Inception (with implanted spoilers)

It's not wrong to ask why he left it ambiguous, it just seems silly to try and figure out whether the last scene is real or not when clearly Nolan wants it to remain ambiguous. It's not like it's a lateral thinking puzzle and he didn't show whether the top fell or not because he wants you to deduct from the other scenes in the film what really happened. Clearly he isn't interested in giving the answer away. The top seemed like it could topple at any moment, so maybe it is real, but then again it didn't stop spinning so maybe it's fake. Discussing the choice of keeping it up in the air is obviously true to the flick, but trying to codebreak the film is really silly. It's not a CIA document and has no secrets to give away. (And if you got him in an interview and interrogated him about it, wouldn't the correct answer from Nolan just be a shrug and the concession, "I don't really know myself what happened at the end?")

http://img.listal.com/image/810313/300full.jpg

Either he's alive or he's dead, or the cops got him... or they don't.

It's not wrong to ask why he left it ambiguous, it just seems silly to try and figure out whether the last scene is real or not when clearly Nolan wants it to remain ambiguous. It's not like it's a lateral thinking puzzle and he didn't show whether the top fell or not because he wants you to deduct from the other scenes in the film what really happened. Clearly he isn't interested in giving the answer away. The top seemed like it could topple at any moment, so maybe it is real, but then again it didn't stop spinning so maybe it's fake. Discussing the choice of keeping it up in the air is obviously true to the flick, but trying to codebreak the film is really silly. It's not a CIA document and has no secrets to give away. (And if you got him in an interview and interrogated him about it, wouldn't the correct answer from Nolan just be a shrug and the concession, "I don't really know myself what happened at the end?")

― Mordy, Friday, July 23, 2010 7:05 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i concur

theres a good chance Nolan was influenced by the last cut in the last episode of The Sopranos.

and considering the endless discussions that came after it, that elevated the popularity of the show - it was a good idea market wise.

I half concur. It's pointless, except in entertaining ourselves with theories (and i've enjoyed reading the ones here and in the linked articles).

But only half concur as Nolan left it ambiguous knowing it would stimulate dscussion and is probably loving the extent to which people are discussing the film.

you could say that, phenomenonologically speaking, that the experience of trying, and failing, to answer that question is the point. the film could hardly be true to the philosophical questions it was raising by answering that question. (the other response is to say that it's both real and a dream--what is our communal reality anyway but a shared dream, etc...)

but two other things:
1) if it's a dream, does that mean that Mal was right?
2) for some reason the Japanese businessman seems important to me--why do we hear japanese first thing, why do we start en media res?

ummmmmmmmm...

OK so like hi guys I just registered I hope I don't piss anybody off by saying hi

but my stance on this movie is that there are very few movies I really enjoy once I realize that the script is pretty awful, and this is one of them. Like seriously "something something dream-share invented by the military" who cares Christopher Nolan we're suspending disbelief already stop telling us these things

on the other hand, I'm pretty well convinced that Cobb explained the whole business with performing/achieving/doing/incepting inception on Mal to Ariadne at least twice. So much deja vu in this movie. Sort of heightens the ambiguity of the whole like thing.

As it were.

INCEPTION is the worst movie i've seen all year

I find that hard to believe, considering how crappy this year has generally been for movies!

you saw "youth in revolt"

my dog could take shit next to a microphone and it would be better than inception

gasp!

Inception is so bad not even Hitler would like it

youth in revolt is by far the worst movie i've seen this year. there is no way in hell that inception could be worse than that.

youth in revolt is fine and the anti-cera backlash is yawwwwwwwn

however i do not have high hopes for scott pilgrim

Pretty disappointed by this. So many questions, that barely seem worth asking. But I will anyway. Apols if this is covered upthread. Why were there so many explosives being set all the time? Just for the 'kick' to wake themselves up? Seems like overkill, and also why would that work, or driving a van off a bridge, when earlier on the van was shoved off the road and near tumbled down an embankment, without waking anyone up?

Why did Ariadne offer to lead Fischer to the fortress in the snow level by saying "I designed it"? Wouldn't that give the game away that it wasn't his dream?

Why was Saito so old in Limbo, and Leo still young, when Leo went into it before him?

It played far too fast and loose with time, like Arthur only having a few minutes in the hotel to wake them up, yet managing to fight off henchmen, collect explosives, rope them all together, get them into a lift, and set the explosives again.

Ultimately, though, I just didn't really care about what was happening, emotionally or viscerally. No connection with the characters, no sense of urgency or peril. It might have helped slightly if they'd dropped the standard hollywood practice of baddies being unable to hit a target at point blank range with automatic weapons, goodies landing shots from 50 yards with pistols.

i had a really big crush on lucas haas when I was a teenager, so I liked that part. even if he does look like shelley duvall.

xpost It was Fischer's dream, but they were trying to make him believe it was the attorney's. They wanted Fischer to think he was breaking into the attorney's mind and stealing his secret. Cobb explained this.

ledge sounds like you missed major plot points dude

saito went into limbo first iirc

youth in revolt is fine and the anti-cera backlash is yawwwwwwwn

no backlash here. i love cera and he was good in YIR. but the writing was fucking hideous. easily the worst indie-style teen flick i've seen in years. worse than thumbsucker.

wrong thread...

xp some details yeah but not major stuff i don't think.

i could be wrong about saito but i had the thought at the time, only an hour ago.

saito dies in the 3rd level & goes 2 limbo then after that leo decides to dream down into the 4th level/his limbo

(as i remember) cobb and ariadne agree to go to limbo to get fischer; they tell eames who okays it. they limbo it up, eames tells saito to guard fischer and goes off to set explosives. saito fires off some shots, tosses his grenade, dies.

it's weird that leo wakes up on a beach - signifier of arriving in limbo - *after* he's gone to limbo to find fischer.

just realised a disappointing gap between expectation and reality: the trailer had the shot of the buildings all rolling up and i imagined that would be a perilous moment for the charaxters, and there would be other monumental and paradigm-shifting things for them to deal with - but nah it was mostly just guys with guns.

the zero-g fight was cool tho.

but even the druggy episodes of star trek:tng get this right.

caek! yes! i just tweeted that tng s7 ep 21 was better than this :)

from nick's link upthread:

For the most part, the film wisely refuses to milk its best ideas (we’d love to see more vertical streets, Escher stairs and wall-walking, but Nolan keeps such moments brief and tantalising memories)

yeah that would get pretty old pretty fast, unlike guys running round with guns, that's always fresh.

ok i'm retreading old boring ground myself now.

How did Cobb and Saito get out of limbo? I missed a detail?

killed themselves, same way cobb and his wife got out

So killing yourself doesn't put you into a new level? Thats why I was confused.

Wouldn't they have to ride "kicks" out? If you can just kill yourself in limbo and its as easy as being only one level in, they why worry about dying anywhere between first level and limbo?

Thats the detail I was missing.

I they went into limbo cos they were so sedated that dream-death wouldn't wake them. We don't actually know how they woke up, or indeed if they did at all.

^^^^^ yes, chemist explained this

YOUTH IN REVOLT was v flawed and even more forgettable, but at least I could sort of enjoy myself during it. INCEPTION was just a boring, boring chore to sit through--a film devoid of both emotions and interesting ideas. And Michael Cera >>> Leonardo DiCaprio

Cera probably would've been a better choice for Cobb.

wow some truly laughable challops coming out now

http://9gag.com/photo/30013_540.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHJwgA54Gqk

i see this film becoming a litmus test for me

also the cinematography is not v remarkable, i groaned when they cut to those waves

like i said above, a dream movie with NO ATMOSPHERE

just remembered another wtf moment, leo getting caught in the narrow alleyway while on the run in mombassa - except his shoulders are still at 45 degrees to the walls! "oh lord how can i squeeze through this alley, if only there were some way of turning my body fully sideways ;_;"

I'm probably being dumb but why does Mal jump out of an apartment on the other side of the street?

Because it's NOT REAL.

I wonder if I was so emotionally uninvolved because it was a dream, and I could give a fuck what happens in dreams -- turn off as soon as characters in other books or films start relating their dreams, and also in real life.

There are also other ways to tell if you're dreaming that surely Mal could have tried out. Writng's a big one: printed words rarely stay the same twice in dreams, so if you can read a book, you're not dreaming. Likewise, surely they'd recognize a level at which they didn't have dream powers, like being able to leap across to the other apartment.

http://cheezcomixed.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/inceptionp1.jpg

Why on earth would you even contemplate going to see Inception if you turn off mentally when literature or TV or other films start dealing with dreams?!

Someone who felt Donnie Darko was evocative and emotionally engaging, but Inception wasn't is the opposite kind of film goer than me.