# "Inception" - Why Was It Hard To Understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418 "2011-02-24T03:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/21 "2011-02-24T14:23:26Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > I don’t understand anything about it. Are they supposed to be asleep or something, and if so are they still on the Titanic? Why is Juno there? Is she still pregnant? This. But I think everything was supposed to be happening in Johnny Depp’s mind while De Caprio was falling off a water tower. Silly movie. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/22 "2011-02-24T14:24:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Yes, it’s his totem – but he’s not watching it. Also, the totem thing was one of the silliest parts of the movie, making no logical sense at all. It wasn’t his totem, it was his wife’s. Some people think that means it won’t work as a totem to him as more than one person knows how it works. Totems in general made sense to me. Say I’m paranoid about being incepted. I carry a twenty-sided die that I know will fall on 3 and then roll onto 12. The person that tries to incept me may know that I carry a d20 around with me (and probably think I’m a massive nerd into the bargain), but they won’t know what happens when I roll it. If I ever think I’m in a dream, I roll it. If it doesn’t act the way I know it does, I know I’m in a dream and can kick myself out of it or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/23 "2011-02-24T14:41:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Just watched it again. I understood what was happening the first time. Understood it the second time. The ending’s ambiguous, but everything else made sense to me. > > Maybe I’m just a dreamer. You’re not the only one. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/24 "2011-02-24T15:00:09Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > More than that, it’s explicitly said that the key to a successful inception is an exploit of the subject’s relationship with their father. This is why Dom’s father’s line “Come back here - come back to _reality_” is emphasized so heavily, with extreme close-up and dreamy reverb on the audio. That’s the inception - that “here” is “reality.” What? No, no, not at all. The key to successful inception _in the specific case of Cillian Murphy is Cillian Murphy’s relationship with his father_. That’s not a general “truth” about inception, that was just the best avenue of attack for this particular job. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/25 "2011-02-24T15:12:35Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > All the characters in the film have “Freudian” (read: symbolic or meta) names - that’s just a literary technique and not some sort of clue. Well, a clue to literary meaning yes, but a clue to a secret non reality no. I’d be interested to hear your interpretation of what the literary significance of Robert Fischer _is._ What significance does the name and likeness of a grandmaster applied to a character presented as a pawn have, outside of this interpretation? There is an inexorable logic that is hard to accept as incidental, as we are shown both that the preferred technique for inception is to use a faux father to plant the germ of the idea, that it’s possible to be deceived into entering your own dream while thinking that you are going into someone else’s. Considering this, the weird emphasis on Dom’s father’s “Come back to _reality_” is hard to explain in any other way. Everything else coheres with this as well. “This is Ariadne… she’s _better than you_ at designing layouts.” Absent everything else this might be explained by common literary convention (and indeed the similarities between dreams and diegesis is a playful theme in the movie) but I don’t think Nolan is this clumsy. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/26 "2011-02-24T15:38:31Z")
Just another person here who saw the top losing balance and heard it becoming erratic and walked away thinking “Well, it’s reality”. The idea that the ending was supposed to be ambiguous didn’t even occur to me until later when I started reading stuff about how open-ended it supposedly was. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/27 "2011-02-24T15:48:17Z")
I also didn’t have trouble understanding it, but thought it wasn’t nearly as interesting as people have made it out to be. As a matter of fact, I was downright bored with most of the ‘levels’ and felt the acting (for the most part) lacked something to be desired. As for the ending, I caught that it was supposed to be ambiguous but didn’t really care which outcome was picked. Either way I didn’t care much for it. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/28 "2011-02-24T18:41:34Z")
In my case, I thought it was the next Batman movie for some reason. I kept waiting for Batman to show up and he never did, so I was a bit confused. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/29 "2011-02-24T18:46:57Z")
By the time I saw it, I had heard so much about how complicated and deep and layered it all was that I ended up sitting through the whole thing trying to find the little secrets - “OK, he’s wearing a watch now…was it there before? I don’t remember” - and then going “Huh. That was it?” at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/30 "2011-02-24T18:51:06Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Idiots don’t get it because there’s a bare minimum of informational dialogue explaining the central conceit. The Matrix, by comparison, dripped with it. The scene most analogous in Inception was DiCaprio and Page’s characters sitting in the cafe, and it’s done with a much lighter hand. “Idiots” is pretty harsh. Wow. I found it a bit confusing, actually. Would rather see it as not my cup of tea than my being an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/31 "2011-02-24T18:57:19Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > “Idiots” is pretty harsh. Wow. I found it a bit confusing, actually. Would rather see it as not my cup of tea than my being an idiot. Yes, clearly I was painting with my broadest brush in order to personally insult you. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/32 "2011-02-24T19:25:00Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > You’re not the only one. :applause: ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/33 "2011-02-24T19:42:11Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > By the time I saw it, I had heard so much about how complicated and deep and layered it all was that I ended up sitting through the whole thing trying to find the little secrets - “OK, he’s wearing a watch now…was it there before? I don’t remember” - and then going “Huh. That was it?” at the end. It is deep and layered, but it’s also very linear. A series of concentric circles can have thousands of layers, but that doesn’t make it any harder to comprehend. Back to the Future II has a more complicated timeline, honestly. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/34 "2011-02-24T20:01:17Z")
Honestly not trying to be snarky, but I find it hard to believe, regardless of your superior intellect (😉 ), that you cannot possibly imagine how it could be confusing to some people. Heck, it was \*designed \*to be confusing. If I’d enjoyed it more I would have watched it a second time, because although I got the basic premise, there were a few times I didn’t get what the hell was going on. And I’m quite certain I’m not one of those idiots like **Hazle Weatherfield** over there 😛 . ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/35 "2011-02-24T21:22:41Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#): > > It wasn’t his totem, it was his wife’s. Some people think that means it won’t work as a totem to him as more than one person knows how it works. > > Totems in general made sense to me. Not really. You could easily be dreaming about your totem. There’s a lot of handwaving, but that’s not really explained. It’s got to be something you know everything about in the real world. But you dream about things you know in the real world. And there’s no reason why another dreamer can dream a top that doesn’t fall. If the totem acts the way you expect it to, how do you know that someone else is not making it act that way? You don’t have to even know what the sign is: “He’s spinning a top. Probably his totem. It will most likely behave in a way it wouldn’t behave in the real world. Let’s keep it spinning – 50/50 chance.” It’s just plain silly. It’s a given in the scenario, but makes no logical sense. Pure technobabble. But the point of the final shot is that either explanation is possible. Do you think Nolan just happened to run out of film at that point and couldn’t buy more? The choice not to have it fall is deliberate; if he wanted to say one thing or another he would have shown it fall or shown it continue to spin. (It was already spinning far too long for a normal top, BTW). The clear meaning is that it’s either the lady or the tiger. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/36 "2011-02-24T21:41:00Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Honestly not trying to be snarky, but I find it hard to believe, regardless of your superior intellect (😉 ), that you cannot possibly imagine how it could be confusing to some people. Heck, it was \*designed \*to be confusing. I suppose it can be confusing, but I have to think that a person who’d find Inception confusing would also find a movie that depended heavily on flashbacks confusing as well, and that’s not an unusual trope at all. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/37 "2011-02-24T22:02:33Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > If the totem acts the way you expect it to, how do you know that someone else is not making it act that way? You don’t have to even know what the sign is: “He’s spinning a top. Probably his totem. It will most likely behave in a way it wouldn’t behave in the real world. Let’s keep it spinning – 50/50 chance.” > > It’s just plain silly. It’s a given in the scenario, but makes no logical sense. Pure technobabble. Of course it’s fantasy, and we can’t expect it to make _proper_ sense - but it makes more sense than that, as presented. I think that part of the conceit of the movie is that the settings and props of the shared dream must be very explicitly defined and designed ahead of time, and that a (_real world_) totem offers some security by having some quality which only its owner is intimately familiar with, and which could not be convincing modeled in the layout. Don’t be thrown off by the impossible quality that Cobb’s dream totem incidentally has - reproducing _that_ would be of no benefit. But if it’s weighted a particular way that would only be apparent to someone who had access to it, it could offer some security in tipping you off that you’re in a fabricated dream. It’s never presented as something that can give you absolute certainty that you’re awake, only that you’re dreaming - and even for this it is only as dependable as any other “security through obscurity” measure. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/38 "2011-02-24T22:05:27Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#): > > It wasn’t his totem, it was his wife’s. Some people think that means it won’t work as a totem to him as more than one person knows how it works. > > Totems in general made sense to me. > > Say I’m paranoid about being incepted. I carry a twenty-sided die that I know will fall on 3 and then roll onto 12. > > The person that tries to incept me may know that I carry a d20 around with me (and probably think I’m a massive nerd into the bargain), but they won’t know what happens when I roll it. > > If I ever think I’m in a dream, I roll it. If it doesn’t act the way I know it does, I know I’m in a dream and can kick myself out of it or whatever. The problem isn’t that his totem isn’t his. The problem is that the “real” behavior of the totem isn’t hidden, and in fact is easily guessable. The other characters use things like strange weight distributions in objects that only they get to touch. He uses a top that falls over (eventually) in reality. But that’s what _all_ tops do. Supposedly, the top spins forever in the dream. Here’s what a totem should do (and what all the other totems do): 1. If it behaves in the way that only you know of, then you’re either in reality (or your own dream) 2. If it behaves in any other way, you know you’re in someone else’s dream. Here’s what Cobb’s totem does: 1. If it behaves in the way that everyone would expect, he assumes he’s in reality. 2. If it behaves in a magical way, you know you’re in a dream. Since he has chosen an unreliable totem, he has chosen to believe that an arbitrary level is “reality” based on the expected behavior of a physical object, but he doesn’t have any actual evidence to base that on. He got lost before and uses the false totem as a way of reassuring himself that he’s back in reality, but it’s really an open question. Totems aren’t technobabble. They make sense in the logical world of the movie. The problem is that Cobb’s doesn’t work the way he says they ought to. This is one of the many hints that we may be seeing things inside a layer of his own dreams. There’s also the question of whether the top represents his inception (in his wife) that they were in a dreamworld, leading to her committing suicide, or whether it means that it was her inception (in him) that they were in the real world, leading to him being unable to escape from the dream and follow her back to the real. Frankly, if you (general “you”, not directed at **Double Foolscap** ) think that this movie is straightforward and obvious, you’re either missing or just ignoring all the other interpretations. Sure, there are some idiots who can’t follow the obvious plot of the film. But there are also plenty of intelligent people who see something deeper and not as self-consistent as you’d like, to whom the other interpretations are confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/39 "2011-02-24T22:08:38Z")
Are you kidding? [This is the plot](http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html) to [Primer](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/). ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418/40 "2011-02-24T22:10:28Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Frankly, if you (general “you”, not directed at **Double Foolscap** ) think that this movie is straightforward and obvious, you’re either missing or just ignoring all the other interpretations. Sure, there are some idiots who can’t follow the obvious plot of the film. But there are also plenty of intelligent people who see something deeper and not as self-consistent as you’d like, to whom the other interpretations are confusing. Certainly. There’s the plot and what happened in the movie that we directly observed. Then there’s the additional layers of interpretation. Nolan deliberately included enough evidence and counterevidence in the movie that both the “Cobb is right” and “Mal was right” camps can make convincing arguments. But both of them require understanding the movie and what happened in it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inception-why-was-it-hard-to-understand/572418.md?page=3)