They said something about training his mind to combat intrusion while he was dreaming, and the armed dude's were that defense.
After reading 3-4 posts in the other movie thread that raved about this film, I stopped reading that thread and completely avoided this one for fear that I would build too high expectations for it and be disappointed. We went to see it yesterday afternoon and all I can say is, Wow. Easily the best film I've seen in a long, long time. Plot, script, acting, pacing...it was simply awesome. Fastest 2.5 hours of my summer. I'll definitely be buying the blu-ray on its release date. Only problem we had was, even arriving half an hour before the start time, the best seats we could find together was in the 4th row down front (and two hipster doofi who thought it would be cool to sit on the floor in the aisle next to our row and make farting sounds, but their movie-going experience was very short-lived.)
Ok just saw it yesterday and thought it was amazing. Question I haven't seen brought but I might just be remembering the movie wrong. If I remember correctly Mal locks the top away when her and cobb are in limbo the first. As she was doing this I think Cobb iin a voice over says she was giving up on reality or throwing it away or something. Then cobb opens the safe and takes it back. Does anyone think it matters that the top wasn't orginally cobbs. They make a big deal of letting known else know how the thing you use to tell reality from a dream, so mal would know how cobbs top works
The point of that was that it was supposed to be able to behave a certain way in reality, but different in the dream. You don't let someone else touch your totem because they may switch it, or alter it, to make you think you're dreaming when you're not, or vice verse. Once Mal died, it didn't matter that it wasn't originally his. He knew how it behaved in each place, and didn't let anyone else mess with it, given a choice. Mal still knowing how it works doesn't matter, because she's not Mal. She's his projection of Mal. She's his own subconscious.
As far as the earlier posts about limbo, seeing it a second time helped me understand what it was quite a bit. When they first arrive in that empty building in Fischer's dream and find out about the sedatives, etc., there are a couple lines that explain it pretty well that I just didn't quite catch the first time. Basically, limbo is a shared persistent state of pure unconscious, or pure "unconstructed dreamspace" as they said in the film. They said that whatever is down there is whatever is left over from anyone that has been there before, aka Mal and Cobb. That is why when he goes back with Ariadne, all the stuff the he and Mal constructed before are still there. If just Ariadne had gone down to limbo, she still would have seen all the same stuff. Also, what I finally am understanding about the top and it being locked away in limbo comes from Cobb saying that she "locked away a truth that she no longer knew or believed". That truth being that they were dreaming, meaning that she fully accepted limbo as her reality. To be able to leave Cobb realized they had to kill themselves, and to do that he had to get Mal to question that reality again. To do that he had to spin the top so that it would spin continuously, inadvertently performing inception on Mal. This planted the idea in her that no matter what level she was in, reality or dream, she would never believe it was real. Thus she went nuts and jumped. I also paid attention to the kids at the very end, they were definitely dressed differently and were obviously a bit older than they had been every other time we saw them.
This is slightly incorrect. I just saw it again as well. You're right about the dream space but the actual line is that whats down there is anything that was left by a person who'd been there before that you are currently sharing the dream space with. So lets say Cobb wasn't at all in the dream with them, it would be a construct of whatever your mind made it. The only place where this falters is that Saito was not present in Cobb's dreamscape. He was in his own. How the fuck did that happen since he was sharing the dream space with Cobb? Some rules are just not universally applied.
I think it's because Saito got there first. Since Cobb's populated limbo wasn't there yet (as Cobb wasn't) Saito constructed his own dreamscape. Cobb's joined when he hopped into limbo to create what we saw.
These are my main problems with the movie. I've got a feeling I'm missing something big. At the ultimate level they're still sharing dreams in someone's mind. My interpretation from the first couple of examples is that there is an architect (eg. carpet guy or Ariadne), and a dreamer (eg. Saito or Cobb). If this is right, then Fischer is the dreamer (his militarised sub-conscious trying to reject intruders). This happens all three levels down, so I assume he's the dreamer each time. The people left behind are there to guard the bodies and provide the kick. Fine. He dies first again on the 3rd ice level, so must be the dreamer again. So why is Cobb in charge of what's going on, since he and Ariadne died last? I have trouble with the explanation provided earlier in the thread from the diagram, that the dream layers are all hosted by someone (ie. it's quite scientific), but at the ultimate level, limbo, we're all connected and all sharing one giant consciousness. To me that's a little hokey and doesn't mesh with the scientific way it's presented throughout the rest of the movie. SOMEONE has to host the next level of the dream, and Fischer got there first, so he has to be hosting. I don't know if the numbers work out, but the age difference between Saito and Cobb could be the minute(s?) they spent outside while he had died. But 50 years to a minute or two is a big difference between two levels (not between reality and level 4) and doesn't correlate with what you assume happened with Mal and Cobb. Another question: how does the Architect concept actually work? The first part of the movie makes sense: the architect comes into the dream and provides the house which everyone parties in. The first architect fucked up and got polyester carpet instead of wool. Ariadne hosted Cobb and bent things all over the place. Ariadne does a bunch of research and creates layers of mazes. Awesome. Except that in the original plan she wasn't supposed to actually come on the mission, so how was the party house supposed to be created? The impression I got was the architect was the host (eg. the first architect saying it was his dream, not Saitos).
You're a little off on your understanding of how it works. The architect is the "level designer", if you will, of the dreams. They design the dreams in reality ahead of time (all the models and shit that Ariadne built) and then they teach them to the dreamers. In the final job Ariadne was never a dreamer. The first level, the Indian dude who's name I can't remember (The Chemist) was the dreamer, who dreamed the city area. The second Level down, Arthur (Joseph Gorden-Smith's character) was the dreamer and he dreamed up the entire Hotel area. Third level down, Eames was the dreamer and he dreamed the snow fortress. Fischer was the main target so at each level, he populated the dream with projections of his subconscious. You'll notice that at each level the dreamer can't go any deeper.
I think that the Cobb was in reality until they met Yusuf and he went under sedation in the chemists basement. From that point on it was all a dream. A dream completely run by Cobb, all the characters, all the actions, everything. I don't think anyone else was in the dream but him and he was controlling everything.
See, I had considered that, especially since he wasn't able to spin his top right after he supposedly woke up in Yusef's basement. My problem with that though is that it basically nothing that happened after that meant anything or mattered at all. Thats why any movie or tv show that ends like that, "oh, it was all just a dream", is complete bullshit because it completely invalidates everything that has happened up to that point. I just don't think that Christopher Nolan would do that with his movie.
Shit, why do we have to pick apart great movies? This is a point I hadn't thought about that causes a serious flaw in the internal logic of the movie. And I want to ignore it, because I don't have an answer, and it's probably right. Look, everyone. I loved this movie. It may have holes for the nitpickers. It may be beyond the intellectual grasp of the general public. It may be very controversial in how people interpreted it. Why do you think it was number one for the last two weeks (and I'm betting this one as well)? It's engaging, well written, well acted, and best of all, original. That's good for me. My initial reaction was "this will win best picture". I will put up money to people I know to back that up.
There are about a dozen major plot holes, many of them mentioned in this topic. But that's true of all of Nolan's films, and I still think 3 out of 5 of them are all-time greats, with Inception being the best. However, simply choosing to ignore it is a strange solution; why not acknowledge it, but realize that the movie does so many other things amazingly that it's still excellent for what it attempts to be? Now that's not a good argument. Do you really want to go through all the awful garbage that has been number 1 at the box office the last few years? A shame I don't know you, then. I would take that bet in a hearbeat, just like I bet against Avatar winning Best Picture last year. While that belief is purely based upon economic/political considerations, I'm not even sure the movie deserves to win Best Picture. Besides the fact that it's very early, let's acknowledge Inception for what it is; a damn near perfect summer blockbuster action movie. Tremendous pure entertainment, with little artistic pretense. Its only "complexity" comes from the array of small details quickly rushed through as well as its inconsistencies/plot holes. I think about it the same way I do a really good Jet Li kung fu film.
I would take that bet also. I can see this movie winning "best original screenplay" but not best picture. This is still the time of summer blockbusters the movies that usually win best picture are released after summer.
Let me amend my statement to say that, of the movies out so far this year, this one tops my short list. I wouldn't be surprised to see it win. There's 5 months left, and I'd like to see someone top the complexity of the story and the box office gross at the same time.
I just saw this movie and absoultely loved it. Also, completely understand the point about not picking apart the movie, but as many of my previously considered "plot holes" were explained pretty well by the folks here, I thought I'd throw out the ones that I have left: 1. Why was going into limbo considered so terrible, if all you had to do to get out of it was kill yourself? In the first level, everyone seemed pretty panicked when they learned that killing yourself would just thrust you into limbo, but if all you had to do was just kill yourself again, why would they care? There was the idea of failing in the mission, but the forger had said that he didn't care anymore and would have committed suicide had Leo not told him about limbo. 2. I second the previous poster on the fact that the forger created a huge gun in the first level of the dream, but no one did that later. Would have been useful. Also, a poster earlier mentioned that the levels of the dreamers were first, chemist; second, Arthur; and third Eames. The third dreamer, however, was Fischer. That's why a normal inception is so difficult, it's the getting down deep enough into the subconscious to plant the seed without the dreamer knowing. With Mal, Leo was already deep enough into her subconscious, he just had to find her "safe". Think of how much easier the job would have been if they could have started at the snow fort level, without the armed guards (full disclosure: I didn't figure this out on my own, it was explained in the interview with Dileep Rao posted earlier).** I think the top won't just tell you if you were in someone else's dream, I think the entire point was that you kept it with you and made it a part of your subconscious to the point that it HAD to follow certain principles. So it becomes almost a piece of true reality that you keep with you. You always have to keep it with you and with only you touching it, because it has become a part of your conscious and subconscious. Thus, it will always tell true whether or not you are dreaming or awake. Just my two cents, which may or may not be accurate. **EDIT: That is what Dileep Rao said, but I think the explanation here makes more sense as Leo specifically asks if Eames changed anything in her original design, which led to the discovery of the air duct short cut. *Sigh* now I'm just confused again...
I was talking to a friend, and told him "that cocky British dude" really impressed me in Inception with his performance, the best of the entire cast. He informed me that Tom Hardy is considered one of the best actors around today, with terrific performances in Bronson, RocknRolla, and Layer Cake. (None of which I have watched yet) Damn me if that was common knowledge for everyone else here, but I would really like to see that guy as the lead in a major feature.