I dunno how an urge to pee can translate into a downpour... I dont see any real connection anyway, unless you dream of standing under your own d***?

You have some points there. I dont think the idea of having trained mechanisms against extraction/inception is bad, I think it's great and very cool, what I do think was less than good was how they ran with that idea. The defense mechanism could have manifested itself in so many other different ways, it could have brought a visual touch to it, but Nolan decided to keep his generic faceless henchmen as his Bond fix. He has this fixation that everything has to be brought as close to reality as possible, even in dreams. It worked wonders in his other movies, especially The Dark Knight, where the superhero movie was brought perfectly down to a crime thriller level, never before seen. But here, the possibilities are endless! As I said the first hour of the film was marvelous, but the execution of some of the ideas after that was rather ho-hum. Let's just hope Inception has given him his own Bond kick and he doesn't actually go on and do an actual Bond movie.

Yes! I thought I heard them saying it was going to be Fischer's dream. They tricked him into believing they would be breaking into Browning's dream, and Arthur even said "We're going to use him to break into his own subconscious", or something to that effect. But later on in the dream itself, it seemed it was actually Eames' dream. Another confusing part.

Actually I dont anyone has come up with a wholly coherent and consistent story of Cobb and Mal. I *think* I remember him saying they were exploring deeper levels of the dream world, which would make my theory sound. They spent 50 years in the last level of the dream they dared venture in, Mal lost it there and lapsed into a limbo state of mind, Cobb kept count of the number of layers they were in, killed themselves and kept going one level up, but Mal, having been infected by Cobb's idea, would always think she would need to go one more level higher to reach reality.

Now, though, I think that theory is bust. Because I believe the dreamer of a particular level cannot venture deeper into the dream. Nash was the dreamer in the carpet level, and he wasn't in the level below that. Yusof was the dreamer for the level 1, and he didn't go in with the team into level 2. Arthur was the dreamer in level 2, and he wasn't in level 3. At the start, we see that if a dreamer leaves his dream level, the dream collapses. I believe if the dreamer isn't an active entity on his level, the dream will collapse. This would make sense if eames was the dreamer for level 3, but if as above Fischer was actually the dreamer, then the world should have collapsed when he went into limbo. Or something. I'm still not really sure how this dream world all works.

By the way, if you were to give a kick in level 1 to someone who was currently dreaming in level 3, would that wake him up to level 1?

Nice interpretation. But I'll stick to it being reality, the whole thing being a dream isn't my cup of tea.

Oh that's just aggravating...

What bombing? You mean the endless scenes of Eames arming and planting explosives? Nothing to enlighten, they're just boring!

OK the detonation acts as a kick to bring them back to level 2.

The detonation was to bring Cobb and Ariadne back from Fischer's limbo most probably. It didn't really matter since Ariadne and Fishcer killed themselves to get out of there. I'm actually beginning to feel sick thinking about the plot.

The dreamer wont know the layout of the level unless he or she is taught by the architect.

That's because after the cafe blew up Cobb taught Ariadne the layout so she could replicate the city and experience her work first hand for the first time. And Cobb was still the dreamer, which explains why his projections were so hostile towards Ariadne.

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Jul 20 2010, 08:40 PM

What you mean is people are only talking about the plot itself, nothing deeper than that. And you would be quite right, though I don't think that's such a bad thing. I can't remember the last time a movie was so talked about so goddamn much. Perhaps The Matrix? I dunno, coz I was around 9 years old at that time.

Btw, I watched The Dark Knight yesterday. It's even better than I remembered... and probably Nolan's best. The interrogation scene surely has to go down as one of the best scenes in history.

Dude the action scenes just plain sucked!

Except the shifty-grav and zero-grav fight scenes. Those were good, especially the former, which will probably be as well remembered as bullet-time from The Matrix. It looked so unbelievably cool and fluid. But damn, it was short as hell, and after they actually 'drop' into one of the hotel rooms, Nolan's penchant for in-your-face editing and close-up shots of people punching each other surfaces, and it turned kinda sucky.

I think he suggested using explosives only after Ariadne convinced them to go into Fischer's limbo. But dont quote me on it.

Sure? Hmm I seem to remember Eames saying something about arming explosives right after Cobb agreed with Araidne to go into the limbo. Shows you that Memento is right, memories can be damn unreliable. Especially my memory.

This I agree with. The zero gravity scenes, especially the fight, looked the most authentic I've seen.

Well the action in Batman Begins sucked as well. He improved in TDK, though most people still say the action there sucked. I dunno, but I liked the prison transfer sequence in TDK. Certain parts of it lacked a visual grasp but for the most part it was tense and chaotic... in a good way, I felt. It had three of the film's coolest moments too- Batpod emerging from the Tumbler wreckage, the semi truck doing the flip, and the batpod doing a different flip off the wall. The other fight scenes in TDK dont fare as good in my books, although I found them more watchable in repeat viewings.

Damn, even the cast cant come up with a conclusive explanation to some of the concepts, like limbo.




Shit, and I was convinced the dreamer couldn't leave his dream space without it collapsing. If that were true, and level 3 was indeed Fischer's dream, that whole level would be kaput the moment he went into limbo. Oh well, at least we don't have to take Rao's answers as gospel.

I think perhaps, the others could control their projections. Fischer, unaware he was in a dream, couldn't. Cobb couldn't, because he simply couldn't control his subconscious. That dream in paris where Cobb was teaching Araidne? I think he deliberately filled the space with normal projections, just to give Ariadne a feel of the real dream world. But he couldn't control the projection of Mal.

Anyway, I know why the impact when the van went into the bridge's railing didn't wake up the others, but how come it didn't wake Arthur up? He was conscious in the level directly below.

Good explanation!

But still, I want to know why didn't the van's impact act as a kick to wake Arthur up?

The way I understand it, if you give someone a kick in level 1 while he is in level 2, it wakes him up in level 1. If you give someone a kick in level 1 while he's in level 3 or further down, he doesn't get up, because you first have to wake him up in level 2. Since Arthur was awake in level 2, the van's impact and plunge should have brought him up to level 1, no?

Now you're just making up your own rules

Damn I wasn't aware of this at all! Was this explained somewhere in the movie? Can't believe I missed it. But moving on, when you die in a dream, you dont need a "pull" from the level above to wake you up? How come when Cobb was dunk in the tub of water early on, he didn't need any "push" from the level below to wake up? Or are we to simply assume upon seeing the gushing water he just killed himself?

But as all saw, there was absolutely NO gravity in level 2 whatsoever. That's as direct as level 2 being directly affected by the free-fall in level 1! Surely they must have felt something in level 3. I dunno, sometimes I feel some of the rules in the film were thought up to simply service the plot.

Heh that's what I thought as well when watching Dark City.

lol still lots of discussion on the plot eh I see. I've long lost interest in the details of the plot.

Here's an article that I agree with. Despite really liking the movie, I've been describing the exact same problems, and now someone who's a better writer has written a full article on them.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/08...s_and_waki.html







Which is entirely why I'm not drawn into the whole nature of the is-it-reality-or-is-it-a-dream ending. I don't think the last shot is bad, in fact I like it, but it's nothing more than a sly wink on Nolan's part.

And I completely agree with this part:

So guys, now that the dust has settled.

Still think it's a masterpiece?

The thing about Inception is that it swamps the viewer with so much information that the first viewing can be a little confusing, you're constantly thinking about what the characters said 10 seconds ago. It's only with a second or third viewing that you realize the movie is actually... crap. Yes, I've just watched it again, and it has some nice ideas and concepts, but the execution is just painfully mundane and WRONG. The constant yakking is boooring. Yak yak yak. Explain this explain that. All done verbally. Films are about images, especially one with so much potential as this. Nolan makes the mistake of TELLING instead of SHOWING. And when he does attempt to show, he's revealed as incompetent, as evidenced by the goddamn awful last 40 minutes of shit action. You only need to compare this with The Matrix, which explained its ideas with elegance and coolness. None of that here. You want to see images coexisting perfectly with dialogue? Watch a Tarantino movie.

The most pitiful thing is that it really had the potential to be an all-time great. But it's just a bad movie.

I will agree with your first paragraph. It really does feel like it's trying to force too much info down our throats. Although I suspect I get that feeling only because of how the information is conveyed, namely YAK YAKKITY YAK YAK YAK.

About the second point, true but it's a bit nitpicky for me, so I dont have issues with that. Certain things have to sacrificed to tell a story like this.

Third point will fly past most people. I realized it but didn't give it much thought because the movie completely sidesteps the issue. You are right, but the movie is bad not because of this.

The Matrix went all dumb action in the last act, but at least it was some damn cool action.