There's nothing to consider in the "ideas" you presented because they do not address one simple fact. In the end, Cobb's kids did not age, they were wearing the same clothes from his previous memory, and they were playing in precisely, frame for frame, the same position. Earlier in the movie, Cobb's children spoke in voices that were older than those of the children in the end of the movie. Those are events that happened in the movie that everyone can agree upon. There is no room for interpretation. There is no ambiguity. Those two things happened. That makes them facts about the movie. Rational, intelligent people form conclusions based on facts, not opinions or emotions. There's nothing to argue or disagree about. It's like arguing about whether or not the holocaust occurred. What I described above is what happened in the movie. It is not an argument. It is what happened. They are facts about the movie.
Only one of those two statements is an undeniable fact. This is a FACT. There is nothing that can refute this. They were wearing the same clothes and in the same position. However, this is NOT undeniable evidence that Cobb is in a dream. This could also be a stylistic choice by Christopher Nolan to replay the same frames over and over again in order to facilitate the catharsis that Cobb and the audience are supposed to feel when we finally see the children's faces. I know you're going to call me an idiot for arguing this, but it is an INTERPRETATION of what we are seeing on screen. This is NOT a fact. This is an interpretation. I do not see how you can say definitively that his children were significantly older from a simple telephone conversation. If his son's voice had broken yet or if his daughter sounded like she had boobs (you can totally tell) then I would agree with you. Otherwise, we have not even a general idea of how much time has passed between Mol's death and Cobb returning home. So there is ambiguity there. The only fact of that sentence is that Cobb spoke to his kids on the phone. That's it. The mere fact that we're having this argument tells me (and everyone else) that there WAS ambiguity to the end of the film, and that everything is not as cut and dry in either direction as you are making it out to be. Finally, stop reiterating what intelligent people do, we read it the first three times.
Jesus Christ, dude, I can't believe anyone can get so worked up about being 'right' about the intentionally ambiguous end to an intentionally ambiguous movie. How about this: Fact: They never say how the dream machine works. They just plug in some fancy cords and they're all dreaming together. Fact: Even in Limbo, in the city Mal and Cobb created, it wasn't exactly like reality. Mal's childhood home was in the middle of a body of water. Same with their apartment building. Even in Cobb's memory dreams, there was a giant fucking elevator with a steel door that slid open and shut. At no point in any dream did anyone create something that was exactly like it was in the real world (with the exception of Ariadne creating the bridge she walked across). Fact: At the beginning, Saito knows he is dreaming because the feel of the carpet is slightly off. This shows how difficult it is for the mind to get every single detail exactly right. Fact: Cobb was in that airplane for a grand total of about 15 conscious minutes before they went into the dream state. Was that enough for him to completely and flawlessly recreate it from memory in his 'dream?' Fact: People aren't ignoring the facts that you're throwing in their faces, they're interpreting them differently. You see the kids wearing the same thing and having the same pose as some kind of incontrovertible proof that he is dreaming. At the same time, others see the fact that he wasn't wearing his wedding ring as incontrovertible proof that he wasn't dreaming. You interpret him not wearing the ring differently (a sign that he is at peace with Mal's death). They interpret the kids wearing the same clothes and posing similarly differently (an artistic decision by the director to give the scene slightly more weight). So question: Why is it that when YOU twist facts to fit your hypothesis, it is okay, but when others twist facts to fit their hypothesis, it makes them idiots...?
You're right. The amount of time that passed is never known. That lends itself to the ambiguity camp. I distinctly remember, though I could be wrong, that the kid's voices sounded older in the phone call than they were in the memories. Not "I have tits or my balls dropped" deeper, but the difference between a 5/6 year old child and a 7/8 year old child. I'm pretty fucking sure, but like I said, I might be wrong. You're also correct that there is no chance the ending is a coincidence. The are two explanations. The first is that Christopher Nolan is a bad storyteller and decides to give the audience an emotionally powerful ending that defies the rules of reality and ignores the causal groundwork laid out for the entire film. The second is that Nolan is an awesome storyteller who has created a brilliant story that creates a dichotomy in the audience similar to the dichotomy in Cobb's mind. Just like Cobb, the audience wants to believe the happy ending, and there are several ambiguous things to point to as evidence for either side. But, just like the totem spinning for Mal, there is one, niggling fact: a scene, that, frame-for-frame, is identical to Cobb's memory after he hasn't seen his children for an extended period of time. A scene that, for the happy explanation to work, must break the rules of reality. No one has been able to offer any explanation other than "Well, Nolan wanted the happy ending!" WRONG. YOU wanted the happy ending, not Nolan. And you're willing to ignore that fact to get there, especially with all the other ambiguous facts Nolan cleverly inserted throughout the film. Which is what makes it awesome. Given his track record and what he's done with the rest of Inception, I give Nolan the benefit of the doubt and believe the second.
See, you keep going back to the whole "YOU WERE WRONG! WRONG!!!" argument, but you failed to answer my question. You twisted an incontrovertible fact to fit your little scenario. Why is it that you're allowed to do that but no one else is? Answer: We disagree, and thus we are inherently wrong. I didn't say "Nolan wanted the happy ending." No one has. We've said things like "Nolan wanted an ambiguous ending," which he did. That also reminds me: how the fuck do you know exactly what Nolan was thinking when filming that ending? Another thing: It wasn't frame-for-frame identical to Cobb's memory. In Cobb's memory, Mal's father isn't there. How could it possibly be the same? Mal's father takes Cobb back home. Cobb enters from a different angle than he does in the dream. He walks towards the kids from a different angle. He stops at the table to spin the top (a table he doesn't walk by in his memory). Finally, in Cobb's memory, the kids are already playing in the grass and they're called away. At the end, the kids aren't already there. They both run into the scene, then start playing, before turning around. Finally, have you ever noticed how a phone distorts a voice? Little kids can sound older on the phone. Shit, when I was 12, people said I sounded like my dad. To continue to cite that as some sort of evidence is just fucking silly and way, way over analyzing things to try to justify your (incredibly strange) NEED to be right about this. Again, I agree that I think he was dreaming. However, what I find absolutely fascinating is your complete and total inability to accept anyone else's argument as anything other than them being a complete idiot. The irony is that, in doing so, you're actually doing the exact same things you're accusing them of (contorting facts to fit what they want to think, refusing to look at other evidence, and over analyzing). In fact, you keep bitching that no one has offered you any evidence, while ignoring the fact that you failed to answer my question (and did the same thing you're accusing everyone else of doing). Besides that, how many times have you seen the movie? How do you know it was a frame-for-frame copy of Cobb's memory? Have you memorized it? I recall the scene being slightly different than Cobb's memory. Similar, yes, but still not the exact same. Its funny to me because you have this thought of the ending so concrete in your mind that it is going to completely alter the way you view the film from now on. You'll watch it attempting to justify your beliefs about the film, and you'll see it through that haze. The rest of us, who still feel the ending is debatable, will simply enjoy the movie and we won't be caught up looking for minor details that prove our theory of the movie, and thus validate our internet argument.
Can someone explain to me why the Jap guy was so much older than Leo at the beginning/end? I thought they were both in limbo and should age the same. This is probably simple and I missed something, but I couldn't put it together and was thinking about it at work.
I think it is because he was lost in Limbo for a few minutes longer than Leo's character. A few minutes in Limbo = years and years. Also, it could be a perception thing. If it took Cobb a long time to find Saito, Saito would perceive himself aging, because he lacks the dream experience (and Limbo experience) Cobb has. Cobb, meanwhile, has experience with Limbo, so even if he is in there a long time, he still knows he is in Limbo, and he can perceive himself as younger. Those are my only two explanations, but this is something else that might be up to interpretation.
And yet... I'm going to go ahead and say that you being so sure about things the first time around isn't really the most convincing argument. You can't tell that the old man is clearly Watanabe in old-face, yet you can distinguish age by a few years on young children who's voice would have changed a minuscule amount? Not to mention it was over a phone. Dude, you don't get it. There's absolutely no reason to argue with you because there is a 0% chance you will change your mind. There is also a 0% chance you will not refer to somebody as a moron for not understanding what you're trying to say. The thing is, we DO understand your points, but at the same time everything you're saying can be viewed in a completely different manner. Go ahead, think that Cobb's in a dream. That's fine. When you say "There is no other explanation except that he is in a dream, and anything else is incorrect," you're wrong.
Isn't the professor (either his dad or father-in-law) there with him? That's definitely different than his memory.
But in his memory, doesn't he still look away from his kids at the plane ticket? So someone had to have handed him it, right? And isn't that the reason he can't see his kids faces? I could be wrong though.
Someone did, but it wasn't the father-in-law. Not sure who it was, exactly (don't recall), but it was someone. That guy wasn't there when he returned, but the father-in-law was. I thought someone else was there when Cobb returned, too; a maid or nanny some such shit.
I wrote a shorter review here. I saw the movie with a friend who found it oftentimes boring and "nothing special". I thought it was terrific and exciting as hell. A masterpiece. Usually, I'm checking my watch all the time at the theater, even for a good film. During the 150 minute run time of Inception, I didn't even check it once. It was THAT riveting. However, there were two things the both us readily agreed upon; 1. When I told him after the movie that people were describing Inception as "deep" and "complicated", we both immediately burst out laughing. Of all the great and even unique things this film did, the overarching story was very simple and straightforward. I don't even consider this a weakness; just a label that was incorrectly attached to it. However, it made me concerned; if "Inception" is complicated and difficult to understand for the average movie-goer, then is this the end of truly thoughtful and interesting mainstream Hollywood films? 2. The film only had a single weakness in my eyes, but it was significant. The ending. It was supposed to be ambiguous, and open to interpretation. Problem is, with all the rules that Nolan set forth earlier in the film, and everything we've seen, there is only a single possibility. Namely, that Cobb is back in the real world. To see this, assume the opposite. Namely, that Cobb is still dreaming. In that case, one of the following two statements must be true; (1)- Mal was correct all along about them still being in a dream state when she killed herself (2)- Cobb couldn't get back out with the old Saito near the end. (1) is completely absurd. It means that -The spinning top, the only objective indicator that exists in Cobb's universe, is a liar, as it falls down when they get back from limbo. Also, it means that the big reveal that Cobb used inception on Mal is fake and/or irrelevant. It also makes the entire film and their mission pointless. We can agree that this would be too much, no? As for (2), this would mean that Cobb somehow managed to completely re-architect the ENTIRE real world in his head. It ALSO means that his projections of the other members of his team were perfect, and that Saito (who traveled to limbo WITH him) is not attacked by them. The latter violates the rules set forth in the beginning, and the former is a huge stretch of the imagination, since it took Cobb AND Mal roughly 50 years to architect a far more modest dream scape. Thus, Cobb can't still be dreaming at the end, unless we break a bunch of already-established rules. Thus, the only conclusion is that the top falls at the end. That being said, as a pure action movie, it is absolutely phenomenal. Strongly recommended.
Ok. I just came back from seeing it. Again, say what you want about KIMaster, the dude has it spot on. There is one glaring plot flaw that no one has pointed out: If you're in zero G, how is it possible that the elevator falls?
This is why I need to watch it again. Makes so much more sense now. Have to say that I loved seeing jiu-jitsu in the no grav fight scene. Fucking awesome Edit to add this:
I was under the impression that Saito forgot he was in Limbo. I might be wrong, but I thought they said you would only age in Limbo if you didn't know you were there. I do have a couple small questions. When Ellen Page jumped off the building to get out of Limbo, was she killing herself or "improvising" a kick? It would make sense that she was willing to die since she knew she was Limbo, but wouldn't that have made her wake up in the real world? Also, do they ever offer an explanation as to why all the kicks had to line up (other than "because Christopher Nolan said so")?
The kick is the sense of falling you get in a dream that wakes you, right? So whenever they had a kick, it woke them to the next level up. Normally dying would do this as well, but the sedative was too strong, in order to go three levels down (except, apparently, in limbo). So she falls in limbo, waking her to the third level, where the structure collapses, waking them all to the second level. The elevator in the second level isn't pushed down by the c4, it's freed from the cable and emergency brakes, so that when the van hits the water in the first level and gravity is restored, the elevator plummets and they wake to the first level. Since they swam away from the van in the first level, the water didn't wake them to reality, but at only one level down they only had to deal with a short time dilation before the sedative wore off. I see the killing yourself in limbo thing a bit like handcuffs. Click click click deeper and deeper, until it's through, effectively resetting itself.
I just got back from seeing it a second time and I also have to agree that Cobb was back in reality based on the rules they set forth in the beginning. It would be horrible storytelling to spend an entire movie explaining how something works and then saying "no, wait, we were lying to you." The scene at the end with Cobb's kids isn't exactly the same as his memory. Very similar, yes, but like someone else said, that was most likely a stylistic choice. I also have to agree that it was in no way complicated to follow at all. I guess it was deeper and more complicated than the average summer blockbuster, but it was pretty easy to follow. And I never really felt that it was ambiguous as they tried to make it. The guy who hands him the ticket is just a random guy we only see twice (both times when Cobb is remembering that moment). And he isn't there in the last scene.
The kick effects all three dreamscapes simultaneously; if it happens in the first level (van falling down into the water), it's felt on both the second level (hotel), and the very bottom, third level. (Ice fortress) The reasoning is that if you are sleeping and someone tips you over, you will still experience the sensation of falling inside of the dream. Thinking about the movie further, there were two things that I wasn't sure about; 1. Cobb plants inception in Mal when they are in limbo, right? How exactly does he do this? Robert is a relatively inexperienced subject, and yet, it takes him three whole levels, a new, powerful sedative, and a better architect (Ariadne) than himself to do it. So how does he manage to do it with Mal, whose extraction abilities are said to rival Cobb's own? Keep in mind that Cobb, Arthur, and Nash failed to even perform extraction on Saito in their initiation run at the beginning. 2. This might be my fault in not paying close enough attention, but how does Robert go back to life on the third level after being killed in limbo? When Mal and Cobb kill themselves on the train tracks, they go back to the real world. (No one seems to be arguing that they were still in a dream then) And even if you think Saito and Cobb are still dreaming at the end after killing themselves in limbo near the end, that would still be level one, right? So how does Robert make it back to level three when he dies there?