Inception (2010) Review
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
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His wedding ring was his real totem, not the spintop that was Mols. You can see when Cobb is dreaming based on if he is wearing his ring or not.
Also Michael Caine was told "all your scenes are in the real world" thus his final scene with Cobb is in the real world.
The one theory which still fits with all of this is that Cobb was the one being incepted to let go of the guilt he had over Mols death and be a father to his children again
That’s very interesting. Would it be Michael Caines character who set up the inception for Cobb? Have to watch it…..again!
I don't really buy that Caine was told all his scenes are in the real world, it could just as easily be that Nolan told him to simplify his directions when shooting as the reference point to the viewers is that it's the real world.
The stuff with the wedding ring is real as far as I know though. The spinning top is Mols because we see Cobb tamper with it.
@@notanactualuser yes could easily have been that. It's when you add it up with the wedding ring being Cobb's totem and when he's wearing it or not wearing it being in dream or not dreaming
That Ellen Page Guy was incepted. Red dress included.
I remember him as a kid buying Ricky Pepperoni on Trailer Park Boys in a flower dress.
Ellen page was so pretty. Now I don't know what she is
@@itzbp9949You don’t know what HE is…
I don’t get it either.
@@josebrown5961 ahh I see you're one of those guys. She's a she mate just stating the facts
@@itzbp9949 As a man I can't even begin to understand why someone so pretty would throw it all away. Although in a way, every woman that doesn't use her beauty to start a successful family is doing the same thing.
The ring was the totem.
I used to lucid dream every time I dreamt that I could fly. I'd be stoked that I could fly but then think to myself "Whoa, hold up. Every time you thought that before it turned out to just be a dream." So I'd check and discover I was dreaming and be able to control it for a while until I forgot again. Best dreams ever!
I used to do that as well. I think it was when I was a kid.
The last time I did that I was in my early 20s. I “flew” around the world, and then into orbit. But then out out into deep space. I saw all kinds of wonderful and spectacular places.
When I came back and woke up I was kind of depressed for a few days. I was never able to fly like that again.
@@josebrown5961 For similar reasons I liked the movie, "Explorers" when I was a kid.
Just make sure your actually in a dream before jumping off high places 😉. Flying dreams are some of the best ones.
Was in one and was so amazed at the realism. I kneeled down and scooped up sand, let it flow out of my hand, and it was indistinguishable from the waking world. I tried flying, didn't work, but I KNEW I could as this was my dream, so I jumped up and aimed my face at the ground, and just before I hit I began flying.
Same dream I ran at flash speed up and down my road, and did Neo jumps across my pool.
For anyone interested I was meditating multiple times a day, got really good control of my mind and concentration, and I had way more lucid dreams at that point. Concentration is key to keep conscious AND stay in the dream - for many, when they realize they're dreaming, they wake up.
The top was Moll's totem. Cobb's totem is his ringfinger. In the dreamworld, you see him wearing his wedding ring, but in the real world, he is not. I watched that film four times in the theatre, so you have to pay very close attention. Cobb spins the totem because that is what he has left from Moll, and Nolan wants to deceive the audience in the final scene.
Never caught that. I will need to watch the movie again.
There's a scene in the "waking world" where he runs down an alleyway which gets narrower and narrower and he has to squeeze through the end. I've had dreams like that my whole life, normally I'm in a tunnel. From that moment on I just presumed the whole thing was going to be a dream.
Agreed. I view the movie that way also (ie: everything from Mombasa onwards is a dream). That Mombasa chase had a very unreal quality to it.
People seem to miss this, but in all Cobb’s dreams he never sees his children’s faces and then, the final time, the reason he doesn’t have to watch the top fall is because he sees his kids turn around and he knows he’s awake.
After years abroad, the kids are in the same place, doing the same thing as he used to dream, the same size (perhaps the some clothing)? Hardly possible.
Yeah, I think that is himself letting go of his guilt, and just going with the dream he now does not realize he is in.
@@chrisblanc663 exactly
The children finally turn around because, at this point, Cobb has let go. He no longer cares if he's in the dream or not - he just wants to be with his kids. This is why he walks away from his totem without ensuring that it topples over. The thing that most people miss is that the totem failsafe only works to inform you that you're in someone else's dream. Since Cobb is trapped in his own subconscious in Limbo, the top will always fall when he's looking at it.
It's actually flatly stupid, an incredibly dumb ending that is nowhere near as deep as people think it is. Why?
Well, there are only two possibilities: either he is in a dream, or he is not. Well, if he's not, then fine, no further discussion needed, so there is no reason to discuss that further, which means that the only possibility that exists and merits discussion is that he is in a dream.
Well, let's examine his backstory. Before the movie started, he was in a paradisical dream state, knew it was a dream, and intentionally woke himself up from it. During the movie, he finds himself in a paradisical dream state, knows it's a dream, and intentionally wakes himself up from it. At the end of the movie he suspects he may still be in a dream and checks, and literally the only reason that he would do that is that he intends to wake himself up from it.
Sure, he forgets about it in the moment, but the fact remains that he still performed the action, and has a proven history of rejecting dream states no matter what, and proved he still carries that trait at the end. That thought is right at the front of his mind, otherwise he wouldn't have spun the thing, proving that he will inevitably remember it or notice it, and as soon as he notices it he'll have the answer: that it's irrelevant, or that he'll casually wake himself up. Either way, the movie ends in exactly the same place.
There's no depth or complexity to the ending if you think about it for even a moment.
Top ten film for me. And I think Nolan often gets criticized for his films being unemotional. I find myself fully taken in the by Don/Mal storyline and by the Robert Fischer and his father storyline. Those emotional beats hit me everytime. Also think the film is visually stunning and never dull for a moment.
Even to me, a certified Nolan "hater", this movie is fantastic. By far the best thing he's even done, although I have a soft spot for Interstellar.
Shiddd top 3 for me lol.
The Wachowskis had The Matrix and Nolan had Inception. Two mind bending worlds that makes you think about how powerful and yet how weak the mind can be.
The Wachowskis did one great film and a lot of subpar films. I honestly believe they did steal the idea because nothing they've done otherwise has been worth talking about.
Loved this movie, but Ellen Paige’s snarky arrogance was intolerable, how did she get such large roles…oh wait never mind I know.
Not anymore, ironically
Ellen's character was a college student, many 20 year olds are snarky like that
Lol yeah I remember! I think this film prompted me to start calling her 'Smug Natalie Portman'. (Millie Bobbie Brown then later became Shit Natalie Portman)
@@DriveupLife22 The whole point of acting is to convince people you’re something you’re not, all she did was affirm how she really is in real life.
@@hayleylongster4698 What makes Page extra smug, as natalie portman is a incredibly smug person in real life.
One of my all time favourite movies, it lives rent free in my brain 😂 I’d watch it again and again rather than suffer the dross passing as entertainment nowadays 🤷♂️
Lucid dreamer here. Your suggestion of getting less sleep and writing things down is the worst thing you can do. What is required is MORE sleep not less. 10-14 hours of sleep a day for me. What happens as you get more rest is your conscious mind is able to peek into your subconscious mind for longer without actually waking up. These longer windows of crossover allow you to recognize obvious impossible things that are happening in your dream. For me the most common thing I'll do when I think I might be dreaming is walk through a wall. I then usually fly around. Flying always, ALWAYS triggers an intense feeling of euphoria. I find that if I try to do much more than add a person, the dream breaks down. All of this started with horrific sleep paralysis I when I hit puberty. I learned to create a dream and relax as a defense mechanism.
I lucid dream and have sleep paralysis. It never occurred to me to use the lucid dreaming to combat it. I usually have panicked fits and force myself awake. It feels terrible.
@@thecouchpotatocom When it first happened to me it made me afraid to sleep. It's horrible. But once you can learn to relax and make a new dream, the paralysis becomes a non-issue.
@@thecouchpotatocomYeah, if you can relax and just realize your brain will release your body, like it always does, you'll be fine.
"Paging Ellen."
"Paging Ellen."
RIP Ellen Page.
Welcome to the world, weird skinny guy nobody cares about.
Basically the same as most men's lives. She asked for it and got it.
I'd always thought the whole thing was a dream, and his wife keeps trying to rescue him
😮 that's so romantic....
@@theauntofdragons If you like that kind of thing, I'd recommend "what dreams may come". But if you are in any kind of distressed state... Just read the plot summary. It's.. very intense. One of Robin William's best.
@@neozeed8139 I'm going to look that up. Thank you for sharing!!!!
@@theauntofdragons no problem! .. it's intense. bring tissues.
Wasn't that the point of the spinning top?
One of my all-time favorites. However, I think my favorite scene is where Levitt kisses Page, hoping to create a distraction, which it doesn’t, and then says “well it was worth a try”
Great work, as always! Inception is my favourite Nolan as it has the emotional core that Tenet lacks. The latter shows how Inception could have gone wrong but Nolan is at the top of his game here, blending the clever and the emotional.
Thanks Dave, it's one of my favorites as well.
Dave you are missing that the spinning top totem isn't Cob's totem, it was Mal's and it wouldn't work for Cob. I have always loved the theory that the entire thing is Cob's dream and Mal was right, its truly a great film that can really get you thinking. Thanks for the review and reminding me of it.
That era when we had FANTASTIC movies. For me it stopped in 2014, last good movies where in 2017.
1. As a movie, the only thing I didn’t like was the info dump about 1/4 of the way through. Each time I watch, those scenes get more and more tiresome.
2. I tend to lose interest when “dreams” are a big part of a plot to a movie or a book, but this one is an exception. They made the real-life stakes come across in a more convincing manner than most “dream” stories IMO.
He really likes exposition. Lots and lots of pseud in the form of 'intellectual' exposition.
In my day we called this 'bullshitting to mask the lack of a decent story'
Great review. I've only ever had two lucid dreams, but I took that long approach.
Back when Waking Life came out.
You ever spend all day at work, come home exhausted and go to bed, fall asleep only to wake up and realise it was all a dream? Not only do they pay you for your waking life, now they get your dreams for free. That's my favourite bit from that movie.
The spinning totem at the end of Inception stays upright for just a bit too long to really instil that nervous uncertainty. It's a great moment that I think really sparked a lot of later conversations.
Even if you didn't quite follow the main plot everyone, or most people, understood the implication of that final shot. It was certainly easier to explain the B plot enough to fill in anyone who had seen the movie but got lost somewhere in that third act.
Inception was one of the best movies I had watched in a long time. Really good movies are becoming more and more rare. I loved how there was the main plot and at least 3 sub-plots all working at the same time. The fight scene with Jo's character in the motel hall way is in my opinion one of the best action scenes ever produced on film, it was brilliant and flat out blew me away. "Riding the kicks back up" was also outstanding cinema. I don't know that I would call Inception a masterpiece, but it comes awfully close.
I’m not good at predicting what happens in films, to say the least, and even I knew it was going to cut to black at the end. As stated, it kind of had to be that way.
The purpose of dreams is to help us deal with stress, emotional issues and any sort of problem we might have, and they can also help us learn and understand things.
But, not all dreams are dreams.
I just go with "Page", spoken to like some John Cleesesque head teacher. "Very good job, Page"
Someone turned the Page to a bad chapter. 🤷♂️
I first watched this movie when it came out. I was then an unmarried bachelor, and I engaged in all sort of speculation about whether the spintop toppled at the end or not. I did rewatched it several times then.
But then I got married, and life got busier I didn't revisit this movie until after my children were already 6-7 years old, and then I realized that ultimately, whether the spintop topples or not was irrelevant, Cobb didn't care anymore, because he was with his children again.
Just watched two days ago as a family event. Great movie. And the totem wiggles, so it will fall over, also as Michael Caine is in that scene and he is linked to the reality.
One of the all time great soundtracks. Up there with Star Trek 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien, Tron, Conan, Gladiator and How to Train your Dragon.
I would advise being careful about lucid dreaming.A friend of mine delved into that thing and he has been suffering vivid nightmares ever since. Real and intense enough to need pills to sleep without dreaming.
You can learn to protect yourself. For me it was a shield of 7 layers of escalating intensity and color all around my body from Dungeons & Dragons. The outer layer does damage but as the evil goes through the layers, it is hit with more intense effects like sleep, paralysis, and finally disintegration. Been a lucid dreamer for almost 50 years.
Weird, makes no sense, you have absolute control in lucid dreams. I was in the middle of being attacked when I became lucid, then the thing attacking me turned into a puppy scratching at me, I looked it and it thinking "Stop" and it just padded off.
@@theelder4797 Idk, I just know he tried many years ago to lucid dreaming and something happened. He has been suffering from those weird dream ever since. That's why I said "be careful". Stuff about the mind and dreams can be dangerous if you are unlucky.
What you said about going to work, only to wake up and realizing you were dreaming it... I had similar experiences when I was younger. It usually happened when I had to go to a job interview, medical exam or any other important appointment to a location I'd never been before, in the early morning. My alarm clock wakes me up, I turn it off, get out of bed, shower, brush my teeth, put on clothes, go on a tram downtown... everything felt totally real. Until the moment I step foot into that unknown location. Because I'd never been there before, my brain started to fill in the gaps with stuff from my memory. It would look like my former home, my high school, my grandma's house, etc. And at that moment my subconscious would realize it wasn't real and I would wake up. The only thing that was real was me turning off the alarm clock, after which I immediately fell asleep again.
Great review!
It would be awesome to set up a playlist of all your reviews.
Inception is my favorite Nolan film. I like that it's complex but not confusing (to me at least). Interstellar is probably my next favorite, but hearing 'MURPH!!!" screamed non-stop for like five minutes straight near then end knocks it down a peg.
I am very much a Christopher Nolan fan, and I love _Inception._ But Nolan's vision of the dream world is so weirdly limited in this film. Like he's frustratingly devoted to realism.
I agree, I was actually caught off guard by how mundane all of the dream worlds in the film are. Granted they are purposely trying to construct a dream that will not set off alarms, but even limbo just seems pretty mundane considering what's possible in a dreamscape.
Lucid dreaming comes naturally to me. So much so that I learned how to block them because they are too intense.
I never remember my dreams anymore, but for a few years I constantly had waking dreams, where my body is paralysed but my eyes are open but my brain still dreaming. And I’m completely convinced that this is the reason behind all alien abduction stories, as I had some similar dreams happen during this time, where figures stood over me, or a Dark presence in the room.
I think Michael Cane is supposed to be Cobbs's father-in-law, not father. My understanding is he was one of the pioneers for the technology as such and there is guilt from him that getting them involved in the tech led to his daughter dying and Cobb being on the run. That scene has a lot of the subtext that Cobb is still dreaming. "Come back to reality", "escaping into your fantasies with you" etc.
I watched a video of yours from 7 years and then this and it’s fun seeing the differences. I’d encourage you to review your audio compressor settings in recent videos - I think your lower tones might be too strong, leaving insufficient volume at the top end when listening on speakers. If you don’t already, try placing mic from above, to prevent overbearing/booming lower tones.
Thanks for this review - I was very impressed with this film when it came out and am still a huge fan of it. My personal take is that Cobb never really emerged from his dreams as he just went too far down with Mal and lost control. We heard about the totem, but since the entire dream world is Cobb's we really don't know if the totem method works. The greatest idea expressed in the movie was that time moved more quickly in the dream world than the real world - so, all the events we saw could have occurred in the dream world and Cobb still just be connected with Mal. Given the dream technology and how deep Cobb went he could live many lives, all in one day in the real world.
Inception is my favorite Nolan film... it NEVER gets old, even after repeated viewings!
I loved this. It seems very much like a Philip K. Dick story. There were several such hard sci-fi flicks made in the 2000-10’s. It’s sad what has happened to Hollywood. I used to love movies.
Definitely one of my favorite movies. I didn't find the movie difficult to follow, but it REALLY messes with you. For example, when Fischer Sr opens the safe and reveals what is inside, it is quite an emotional moment...but it isn't Fischer Sr. Being a dream, it didn't actually happen. During the final curtain call, as Cobb walks through the airport and we see Fischer Jr and members of the team, as though they've been through this huge emotional ordeal together, but as far as Fischer Jr is concerned, it didn't happen at all. It was just a dream or an idea.
Love Wally Pfister's cinematography. While I enjoyed his collaboration with Nolan, if he hadn't gone on to direct Transcendence, what would Interstellar/Dunkirk/Tenet/Oppenheimer have looked like? Probably best not to go down the "what if" path.
One of my top three films too. Blew my mind the first time I saw it in the cinema. It's definitely not a perfect film, and I can recognise its shortcomings, but I just love the concept, the visuals, the revelation about what really happened to Mal... I enjoy Inception with every viewing.
I don't see any shortcomings, but agree with the rest of your comments
I like the theory that Inception is an allegory for filmmaking, and if you abuse the trust of the audience (represented as random people in the subject's unconscious) they become openly hostile to what you are creating and will not engage with it.
I am able to remember and usually control dreams if I sleep in a cold room. So from fall through spring I can keep dreaming and remember them on a daily basis if I sleep with the temp set to like 60 degrees F.
There is one thing that stood out to me about the ending. Earlier in the movie he was tralking to his daughter on the phone and she sounded to be in her 20's-30's. However in the ending she looks to be about 5years old.
Maybe someone has mentioned this, but whenever Cobb is dreaming he has his wedding ring on. He doesn't wear it in the real world. In the final scenes, they never let you see his left hand so you never know if it's on or not, brilliant. One of my top three favorite movies of all time.
Great review Dave. I love this film, it's tied with the Dark Knight for my favorite Nolan film ( and I'm a huge Batman fan).
Some of the dream logic breaks down a little if you think about it too much, but what I liked best was how well Cobb's character and character arc are written, and how the truth about him is slowly revealed. As far as arcs go, where a character makes real growth despite their flaws and adversity, it's perfect.
The ambiguous ending is wonderful, because it gives us just enough to make up our own minds.
Everyone puts in a solid performance, especially Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard is a great femme Fatale.
The multiple plots unfolding in Act three were a bit hard to follow at first, but that just made me want to see it again ( unlike Tenet).
The film has heart too, you really feel Cobb's loss and how hard he has to struggle to let her go at the end, so he can get back to his children.
Zimmer's score is perfect, and frames the action wonderfully. I used to use the track "strategy" when studying for law exams.
If you use tobacco, a bit of it taken at bedtime is likely to elicit vivid and unusual dreams, even lucid ones. Some natives of the Americas knew this and used the plant as a suppository, giving whole new meaning to the phrase "plug of tobacco." 🙂
Thank you for this review.
I had no idea that the plotline was so sophisticated and internally consistent.
I am guilty of losing the thread of the plot because of the implicit complexity of the dream level depths, and identifying where and when they are.
I will have to watch this movie again.
I love the pace of this movie. The "seeds of doubt" that you mention here - is one of the things that propels the attention span through the different dream layers that is unmatched in other films to be sure. Nolan's ability to showcase specialties of the mind are unmistakably unique and conjure the moment where we all have to wonder if what we're watching is - is a piece of reality or - is it just spinning and will all soon - END? GREAT STUFF and am curious on the other two great films in your listing.
Last lucid dream I had was a proper weird story and I can still recall a fair bit of it accurately because pieces of it were just chunks out of my workplace. Werewolves control the surface world and humans are sent down into the mines to find resources; every now and again humans are pulled out as food for the overlords. The humans don't dig too deep because it's dangerous and there are things down there. Some people got sick of being used for food and and a group pulls off to see if there are is an exit to the tunnels to a better place.
This is easily one of the best sci-fi moves ever made.
There’s another “doubt” detail inserted earlier in the film when Cobb explains the totems to Ariadne: he specifically says that you can’t let others touch yours yet he tells her his totem was actually Maul’s. By the movie’s logic then he has no totem of his own and thus no clear reference as to what is real or not.
While I believe the straight-forward version of the events and the ‘happy ending’ conclusion, it is always terrific when a movie leaves its story open to interpretation and has so many details that allow for different understandings.
Stuffed Crust Cheese and Pepperoni Pizza. Probably the closest I have to a Lucid Dream trigger. It's not all cheese but specific combos makes them more vivid and me more aware often to the point where I realise "I can do" within it instead of being a passenger to the subconcious journey.. Plus the pizza before hand is pretty good too!
About the "This could all be a dream"-nod: One small quibble about the movie I have is that the real-life scenes often look as grandiose as the dream-world. Which kinda would work with this idea but I dislike that - its an old hat of an idea and there are many scenes with him not appearing so I don't know.
BTW. Do you have seen Brainstorm, (dir. Douglas Trumbull) with Christopher Walken from 1982? This would fit into your SciFi-series and has a little bit of the Inception-feel.
I used to really love playing with tops as a kid, and I got pretty good at it. There's a particular sound change that happens just before a top falls over, and the top at the end of the movie is making that sound. Considering how important sound is to indicate to the audience what level the dreams are, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that this is on purpose and the top absolutely fell after the cut. What's more important is that Cobb decided to let the dreams go, unlike his wife, which was essential to him being able to move forward. But that's the optimist in me who needs him to have a happy ending.
I've also been really good at remembering dreams and naturally lucid dream. I've found that the more I try to remember my dreams on purpose, like writing them down or continue thinking about them and continuing to make up the story they're telling, the more often I'll have lucid dreams. I had a similar experience, more connected to this movie because of that experience. I always thought it was pretty easy to follow too, I think some people just don't think enough when watching shows. I think we need more intelligent shows like this that don't treat you like an idiot, we've got enough brain rot for everyone else that needs things spelled out.
I have vivid dreams fairly regularly that feel like movies playing in my head. Had one recently where I was out shopping at some outdoor market when the sky suddenly turned black and it started to rain fire and ash like some apocalytpic storm and I barely escaped it by taking shelter under some covered pavlion. I can only recall one time where I felt somewhat in control of a dream. It was a dream where something sad was happening and I said to myself that this was TOO sad and I was able to rewind time to do things differently.
Never seen this movie (yes, I spoiled it for myself by watching this) but I do need to see it now.
Just about to watch this review, but I think Inception is Nolan's best. The subtext of the movie is actually spooky propaganda because it "incepts" the notion that inception is extremely difficult. I'm sure Mr Nolan knows that most people accept as true whatever a person in authority tells 'em: see 2020 to 2022 for a global example of this "easy" task. All you need is complete control of the mechanisms of culture-making, money making and lawmaking -- simples! ;)
Still a fantastic movie and one of the last that didn't get bogged down in wokeness and money laundering.
That Sunday night/Monday morning dread…know it all too well 🥲
Very good summation. I missed the part that shared dreams was a military technique, despite seeing this film over a dozen times.
One of the most rewatchable films I have experienced... many times now, and I still find parts I missed before. A real masterclass and Nolan at his very best. It really does get better the 2nd, 3rd, 10th time haha
Great review, thank you.
Please, please do Cloud Atlas next
Not sure if it's possible to create things while looking at them in a lucid dream. I always have to turn around, turn back to create, or find a door, imagine what I want behind it when I open it - I can't just make a giant mirror staring in the direction of where it would appear.
Made notes of my dreams. Small notes at first, after about a week the notes soon turned into epic stories that would've taken me hours to write down.. Decided I needed to sleep.
I always heard that whether the totem at the end fell or not was unimportant, the important thing was that Cobb wasn't looking anymore, he had accepted it as his reality.
Funny, I always got the impression Michael Caine was Mals father, and not Cobbs. It doesn't explicitly say that in the movie, but I believe, that in the foreign subtitles (at least in my language) he is addressed as her father rather than Cobbs (In my language grandparents are named after which parent they are parent to, so Caine character was addressed as "the mothers father")
Dreams are your brain's live training simulator.
Whether or not he was dreaming in the end, it was the reality he chose to accept.
this was a very good film I like these alternative reality movies, similar somewhat to the movie Existenz which I think you deserve to do a review on. Another underrated gem
I can control my dreams, I used to have terrible nightmares as a child, and my Mom told me not to let them torment me, that “you can control every aspect of your dream, because it is your’s, if you face a monster, become a bigger scarier monster” you can helm the world down different avenues of you notice the tells of a bad dream. But, the most impactful moment I ever had was when I NDE (near de_th experience) in 2012, it’s an ultra personal moment, but it is the most cherished moment of my life, but it made me wonder if this isn’t all a dream, or simulation we are in, nothing has felt quite as real since.
Gotta rewatch this next chance I get.
Regarding the end with the top, most people miss that the top isn't actually Cobb's own totem. It was that of his wive. It's another aspect of him not being able to let go of her. When he puts the top on the table and spins it, but moving away before it falls over, it's not him checking if it's real, it's him letting go of Mal.
I read somewhere that his wedding ring might be his actual personal totem.
Inception, the majority of The Dark Knight Rises cast is here lol
Does the totem fall?
Asking that question misses the point. Inception is a movie about movie making.
Movie makers have to convince you that this fiction they’ve dreamed up is something you can escape into and believe for a couple hours that it is real. But more importantly, they are hired by producers who want ideas planted into the heads of the views to socially engineered the viewers behavior.
Does Cobb really get to rejoin his kids? No. There is no Cobb and there are no kids. They are just actors. So the top keeps spinning because the movie is still going.
The fact that we hypothesize about if it is really a dream or not shows that the film maker succeeded is convincing us it’s all real, and that ideas are being successfully incepted into our brains.
One guy wrote an article stating that the totem at the end doesn't matter, as he spins it and walks away. He has accepted this reality as his own. Nolan gave it his stamp of approval.
I used to lucid dream all the time as a kid. I was able to make specific previous dreams reappear. Sadly, I lost the ability at some point growing up. It wasn't until a few years ago I found out it was an actual phenomenon with a name and that countless others experiencing it. Apparently there's ways to learn how to do it, just haven't taken the time to try out some of the methods. 😅
The anime Paprika and some David Lynch movies like Mulholland Drive, Eraser Head, Lost Highway, etc. has some of the best and most accurate representation of the dreamworld. I hardly felt that with Inception. I guess the dream world in that movie felt too grounded? Something is just missing for me.
"We live inside a dream..." - Agent Cooper, Twin Peaks The Return
Nolan watched Paprika lol
Great review for an outstanding movie. I'm not sure that any other film has held my attention as much as this one did - maybe The Game with Michael Douglas comes a close second. I was riveted. I'll have to watch it again now, truly a masterpiece.
Listen carefully-- I believe Nolan put the SOUND of the totem stopping in the end credits after the image has faded. I need this in 4k to get a 7.1 surround to be sure.
I had a period in my life, which was pretty weird anyway, just before I had kids. I learned to lucid dream for about a year or so, was getting pretty good at it, flying all the time. Had kids, lost sleep and the ability to lucid dream 😅 Have been trying again recently now the kids are older, no luck…. Yet!
Thank you, I needed this review.
I really enjoyed Inception when I first saw it in theaters, I rewatched it for the first time last year and was blown away, it holds up for sure.
Someone said the movie is actually about making a movie. The team represents filmmakers planning how to drive the corporate guy to his goal. Great masterpiece.
OK, but what should be addressed is that 85% of the concept and mechanics of this movie are taken from a Don Rosa comic book about Scrooge McDuck. Gyro Gearloose invents a device that lets you go into someone's dreams (I forget why) and it falls into the hands of the Beagle Boys. The Beagle boys realize that the only way to get Scrooge to reveal the combination to his money bin is inside his dreams. He would never consciously reveal it, but in his unconscious world he will answer questions posed to him. Any demand placed on you in the subconscious world will override your conscious awareness and make you give up things you never would normally. If you fall in the dream world, you get a shock and wake up.
They can't just wake the beagle boys up because they're inside Scrooge's subconscious, and messing with them from the outside could be disastrous and cause insanity. The beagle boys are already inside, so Donald goes in, and eventually the boys go too.
One fun thing about this dream world (that's different from inception) is that it has borders, so the world only exists if you're close enough to the dreamer to be inside his constructed dream world (what his subconscious is generating). If you can't keep up with the dreamer, you fall off the edge of the world and wake up.
The beagle boys keep chasing Scrooge through different recurring dreams, causing havoc to how Scrooge knows they're supposed to go. He meets Donald several times, but is surprised each time because each new dream is like a new world.
Donald's goal is to cause all the beagle boys to wake up, so no one gets trapped forever inside anyone else's mind. The beagle boys are eventually defeated, Donald and the boys are extracted, Scrooge is removed from the device, and Donald realizes that he's altered the course of one of Scrooge's dreams. Always before, in his deepest dream, Scrooge gets woken up when he gets hit by something. But because Donald interrupted it, Scrooge can finally complete his deepest dream and be reunited with his lost love. Donald leaves Scrooge to enjoy it, the end.
There's one question that still bothers me. When Fisher's father dies and they get ready for the plane ride, Paige's character isn't going on the plane? Why recruit her to build then? Was this Cobb's way to push her to be more involved with the inception because Cobb promised his father-in-law, he wouldn't involve her further?
Dave, the memories of individual dreamers are limited. Unless a dreamer is interacting with more than just their mind, how can Limbo be interesting to them? Limbo would have to be providing perfect memory and the know-how for creating certain "reality - patterns", for lack of a better term.
Try this: The first time I saw this was with a friend and his brother and we were heavily drinking. I had to watch it again the next day because I could tell it was something special but my drunk mind couldn't follow it. :)
Dreams are feckin weird. I’ve been having some horrible dreams lately.
I never saw this film, but I am reminded a bit of the 1980s film Dreamscape, which I saw at the theater.
Inception might be Nolans masterpiece, nothing he did since then, good as it may be, came close to it. And I liked Ellen way better than Elliot.
One thing I'm always confused about science fiction that deals with dreams is the consistent depiction of dreams going faster then real time when it's actually the inverse, one second of lucid dreaming is significantly longer then that in the real world.
One of my favourite movies of all time. Great story and characters, perfectly executed by Nolan.
Dom, Robert, Eames, Aurthur, Mol, Saito... first letter of each name spells DREAMS.
You did that on purpose bring up the moat interesting point right at the end and make me wanna discuss it. A little Nolan twist of your own. 👏👏👏
I have always liked the theory of Dom's wedding ring being his real totem.
Once, I was so tired after doing 3 days of double-shifts that when I finally fell asleep, I dreamt that I was at work and falling asleep on the job. I was falling asleep within my dream. Don't know if I dreamed within my dream.
11:43 - if you found it easy to follow, I suspect you glossed over all the inconsistencies regarding the dream mechanics.