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I think it was a dream the entire time.

It was HIS WIFE'S totem in the first place, which she had locked away from him. He explained you should never know how another person's totem works--because then it would behave the same way for you and loose all meaning. So for him to be walking around with HER totem and knowing how SHE used it, is pointless. It would not allow him to know whether or not he was dreaming.

or not because sometimes the totem worked innit in certain layers, that was the only time it didn't work therefore he may probably found 'home'

This needs a spoilers warning

title says enough for those who haven't seen it

i think since he finally saw the children's face in that last scene, he didn't wait around for the top to fall because he KNEW he was in reality (he couldn't see his children's faces in any of his dreams). i think if the footage didn't end, we would see the top fall. i think Nolan just wanted to add a little bit of uncertainty, just for the viewer's mind

1 He could have saw their faces before (when the wife called them, but he wouldn't let her). He refused, which was a choice, not a determination of their reality.

2 Why were they in the exact same clothes and activity as all the other times they manifested themselves? Because it was still a projection.

ketamine wrote:1 He could have saw their faces before (when the wife called them, but he wouldn't let her). He refused, which was a choice, not a determination of their reality.

2 Why were they in the exact same clothes and activity as all the other times they manifested themselves? Because it was still a projection.

Yes. I thought he must have still been in his projection for the fact his children looked the same. I mean...when he spoke to his kids on the phone, his daughter seemed a big older...certainly seemed older than the one giggling about in his projections...

Makes me think he couldn't get out of the last projection with the Japanese fella...

Here's my theory. It's not perfect, but I like it.

Cobb was the 'subject' of the Inception all along. The Inception itself was to make him believe he was back home with his children, in this respect it succeeded.

Saito was the 'Cobb' character in the real world. We never once saw the real world, the entire film was the Inception from beginning to end. The first scene in which they're attempting to extract the information from Saito, that's where the dream started (remember the discussion about not knowing how you get somewhere in a dream, it's no different from the cut of a film, it just begins).

Where Cobb ends up with his kids at the end is either the most shallow level of the dream, or he reached an even further level of limbo, a level deeper than the one where Saito has grown old.

It doesn't matter whether the totem works or not, because if Cobb wants to believe it's reality he can make the spinning wheel stop at will. You don't have to be the dreamer to affect physics. Furthermore, one of the earliest lines in the film, 'What is the most resilient parasite? An Idea!' tells us the viewer that an idea, a concept, can change everything. What if the totem is a concept, one that Nolan gave the viewer, that infected us to the extent that we can't tell reality from a dream without the totem to guide us. That is Inception on the grandest scale, as he infected the entire audience from the word go.

So ye, it's by no means a concrete explanation, but I think the main gist is in there.

Main point is the film was amazing and still has me pondering what happened 24hrs on.

Really enjoyed this, very relieved it wasn't just another hyped up mindless peice of shit.

I sort of don't want it to all be Cobbs dream but the fact that his children haven't aged at all and them being in the recurring (dream) situation sort of suggests it is. Oh and also when he almost got wedged in the wall near the start escaping those dudes.

sonar wrote:Really enjoyed this, very relieved it wasn't just another hyped up mindless peice of shit.

Just went to see the movie, haven't seen a movie in the cinema in a few years because as a general rule all modern cinema is shit, unoriginal, completely dead of invention and very rarely compelling, but for the first time in years I felt like I wasn't being talked down to by the movie, it just kind of threw you in and said deal with it homophobe. - which made for a nice change of pace.

Great score by Hans Zimmer by the way, I'm sure I wasn't the only one here paying attention to the music.

As for the ending. Personally I don't think you're meant to decide on a conclusion either way, I think the ending is meant to be, like the created dream worlds, a looped maze in itself almost impossible to untangle to a definite conclusion. Either way there will be nagging doubts, which, I think, is intended so as to create a loop whereby every time you come to a conclusion you find yourself right back at square one questioning that conclusion and reaching a different one.

kaiori breathe wrote: Great score by Hans Zimmer by the way, I'm sure I wasn't the only one here paying attention to the music.

Funny you say that, my GF who never pays attention to music in anything sat through the credits because she was captivated by it.

I'm gonna have to sit through this again with all the above in mind because I keep getting back to square one. I love films that have you thinking and trying to pick holes in the plot for so long after seeing them.

And Hans Zimmer, yeah.. I've been listening to that soundtrack a lot since I saw it at the weekend. I want him to write a soundtrack to my life!

ketamine wrote:1 He could have saw their faces before (when the wife called them, but he wouldn't let her). He refused, which was a choice, not a determination of their reality.

2 Why were they in the exact same clothes and activity as all the other times they manifested themselves? Because it was still a projection.

They weren't in the same clothes.

imo

the ending just suggests that reality is still a dream.
I think Christopher Nolan knows this. He realizes that he made a cool film that isn't really reality, but what looks like it could be and it makes perfect sense all of it as well, and there's also more truth in it then you would think.

And in the end when the camera flashes out, he basically says something like reality doesn't matter, it's just a dream as well.. which it is said to be..


So imo it's just something that is loose from the whole movie. Another subject so to speak

yeah im inclined to think that the entire movie takes place in a dream, because in the scene where they're in Mombasa, they get pretty lucky with Mr. Saito jus driving up and whisking them away all lucky like that in the car

i reckon he was still in a dream
but he was allowed to see his kids faces because he'd let mal go finally

There is a reason what happened to the top isn't shown and that is to invite debate, and let you fill in some of the blanks yourself. That's the beauty of it. Deliberate discrepancies were left there so that various different readings could be made. (although the massive emotional journey Cobb goes through, forsaking his 'wife' so that he can make it to 'the real world' mean it is unlikely Cobb would be content to be fooled by still being in Limbo)


edit: I do believe that Christopher Nolan has presented a too simplistic view of the dream state though, and stealing important documents in a safe = stealing important memories from someone's subconscious is too literal for my liking, however I see that he has placed this as a mainstream action film and wouldn't want to stretch an audience too far by going too surreal.

I think some of the action scenes were a bit crap too, sometimes enemies were shooting the main characters from literally half a metre a way and missing, this happened quite a lot, and I don't think this was deliberate as an artistic statement


I'm a massive Christopher Nolan fan though and once again he's made a cracker

I suppose only he knows the Truth...

paid $17 dollars to watch it on IMAX

worth every penny

I think really that the fact that the totem looks more and more that it is gonna topple makes me think that it was reality. Just a ploy by Nolan to spark debates like these and I think certain points were left slightly less concluded so that its open to interpretation, clever stuff. i.e We never know the time line between the his wife's death and the film taking place, it may only be weeks later.