Inception |spoiler inside|

[UrbanMasque]

Using only what the movie gives you, convince me that the top falls at the end of the movie please, because I'm pretty sure it doesn't.




[I was tempted to post this in the philosophy forum, but as a newbie - I figured I probably shouldn't risk it.]

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Why do you think it doesn't?

Sidenote: Inception is one of the best movies I watched so far.

 

[MRaverz]

Observation of the top itself shows that it begins spinning in an unbalanced way - it will therefore topple over soon enough.

Also, the main characters clearly weren't projections. If they were real people sharing the dream, the girl would know who the main character's wife was because the wife was in dreams with the main character and the other real people would have to be using the same machine as the wife.

Additionally, there didn't appear to be an architect.

Simples.

 

[UrbanMasque]

Lets think about this using the evidence the movie gives you.
----> The movie gods of Inception say: When you die in the deep layers of limbo there is a definite risk/near certainty that your real mind may become catatonic, or thrown into a coma, or die ( more than likely you'll probably become an unrecoverable vegetable). Leonardo and his wife experimented with dreaming within dreams within dreams, ad inifitum, at the end of which - to try to revive their minds, they offed themselves (very dramatically and definitely not the way I would think about ending my life even in a lucid dream). I assume you can't share dreams without that stupid contraption. Anyway, why off themselves - because they were trapped there and were incapable of feeling a kick (the last scene before limbo they were lying on a flat floor, which is probably where they are both still laying, in that layer of dream).
After they died on the train tracks they both were sent deeper into another dream, and NOT back to reality, this time probably deeper inside their own individual minds ( Think about it - when they died they weren't connected to anything or to each other with that IV hookah device). Sucks for them... Spending eternity anywhere, but especially in your own mind, is the epitome of hell - IMO. And there is no way out for them because even if they did die due to old age they would only just go deeper and deeper into dream layers (because the human lifespan isn't longer than the amount of time it would take to revive from those several layers of dream when you continue to multiply the time).

The only question after that I had left was - who was the architect (host) of the final dream (when they were on the floor before the train suicide layer), I argue that it was probably Mawl.

One reason why is because he didn't experience any of the dreamlike symptoms associated with the totem. It was HER totem to begin with, and she kept it hidden from him because she knew he would realize they were dreaming if he never saw it drop in her presence - and it would NEVER drop in front of Mawl. That was her big secret. So when he stole it from her, by cracking her safe and not knowing its dimension and weight or physics of the object, it would appear to be the same as it should be in real life. To him that object became reliable enough to make his own totem. Again, this is because his wife was more than likely the architect of the dream world he perceived as reality after his train death. He would grow old and continue to age much like what happened to the Japanese guy - because that's what he expected to happened - and now he is trapped there because his "dream life-span" will never be as long as the amount of time needed to recover from the dream state. so he will continue to die and wake in a deeper dream, die and wake in a deeper dream, etc.


By planting the idea in Mawl's head about inception he exposed her to the truth that nothing is real - driving her "insane", when really she was seeing things very clearly. At that point, after they "kicked" from the train track death - the inception worked because that is what he expected to happen, but the fake sub-conscience Mawl (inside Leo's mind) was spot on in her assumption that nothing was real.

If Leo would've stayed to watch the top fall - it would've fallen because that is what he expected to happen (again, its Mawl's totem that he took in a dream) but he walked away and the top regained its momentum.


-the whole dream sharing thing kind of annoys me, but for the sake of the movie i'll go along with it.


...i hope im forming coherent thoughts.

 

[dreddin]

after watching it for the second time yesterday, i picked up on how you don't actually see saito shoot himself or cobb, there's also a few other scenes i could mention but i'm way too tired to write a few paragraphs, but remember that ''dreams always start in the middle, so you must try and remember how you got to where you are'',.. do you recall a scene where cobb actually fly's to paris or to wherever it is where he meets the forger etc, interestingly enough as well, even michael caine (in paris) asks cobb to ''come back to reality''

one last thing before i go, ellen page's character is called ariadne...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne%27s_thread_(logic)

if it's all cobbs limbo, could she be a projection of his own logic?

damn good movie

EDIT, i just read mravers post about ariadne should know who his wife is if she's a projection... unless maybe (this just sprung to mind, i haven't really thought it through at all), but could mawl be leo's emotion (guilt) and ariadne be his logic, the 2 things that don't mix lol, seeing as logic doesn't need emotion so it shouldn't meet and vise versa,
please note, i'm not even sure if it makes sense what i've just written but sod it, i'll think it through tomorrow

 

[UrbanMasque]

Saw it again...
..The kids are the same age.... and are wearing the same outfit throughout the entire movie, even at the end.

 

[dreddin]

hmmm, i now think it's all a dream/limbo, seeing as you don't get any character depth from a lot of the cast, this could mean they're all projections, apart from the few who i think are emotions, logic etc
plus, even though it looks like it starts at the end, it may just be a failed attempt at getting past his guilt, thus returning to the start, kind of like ariadne's logic, plus i like to think him waking up on a beach could be a metaphor for him being ''washed up'' so to speak
also, the forger reminds us that you can change what you look like at any time, and remembering leo's limbo scenes where he is young for most and old for one, this leaves me to believe he may just be dreaming he's young
regarding the spinner/totem, i noticed that when he was with the old saito, the spinner was also wobbling even though it didn't fall
I was told about the wedding ring, which people say only appears when he's dreaming, i think it can mean another thing, as you only see it when moll shows up, so it's him dwelling on his guilt again.

i'm going to watch it again in a week's time to test this hypothesis, plus i want to do my bit to knock toy story off the box office topspot
if anyone has anymore light to shed on this particular idea, i'd love to hear it, be it to back it up or debunk it, seeing as the screenplay took 10 years to write and nolan being a great storyteller, i'm certain this film isn't as straightforward as some people think it is

 

[MineMineMine]

Saw it again...
..The kids are the same age.... and are wearing the same outfit throughout the entire movie, even at the end.

this. Cobb says that he has been on the run for years and his kids didn't appear to be one day older than when he left. Well on the one hand. On the other we see them only once in the end. Every encounter before could be him subconsciously making them older.

Wearing the same clothes... thats pretty meaningless in that context.



Saito uses a 'leap of faith' speech to convince cobb to do the mission and so did mawl. But i don't remember if they are exactly the same.
On another note all dreams share similar physics/characteristics, you wouldn't expect this if you 'dive' into different persons.
On the other hand. One would certainly expect someone from the real world to dive into 'limbo cobb' to wake him up or to try something to wake him up.
Well the last Mawl we see could be the real mawl trying to wake him up. It seems a bit odd that you would be attacked by your own projection and architect-girl (what was her name again) shoots mawl because the girl is a projection realizing that mawl is a dreamer. sort of

One reason why is because he didn't experience any of the dreamlike symptoms associated with the totem. It was HER totem to begin with, and she kept it hidden from him because she knew he would realize they were dreaming if he never saw it drop in her presence - and it would NEVER drop in front of Mawl. That was her big secret. So when he stole it from her, by cracking her safe and not knowing its dimension and weight or physics of the object, it would appear to be the same as it should be in real life. To him that object became reliable enough to make his own totem. Again, this is because his wife was more than likely the architect of the dream world he perceived as reality after his train death. He would grow old and continue to age much like what happened to the Japanese guy - because that's what he expected to happened - and now he is trapped there because his "dream life-span" will never be as long as the amount of time needed to recover from the dream state. so he will continue to die and wake in a deeper dream, die and wake in a deeper dream, etc.

The question here would be. Why didn't he use his own totem in the 'real' layer to confirm if he was sleeping. In the window seen before Mawl jumps he asks why he can't control any of this. Which would imply somewhat that he and not mawl is the architect of the 'real world layer'. His totem worked the way he expected it to, and switched later to mawls totem for emotional purposes.

... but remember that ''dreams always start in the middle, so you must try and remember how you got to where you are'',.. do you recall a scene where cobb actually fly's to paris or to wherever it is where he meets the forger etc, interestingly enough as well, even michael caine (in paris) asks cobb to ''come back to reality''

true but it's also a movie. You can't expect to see every traveling scene. If you want to go from a to b you have to be first in c and so on....




Saito feels like a pretty unrealistic character overall. A random Corporation guy who appears and buys airlines at the right times has enough influence to let charges disappear etc.


Well there are some hints that he is still asleep and some hints that cobb is awake and i don't think that there is a definite answer included. Why? Uncertainty is what makes things interesting and offers a platform for discussion.

 

[dreddin]

saito doesn't mention he'd get the charges dropped, he only mentions he'd get him through customs
i literally (about 10 seconds ago) just came up with another question, did leo actually mention he was in his wife's dream the first time round? i can't remember if he did or not, if there isn't any mention of it, then it can be interpreted as him incepting himself with the spinner in the safe, but like i said, i can't remember if they mentioned it, if anyone can verify this before wednesday, it would be helpful, if not, i'm watching it on wednesday anyway so i'll keep an eye out for that line
if it turns out there's no mention of it, then things could get interesting

i also have a metaphoric idea about the totems, regarding the choice of objects themselves, but i've got to know whether one in particular is shown before or after a certain scene. an example being that the loaded dice could be interpreted that arthur doesn't have free will and is a projection

lol basically i've had nothing to do for the last few days and i hate it when i can't complete a puzzle, i've spent a long time on david lynch's films doing the same thing but his movies are way harder than this, but i always love it when a film comes along that makes you think for a change, instead of the mindless crap that usually comes out of the mainstream

 

[Nelson]

I think he is awake at the end, but I also believe Nolan deliberately left it open ended so the audience can interpret it how they like. The wedding ring pretty much seals it for me. He is wearing it in every scene we know to be a dream, and he is not wearing it in the final scene with his children.

He is wearing it in the final limbo scene with Saito, but he is not wearing it after waking on the plane. If the ring is somehow related to his guilt, and not to whether or not he is dreaming, then the only possible conclusion is that he somehow releases his guilt between talking with old Saito and waking up. This hardly makes sense, as the most fitting place for him to release his guilt would have been the scene where Mal dies in his arms after Ariadne jumps off of the balcony. So, why is he still wearing the ring when he washes up on the beach and meets Saito?

Also, when Ariadne asks him why it is so important to dream he responds, "In my dreams we are still together." It seems quite evident that the wedding ring is meant to correlate with him being in a dream state.

I also don't buy in to any of the "the whole movie is a dream" ideas, mainly because this just seems too easy. I feel like you could say this about any movie ever made involving dreams, or subconscious.

On a separate note, half way through the movie, I had what I thought was a cool idea for the ending. I actually thought the movie was going to end this way, until fairly close to the end when it was obvious that it would not. I think an interesting finale would have been for Cobb to die in "real life" in the final scene and to awaken into another "layer" of reality. Of course the plot would have needed to turn a different way to make this happen, but the implication would be that there is no top layer to be called the real world, it's turtles (or dreams in this case) all the way down.

 

[Pulsar]

When Cobb meets the pharmacist for the first time, he tests his sedative. After having dreamt of his wife, he wakes up (or so we believe) in distress, and checks if he's in the real world by spinning his top on a sink. But there's not enough time, so he takes his top before we see it fall (if forgot why, maybe their chasers found them again). From that moment, I thought the rest of the movie was still his dream, and he never used his top again, until the very end.

EDIT: The scene before that was also strange: when Cobb is in the pharmacist's secret room, where that group of people come to dream for hours, isn't one of them talking to Cobb? Saying something like: "you know what it's like, don't you?" or something in that style, referring to Cobb's 50-year dream. Or was that an hallucination, like the way he keeps seeing his children throughout the entire movie?

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Why did Cobb refuse to see his children's faces every time he got a chance (except at the end of the movie)? What would he have seen if he didn't refuse?

Note to self: Must get the DVD when it comes out. (I very rarely buy DVDs, only spending my money if they are worthy long-term investments.)

 

[Nelson]

EDIT: The scene before that was also strange: when Cobb is in the pharmacist's secret room, where that group of people come to dream for hours, isn't one of them talking to Cobb? Saying something like: "you know what it's like, don't you?" or something in that style, referring to Cobb's 50-year dream. Or was that an hallucination, like the way he keeps seeing his children throughout the entire movie?

Someone mentions that if you use the chemicals too much, you can no longer dream without them. The chemist suggests that Cobb must know what this is like. Later in the film Cobb confirms this to Ariadne when she joins his dream in the workshop.

The old man also says that rather than the group of people coming there to dream "they come to be woken up". And he says something like "who are you to question that?" But I didn't take that as a strong emphasis on the word YOU specifically.