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SPOILER ALERT. Inception discussion

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theBearJew
Posts: 10951 - Karma: 15,633
Once again, this thread is about the end of the movie, if you haven't seen it, don't scroll down till you do see it. If you haven't seen it, go into the movie and right at the beginning say to yourself "what is this entire movie was true/possible"

































Okay So now that that is out of the way. What did everyone think of the end of it...

My theory is that he is still stuck in limbo and will be forever. He spins his totem to see if it is reality but when he sees his kids he just doesn't care anymore. They are wearing the same clothes they were wearing in his memory when he tried to change it so that he could see their faces. Once he finally does change that memory and is able to see their faces he accepts that as his reality whether or not it is actually reality. Also i think the fact that the totem spun for ever but still wobbled meant that he was still somewhere in the middle of reality and dreamworld.

Then again as I typed this I thought of a few reasons why he had to be in reality... That movie was wild, its crazy to think about if all of that was true or possible. My mind got fucked 5 ways sideways from that movie.
Jul 16 2010 11:49AM
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natyy
Posts: 239 - Karma: 16
Her name is Mal not molly- Mal as in "bad". This could have something to do with the plot (as in the whole thing was a dream, and Mal is just an evil character Leo made up in his subconscious). At first i thought that her name wasn't really significant, but Ellen Paige's character's name is Ariadne- a character from greek mythology who helped Theseus find his way through and out of a labyrinth by giving him a thread which he followed. Ellen's character is the mapmaker who helps everyone find their way through the maze-like dreams. Because her character's name is consistent with her character's personality, i would think the same for Mal...
But then again...why would Nolan create a movie that's entirely a dream?
DOES THE DREIDEL KEEP SPINNING???
Jul 20 2010 11:22PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 126
what kind of shit did you do in your dreams when you did it?
Jul 20 2010 11:32PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 126
get.the.fuck.out really? thats insane. did you slay chicks?
Jul 20 2010 11:43PM
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Big_Spence
Posts: 16177 - Karma: 4,346
what was your trigger?
i tried to get into lucid dreaming forever, and i was super close for a while, (like i would realize i was dreaming, but then wake up) but i kinda just got out of it because school started again.
Jul 20 2010 11:50PM
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Big_Spence
Posts: 16177 - Karma: 4,346
maybe i'll break out the old dream journal again and start setting late night alarms.
because i really want to be able to do this successfully at least a few times.
Jul 21 2010 12:00AM
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Big_Spence
Posts: 16177 - Karma: 4,346
really?
what was your method then? like how did you get started?

if it says it somewhere deeper in this thread, my bad.
Jul 21 2010 12:19AM
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Big_Spence
Posts: 16177 - Karma: 4,346
that's so fucking crazy.

i think that's the main reason why it never fully worked for me is my trigger was kinda shitty. i used to pinch myself with my right hand on the left forearm. like the dream would start, some stuff would happen, i would do the pinch, not feel it in the dreams and think "oh shit i'm dreaming" and it would all be gone and i'd wake up.

any ideas for a better cue?
Jul 21 2010 12:37AM
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J-Evs
Posts: 6387 - Karma: 1,615
ok this is gunna sound really fuckin weird but.
i used to have lucid dreams when i was little, like 5-10 years old
and i would somehow just realize i was dreaming and to wake myself up all i had to do was just picture or think of ET
Jul 21 2010 12:52AM
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MN_Nice
Posts: 3824 - Karma: 56
Just saw it and now it's definately one of my favorite movies of all time. No doubt.

I think he's still in limbo. He never awoke from the drowning van.
Jul 21 2010 12:59AM
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Thenowhereman42
Posts: 5682 - Karma: 65
Movie was pretty awesome. Wasn't as good as The Departed though.

My favorite part was when in the mountain fortress part at one point they have to really hurry so the guy jumps off the snowmobile and does an awesome action roll. Totally would have taken the same amount of time to just hit the brakes and stepped off normally.

The only thing I didn't really like about the movie is that they never explain the dream machine things at all and you just sort of have to accept that they exist and thats it.
Jul 21 2010 1:06AM
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FerrisBueller
Posts: 8280 - Karma: 5,173
Here is why i think there was still gravity in the snow level. The most plausible, of course, is that it would have been hard to shoot a scene like that with low gravity hahaha, but now for the science.

There is a time dilation that we all know of when you move down a level the amount of time lets say quadruples exponentially per each level, right? So possibly the effects on gravity are opposites from the effects on time, and as you move down a level the environment is less and less affected by the upper level environments. Such as sound from the music. They should have made it so that the music was in super slow mo because of the environment dilation. And there was low gravity possibly 3/16th gravity on the hotel level and i am assuming there was lets say 3/4th gravity if we were to quadruple the effects. On the snow level because the gravitational dilation could have gotten reduced as the time span was expanded. If that makes sense.
Jul 21 2010 1:38AM
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nickyp
Posts: 5673 - Karma: 215
I think it's probably your first reason: too expensive to have everyone flying through a snowy landscape.

But, no gravity would have made for an amazing ski scene. I wanted to see Ellen Page quad cork while shooting, in the backcountry.

Sammy would be pissed.
Jul 21 2010 1:45AM
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Chickendodo
Posts: 1426 - Karma: 33
Does anyone else think Ellen Page is super hot?  Cause I sure do.
Jul 21 2010 1:50AM
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kthnxbai.
Posts: 2847 - Karma: 179
Ive only been able to do it 3 times, but i only stayed in 1 dream for any amount of time.  the other two i just got so excited that i had realized i was in a dream that i woke up within minutes.

on another note i really enjoyed the movie.  There are really good arguments for being in reality or a dream.  For now im choosing to believe it was reality.  I wanna see the movie again though and pay attention to all these little things people are bringing up.
Jul 21 2010 2:19AM
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A_Zuck
Posts: 565 - Karma: 57
A little real-life connection:
God is the so called "architect" of life and created this world we are in. just like the architect of dreams in the movie. what if real life is all a dream and the time that we get "kicked" is 2012. I am really bad at wording things right but if you can understand what im saying its kinda creepy to think about.

movie idea:
in the beggining of the movie it was a scene with cobb and his family. after all of the steps or "levels" he goes through of dreams he ends up with his family again. which is a perfect loop. thats the only connection i made to the reference to the never-ending staricase that was brought up. maybe his dream traveling is all a never ending staricase
Jul 21 2010 2:20AM
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PappaG
Posts: 931 - Karma: 797
That lucid dreaming stuff is nuts. I've been doing yoga a lot recently, so when I go to bed, I'm able to fully concentrate on where I want my body to go. After reading some of the posts here about it, I decide to focus on dreaming last night. It's amazing how differently you look at your dreams after watching a film like Inception.

While I don't remember how I got to where I was last night (do we ever recall the start of a dream?), it certainly was a familiar place. And for a little while, I had full range to do and act as I pleased in ways that isn't physically possible. Sure enough, I starting losing some control and the dream began to crash down and unfold just as we all saw in Inception, and soon enough I woke up. Amazing stuff for sure.
Jul 21 2010 10:56AM
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Piste.Off
Posts: 11586 - Karma: 1,860
Look at my post above as to why I think Nolan did this. I've never seen a movie more thought provoking than this, its crazy.
Jul 21 2010 12:34PM
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followCam
Posts: 1907 - Karma: 446
First off, thought it was absolutely amazing. Best film i've seen in a long time.
Although shutter island and the departed were both really good. no leonardo dicaprio homo?

Anyway, i'm not sure what i think of the ending. The spinning top did wobble but it seemed to simple and straightforward almost, the way he woke on the plane and came home through the airport. Maybe because he had let go of Mal he changed his own Limbo dream to being his home with his kids. He didn't seem to care if the top fell or kept spinning anymore, he felt he was home, where he had been trying to get to for however long.
One question though.....NEED SOME ANSWER PLEASE.....when he first met the chemist and he showed him the room of all the sleepers, Cobb tried his sedative, woke up (supposedly) then tried to spin his top in the bathroom but didnt get a chance to and im not sure if he spun it after that until the end.
So was the film a dream from then on and he was still in Marrakech asleep???

I love/hate how they leave things so enigmatic.
Jul 21 2010 7:44PM
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Keenbo
Posts: 404 - Karma: 66
I had a dream last night that i was in vegas in a hotel with a bunch of friends and I wanted to leave to go home but didn't remember how I got there. I started to kinda freak out in my dream and was lucid dreaming and couldn't snap out of it... It was CRAZY! I want to keep experiencing things like that. SO FUN!
Jul 21 2010 7:47PM
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twin-tip-hero
Posts: 2896 - Karma: 277
trying to figure out that movie would be like trying to divide by zero!
Jul 21 2010 7:51PM
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00_Koda
Posts: 922 - Karma: 270
Oh My God i screamed "NOOOOOO" at the end when it doesent show the spinny thing drop or not
then when i was driving home i was like fuck am i dreaming or is this real, that movie really makes you think
Jul 21 2010 9:48PM
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Mr.LemonPie
Posts: 4100 - Karma: 1,625
But, when he is in limbo with his wife, she calls the kids and says they are real in limbo. He chooses not too look. I think he is still in limbo because every time he came out of a dream before he spun the top and watched it till it fell to make sure he was in reality. At the end he just spins the top and walks off to his kids, since he doesn't sit and watch it, I think that is Nolan's way of showing that he has given up on seeing his kids in reality again, and is okay living with the projection of them in limbo. Also, he doesn't talk to anyone else on his team? Fishy, and, where was his mother who was supposed to be taking care of the kids, she wasn't there because Cobb didn't want to see her in limbo so his subconscious didn't create her.
Jul 21 2010 10:07PM
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ButteredToast.
Posts: 6459 - Karma: 2,570
Halfway through that movie I couldn't stop thinking...

Click for larger image
Jul 22 2010 1:31AM
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Dhane
Posts: 3866 - Karma: 1,722
i think its completely ok to not call a "no homo" when referring to Leo.
Jul 22 2010 1:58AM
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FUUUCK
Posts: 18426 - Karma: 4,889
the last thing that was shown before they wake up on the plane is the gun. he gets shot/shoots himself and goes further into limbo, which is why the totem doesn't fall.
Jul 22 2010 2:42AM
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doobiebrotha
Posts: 760 - Karma: 8
In my opinion it was pretty clear that the totem starts to wobble and from there i'm guessing it would fall.. I just think they left it how they did to make people wonder, which i think is great!
Jul 22 2010 2:58AM
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bootleg_BEN
Posts: 2499 - Karma: 44
I did the same thing on the way home. Actually it lasted all night, i was hot and my heart kept beating fast it was weird.
Jul 22 2010 3:20AM
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Dhane
Posts: 3866 - Karma: 1,722
even if the totem does fall its irrelevant. it is his dead wifes, not his
Jul 22 2010 9:51AM
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Tasche
Posts: 5422 - Karma: 101
Indeed, also it falls several times throughout the film, so it falling only indicated that it falls when he believes it is reality.
Jul 22 2010 10:10AM
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A_Zuck
Posts: 565 - Karma: 57

who else was checking out the white and black splices that the bad guys were wearing in the snow scene

Jul 22 2010 2:24PM
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bighit
Posts: 1178 - Karma: 33
ya man this bothered me a lot too. it would seem like something as small as this would not effect the entire movie but he was not able to spin the top and the sedative he was using was very powerful (im not sure if it was the one they use later on but if it is wouldn't he of just fallen into limbo after being killed by mal)
Jul 22 2010 2:33PM
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-ROY-
Posts: 3633 - Karma: 1,503
hahah thats good..

but yea twas a grand movie. kinda confusing but very cool.
Jul 22 2010 2:34PM
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Hufflepuff
Posts: 165 - Karma: 10

The thing that I would like to know is how long it has been since Mel died. If we knew this peice of information we could have a much better of idea of weither or not the movie was all part of Cobbs dream or reality. For instance if she died 4 years ago Cobbs children would be much older. Therefore proving that he is still dreaming becase in the end his kids have not grown older. Unfortunantly I have to agree that all of it was Cobbs dream. Based on Cobbs discussions with his friends and Father you could get a sense that he has been struggling with his wifes death for quite some time. Even if he had been gone for only 1 year his children would still have grown significantly.

 Those are just my thoughts on this epic movie.

Jul 22 2010 3:14PM
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ButteredToast.
Posts: 6459 - Karma: 2,570
glad SOMEONE got it.

as soon as a made the connection i lol'd for a long time
Jul 22 2010 10:23PM
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FUUUCK
Posts: 18426 - Karma: 4,889
how did they get out of limbo? they didn't! the last thing you see before they wake up is Saito putting his hand on the gun.
Jul 22 2010 10:51PM
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captainEMERICA
Posts: 1386 - Karma: 122
this, this is exactly what i think happened
Jul 23 2010 12:21AM
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Charlie_Kelly
Posts: 11955 - Karma: 12,302
Im just trying to lucid dream. i sometimes would realize im dreaming in my dreams but couldnt wake up and didnt have control of anything still. It was scary because i knew i was dreaming but still couldnt do anything about it.
Jul 23 2010 12:24AM
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Charlie_Kelly
Posts: 11955 - Karma: 12,302
Im just trying to lucid dream. i sometimes would realize im dreaming in my dreams but couldnt wake up and didnt have control of anything still. It was scary because i knew i was dreaming but still couldnt do anything about it.
Jul 23 2010 12:24AM
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kthnxbai.
Posts: 2847 - Karma: 179
maybe it wasnt entirely lucid then, because the definition and ideal state is full comprehension, and understanding.  Even rational or sane.  Maybe you just haven't reached that point yet.
Jul 23 2010 12:29AM
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MAPLE_SYRUP
Posts: 1910 - Karma: 68
I want to shoot a machine gun whilst riding switch
Jul 23 2010 12:52AM
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bootleg_BEN
Posts: 2499 - Karma: 44
I used to lucid dream when i was younger, what would happen is usually near the morning i would kinda wake up but stay in my dream and then i could start to control things, like where i went what things looked like, and what i did, it was really fun, and then soon enough i something weird would start happening and it would start getting out of my control(usually i would figure out i could fly then i started losing control and i would hit things or fall out of the air and be awake) I think that would be defined as lucid dreaming since i had control of my dream. Now i never even remember my dreams, its just asleep then awake.
Jul 23 2010 12:54AM
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TotallyTrevor
Posts: 4379 - Karma: 26,365
i feel like i missed something from this movie because i was really disappointed. my expectations were so high when i went in, and then at the end i thought to myself "that's it? he's either asleep or awake, big deal"

i read through a LOT of this thread and almost everything everyone has said is something i've considered and i still feel the same. the entire movie i was expecting some HUGE twist (like Shutter Island) that gives you 2 different ways to look back at the movie, but instead it's just kind of like, okay that might have been a dream and it might not have been.

I didn't think it was a bad movie, it just left me disappointed. maybe it was the hype, or maybe it just wasn't my movie i don't know...
Jul 23 2010 2:31AM
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wisconsinsteeze
Posts: 1170 - Karma: 749
it was a good movie fosure, and i have to say that i think he's back in the real world... because the top is wobbling at the end, and in the dream when he spun it earlier in the movie it didnt wobble at all, if i remember correctly....and it showed him waking up from the other stages of the dreams.
just my thoughts.
Jul 23 2010 2:39AM
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DrZoidberg
Posts: 5676 - Karma: 4,297
Speaking of this movie I had a weird dream last night. I was in my highschool, and my 12th grade math teacher bought me into some sort of conference room, which doesn't exist in the building in real life. She sat down, opened up a folder and showed me that I got a D on the calculus final, and asked me if I cheated becuase some other kid got the same grade with the same mistakes. Since in real life I actually got an A on the final and I don't suck at calculus I was kinda surprised. I specifically remember her saying their was no proof I cheated, but there wasn't any showing that I didn't. I told her several times in the dream that I actually got an A, which is true in real life, and made her check a bunch of times. At this point I started to wake up a bit, because I knew I didn't get a D and yet the papers before me said I did. She said I'd have to take the test again tomorrow, so I got a book since it was the last day of school and I'd already handed mine in. I woke up after I exited the building, the doors I left through were real. The conference room was where a stairwell should have been. I also walked through a hallway and was in my classroom, which were in their proper places.

It was weird because when presented with false information I knew it was false, and submitted real information in the dream. Usually you go along with false things, like why I wasn't suspicious of the conference room that doesn't really exist in that school or the fact that it was the last day of school again. Eventually I was convinced I got a D, I think, because that's why I took the math book to study from.
Jul 23 2010 11:30AM
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Abc567def
Posts: 8756 - Karma: 801
but how would their appearances/clothes not have changed in the time period that he was away and what are the chances that they were wearing the exact same clothes playing in the exact same way as when he left the first time?
Jul 23 2010 11:56AM
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PappaG
Posts: 931 - Karma: 797
So I've had lucid dreams almost every night this week. Guess you could say that Inception opened my eyes to the possibility. So last night I had dreamt that I was killing North Korean zombies with a butcher knife, although they didn't look like your typical zombies ... more human-like. Fucking awesome dream and I actually had control in this one unlike others that I've had recently. Probably had close to 100 kills and the effects was like out of Kill Bill.
Jul 24 2010 12:06PM
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james44
Posts: 3323 - Karma: 578
i was dissapointed by the movie sorta.. kinda saw the end coming the whole time but that said i did really like it


one thing no one in this thread had pointed out is that in the casino where he meets the forger the first time the forger loses all his money then goes and cashes out 2 big stacks and leo says somthing about the forgers spelling. why can the guy just make chips out of thin air in reality? because of this and a few of the reasons u guys have already pointed out i think he was in limbo the entire time and mol escaped when she killed herself
Jul 24 2010 1:03PM
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COskier
Posts: 1066 - Karma: 131
Just saw this movie and loved it, but can anyone explain what were apparently the two main plot holes to me? Even If they aren't explained (outside of saying it was all a dream) I still liked it, just hoping I missed something.

1. This one was mentioned but never a good answer: Why was there gravity in the mountains?
2. Why didn't the dream manager guy get kicked when the van hit the barrier? I understand the rest didn't because they were still dreaming.
3. Why didn't they all get kicked completely when they were back in the first dream and hit the water? They just chilled there for a while.
Jul 25 2010 1:47AM
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COskier
Posts: 1066 - Karma: 131
I mean 3.
Jul 25 2010 1:48AM
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Been.stick
Posts: 436 - Karma: 491
this movie is definitly on my top 10 worst films ever watched and to never watch again, along with the village and some other shit movies.
Jul 25 2010 1:51AM
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