I thought they inserted that for the female test audience demographic that said “You know what this movie needs? Some romantic comedy.”
The kiss was probably the greatest comedic aside in a movie I’ve seen in years. There were a few other one-liners that cracked up the whole audience earlier, too.
Here’s a theory based on my single viewing of the movie. The theory is crazy but I don’t care…I’m having a lot of fun with this.
Let’s postulate that the entire movie, everything, is a dream. Not once are we shown the “real world” during the entire film.
OK, so what is causing this dream? What are some of the outside influences that are finding their way into Dom Cobb’s (as we’ll call the dreamer) subconcious? What can we tell about Dom based on aspects of this dream?
I submit:
-He’s recently seen La vie en Rose. The music of Edith Piaf is heard in the dream and Marion Cotillard (who won an Oscar for her performance) appears as Dom’s wife.
-He likes James Bond movies. The snow battle scene is a direct lift from a similar one from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
-Dom is chess fan. One of the characters in his dream is named Robert “Bobby” Fischer (or Fisher) and Ellen Page’s totem is a bishop.
-Dom has seen the episode of SNL during which host Joseph Gordon-Levitt re-enacted the famous “Make 'Em Laugh” sequence from Singin’ in the Rain by running up two walls and doing backflips!
-Dom imagines a kidnapped Cillian Murphy with a sack over his head. Murphy appeared in two recent Batman movies as the Scarecrow, who often wore a sack over his head.
You probably see where I’m going with this. I’m guessing that when we watch Inception we are actually seeing director Christopher Nolan’s actual dream! Nolan has admitted that this movie was his attempt at a James Bond flick.
One more piece of evidence for the Dom = Nolan theory. Actually, two more. Cobb was the name of the protaganist in Nolan’s first movie, Following. And Nolan looks a bit like Leo DiCaprio. (Standing next to each other in pictures, the two look like they could be brothers).
Maybe Nolan heard that he’d looked like Leo often enough that the suggestion eventually found its way into his dreams!
Anyway, I like this theory. Don’t bother shooting it down with actual facts, please! But feel free to find more evidence to support it…
There’s also the imagery of crumbling buildings and his wife jumping to her death. Memories of 9/11, perhaps? I’ll find a way to make this work.
I am so easily influenced. Every time someone brings a new theory to the table, I buy it. I’m all over the place. This is why everytime I read about a conspiracy theory, my husband makes me google ‘debunk theory X’ immediately afterward. He knows that if I don’t get the other side of the story, I may fall hard.
That’s not necessarily true. Most of the action at level zero (e.g. running from the anonymous corporation’s guards in Mumbai/Mombasa?), seems very dream like to me. Another vaguely dressed, anonymous baddie around every corner creeping in.
Hell, (as mentioned upthread) the whole movie basically starts in the middle of a job confirming Cobb’s oft-mentioned test. “How did you get here?”
I don’t particularly subscribe to this theory, but it has its elements.
One thing I liked was the communal experience of watching. I happened to look behind me at one point late in the movie and half the audience was leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin on hands, just concentrating on the movie (unfortunately the other half of the audience included the kid one row in front of me and eight seats to the right who was texting on his iPhone throughout the movie).
And the communal grown when the movie ended was better than mild applause. I don’t know if they left happy or aggravated by the ambiguous ending, but they left caring.
Cobb getting stuck between the two walls was one of most dream-like moments of the entire movie. Who hasn’t had a dream in which you were held in a vice-like grip while running away from faceless enemies?
For what it’s worth, Ellen Page’s character pretty much pulls this trick on Cobb right in Level 3 with her rapid explanation of how they should use the defibrillator and go into Limbo and all- she’s the rookie newbie of the dreamworld, and basically all the other characters are freaking out at that point and go with her idea. She basically gets to pull a variation of the Gambit Technique on Cobb with that one right there. If I had to guess who was using it on Cobb, it would have to be Ellen Page’s character being trained either by Cobb or Cobb’s father to basically convince Cobb to pull off an inception onto himself.
MY Personal Favorite Inside Gag of the Whole Movie that No one has mention or probably would really easily get:
In the Zero-G Fight Scene:
Joseph Gordon Levitt’s Character uses a submission hold to basically choke out the Projection in the weightlessness situation.
The Submission move he uses is a popular wrestling finishing move from the 80s- it’s Sgt. Slaughter’s Infamous Cobra Clutch. Basically, Joseph Gordon Levitt uses a Cobra Clutch to take out the other guy.
I found that hilarious, namely because of the GI Joe Reference- The Cobra Commander using the ever deadly Cobra Clutch on his victim. Goooo Cobra!
So he dies in Mal’s dreamworld/level 4 in order to get to limbo to kill Watanabe (remember, Watanabe said he’s waiting for a man to kill him in the beginning) so that Watanabe gets out of limbo.
So who kills Cobb?
(put me in the “it’s all a dream” category)
For anyone who’s interested, Cinema Blend has a fairly interesting round-table discussion on the film’s major plot points, along with a handy glossary.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything there, but after reading that and a couple of other links posted to this thread, I am coming round to the notion that the entire film is in fact in a dream state. Especially so given, now I think about it, the dream-like appearance of even the ‘reality’ sequences, and how the opening scene echoes the pivotal line in which a character (more than once) identifies the dream state by asking another: “so, think about it, how did you get here?”
Side note: for many years I’ve repeatedly had dreams that take place in impossibly luxurious settings. I was gobsmacked, while watching the film, to see how closely the Japanese house at the beginning of the film, the hotel in dream level 2, and the glass skyscraper with white balconies all around in Cobb’s limbo, all matched up with structures that I had inhabited in my dreams. No zero-gravity fights in any of them, however.
Off to sleep, perchance to dream.
To take a break from the never ended debate over whether the whole thing was a dream or not:
Has anyone else been having dreams within dream lately. The past three nights I’ve been having a dream, then I wake up into what I think is my room, and then I wake up for real. There’s also be more than once instance of hearing “Non, je ne regrette rien” before I wake up.
Basically, Fischer came to an epiphany about the nature of his conflict with his father. It doesn’t matter if it was real or even true.
My only real issue is that by the end of the film I’m not really sure how to feel about the fact that this entire exhausting adventure was basically a brain-heist against Fischer. All the characters are pretty likeable and sympathetic. It’s not like the Oceans X films where you have a bunch of charming scumbags ripping off an unlikeable scumbag.
All in all, a pretty awesome movie though.
I wonder if anyone has fallen asleep at the theater while watching Inception. Imagine the dreams they would be having? They’d have to be taken out on a stretcher.
Again, I don’t think Nolan intends “Inception” as a treatise on the morality of brainwashing. But it definitely does raise some interesting ethical questions. To some extent, this is what differentiates a fun popcorn movie like “Oceans 11” and a work of art like “Inception.”
Further adding to the moral ambiguity is that Saito’s stated motivation for hiring Cobb is only partially corporate self-interest - he also notes that Fischer is on the verge of creating a monopolistic monster the likes of which the world has never seen. Derailing Fischer from this course via inception could be argued as being “for the greater good,” assuming Saito isn’t outright lying (and if he was, wouldn’t someone as familiar with the corporate world of the future as Cobb have called him out on his bullshit?).
Thanks for linking this, it’s very helpful. Contrary to the very smart people on this board, I came out quite confused, even though I was able to follow the major plot points. It’s still not exactly clear how people’s subconsciousnesses are carried into the dream world though - going by the terminology on the Cinema Blend page, is it only the “subject” (in this case, Fisher Jr.) who does the majority of the populating of the dream world with projections from his subconsciousness, or do they all? Obviously Cobb’s subconsciousness (in the form of Mal) shows up regularly, so it isn’t solely Fisher’s subconsciousness at work.
I also wished they explained the concept of “syncronized kicks” better, as the scene where they tip Arthur’s chair and he wakes up suggested to me that you only need the kick from the upper level to wake up. The fact that he didn’t wake up when the van rolled over seems to indicate that that isn’t sufficient, so at first I thought it was being applied inconsistently, but the theory on CB sounds better to me.
I am still not too confident as to what happens when Mal shoots Fisher Jr. and Cobb and Ariande go after him. I assume they go to limbo, which appears to be a shared dream rather than belonging to a particular person. Thus, I interpret the sequence of events as follows:
-Fisher Jr. shot and goes to limbo
-Saito dies and goes to limbo
-Cobb and Ariande go to limbo by dreaming
-Ariande, & Fisher leave limbo via double-kick
-Cobb is lost in limbo for some time but finds Saito eventually
The thing is, since Fisher Jr. dies and goes to limbo before Saito, shouldn’t he also be old? Or is apparent time spent in limbo based on the level in which you died? It actually seems more intuitive to have deeper-level dreams age you faster in limbo since your brain should have been working at the faster level at the time that you enter limbo.
Also, my understanding is that they are able to all get kicked back up to level 1, but there was no indication that they were kicked back up to the real world. Thus, did they just kick around level 1 for the rest of the week or until the sedative wore off?
I’m not sure if I buy the whole movie being in a dream state, though. There do seem to be several things that allude to that, but it feels like a bit of a cop-out for the entire movie to have just been yet another level of dream world.
Despite all the questions, I found it to be a very enjoyable movie - will probably have to see it again.
In this world of dreams, if you’re having trouble keeping track of reality, you have three choices:
- Keep track of “reality” via a totem.
- Kill yourself until you wake up in reality.
- Just live. If nothing can be relied upon as reality, than anything can be reality. Don’t worry about it. (I call this the “Ruddigore” option)
Mal chose 2. Cobb spent most of the movie obsessing over 1, but at the end chose 3. He rejected 2 because he knew that, even if you lose track, level zero is there, and at that point killing yourself doesn’t wake you up anymore.
The rest of the characters on “our” side had totems, but never needed to use them, so they never really were made to make any of these choices. (Fischer didn’t have a totem, and he did lose track of reality temporarily.)
The arguments I see for “it was all a dream” seem to me (an atheist) similar to arguments for God and Heaven. There’s no real evidence for it, and so it’s all made up. It can certainly sound appealing, especially if it “fits” with what we can see, and it will fill the gaps of what we don’t know. I personally don’t see the need to add anything outside what we are shown in the movie to come up with a conclusion.
We never see the top fall, and we never will. Cobb decided to make his own choice about what was real, and not let the top decide for him.
I didn’t realize that Johnny Marr had a big hand in the movie’s score.
First off, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It obviously met one of it’s goals…as we are here talking about it.
I chose to take the spinning top at the end as ambiguous. A tease. I would have liked it if Grandpa picked it up while it was still spinning…thereby eliminating the “was it wobbling or not” question while adding another layer of conspiracy to the question.
I have reccomended it to friends… good, solid entertainment…it’s a movie.
I did like that turning the “quick! pretend we are just some couple making out!” trope on its head.
From the sound of it, anyone familiar with planet Earth should have been familiar with Fischer’s company as it sounds like Exxon, Microsoft and General Electric all rolled into one megacorporation.
I find it interesting how their relationship with Fischer became closer at each level:
Level 0 (Reality) - They don’t know each other
Level 1 (Rainy City) - They violently kidnap Fischer
Level 2 (Hotel) - The team is running their scam on Fischer
Level 3 (Snow Fortress) - They are all fighting together as a team with a common goal
Level 4 (Cobbs Limbo) - Cobb has to face his inner demons to rescue Fischer
No, I thought it was a sequel to Titanic and that we are picking up from where Jack washed ashore.
The entire movie was essentiall a flashback from the opening scene. It’s pretty common. Cryptic opening scene << x months ago…leads up to opening scene and resolution.
Don’t they worry that Fischer would wake up and have an “Dorothy” moment and be all like “I had the craziest-ass dream! You were there …and you!! You were all in it!”
I think a great post-credits tag would show Fischer outside the airport, deep in thought, waiting for a taxi. A passer-by recognizes him and says, “Hey, Fischer. Sorry about your dad. But I’m glad you’re keeping his empire intact.”
Fischer: "Actually, I’m thinking about breaking up the whole thing and leaving it all