Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discussion

[RoJoHen]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

The hint that DiCaprio and Watanabe kill themselves raises the question of whether they have actually wakened in the next sequence. That question is answered by the top falling.

I actually never thought that they had killed themselves. That wouldn't make sense as a way out of Limbo. Perhaps the gun was Saito's totem, which made him realize that the last 50+ years had been a dream the whole time.

They woke up on the plane because the timer ran out and the sedative wore off.

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

The other issue with the kids looking the same ... is that they didn't. Two sets of actors played the kids at different ages.

 

[stj]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

^^^RoJoHen, I never thought so either, though I wondered what the point was when I saw it. But looking through posts in the thread, it is quite clear that many did think DiCaprio and Watanabe escaped limbo by killing themselves. It's even in the graphic!

The confusion comes, I think, from seeing Page and Murphy escape by apparent murder/suicide, without realizing that when they "died" they went up to the next level at the same time there was a kick there to send them up yet again. The team abandoned the dream bodies of DiCaprio and Watanabe in the van on the first dream level because it was too late for the kick to bring them up to that level.

Murphy and the Berenger projection were left to be wakened, while the team woke up to reality as planned. (I've forgotten how, the flight attendant who was in on the scheme?)

jadcox@mindspring.com, this is interesting if true. Since the key scenes of the children didn't show their faces, which was a major plot point, I never noticed that them to be the same in the fugitive glimpses we got. I think the kids were also seen along the shore, but I can't remember the age. When people said they were the same, I assumed it was just something I missed. I didn't enjoy the movie enough to want to rewatch it very soon, certainly not at theater prices, though, so perhaps others could confirm or deny?

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

^^^I never thought so either, though I wondered what the point was when I saw it. But looking through posts in the thread, it is quite clear that many did think DiCaprio and Watanabe escaped limbo by killing themselves. It's even in the graphic! The confusion comes I think from seeing Page and Murphy escape by apparent murder/suicide, without realizing that when they "died" they went up to the next level at the same time there was a kick there to send them up yet again. The team abandoned the dream bodies of DiCaprio and Watanabe in the van on the first dream level because it was too late for the kick to bring them up to that level. Murphy and the Berenger projection were left to be wakened, while the team woke up as planned (I've forgotten how, the flight attendant who was in on the scheme?)

There was definitely a lot going on during those last few minutes when everybody was waking up. I can see how people would get confused if they weren't paying close enough attention (and just to that scene, but to the rules presented earlier in the film).

I don't think they showed the flight attendant waking them up, but it's implied. Didn't Saito say that they bought out the entire plane? Everybody onboard would be a part of the plan.

 

[jgdst]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Sorry to butt in mid-discussion, I didn't realise there was a thread and I've had no-one to talk to about it. I saw this film last week and have nothing but praise for it. It's the most original and exciting film I've seen in a long time and I'm admittedly a pretty harsh critic.

Everything about it was pretty spot-on for me. The ending, you kinda saw it coming, but it was still surprising when they pulled it off. It's a film with a massive potential, maybe not for a sequel, but I personally wouldn't mind seeing a spinoff TV series with different characters, exploring more of this underworld and all the routes it can take.

My top film of 2010

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

IF true??? Oh, stj of little faith:

From: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/fullcredits#cast


Claire Geare ... Phillipa (3 years)
Magnus Nolan ... James (20 months)

Taylor Geare ... Phillipa (5 years)
Johnathan Geare ... James (3 years)

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Harvey, the top is spinning so fast that it would have taken considerably more than two seconds to fall, additional time that would have added zero to the point. When the top starts to wobble, it's falling. That's the way spinning object (that aren't in free fall, anyhow) act. The movie makes a point of justifying the virtual reality approach by announcing dreams always seem real. And the only exceptions, the tilting and the free fall and so on, are explicitly justified by the rather remarkable sedative that does not affect the inner ear. Best not to look under the hood to see how that works.

I (truly) don't mean this to sound dickish, and I'm afraid it will since I am reading this late at night. But I'm not sure I see your point. In a film where we've just seen a dream world with cities folding in on themselves and building interiors that don't match the exteriors, how is a top suddenly righting itself and continuing to spin impossible, or even unlikely?

I think a better question might be ... why would someone else's totem work for Cobb? Especially his wife's?

I read that scene as Nolan's own Inception, if you will. He's planting the germ of an idea that what we see may not be real. It's a fun conceit, and well worth an hour or two of discussion over a meal after the show.

Personally, and here's where you and I differ on more than trivial issues, if I thought that ending was earned, with all of it's emotional core and subtle irony (like Cillian Murphy's character finding peace from a "fake" catharsis).

I hope the DVD of this film will be as well presented as Memento. If so, I can't wait.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Magnus Nolan... Nolan's kid? Interesting.

I guess that supports the claim that Cobb wasn't dreaming. Even though to me the kids looked the same as in Cobb's dream state. Maybe that was intentional, to blur the lines of what was reality and what was memory.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Magnus Nolan... Nolan's kid? Interesting.

I guess that supports the claim that Cobb wasn't dreaming. Even though to me the kids looked the same as in Cobb's dream state. Maybe that was intentional, to blur the lines of what was reality and what was memory.

Well, did we ever see their faces in the dream? All I remember seeing was the back of them in the yard. It's certainly possible they could look the same from behind.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Magnus Nolan... Nolan's kid? Interesting.

I guess that supports the claim that Cobb wasn't dreaming. Even though to me the kids looked the same as in Cobb's dream state. Maybe that was intentional, to blur the lines of what was reality and what was memory.

Well, did we ever see their faces in the dream? All I remember seeing was the back of them in the yard. It's certainly possible they could look the same from behind.

We never saw their faces until the very end. It's possible the kid actors for the majority of the movie were different from the actors we saw at the end.

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

The kids at the end looked taller than the ones seen earlier to me, so I stayed and watched the credits. But the resemblance was strong enough to sell them as the same characters AND make you question, so excellent casting all around.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Here are some observations I had.

The machines that let you share dreams make no sense whatsoever. This doesn't mean that Nolan has to make this conceit make perfect sense, but he at least has to make it believable. I mean, WTF is up with tapping into someone's mind by - plugging into their wrist?? Then you push a yellow, plunger-like button to share the dream. WTF? Then, once your in the dream, somehow these stupid suitcases follow you, and you can use them normally in a dream state. They are not simply representations of what the person might think these suitcases might look like, but the actual cases are there in the dream and they work. I know when I dream about a clock, it is not an actual working clock no matter how much I'm fooled by it! The TNG episode "Frame of Mind" (which was far better than this film) had something similar to this and yet made it believeable: the reflection thereapy device, a metal, functional-looking thing which actually scans a person's head and projects images from it. And although it never actually existed, it worked well enough to get Riker to think it actually did.

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

They planted the dream boxes into the dreams when they made the levels. It's that simple. You aren't going to make a dream box a cat or an orange.

And who cares how the thing works, he just needed to create some way to enter a dream world, and that's done. Your wrist isn't connected to your brain?

 

[TechnoBoY]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

But Tom Hardy was awesome! Nice to see him moving on from Shinzon and doing well with the part!

I had the strangest feeling he was familiar the whole movie! It was the voice! It made me so happy when it finally hit me where I knew him.

Good movie.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

I think Nolan has the same problem Lucas had. Obviously, to a much lesser extent, though. Lucas made an awesome trilogy of films, and could then work without any one questioning him, and the quality of TPM was the result. Nolan has now enough clout to make films without anyone questioning what's happening. Sure, his film does have far tighter writing, and much cooler ideas, but no one questioned important points about the film. He got a pass. Even the actors didn't know what was happening in this film.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

They planted the dream boxes into the dreams when they made the levels. It's that simple. You aren't going to make a dream box a cat or an orange.

But, but they still aren't actual dream boxes!

 

[RonSexton]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Did anyone notice that in the beginning of the movie when Cobb was looking out the window while Mal was on the chair. The chair that he ties the rope to so he could repel down the outside of the building. The window was in the pattern of the Legendary pictures logo.

 

[Kegg]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

Here are some observations I had.

The machines that let you share dreams make no sense whatsoever.

They made perfect sense; precisely because they are left unexplained. Any attempt to explain how someone can enter someone else's dream would be invariably total and utter nonsense - so don't. Since it is science fiction, science has provided the answer. Here are some scientific-like devices and limitations suggesting you can only tap into someone near by. Take that and run with it.

Frankly, I can't wrap my head around the idea of Star Trek fans - who accept as a point of fact many of the inexplicable technologies of the franchise (the transporter makes far, far less sense then the dream device seen here) find these smaller leaps of faith; so essential to most all sci-fi, so immersion breaking.

To wit:

The TNG episode "Frame of Mind" (which was far better than this film) had something similar to this and yet made it believeable: the reflection thereapy device, a metal, functional-looking thing which actually scans a person's head and projects images from it.

It creates a perfectly formed image of someone he knew to represent his subconscious; only it does it in the real world. This opens more questions then the Nolan tech.

 

[David cgc]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

They planted the dream boxes into the dreams when they made the levels. It's that simple. You aren't going to make a dream box a cat or an orange.

But, but they still aren't actual dream boxes!

Nor are they actual guns, or cars, or rocket propelled grenades, but they still worked the way one would expect them to. More or less.

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: Inception (Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio) Grading & Discuss

They planted the dream boxes into the dreams when they made the levels. It's that simple. You aren't going to make a dream box a cat or an orange.

But, but they still aren't actual dream boxes!

Nor are they actual guns, or cars, or rocket propelled grenades, but they still worked the way one would expect them to. More or less.

Exactly.

People question movies when their plots are lame or don't make any sense at all, or are just overall bad.

The movie didn't need to explain the dreambox, there is a dreambox and that's all there needs to be. People didn't question why the LOST island did what it did, they questioned why we didn't get any answers to questions. Almost no one questions the dream boxes because there is no needed to, the movie isn't about the dream box, it's about the human mind.

If a gun is a gun then a dream box can still be a dream box in a dream. That's the point of the dreams, to be realistic!

And yes, a Star Trek fan questioning one part of a movie that doesn't make any difference at all to the story is a joke. Look all the aliens look human, have the same type of planet, and speak English! Amazing! I don't need to know why! However a box, I want them to make some stupid excuse of.

And if you read what I have written about the movie I don't care who the directer is, I have seen three of his movies now (the Batmans and this) and it was a fun movie, not perfect, but it was entertaining and that's what I wanted.