Inception

[Autumnovember]

Because of all the dream talk....I decided we need an inception thread so we can converse about our thoughts on it. I couldn't find any threads on it yet. Thoughts on the movie? I read that the script took ten years to write. I also have a hypothesis about *how* this movie was written...

 

[Porridge]

Inception. Wow.

I had actually barely heard anything about it before seeing it (must have been living under a rock!) and had no idea what it was about. It totally blew me away. What a great cast, I fell madly in love with Tom Hardy, and I've always thought Leo was a great actor. I thought Cillian Murphy really portrayed the part of the insecure heir very well. Ellen Page was amazing too.

The story was definitely tricky to follow, I felt I was always one step behind.

I'd love to hear your hypothesis AN!

 

[rosetta]

So many hypotheses. The ending is left open to interpretation. I doubt there's only one 'right' answer. Good casting.

What's your view autumn?

 

[elrohwen]

I thought it was great. I joked that I had to see it, since all of my friends at work wanted to discuss it at lunch and DH and I were the only ones who hadn't seen it. They seemed about ready to kick us out of the lunch table if we didn't see if asap. I thought the acting was great and the story.

Unlike some, I didn't think the ending was open to any interpretation and I didn't really find the storyline confusing. That was just my take on it though. I thought it was pretty cut and dry, though extremely interesting, fast paced, and intricate.

 

[mrscushion]

I loved Inception. I kept up well with the story line as it moved along and, based on reviews from other people, I actually expected it to be more confusing than it turned out to be. I also was worried that it would be interesting only on an intellectual, not a visceral level -- I don't find those movies satisfying -- and it didn't turn out that way at all. I loved the ending, which I do think stays somewhat open to interpretation.

 

[curlygirl]

I just saw it on Friday and can not wait to see it again--this time in IMAX! The visuals were so stunning. The story was a little difficult for me to follow initially but then I got into it. Christopher Nolan is an amazing writer/director. I have to admit that I didn't think this film would be as mainstream as it has become but I'm absolutely thrilled that it has caught on the way it has.

 

[Shoopy]

I saw it at the drive-in and need to see it again (hard to pay attention with a toddler who decides to talk throughout the entire movie )

Hmmm, my interpretation of the ending is very clear considering he saw what he could not see before.

 

[Autumnovember]

Well, first I want to say that I fell in love with the movie and the concept. After leaving the movie, I thought about it for a really long time. I think movies that make you think even after you leave the theater are especially fantastic. I will say that if someone didn't understand the movie then I can see it being really difficult to like. SO didn't completely understand it and I had to explain to him what was going on throughout the movie. I loved that the movie was unpredictable. I enjoyed that the ending was open for interpretation. I personally, think that he was finally living in reality at the end of the movie. If you noticed while he was in the dream he could never see the children's faces. It wasn't until he let go of the wife was he able to do so.

I actually wonder if the writer of this movie was on any sort of drug at any point while writing...

 

[Autumnovember]

I thought it was great. I joked that I had to see it, since all of my friends at work wanted to discuss it at lunch and DH and I were the only ones who hadn't seen it. They seemed about ready to kick us out of the lunch table if we didn't see if asap. I thought the acting was great and the story.

Unlike some, I didn't think the ending was open to any interpretation and I didn't really find the storyline confusing. That was just my take on it though. I thought it was pretty cut and dry, though extremely interesting, fast paced, and intricate.

Tell me more, please! I'm curious as to what your opinion was on the ending...was he dreaming still? or was it a reality?

 

[Haven]

I really enjoyed this movie. I love the basic premise that an idea, once rooted, will grow and affect your decisions, and ultimately change your entire life. That's pretty much why I love reading and why I've chosen to make a career out of helping people to become better readers, so I was hooked from the moment the concept of inception was first introduced in the movie.

The visuals were quite stunning, and I thought the movie was a feast for the eyes, as well as the mind.

I didn't think it was difficult to follow, either, and I also thought that the ending could only logically be interpreted one way.

 

[les12]

I agree, the movie was fantastic. I feel like maybe I should alert people for **spoilers** but I've read a little about a theory explaining the ending. I've only seen the film once, so I'd have to see it a second time to be sure this all adds up, but some are saying that Leo's character wears his wedding band during scenes where he is dreaming, but not the "real life" scenes. At the end, apparently he does not have his wedding band on. That was just one more thing to reaffirm my thoughts that the end was reality.

 

[Autumnovember]

Haven--I also initially thought that the ending was very clear...until SO chimed in with this take on the ending. Even then I still felt like it was a really clear ending but I couldn't help to think that the ending was made the way that it was so that the audience could decide for themselves. Did you think he was still dreaming...or in reality?

 

[Autumnovember]

I agree, the movie was fantastic. I feel like maybe I should alert people for **spoilers** but I've read a little about a theory explaining the ending. I've only seen the film once, so I'd have to see it a second time to be sure this all adds up, but some are saying that Leo's character wears his wedding band during scenes where he is dreaming, but not the "real life" scenes. At the end, apparently he does not have his wedding band on. That was just one more thing to reaffirm my thoughts that the end was reality.

Wow...thats very very interesting.

 

[Bleed Burnt Orange]

This movie was just brilliant!! I LOVED it. It is by far one of my top all time favourites. I LOVE Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor. I think all of the cast was a great choice.

 

[Sha]

Honestly, I didn't get most of it. It seemed like there was so much going on conceptually that I just couldn't keep track of it all...so I just kind of zoned out somewhere in the middle and waited for it be over. But it wouldn't end!! I felt like that scene with the jeep going into the water went on for hours and hours..... Yeesh! I think I really need to see it again to 'get' it. DH and my friend really loved it. I blame my tired mommy brain...

 

[SuzyQZ]

I agree, the movie was fantastic. I feel like maybe I should alert people for **spoilers** but I've read a little about a theory explaining the ending. I've only seen the film once, so I'd have to see it a second time to be sure this all adds up, but some are saying that Leo's character wears his wedding band during scenes where he is dreaming, but not the "real life" scenes. At the end, apparently he does not have his wedding band on. That was just one more thing to reaffirm my thoughts that the end was reality.

Wow...thats very very interesting.

Both my husband and I LOVED this movie. One of our all time favorites for sure!
DH picked up on the wedding ring (wearing vs not wearing) and told me about it as we were walking out of the theatre (smart guy)! We both believe the end scene with the children was reality, too.

 

[Iowa Lizzy]

Inception. Wow.

I had actually barely heard anything about it before seeing it (must have been living under a rock!) and had no idea what it was about. It totally blew me away. What a great cast, I fell madly in love with Tom Hardy, and I've always thought Leo was a great actor. I thought Cillian Murphy really portrayed the part of the insecure heir very well. Ellen Page was amazing too.

The story was definitely tricky to follow, I felt I was always one step behind.

I'd love to hear your hypothesis AN!

Ditto. To almost all of this. Tom Hardy = Yummy. Leo, always fantastic. I'm not a huge Ellen Page fan, so I wasn't sure that I liked her cast in that role. DH and I went to see this on Saturday and I've been thinking about it ever since. I think we'll go back and watch it again in the next few weeks.

Christopher Nolan is such an amazing writer. I remember feeling like the world had been flipped upside down when I saw Memento. It was the same way I felt after Inception. There are so few movies that cause me to spend days afterwards thinking about them. The Sixth Sense was another one I questioned for a long time after watching. I was afraid it was going to be like The Matrix (a movie I just can't stand) but I was so surprised. I normally can't get into anything sci-fi, but this movie had me on the edge of my seat almost the whole time. Ahh! I definitely need to see it again.

 

[Iowa Lizzy]

I also wanted to add that I read in a review that Christopher Nolan is one of the few writers in Hollywood that doesn't dumb anything down for the viewer. I think that's a reason why this movie resonated with so many people. I think about the normal summer blockbuster and I can usually tell where the movie is going and how it's ultimately going to end about halfway through. Things are over-explained and you don't need to walk out questioning anything. Nolan may not give all the facts, but he respects his audience enough to be able to follow him without dumbing it down. I appreciate that.

I can't even list how many movies I've seen that I can get up and go to the restroom and come back and not feel like I missed anything. I barely touched my soda while we were at Inception for fear that I'd miss something if I had to use the restroom.

 

[Porridge]

Good points on Christopher Nolan TG. I loved Memento, excellent movie.

My interpretation was that he was living in reality at the end.

 

[mrscushion]

SPOILER







It's interesting that so many people think he was in reality at the end. I don't -- I think he's still dreaming. We don't see the totem fall, and his children haven't aged and wear the same clothes as in the dream scene, even though he was supposed to have been working overseas for a number of years. I think that in his previous dreams he couldn't see his kids' faces because he was overwhelmed by his guilt, but he dealt with his guilt with the help of Ariadne, so now he is able to see them.

 

[blacksand]

I liked it MUCH more than I expected to. I thought, for the most part, the casting was great. I normally loathe Leonardo DiCaprio, and the fact that, during this movie, I completely forgot it was him is a testament to how well he acted in this role. The kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun whose name I can never remember was also great. Personally, though, I thought Ellen Page was just...wildly out of place. She didn't fit, and I found her know-it-all character irritating.

I didn't find it too difficult to follow, but there were things I didn't understand. I still don't get why there was gravity in the mountain scenes when there was none in the hotel above. I thought maybe there was just a time delay, and zero gravity would just set in later in the mountains, a layer below. But no. And the whole limbo concept was odd. I still don't get why Saito was apparently in limbo for so much longer than Cobb, when Cobb went to limbo before Saito died. Maybe Cobb died in the van and was re-sent to limbo? I don't know. Whatever.

The ending was very much open to interpretation, and very deliberately so. I'm surprised that not everyone agrees on that point, and curious to hear your thoughts. I, too, decided that the end was reality, but that was mostly because I wanted it to be reality. I don't like sad endings when children are involved! It seemed to be reality, but really, it was a highly improbable (you might say dream-like) reality. His kids still looked exactly the same, and his family welcomed him back with open arms... I know Saito made the call and all, but really? HIs family just forgets anything ever happened, just like that? As for the totem, since it was Mal's, not his, I'm not sure we can rely on it at all. Still, I stubbornly assert that it must have been reality (yay happy ending!), but my boyfriend is adamant that everything we saw was a dream (and will argue this point for two hours while you're trying to sleep, if you let him).

 

[lyra]

SPOILER







It's interesting that so many people think he was in reality at the end. I don't -- I think he's still dreaming. We don't see the totem fall, and his children haven't aged and wear the same clothes as in the dream scene, even though he was supposed to have been working overseas for a number of years. I think that in his previous dreams he couldn't see his kids' faces because he was overwhelmed by his guilt, but he dealt with his guilt with the help of Ariadne, so now he is able to see them.

You don't see it fall--but you hear it when the screen goes black. You also see it wobbling. I loved the movie, but have no urge to watch it again in the theatre. I would rent it but not buy it. It's not a movie I could watch repeatedly. It was all actually pretty cut and dried IMO.

 

[SuzyQZ]

Re: the end scene with Cobb and his children:

**********************POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***************************


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According to the movie, you can tell you are in a dream because you can't explain how you "got there", right?

Well in the last scene, we see Cobb landing in the plane, going through customs, taking a taxi, walking up the front steps and being greeted at the door before walking in and seeing his children. The movie takes a lot of effort to show us how Cobb "got" to the house where his children were waiting for him. Also, in the end scene the totem was spinning at first, then definitely wobbling, unstable and about to fall. You never saw it deviate from a full speed spin in the dream sequences, no wobbling was ever shown.

So this just adds to my original conclusion that this was Cobbs reality and not a dream.

But I don't think there is really any difinitive answer to this.

 

[elrohwen]

Fiery, it looks like we viewed the ending exactly the same way

My friends had some other theories, and they're going to send me some article that made them think differently, but nothing they said so far has changed my opinion. I still think the ending was cut and dry. He couldn't imagine things that he couldn't previously remember, no matter how hard he tried (and he did try). So like Fiery said, he saw new things that he didn't previously see in the dreams.

eta: AutumnNovember, just saw that you asked me to elaborate - hopefully my answer above answers your question! I thought it was pretty clear that he was in reality, for the reason you gave. I didn't really see any evidence that he was in a dream at all, other than the top. I saw the top at the end as more of a message to a audience. Kind of a "Now dear viewer, go home and think about your reality and what is real and what is perception" more than an ambiguous ending.

 

[April20]

Dh and I saw it on Friday. Lord, I shouldn't go see movies like that at the end of a long week. I don't like having to follow story lines so hard. I was doing okay until they went three levels down and decided on the fourth. I liked the movie. I didn't love it. DH LOVED it. But it's more his type of movie than mine.

I thought the ending was trying to give the impression that it was up for interpretation, but really wasn't. Given he could see what he had never been able to see before, I'm going to go with reality. Unless, of course, so much time had passed that there was no way his kids could still be that young......

 

[Cady]

There's a really neat clue to the ending (maybe - I think it's still up for interpretation!) in the music. You can hear it (and have it explained!) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM

 

[zhuzhu]

I liked it but didn't love it. I wish there was more of the development between the other team members so we got to know them better as I like them. The ideal of Mal is really strange as she appears to be the evil one in all of Cobb's dreams. But supposedly she is the love of his life.

I would think that even with her obvious flaws of being "out of reality", there should be no reason for Cobb to dream of her as the sabotaging character.

 

[movie zombie]

saw it yesterday for a 2nd time. appreciate it much more now......knowing the film did not ruin it for me but did allow me to pay a bit more attention to detail. it also helped that the theatre yesterday was a wider screen and had better sound.

remember: it is NOT his totem but his wife's. he never purposely shows us his totem or discusses it. i believe i know what it is......and therefore i believe it is reality at the final scene.

i appreciate that this film has people talking and seeing it that would never set foot in an art house movie theatre. a person actually was clapping when the film ended yesterday!

Mo-Zo

ps and it creates a great launching point regarding our own reality, dreams, etc.

 

[sillyberry]

I liked it but didn't love it. I wish there was more of the development between the other team members so we got to know them better as I like them. The ideal of Mal is really strange as she appears to be the evil one in all of Cobb's dreams. But supposedly she is the love of his life.

I would think that even with her obvious flaws of being "out of reality", there should be no reason for Cobb to dream of her as the sabotaging character.

I agree with the "like not love" sentiment. It was visually stunning, and interesting conceptually, but I found I never really cared about anyone - no emotional core. Never saw why Cobb loved his wife (considering Mal just annoyed the hell out of me the whole time) or cared about their relationship. Never understood why Ariadne could just figure out about Cobb what his current partners never knew, or why she cared so much. Never felt much emotion coming from Fischer about his father. With the emotional disconnect, it was hard for me to ultimately really love the movie.

I did heart Eames, though, and would totally have watched a movie centered abound the banter between him and Arthur.

 

[Autumnovember]

I liked it but didn't love it. I wish there was more of the development between the other team members so we got to know them better as I like them. The ideal of Mal is really strange as she appears to be the evil one in all of Cobb's dreams. But supposedly she is the love of his life.

I would think that even with her obvious flaws of being "out of reality", there should be no reason for Cobb to dream of her as the sabotaging character.

I agree with the "like not love" sentiment. It was visually stunning, and interesting conceptually, but I found I never really cared about anyone - no emotional core. Never saw why Cobb loved his wife (considering Mal just annoyed the hell out of me the whole time) or cared about their relationship. Never understood why Ariadne could just figure out about Cobb what his current partners never knew, or why she cared so much. Never felt much emotion coming from Fischer about his father. With the emotional disconnect, it was hard for me to ultimately really love the movie.

I did heart Eames, though, and would totally have watched a movie centered abound the banter between him and Arthur.

Very interesting. I'm really enjoying the various views on the movie. Sillyberry, I felt the complete opposite. I felt attached to Cobb and I felt the relationship between him and Mol was an extremely deep and intense love.