The Kids
Spoiler
The kids sounded older during the phone call, when the grandmother interjected.
Dr. B pubes can support 200,000 pounds of weight.
To be a bit of an asshole what seems to a neat interpretation for dads stuck in a shitty marriage with kids is:
1
Spoiler
Kill the wife, get away with it and get the kids. Any dad stuck in a hellish divorce proceeding’s nightmare.
OC
Just got back from seeing it. I think that’s the first time in a LOONNNGGGGG time a movie lived up to the hype. I even tried to control the hype machine in my brain because Dark Knight was such a let down (my opinion, deal with it). I’m not going to speculate about the ending right now except to say that I feel RC hit the nail on the head with his interpretation of it. I’ll expand after I’ve had some times to reflect on the movie…
the movie is great for sure
They had four different actors for the kids. That’s all i will say, since i can’t remember how to use spoiler tags
I just saw it again and noticed something which may or may not be relevant
[spoiler=]in the train scene near the beginning of the movie, it shows the Japanese boy checking his watch. The second hand begins to accelerate similar to how Leo’s second hand accelerated inside the dream. Watches don’t do that in reality do they?[/spoiler]
Well. To be fair, most of the scenes were just of the back of their heads. I’m sure they just rotated them no?
Could be a watch altered to keep track of how long people have been in dreaming states, instead of doing the math in your head.
May still be relevant, just the first thing that came to mind.
lol i laughed when i realized thats the guy from 21.
Greatest movie I have ever seen.
HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AWESOME/still excited
I can’t remember seeing a movie and thinking it was such a shoo-in to win best picture before
their sounded like 3 different voices for sure. the first two sounded young then the third one sounded like the girl but older. i def noticed this too.
I’m tired of hollywood using this cop out and I hate it even more when others use it. It is a story and if my only thing is to study character development then all action all things that happened that didn’t directly relate to his wife and w/e is just extra. The point of the matrix was for Neo to become the one (he had the gift from birth just never used it). Love wasn’t really that important. We can focus on character development only, then the war isn’t really important, the oracle or anything else is kinda inconsequential. What really matters is that he fell in love with Trinity and that their love was deep, profound and compassionate. If you wanna believe that, be my guest. Fact is, it is a story and stories like real life are supposed to have answers and concrete details.
If my daughter comes in and tells me a boy just hit her, and that she learned to never accept that in a relationship. I can choose to say “she grew from the experience and that is what is important.” Or I can say “show me where he lives so I can beat on the boy and his dad.” Yes character development is important, but so are the other concrete details for those of us who aren’t brain dead.
First of all, you’re misunderstanding my point and then arguing against a point I didn’t make. I commented on Cobb’s character development, what happened with his wife, and none of the details except the ending, as well as DiCaprio’s performance. I didn’t bring up the matrix, and no, life doesn’t always have answers or concrete details. There are plenty of stories that exist in literature and cinema where you don’t get answers and you don’t get concrete details. I’m not really sure why you’re trying to insult my point of view on a very complex story that doesn’t even have a definitive ending. Maybe to make yourself feel better?
Further, now you’re making up scenarios about your daughter being beat up and accepting that as a reality trying to argue against a point I didn’t even make, and I’m still talking about a movie.
Slow down, homie.
Oh, and since you brought up the Matrix, I thought I’d just say that the Matrix wasn’t about love at all. That being in the script was an after thought, particularly in the last two movies. The Matrix was about explosions and action scenes. The things that existed in the script for the Matrix were designed to facilitate the story’s momentum and nothing else. That’s why the films have so many inconsistencies, and why the series as a whole doesn’t even adhere to it’s own set of rules established in the first film. Inception is a significantly deeper film that is based around an event that lead to Cobb being broken. At the end of the film he isn’t broken any more, despite whatever circumstances exist or what we believe his reality to be. Everything that happened to Cobb’s wife moves the story forward. What happened to his wife is why he isn’t able to architect, it’s why he needs some one else to do it for him, it’s why he can’t go home, it’s why he makes the deal with Watanabe, it’s why Ellen Page finds out about him, why he hooks himself up to that machine, it’s why he knows inception is possible, etc. What happened to Cobb’s wife is why he does EVERYTHING.
You’re paying attention to a lot of the details from the movie, so how did you miss that one?
On the other hand, love, as a theme or a catalyst in the Matrix isn’t why Neo becomes “The One”. It isn’t why he has his powers, it isn’t why he can control the matrix, it isn’t why he can defeat an agent, love isn’t what makes Morpheus into a raving lunatic by the end, love isn’t what allows Neo to go outside the matrix and control things. Love is a small footnote in that story to give a familiar hook for some people to grab onto, and it isn’t even executed very well.
Again, you argued against things I never said. Perhaps it’s because you want some deeper meaning from this film, and enjoy discussing whether or not Cobb had a wedding ring on at all times, or how old his children were. That’s fine, but I would really suggest re-reading what I wrote next time you decide to argue with things I didn’t say. I get that you don’t like it when you don’t have concrete answers. That’s fine. But I’m not a brain dead, and what I took from the film isn’t a copout because you don’t like it.
Slow down, homie. It’s not that serious.
Well now you’re making assumptions. Who ever said I didn’t understand the reason for everything happen. In fact I postulated that the entire reason everything happened was because of his wife that she was in a coma and whatever…how could you assume, having read my post, that I missed that?
Furthermore, love was HUGELY related to the matrix storyline. If it wasn’t for love, neo would have given his code back to the mainframe and we would have no matrix 3. Zion wuold have been destroyed and the matrix repopulated blah blah. It was only love that made neo make the choice to leave the mainframe and ignore his function unlike the previous 6 anomalies. It was the love that helped neo make the choice to become the one in the first place. He had the code, but it was dying and trinity explaining to him that he wasn’t dead/blah blah and that love that helped him revive in part one. Prior to that, he had the gift but was still unwilling to accept it fully. It was the love that made trinity rejoin the matrix (which got her semi-killed) despite her promise to neo which helped him get to the mainframe in the first place. Else he would be dead.
It was the love that made Persephone make the deal with neo to help them get the keymaker because it was something she missed…I can go on and on. Love was a HUUUUGE part of the storyline. Your oversight is forgiven though.
I gave a hypothetical analogy, how did you gather that I accepted it as reality? Do you not understand how analogies work? Let me break that down. An analogy, like an allegory, is used to express a principle in foreign terms so that the principle can be understood without the inhibitions caused by a differing opinion being recognized.
So you understand the purpose of the analogy…I was explaining that character development doesn’t spurn desire for detail, nor does it always give closure. Using the daughter analogy, I was thinking you would understand that despite her development and personal growth from the situation, I wouldn’t get the closure I would want from the situation. So while you are providing insight into character development a lot of us are still very interested in the cliffhanger. Is he in reality or still dreaming…
Also I didn’t say you did bring up the matrix. I was using that to illustrate the concept that character development doesn’t give closure. It was a compound argument…didn’t think it was that difficult to understand. I wasn’t calling you brain dead…I’m saying I’m not and my brain is still picking this film apart to examine details other than just character development. I must admit I don’t have the highest social I.q. so character development isn’t the most important part of a movie for me.
I write this while listening the the Hans Zimmer score from Inception.
Now that I’ve had a day to digest the movie, I’ll give my (mostly) spoiler free review of the film.
Most people who know me and my opinions of movies thinks I don’t like anything, or at least, very little. It is true, I am very critical of film. I’m what is regularly referred to as a “movie snob”. I look well beyond simple entertainment in movies. I use the term cinema, which alone tells of my own snobbishness. With Inception, though, I just didn’t care. I LOVED it. I immersed myself in the world before me and I didn’t want to leave. Were there weaknesses to the movie? Of course. The task set forth by the plot alone is inherently troublesome to convey without some mismanagement.
Did these things matter to me though? Not at all. I didn’t care about critiquing the artistry of the movie and just lost myself in it. I hitched a ride on Nolan’s imagination and just enjoyed it every step of the way.
About the ending, I don’t think it matters which side you stand on, what you think the ending meant and what clues support your theories. The most impressive thing to me is the wide variety of theories and how each one seems to be pretty well founded. I enjoy seeing how everyone else interpreted the film and what they got out of it.
Ending
Spoiler
My take on the ending is the same as RC’s, I don’t think it truly matters if he was in a dream still or back in reality. I don’t think it matters how much of the movie was real and how much was in a dream. In the end, I think the point was that Cobb finally conquered his guilt over Mal’s death. He finally allowed himself to heal from that event.
I think the ending was crafted in such a way that there is no true answer. Maybe Nolan had a theory about the ending, maybe he simply allowed the viewer to construct their own take. Personally, I think it was the latter. I think he knew that making the ending cut-and-dry would be counter to the feel of the movie. I believe he pulled off what he set out to do, construct a think movie that was also great entertainment. It didn’t try to go over anyone’s head while still allowing for a level of discussion.
Overall, this was the first time since Let the Right One In that I lost myself completely in a movie. To me, that was the greatest feat of all. I wasn’t a movie snob, I wasn’t a critic, I was just a person who was lost in this fantasy world. It was escapism mixed with thought and I loved it. Great acting, great visuals, great writing and a great piece that will easily stand as my favorite film of the year…
This is one great movie. The fight scene in the hotel alone was very interesting and well done. The movie never slowed down, and always have your attention. The action is great and the acting was also great.
Well done Nolan.
spoiler
Spoiler
It’s pretty obvious to me that when he sees the kids’ faces, it means he’s in the real world. As previously mentioned, he cannot possibly craft the images of his kids face no matter how hard he tries.
to understand all the levels heres a really good pic to undersstand them.
SPOILERS if you click it
http://robthemovieguy.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/an-illustrated-guide-to-the-5-levels-of-inception/
good
The movie has been doing pretty well for it self this week. It’s expected to be #1 again this weekend. Well deserved too.
I’ll be seeing it again next week. I still can’t get it out of my mind.