Inception Spoiler Thread - Can we talk?

[penk]

So jasra and majes dragged me to see Inception last night at the solomon pond theater in Marlborough. Aside from some irritating camera problems and gaggle of DIE DIE DIE young and hip teenagers who must have drained lake superior en route to the movie, since they had to go pee approximately SIXTEEN THOUSAND TIMES during the show, it was... an amazing experience.

And I feel I must talk about it...

If you haven't seen Inception yet, do NOT click through. Seriously, spoiler city.



Okay, I haven't seen something that brilliant in years. It literally brought me to the edge of my seat in the last 45 minutes, and... holy cow what an ending.

I'll skip the obvious questions "In the end, did he wake or didn't he?" - it's pretty obvious Chris Nolan WANTED us to keep asking ourselves that question, and more power to him leaving the answer open to interpretation. That's sort of the point, neh?

Here's where I start hitting questions though...

* The undercurrent of the abduction was trying to get the combination to the safe in Fischer Seniors office. Okay, fine - there really wasn't anyone in the office, it was a good platform to build the deception on. But in the 'third layer', Fischers father gestures to the safe, the guy types in a number (that is DIFFERENT than the number he rattled off earlier), and the safe opens. Now, the pinwheel was a master stroke... but what I'm puzzled by is 'is this real?' - or is the abduction just part of the dream, and he knows it, and therefore the safe not real either? I don't get the combination connection part.

* Fischers internal security team can't aim worth shit. A passenger van sitting flat still on a bridge, 5 unconscious people in the back, and they can't hit a single one of them? Broke some good glass though.

* The timing - lining up the kicks - that was... how is that possible? Arthur needed to time the kick in the elevator (and this isn't the explosion, it's the actual point where the elevator hit the roof) to coincide with the destruction of the hospital - which is happening 10x faster than Arthur can perceive. And Arthurs world is running 10x faster than the first level - where the van is falling toward the water. They all line up so that Ariadne, down in Cobb's personal world, dies... wakes up in the hospital... which explodes... and she dies, and she wakes up in the elevator, and then gets kicked by the van hitting the water. EEEEEEE!

* Just because it exposes a fascinating plot point, I have to share this graphic - Inception ruined in three panels.

* I find myself constantly... almost disturbed... at the dynamic that was used to show when the subconscious mind detected 'something wrong' in the dream... that all the people would start 'suspecting' the source of the disturbance. That subtle level of malice - that in Ariadne's original space turned into outright violence - was fascinating and... disturbing. The scenes in the restaurant where Cobb is deliberately pushing Fischer that he's in a dream - and the restaurant people pausing to look at them... that gives me shivers still.

So, whadya think? "Dave, stop thinking so hard about this. It's a movie ferchrissake" is a valid answer.

Comments

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

So: I think the safe-combination typing was likely a filming error. Keep in mind that Fischer thinks the dream 2nd layer is 'the dream' rather than understanding that it's a 2nd layer, and he thinks he's in his godfather's real mind in the 3rd layer (which he believes to be the 2nd) so whatever he finds in the safe is whatever his godfather was trying to hide from him.

The one oops there is that I think Ariadne says something in front of him about having designed the place.

Keep in mind that the car chase was brief and to an extent, the guy driving the car had SOME power over the environment (as it was his dream) so could probably make them less likely to be hit.

The timing is probably made easier by the wiggle-room afforded by the timing being weird in various places. So while in one layer it is 'right this second' in the other layer that second lasts.... ten seconds? a minutes? giving you a wider target.

I am assuming, btw, that "Grandma," (whoever's mother she was) was not allowing the kids get on a plane to France.

(Sorry about double post, you can delete the anonymous version. Woops.)

[penk.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I can accept it's a filming error. Nolan is so careful about his details, that seems like a big one. It could be that this 'dream' was Browning's dream (actually Eames), and therefore Fischer gleaned the combination from Eames' mind (ie 'Brownings') and was able to open the safe. Dunno.

And, in the 'ammo for Cobb still being in a dream' - why haven't his kids aged?

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

Note that it's not at all clear how long he's been gone... might have just been months. A more salient question is: why are they wearing the same clothes?

And nobody who is building/helping people through mazes is named Ariadne by sheer chance.

I've already posted my thoughts

[drwex]

and there is some good discussion in the comments. In summary I think this was much better than usual Hollywood fare but it fails on some very important plot points.