see it again I think...

It's also entirely possible that Spoiler: the whole thing happened entirely inside Cobb's limbo. If you can build a whole world in Limbo, then presumably you could fabricate a job, a three-level matrioshka of dreams inside that job, etc. In the end, we could have never once ascended above the lowest level of limbo.

(We had this discussion earlier, I will reiterate my point for the TFPers who aren't lucky enough to live in our house...) If that's the case Spoiler: I wanna know how we saw everything that happened in the hotel, including the conversations between characters that were nowhere near Cobb. He wasn't there, so how was that part of the dream taking place outside his perception?

Spoiler: "The whole thing happened entirely inside Cobb's limbo" is the same as "the whole thing was just a dream": it's a glib interpretation that implies laziness and/or unreasonable cynicism. Saying it suggests that the whole two and a half hours is nothing but a huge, hollow confidence trick; an elaborate and ultimately pointless bit of flimflammery. NO! All those people did NOT go to all that trouble for the sake of tricking you! Who do you think you are?!

Inception is a house of cards with dependable structural integrity that will never fall down no matter what shit it gets bombarded with.

I'm not wholly convinced of anyone's theories. We have all of us been mindfucked. We have all been compromised.

Nolan is laughing at us all.

Spoiler: There was a time-crunch because Robert Fischer Sr. was about to die. Inception needed to happen asap or the window would close and the company would be an international monopoly.

imho.

if you havent seen this movie, and plan on seeing it, this thread is useless!

SPOIL MY ASS!

I loved the movie!

There is also this to consider Spoiler: In every scene that wasn't a dream, Cobb didn't have a wedding ring. In every scene that was in a dream, he did. SO I don't see how the whole thing could be in his mind.

Also, Spoiler: to those people saying the kids didnt age, yes they did. In the dream sequences they were younger than the final scene. If you don't believe me, look at imdb.com. They have two actors listed for the children, separated by two years. You can also tell that they sound older in the scene where Cobb is on the phone with them.

Spoiler: I believe people are reading too far into it. At the end it doesn't show you that the top falls over but it is very obvious that it does. Mal and Cobb grew old together in limbo and the top locked away in her safe still spinning and it doesn't so much as wobble for all of those long years but it starts wobbling right away when he spins it? I do see that they are trying to leave it open to interpretation but still. And saying that inception had to happen quickly because of a time crunch? That doesn't jive real well with the exponential time difference in each level. They trained for weeks and weeks but couldn't afford 10 or so hours to plant a seed in Cobb? I don't buy it. Besides that is way too huge of a risk. What if it doesn't work?

Spoiler: Stella, I might be misinterpreting your comment about things happening outside of Cobb's presence in the levels of the dream but since they're shared dreams lots of things happen outside of his perception. Anyway, Cobb isn't the dreamer making the world in any of the levels. They made it clear that they absolutely could not have Cobb as a dreamer because of the influence Mal would have.

If it WAS Spoiler: an inception on Cobb, then the Spoiler: thought they were trying to implant was obviously: Spoiler: Do you want to be an old man, full of regret, waiting to die alone?

Somebody report me for spoiler tag abuse!

I saw it last night in IMAX. Great movie. What is it about Nolan movies and people making up crazy ways to explain the plot? Spoiler: The whole movie wasn't a dream or an inception on Cobb. The only thing somewhat up for interpretation is the spinning totem at the end but I think it's reasonable to say it falls over.

When I got done watching The Prestige a couple years ago I couldn't believe the explanations I read on the Internet. People take Nolan movies waaay too far ha ha ha ha

dont tempt me...punk!

but seeing all these white lines make me go crazy!

im going to have to watch it i think..even though i rarely go to the movies.

Why are there spoiler tags in this thread? It makes no sense. You don't come into a movie thread to not read about the movie.

Spoiler tags will make less sense perhaps a week after opening night. In the meantime, the thread is a mixture of "this is how much I liked it" and "this is what I think happened in it." There are people who might wander in here to find out how much people liked it and would rather avoid the spoilers for now.

hear hear! This movie was basically Spoiler: a heist movie but with them implanting an idea in someone rather than stealing a bunch of diamonds. And it was great at what it did.

I would like to know how they created the hotel hallway fight scenes because they were incredible.

They built a rotating set and used wires. that was an awesome scene.

Do you think it is possible for any of the character's in Inception to have super powers while invading someone else's dream? Or can only the person that is sharing their dream be the only one with super powers?

Yeah the wire work was possibly the best I've seen out of any movie. Not once did I think "he's hanging by a cable."

I was thinking about this a little bit last night, and my current question is the following:

Spoiler: I was thinking about the possibility that Cobb and his wife delve deep into their subconscious and arrive at Limbo, where they seem to age gracefully until he tires of it. He wants to kick back up, but she doesn't so he plants the seed deep inside her subconscious that nothing is real, symbolized by his opening the safe and setting her totem to spin indefinitely. After a while, she is overcome with the same feeling he has, and they begin to withdraw to higher levels. They arrive at a level where he feels they are in reality, but she doesn't - but perhaps they've both lost touch with reality to the point that they can't recognize it. She kicks out - or commits suicide - and he is left with two problems. Guilt that he may have led her to suicide, and doubt that she may have been correct coupled with loneliness for his wife.

IF he was still in his subconscious, he could have developed a mechanism in order to fool himself into releasing his guilt and doubt by creating the entire inception on the kid. While his subconscious defenses lead him to believe he is going in to plant the inception on the mark, he is actually implanting his own inception to let go of his fears and doubt so that when he returns to his original level, still within his own subconscious he is able accept it as reality without his anxiety. Thus, the top spinning at the end - which is still spinning but seems to perhaps totter, might symbolize the fact that he has the choice to accept this level of consciousness as reality or to reject it - with the overall message being that we must choose to accept reality or reject it, sensory perception is an illusion, etc.

I'm still playing with interpretations - but thus far that one works for me given the similarity of the ending scene to all of his dreams sequences.

Here's the plot: Spoiler: Cobb was arrested for killing his wife and admitted to a mental hospital where Ariadne was his psychotherapist. She places him into a dream that coaxes him to do an inception, making him feel comfortable and in control while she performs an inception on him at the same time. In the end, he releases himself from the guilt of his wife's death, but we never get to see real reality.

Evidence:
"Reality" is still surreal. Chase scenes, kids didn't age, top didn't stop spinning, Saito conveniently buying an airline to accomplish a task, etc.
Ariadne is not her real name. Ariadne is the name of the girl in Greek mythology who leads Theseus out of the labyrinth.
The "combination" is actually his prisoner number.

With all that said, I'm not sold on the mind's ability to speed up to 10x10x10x10x10 and still process things coherently.

Spoiler: um, as I said in my first comment, the kids did age, check imdb.com, there is two sets of actors, one set from the memories, and another set in reality. Phillipa is 3 and 5, while james is 20 months and 3 years old. There is no way at 20 months that he was talking the way he did on the phone. And which chase scene in reality was surreal?

And how is having a girl named ariadne make that not her real name? Maybe nolan liked the name from the mythology and thought it would be appropriate seeing as how she was the architect and would help cobb. None of these things at all suggest that he is in a mental hospital.

Your theory is stretching way too far. Nothing in the movie suggested anything like this. You are trying to find something that is not there at all.

Thanks for using the spoiler tags guys, I haven't had a chance to gather a group to go see it yet :)

Absolutely fantastic movie. Movies like this restore my confidence in modern film-making. As one critic said on Rotten Tomatoes, why aren't more movies like this greenlighted where a talented director knows EXACTLY what to do and what they want in a movie and can sculpt it like a piece of art? Nolan had an idea and he perfected it via film. I wish more movies were this good!!!!!!

Speaking to all of the conspiracy theories in the thread - I think you guys are looking too far into it! The movie at face value was pretty complex; I don't think there's another layer of complexity that most viewers are overlooking. I think "what is, is" with this movie.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt FTW!!!!!

This is what happens when you take a talented risk-taking filmmaker and let him write, produce, and direct his vision. Someone was telling me about an interview with Nolan, and they asked him about the writing process. Apparently he wrote his story without thinking much about the limitations of filming it. He just let himself create. The film-making considerations came mostly afterward.

I also want to give him and his crew kudos for keeping CGI to a minimum. They seemed to use it only where "necessary."

Yes, but I will say that the entire cast did an excellent job.

Article

Inception’s Dileep Rao Answers All Your Questions About Inception. Spoilers in the above article, so only read it if you have already viewed the film.

That's a great article. I'm struck by how intelligent Rao's responses are; he seems like a very bright guy. I've always liked him as an actor, too (he was great in Drag Me To Hell).

Anyways, he says exactly what I'd like to say here about some of the theories floating around, but in a much more intelligent fashion:

Spoiler: What if Leo is the one being "incepted" with an idea? We keep hearing the phrase "Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret?" and it's like someone — maybe Ellen Page's character because she's the catalyst of his emotional catharsis — has set this all up so he can let go of his regret over Mal's death. That's why at the end with Saito he offers to come back and be young again (not old, full of regret). Even the Edith Piaf song they use to signal ten seconds before kick translates to "No, I regret nothing." And there's so many scenes where Ellen Page is talking to Leo, getting him to reveal his issues, in the same way that Eames tricks Fischer into revealing his issues. Also, Leo's kids are the same age at the end, right?

I'm not trying to be authoritative, so this is just my understanding of how I approached it from my work on it. But you're saying it's like some sort of crazy-ass psychotherapy session where the whole thing is a constructed narrative of massive complexity only to distract Cobb so that he will achieve his change? I mean sure, you could totally say that that's what it is. In a way, that's what we're doing to Fischer, so it's not unfounded.

The problem for me is that you're using negative evidence to support a story that isn't there. I don't know what to say about a character who only exists before and after the movie. You're talking about a character who isn't onscreen. And I mean on one hand, it's awesome that this movie can sustain that kind of discussion. It shows you just how well-thought-through and comprehensive it is, but I mean I don't know where that kind of speculation ends. It's like people who are convinced 9/11 is an inside job. It's a mental heuristic failure to think that one or two minor details explain absolutely everything. I mean, kids wear the same clothes all the time.

To me, it's a far more elegant story if it's a vast job that Leo has to pull off. The threat is real, the growth is real, the adversary is real. The weakness of "It's all a dream" — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you've just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you've now swept it away with the most anti-narrative structuralism that doesn't have anything to substitute in its place. It's laughing at you for even taking it seriously. You don't want to feel like a victim of the narrative, and I don't think Christopher Nolan would do that.

lol this is just flat out wrong! And Dileep Rao agreeing makes it official IMO.

Thank you for that! It puts to rest so many ridiculous conspiracy theories.

This sums it up nicely.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8...sinception.jpg

I saw this picture today and had a good laugh.

http://poststuff2.entensity.net/072810/leo.jpg

Yeah, I think people are reading way too much into this. There are obvious similarities with the Matrix, but a far more taut and superior storyline and pacing. My only complaint about Nolan has been that all of his movies were 20 mins too long for me. This is by far his best movie for me, and the best movie i've seen this year.

Frankly, I think the movie on its "surface" is good enough that it doesn't require imagining all sorts of theories that aren't there. The story stands up well as presented.

I think the beauty of it is, it rewards reading on many levels. The ambiguity of the last frame is obviously an invitation to speculate, BUT that sort of misses the point. Cobb has walked away from his totem. Wherever he is, that's what he's calling home. He no longer cares if it's real or dream; he's found where he wants to be, and that's good enough for him.

I hope the studio doesn't insist on a sequel. Inception works best as it is.

Here's another theory revolving around Cobb's wedding ring.

INCEPTION: Wait.. Whatomghappened? |

One thing I noticed, and I'm not sure if its an inconsistency or a hint, but Spoiler: when they were in limbo they said they grew old together, but when it showed them kicking out (on the train tracks) they were young...

yes, I noticed that the first time I watched it but I guess I forgot about it. Hmmmm, I doubt it was just an inconsistency.

Not entirely true. The first time, yes. But there was a later closeup image of that scene where they weren't.

I've been thinking of posting this for a since nearly after this thread was live post-release, but haven't because I'm not trying to start some internet dick-waving-a-thon...but what I don't understand is how people can attempt to quash speculation about possible interpretations of the movie's plot with a movie that seems clearly intended to fan such speculation. If Nolan wanted to have the movie read simply as presented, that would have been easy enough. Put the kids at the end in some sweat pants in the front yard, and have the top definitely stop spinning. It seems to me that Nolan intended for people to look deeper within the presentation of the film, and personally I find the alternative theories more interesting than acceptance of the film directly as presented.

As to the last bit about the ages when they kicked out - was the train the first kick out, or a kick-out from a higher level? I can't remember, but if it wasn't the first time that would explain why they might be younger. I seem to remember at least one scene where they were senior citizens.

It looks like I'm alone in being disappointed with the movie. It had good effects, but the editing IMO was bad.

Although dated (1984) at this point I thought Dreamscape was better.

I loved this movie. If you haven't seen it, go do so.

I think one of the most brilliant things about the movie is that it has true artistry. People are so focused on which interpretation of what happened is the right one, and I don't understand why. The movie is more like a poem, or a painting: no one's interpretation of a particular poem or painting is right, except for them.

That said, I watched the movie and came to the same conclusion Will did. I like it that way.

...or a dream.

what an interesting long, long, con. I enjoyed it alot. Still trying to digest it.

Was it clever? yes. Was it a good flick? yes. Was it brilliant? hardly.

The first hour consisted of nothing but exposition. I couldn't have cared less about the characters. As an artist, Nolan makes a fine engineer.

But, it was entertaining.

Fugly, I think that this is the first time I've ever completely agreed with you about something. I think you'd agree when I add "was it smart? yes."

I loved this movie but it's really getting on my nerves how people are talking about how complex and "smart" this movie is on the Internet. And how some people will "get it" and some people won't. There's nothing to get. They go inside dreams...what more is there to get? This isn't any more complicated than The Matrix.

Absolutely. Smart, but mostly soulless.

Watching the film, I was reminded of Alex Proyas' "Dark City," which was much more atmospheric and convincing.

It is a very good movie. I really loved The Prestige and for me they are really on par with each other. Inception is a bit better due to the concept.

Sorry to have missed this thread when it was fresh, but since the movie is one of the few things I "like" on my FB page, this link was provided on my wall this morning. It was interesting to hear just a hint of Nolan's ideas.

Christopher Nolan (Somewhat) Explains INCEPTION