Inception and Paulina Street Journal

[Irishman]

This is in regards to Ed’s column http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc2010inception.php

There is a movie discussion thread in Cafe Society here. However, I wanted to address Ed’s column, especially a couple of remarks.

which is actually the smart thing to do because if you get killed in a dream you wake up, which Arthur does, only there’s rioting and explosions outside the place he wakes up to, the significance of which isn’t clear except that in an action movie it’s always a good idea to have rioting and explosions.

That may not be clear at exactly that point why there is rioting and explosions in the “city” where they wake up, but it becomes clear later after further exposition. The rioting is the subconscious of Saito reacting to the intruding dreamer and intruding dream.

The rioters break in, and I’m not sure what happens next but I guess everybody gets killed (which maybe was the point of the rioting and explosions), because Arthur and Cobb wake up on a train and rather anticlimactically scoot, leaving the sleeping Saito behind them.

Yes, that was Saito’s subconscious catching them and booting them out.

(d) to assess the talents of a potential dream architect, you have to see how good they are at drawing mazes, although mazes have nothing obvious to do with dreams or architecture (other than seeming vaguely cool and mysto) and don’t figure in the movie that I can see;

The point of the maze is to confuse the chasers so the dream team can hide. The subconscious is trying to find them, so has to sort through the maze. That is why he needs someone who can construct complicated mazes - the ability to keep the chasers at bay long enough to do what the dream team need to do.

A dream architect with the appropriate chops apparently can redesign reality on the fly. Ariadne does this on an early trial run with Cobb, causing Paris (I think it’s Paris) to fold over on itself like an assemble-it-yourself corrugated box. This seems like a handy knack to have (if surely a bit freaky for everyone else), but Ariadne never exercises it later in the movie, no doubt because if you can simply conjure up (say) bulletproof shields in front of attacking goons or teleport yourself at will, you’d have a routine mission and a pretty dull flick.

There is that from a purely movie dynamics point, but the in-story explanation is that the more you twist reality and make changes, the quicker you cue the subconscious chasers in on your position. The reality of the dream works to keep the victim guessing and to keep the subconscious chasers at bay. That was explained in that scene where Ariadne is folding the city and making the bridge and such - Cobb explicitly tells her that.

Cobb and Ariadne arrive in limbo/dream level #4. After some irrelevant drama we’ll ignore, Ariadne finds Fischer and pushes him off a balcony, then jumps off herself. We’ve been told the sensation of falling, also known as a kick, will send a dreamer back one level. (The sedative — remember the sedative? — leaves the inner ear unimpaired.) One wonders: then why couldn’t they drop the wounded Saito off a balcony in dream level #1 to wake him up? Never mind. Fischer and Ariadne return to dream level #3.

I believe the “kick” has to happen in the state above the one you are in. If you are in level two, the kick has to happen in level one to “wake you up”. Throwing Fischer off the balcony is not to provide the kick, it is to “kill” him from that dream state at the same time he is getting the kick from the defibrillator in the level above.

Okay, that still leaves a bit of a mystery why if in stage 3 you die you go to limbo rather than wake up, to stage 2, but at stage 4 you die and go back up rather than having no effect. Yeah, that is an unexplained point.

[Ed_Zotti]

@Irishman

This is in regards to Ed’s column http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc2010inception.php

There is a movie discussion thread in Cafe Society here. However, I wanted to address Ed’s column, especially a couple of remarks.

which is actually the smart thing to do because if you get killed in a dream you wake up, which Arthur does, only there’s rioting and explosions outside the place he wakes up to, the significance of which isn’t clear except that in an action movie it’s always a good idea to have rioting and explosions.

That may not be clear at exactly that point why there is rioting and explosions in the “city” where they wake up, but it becomes clear later after further exposition. The rioting is the subconscious of Saito reacting to the intruding dreamer and intruding dream.

No doubt you’re right; one drawback of working under the incredible deadline pressure that I do is that I didn’t have time to see the movie again. Perhaps when I do - I think I’m going to wait till it comes out on DVD - I’ll be able to figure out another aspect of Inception I find confusing: that it’s evidently not necessary that the dream host be the dream team’s target. On reflection, it seems to me that the dream team would need to enter the target’s subconscious in order to extract information (which is why Saito was the host in the initial dream sequence), whereas when you want to perform an inception - that is, the planting of an idea - it’s safer for the dream host to be a member of the dream team. However, this wasn’t clear to me when I saw the movie, and I’m not certain about it now.

The rioters break in, and I’m not sure what happens next but I guess everybody gets killed (which maybe was the point of the rioting and explosions), because Arthur and Cobb wake up on a train and rather anticlimactically scoot, leaving the sleeping Saito behind them.

Yes, that was Saito’s subconscious catching them and booting them out.

Again, I don’t doubt you’re right. However, we then have (a) a representation of Saito’s conscious self embedded in his unconscious, which self doesn’t realize it’s in a dream until it feels the rug, but (b) meanwhile, Saito’s unconscious apparently realizes it’s been intruded upon, and fights back. I guess I can accept the idea that the conscious and subconscious act independently; what really gets baffling is that later we learn that a dream team member’s subconscious can mess with the dream host’s subconscious and produce psycho wives, locomotives running down streets, etc. The multitude of layers and partitions here … what can I tell you? It’s a little hard to keep straight.

(d) to assess the talents of a potential dream architect, you have to see how good they are at drawing mazes, although mazes have nothing obvious to do with dreams or architecture (other than seeming vaguely cool and mysto) and don’t figure in the movie that I can see;

The point of the maze is to confuse the chasers so the dream team can hide. The subconscious is trying to find them, so has to sort through the maze. That is why he needs someone who can construct complicated mazes - the ability to keep the chasers at bay long enough to do what the dream team need to do.

Except you don’t really see this in the movie. I can see where a maze would make sense if you were entering the target’s subconscious to perform an extraction, but during the inception the dream team enters the subconscious of one of its own members, presumably a more benign environment; the fact that bad guys show up nonetheless is a surprise to Cobb, and no maze is available to help them escape. The only sorta mazelike feature I can remember is the air duct on the third level that enables the dream team to enter the fortress.

A dream architect with the appropriate chops apparently can redesign reality on the fly. Ariadne does this on an early trial run with Cobb, causing Paris (I think it’s Paris) to fold over on itself like an assemble-it-yourself corrugated box. This seems like a handy knack to have (if surely a bit freaky for everyone else), but Ariadne never exercises it later in the movie, no doubt because if you can simply conjure up (say) bulletproof shields in front of attacking goons or teleport yourself at will, you’d have a routine mission and a pretty dull flick.

There is that from a purely movie dynamics point, but the in-story explanation is that the more you twist reality and make changes, the quicker you cue the subconscious chasers in on your position. The reality of the dream works to keep the victim guessing and to keep the subconscious chasers at bay. That was explained in that scene where Ariadne is folding the city and making the bridge and such - Cobb explicitly tells her that.

Maybe so; the fact remains that she apparently CAN do it, but, when things go disastrously wrong and it would help to rearrange the environment on the fly, she doesn’t. Why not? The chasers have already gotten a fix on the dream team. What more could go wrong?

Cobb and Ariadne arrive in limbo/dream level #4. After some irrelevant drama we’ll ignore, Ariadne finds Fischer and pushes him off a balcony, then jumps off herself. We’ve been told the sensation of falling, also known as a kick, will send a dreamer back one level. (The sedative — remember the sedative? — leaves the inner ear unimpaired.) One wonders: then why couldn’t they drop the wounded Saito off a balcony in dream level #1 to wake him up? Never mind. Fischer and Ariadne return to dream level #3.

I believe the “kick” has to happen in the state above the one you are in. If you are in level two, the kick has to happen in level one to “wake you up”. Throwing Fischer off the balcony is not to provide the kick, it is to “kill” him from that dream state at the same time he is getting the kick from the defibrillator in the level above.

Yes, you’re right; I was confused. No kick happens on the fourth level; Ariadne “kills” Fischer, then herself.

Okay, that still leaves a bit of a mystery why if in stage 3 you die you go to limbo rather than wake up, to stage 2, but at stage 4 you die and go back up rather than having no effect. Yeah, that is an unexplained point.

Glad to see we agree there. We spent quite a while discussing that at our house and couldn’t see any way to have that make sense.

[Irishman]

I’ll be able to figure out another aspect of Inception I find confusing: that it’s evidently not necessary that the dream host be the dream team’s target. On reflection, it seems to me that the dream team would need to enter the target’s subconscious in order to extract information (which is why Saito was the host in the initial dream sequence), whereas when you want to perform an inception - that is, the planting of an idea - it’s safer for the dream host to be a member of the dream team. However, this wasn’t clear to me when I saw the movie, and I’m not certain about it now.

Yes, the dream architect appears to be the dream creator, or dreamer, while the dream host can be someone different. So at the beginning, Saito is the second dream host, but someone else can be the first dream host, and then the architect is creating the dreams at each level. I think. Yeah, I intend to rent this later and watch in more detail.

I guess I can accept the idea that the conscious and subconscious act independently; what really gets baffling is that later we learn that a dream team member’s subconscious can mess with the dream host’s subconscious and produce psycho wives, locomotives running down streets, etc. The multitude of layers and partitions here … what can I tell you? It’s a little hard to keep straight.

Yeah, that does seem weird.

Except you don’t really see this in the movie. I can see where a maze would make sense if you were entering the target’s subconscious to perform an extraction, but during the inception the dream team enters the subconscious of one of its own members, presumably a more benign environment; the fact that bad guys show up nonetheless is a surprise to Cobb, and no maze is available to help them escape. The only sorta mazelike feature I can remember is the air duct on the third level that enables the dream team to enter the fortress.

If you recall, at one point Ariadne asks Cobb a question about the design of the levels and Cobb tells her he doesn’t want to know any specifics, because it will let Mol know that information. The maze at each level is the layout of the streets to get where they want to go (from pick up, to warehouse, to driving around and finally bridge), the layout of the hotel (how many floors, room placement, the stairwell that uses the illusion), etc. Cobb explains to Ariadne that the point is to create a fairly small closed space (so it is easier for her to remember and control) that appears larger and open to keep the subconscious minions off them. So it is not so much that they have to thread an actual maze, but rather they know the route (or at least the architect does), but the subconscious minions have to struggle to solve it.

I just had a revelation - at each level they leave someone to monitor them at the next level down. Is the person they leave the person who is hosting that dream?

Maybe so; the fact remains that she apparently CAN do it, but, when things go disastrously wrong and it would help to rearrange the environment on the fly, she doesn’t. Why not? The chasers have already gotten a fix on the dream team. What more could go wrong?

Would it do any good, or just shunt off one set of subconscious attackers but clue in a bunch more subconscious attackers? Try to shake them in the maze rather than create an obvious lanscape change?

Glad to see we agree there. We spent quite a while discussing that at our house and couldn’t see any way to have that make sense.

I don’t think there’s much of anything about “limbo” that makes sense. How did Cobb and Moll originally get to limbo? They appear to have only been one dream level deep. Why do they enter a shared experience with Cobb’s landscape, and then Saito’s? Nothing about it works.