INCEPTION - New film from Christopher Nolan - MUST WATCH NOW - SRK APPROVED

General Discussion
101

My take on the ending

[details=Spoiler]Leo searches for a long time to find Saito in “limbo” because that depth of dreaming is so much more of an open existence, it would be like trying to find a cup of water in the ocean, hence why Saito looks so old. Leo looks the same because he’s been through limbo before and he knows hes still the same age. When Saito remembers him, he knows what he has to do so he shoots Leo in the head then himself soon after. They both wake up at relatively the same time.

While its quite possible either way that he is still in limbo and he somehow managed to create this whole scenario, its just as possible that Leo made it out. Yes, the top is still spinning at the end but it looks as though it could be slowing/starting to wobble. Going too far in either direction (letting it fall completely or having it stay perfectly still) would create too concrete of an ending and might hurt peoples view of the film.

If it fell wouldnt you be all like “HAPPY ENDING? laaaaaaame…” But if it sat there perfectly still for an impossible amount of time I know I would feel angry about the outcome almost as if Shamylan had written it. [/details]

so yeah.

102

to be completely honest, i don’t think there’s a way the final scene could’ve been done better. at least this way it satisfies pretty much everyone, obvious or not.

plus technically…inception 2 is now possible (although i wouldn’t ever want to see that happen).

103

I’m not sure why people are saying that there isn’t a right answer. It’s supposed to look ambiguous until all the details are fully analyzed…

Unless the writers just threw in a bunch of shit and weren’t even sure what the ending was supposed to be but I don’t think that was the case here since the story seems to have been very carefully constructed.

my take on the ending

[details=Spoiler]Basically what NeoBlood said, though I’m not sure if his reason as to why Saito is so old, is the correct one.

I don’t see why it’s unclear if the top is going to fall over or not. If it’s a never-ending spinning top, it will not wobble. The one at the end clearly wobbled. There was a scene in the movie where the infinitely spinning top was spun and it never wobbled.

What I think makes the ending unclear to me is some of the contradictions…the fact that, the way he sees his kids at the end were in the exact same manner as the memories of them in his dreams (which would suggest that it’s probably not reality), yet he sees their faces (which would imply that maybe it is reality). Or perhaps I’m missing something, which is why I’m going to go watch this again.

OrangeCat’s theories are interesting but very different from most of the theories presented. I don’t know…[/details]

104

I’m one of the people saying there isn’t a right answer, not because I’m trying to force some hard conclusion on what is clearly an interpretive ending, but because it strikes me that the conclusion is meant to be ambiguous. For this kind of ending – and I felt this way at the end of Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, and Cowboy Bebop – the writers clearly want the “last word” to be “inconclusive.” What IS conclusive is the inconclusiveness of it all.

To put it in algebraic terms:

Does X = 1?
Does X = 2?
I don’t really care: X is a variable.

There’s a reason you never see capital B variables in textbooks. The power of B is not to be trifled with.

105

i thought i’d share this with everyone:

[media=youtube]mEItJLwvsF0&playnext_from=TL&videos=n9px41X7KrA[/media]

this is a video that nolan recorded when researching dreams. very interesting.

106

For TS since he has lots of questions :rofl:

Reality

Spoiler

Airplane, they drug Murphy. Easy.

Level 1

Spoiler

Warehouse/Van. They are in Murphy’s mind. Page creates the world, but Murphy’s trained super subconcious is aware of the trespassers and tries to take them out. Easy.

Level 2

Spoiler

Hotel. Still Murphy’s mind. Page is still creating the world. Leo does his security thing and tricks Murphy’s conscious self to doubt his subconscious self.

Level 3

Spoiler

Snow base. STILL Murphy’s mind. This is where his subconscious is the strongest represented by big army. Doesn’t matter because he already doesn’t trust his subconscious. Page creates the vault and Murphy fills it with whatever he’s thinking. The more heavily fortifide the fort, but bigger the secret. Murphy gets shot and DIES here (important!)

Level 4

[details=Spoiler]No level 4 exists. They are now in Limbo. What they see is Leo’s version of Limbo because he’s the only one to have been there before. Leo purposely brings Page to his version of Limbo because he knows he needs her help to find Murphy. Mal is strongest here because this is where Leo has the least amount of control over her. I guess this is where things start getting confusing. I believe this is the shared limbo where you can design a portion of it, but it’s very possible for you to run into others that are also in limbo. That’s how Leo happens upon Saito’s version of Limbo. Also, Saito is MUCH older than Leo in limbo because saito died much sooner in level 1 and the compounding nature of the levels caused Saito to be in limbo for much longer, though we don’t see it.

I guess the only thing I don’t understand is how Page and Murphy got back to level 1. If you remember correctly, when Leo and Mal first went to limbo the first time, they killed themselves and got dropped right back into reality. With that information, you can assume that when Murphy and Page eat it, they should have been dropped back into their airplane seats, but that didn’t happen. They ride the kick up each level which is inconsistent with Leo’s first experience in Limbo. One could chalk it up to the sedative keeping them in level 1. /shrug. [/details]

random thoughts

[details=Spoiler]Notice how Page has to be in every single level, she’s the architect that creates all the maps. She’s the only one that knows the entire layout of the levels.

The ending is a complete toss up. I’ve been switching back and forth ever since I walked out of the theatre. I’m leaning hard for the fact he’s still in limbo, but the only evidence I have is that his kids haven’t aged since his memories. I’m still trying to find more convincing evidence for myself.

Another thing I found weird is that when he gets home and sees his kids, the grandmother is not there. In reality, he’s on the phone with the kids and the grandmother interjects. She’s nowhere to be seen in the ending scene. Also, this professor picks him up from the airport in LA. Doesn’t the professor live in Paris? I guess it’s plausible that he flew back to the states after hearing the details of the plan, but… doesn’t feel right.[/details]

107

theory

Spoiler

the airport scene makes you start to wonder if all of the other characters are just parts of cobb’s subconscious. the way they turn and smile and kinda sink into the background. one thing i’ve kinda figured is that it seems juno (or maybe even caine) does an inception on leo, letting him move on from his wife.

108

Page

[details=Spoiler]You know, the more I think about it, the more reasonable it is that Page did an inception on Leo (or at least, a pseudo inception). From all the extractions, there is a physical representation of a safe/vault because those are supposed to be the closest secrets held. But in Leo’s case, he straight up tells Page everything in Level 1 of Murphy’s mind. This was after page stumbled on to the basement level of Leo’s mind (the hotel room that he was supposed to jump from). So in this situation, no vault was needed for the inception to take place because Page already knew the deepest secret. This could also be Leo knowing that he needs to get over the guilt of Mal but couldn’t do it himself, so he manipulated Page to plant the inception while ignoring that the idea wasn’t his own, thus giving him the boost he needed to finally come to terms with what happened.

Just another wayward theory.[/details]

109

Pretty much this, sans Dr. B.

110

My Take On The Ending

Spoiler

I’m pretty solidly convinced that he was completely trapped in his own dream world, most of it was already covered her. Too many inconsistencies to be reality.

His kids were the same age as he remembered them
The foot chase scene outside the bar was a bit too easy for him, where he narrowly avoids each bullet and is magically saved at the end. Dreamlike stuff.
Everything falls into place a bit too easily, including the magical architect who was magically provided by his father from some sort of Xaviers institute for gifted children
Leo manages to flow between scenes way too easily, and like he says you never remember how you get to places in a dream, you’re always just there
Nobodies immigration status is cleared in 20 minutes from a phone call

In my mind, his wife was right; they were still in a dream when she offed herself, and he’d been living in a dream ever since constructing a reality where the entire world revolved around himself and his plight. Shes probably in the real world right now waiting for him to wake up from his self induced purgatory that will seemingly stretch on for ages; hopefully he figures it out and doesn’t stay comatose

111

spoiler for 1

Spoiler

I think you totally missed the symbolism of the “golden eye” scene. It represents the most protected area of his mind, hence the heavy resistance etc.

I just want to say that this movie shows how bad people pay attention. Very early on it’s clear that they intentionally laid out everything in an easy to understand fashion, in order to support the last half of the movie. If you didin’t understand any part of the first half, you missed out on a lot of important details

Oh and also, the simplest explanation for the ending is exactly how it ends. There really isn’t much more to it.

112

Saw it last night and i LOVED it. It was so worth the wait and i plan on seeing it again.

thoughts

Spoiler

I’m in the group that thinks he’s still in Limbo at the end. The scene at the airport with his team looking on, The professor waiting for him, and his kids being EXACTLY where he left them (also wearing the same cloths and standing in the same posture), just seemed too perfect. I’d say he was still dreaming.

Amazing movie. I really need to see it again.

113

spoiler reply

Spoiler

no, that’s not what my main problem with this scene is. how eams and a dying saito are able to hold off an entire army just makes “the most protected area of his mind”, not look very protected at all. the scene doesn’t feel right. all of the other levels of dream are brilliant.

114

I thought the movie was great from beginning to end, that is all.

115

Level 3 bored the shit out of me and made me want to fall asleep. Great movie overwise though.

116

Seriously, I don’t think we need spoiler tags anymore; every post on here is a spoiler tag, so you’ve got to think that if someone stupid enough to stumble on page 5 of this thread without seeing the movie deserves to have it spoiled…
That being said:

spoiler reply

[details=Spoiler]I’m not sure if this has been covered, but the one thing that holds my curiosity is the totem- the spinning top. Everyone seems to have their own totem; a die, a chess piece, a top, etc. Now, from the memories of Leonardo and his wife, it seems that the totem top is his wife’s. What about his? Does he ever use the top to check if he’s in a real dream or not? I know they gave an explanation, but I can’t remember if he ever used it to prove he was in ‘reality’. How would the other totems work? Would the dice always fall a certain way in a dream? Would the chess piece always stay up? I don’t know.

I’m of the school that believes he’s still in a dream; the whole flow of the movie and the hints toward the end lead me to believe this. His wife even tells him- or questions him- on his ‘realities’ of being a secret agent, and being a globe trotter, etc. The ending scene strongly leads me to believe this; however, the role of the professor/grandfather is also a very weird one. It’s almost as if he KNOWS that the guy is still dreaming.

How does he even get to limbo in the first place?!? How do BOTH of them get there? Do they get there from killing themselves by the train? They surely didn’t escape limbo by getting killed by the train, because in that scene they are a young couple. In limbo, they show them aged. So tell me, how did they escape?

Awesome movie…
[/details]

117

I’ll try my best to answer this, though i plan on seeing it again this week.

my opinion

Spoiler

First off:

Totems

  • The weight of the Totems are what determines if they’re in reality or not. Only the owner of the totem can know it’s weight and feel. If the weight of it is off, then they’re dreaming.
  • Arthur said the die he had was false. It would’ve landed on the same side every time if he were not in a dream.
  • Cobb used the top several times to see if he was in reality. He was interrupted, however, after using the sedatives the first time.

Limbo

  • As Cobb explained during the first level, once they were injected with the sedatives, the only REAL way they can wake up was with a kick. If they died during the dream, they wouldn’t wake up because the sedatives were still in affect. Leaving they’re mind in Limbo, or a nonstop dream.
  • I assumed both Dom and Mal got to limbo through the use of sedatives. I may be wrong though.
  • They returned to reality by committing suicide by the train.
  • In regards to the differences in age, i believe they were in fact “old” when they committed suicide. They spent close to 50 years in Limbo together. I believe he saw themselves as young because it was a half-remembered dream. When you try to remember your dreams, you tend to fill in a ton of the blanks yourself when you’re conscience. I may be wrong though. Thats what i though.

Again, i’m seeing it this week once more, and it’ll probably make a bit more sense.

118

Going with the Ring theory for the ending. Just sayin’

119

ending

[details=Spoiler]Dileep Rao offered further insight, advising viewers to pay attention to the scene in an unusual way. "You know what, I’ll just say this: Use your ears not your eyes."
Inception Cast on Final Scene and Possible Sequel | WorstPreviews.com
[/details]

120

I just saw it.

Amazing.

Simply amazing.