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Comments
Yeah. Great movie. Probably the best movie I've seen all year.
As for the ending, me and a few other people in the theater we chanting "drop, drop" and when it cut off, you could hear a groan or exasperated sigh throughout the entire theater.
I just think he left the ending that way to just be opened to have people to keep talking about it and wonder if it was really true or a still a dream. I hope it was real. It was funny because during the movie I was thinking that there would be some sort of surprise that it was all still a dream.
I enjoyed every bit of the movie, the actors, the action, and the LONGEST van fall in the history of world!
I'm all for it not being a dream. The top doesn't spin like it does when it is a dream, and I think seeing the kids faces also solidified it. But I can totally see it still being a dream. The entire movie lends itself to being interpreted in every way (logically) imaginable.
Did anyone else threaten to kill someone if they didn't get to see the kid's faces?
Actually... now that I think about it a bit more, the last chunk of the movie has some pretty big holes in the logic. Doesn't make it any less enjoyable, but they do stand out if you think about them.
EDIT: I should rephrase what I meant regarding the ending, after a little more thought. The fact that the top keeps spinning, trying to lead you to maybe think it will do that forever, is misleading. Regardless of the outcome, whether it is a dream or not, the top should stop spinning... with one exception. However, I don't really want to believe that the one exception is the real case because then that would make the entire movie pointless. Granted, it is still an interesting possibility.
EDIT 2: Hmph. The more I think about it, the more the one exception makes sense. At this point I'm pretty inclined to make it my interpretation of the movie, and I think I'll do a write up when it's day again to expound on how I came to that conclusion.
Conclusion for those who can't wait: The entire movie is in Mal's dream.
2) Getting to Limbo by just falling asleep vs. dying.
3) Some things like the sedative's effect, the music, and Sato's dying percolate down the levels, other effects like gravity don't.
4) Timing issues.
These just of the top of my head. Like 'knox said they don't diminish the movie that much but they do stand out if you have that sort of mindset. For me part of the problem is that at the beginning of the movie they explain too much, and too many of the details of the central concept of the movie. This meticulousness creates an expectation for the film to follow through on consistency which is hard to do. I know Hollywood aims for low IQ audiences, but "you go into other people's dreams" shouldn't need 20 minutes of exposition.
The environment in the fourth level is that of the world he and Mal created... Then how did Saito get there without the machine dream?
And yeah, most of my problems with the lower levels of the dream are the same ones Timo pointed out. One of the things that the movie doesn't explain very well is the concept of whether the dreams act like hive minds or not. There is a very small scene showing some people who do share the same dream, but does that always apply? It was my assumption, based on Ariadne's first experience as an architect, that one person is having the actual dream, and the other people in the dream are directly affecting it. So, if you go on that, then the entire inception dream sequence takes place in the mind of Fischer.
Then you have the whole limbo section, where Fischer and Saito both die in the base, and Cobb and Ariadne dive in deeper to find them. Why does limbo automatically default to the world that the Cobbs built together? And you notice that Fischer was captured and tied up by Mal. Does this mean that even before Cobb can enter limbo, his subconscious is already controlling that whole space? It's certainly possible, but never explained. Then you also have to wonder how Saito pretty much managed to do the same thing somewhere else in Fischer's mind. How do all three remain in limbo when Fischer is sent back up? If that works, then theoretically there's no real reason for the team to dive along with Fischer at each level, they should be able to just dive by themselves. This goes even further when after limbo is over, you see both Cobb and Saito waking up on the plane, well after everyone else has, and without the machine still connected. This could just be misleading, but I wonder how they can both still be in limbo if Fischer has woken up. (And this is part of what led to my real conclusion).
And there is also the whole thing with the fact that only certain things can pass down the levels. Not to mention, it doesn't seem to matter who is being affected by the above interference, yet everyone in the level below can experience it, which again brings into question the hive mind aspect.
This is all very nitpicky, but that's just the way my mind tends to work when faced with inconsistencies. When you compare the dream world of this movie to say... The Matrix, as it is being compared to by many, the Matrix was more clearly defined as to what you can and cannot do. You die in one world, you die in the other. Certain rules can be bent or broken, but not all, and those ones that can be bent, anyone can do it. As much as Inception talked about the nature of how the dreams are structured, they never clearly defined it in a physical sense. Maybe a director's cut with more explanatory scenes?
Also, didn't they say the 3rd level was supposed to be the equivalent of 10 years? It sure didn't seem like they spent 10 years there...
What confused me, actually, was how in the world Saito became an old man while Cobb was still young. Didn't Saito enter limbo after Cobb and Ariadne? Was he just in his own personal part of limbo for a while? Even if he was, that still doesn't really explain the difference in time. Am I missing something here?
Oh, and the lack of gravity shifts on the mountain level did bother me too. They might not have felt anything from the van fall, sure; maybe they're too deep for that to have an effect beyond that initial kick. But there wasn't even anything when Arthur set the charges to send the hotel elevator rocketing down the shaft. You'd think that would have a more dramatic effect than the van fall, if anything. Maybe they just didn't want to interrupt Fischer's moment with his dad for story's sake? Maybe we're supposed to think that the kick from the elevator drop doesn't start until Eames sets the charges as far as time flow goes? That would go against how the scenes are edited together, though. The editing sure makes it look like we're supposed to think the elevator thing is going on before the hospital charges go off.
Speaking of ten years: the part where they mentioned the week/six months/ten years bit was just to demonstrate the relative flow of time in each level in comparison to the other levels. What it means is that if you spent the entire ten hours of the Sydney/Los Angeles flight in a particular level, that's how long it would take before you just woke up of your own accord (without a kick).