Inception is the new cool thing, everywhere you look there is talk about Inception. There is so much talk on every channel that I went to see it as soon as I could so I wouldn’t be spoiled by people online. If you have yet to learn about Inception read our Inception spoiler-free guide.
If you have yet to see the movie and don’t want to be spoiled do not keep reading the rest of this entry. You have been warned.
Inception had my mind struggling to understand the dream in a dream in a dream and how they wake up with a kick and not to forget 5 minutes sleep equals one hour in dream world. Meanwhile while we learn about Cobb and Mal, that they have been living in a dream world an grew old together how did they do that? Their bodies had to be fed and kept alive. In Mombasa when Cobb goes looking for the Chemist we see how people live in the dream world only but they mention they come there for 3 to 4 hours a day, they are not 24/7 hooked up.
The movies starts with Cobb washing ashore and being taken by guards to an old man, later on we learn that it happens in the dream world or more specifically, in Limbo.
This infographic clearly shows each dream, whose dream they are and the kicks. During the movie we learn about the totems and why they have one. In the end we see Cobb spin the spinner and it keeps spinning. We know that Cobb is the only one who knows how long the spinner will spin and that in a dream he can make it spin endlessly. So we are left to doubt if he really got back to his kids in real life or if the whole thing was actually a dream from which he never woke up.
I’m planning on watching this movie again and try see if I can make more sense out of it. Last time a movie got me like this was with “Donnie Darko”. Inception will definitely get a cult status.
Cobb did not pick up Yusuf (The Chemist) in India? I don’t know where you got that from. They definitely picked him up in Mombasa, Kenya. If you didn’t know, there is a significant Sub-continental population in Eastern Africa. Do not assume because he looks the way he looks that they somehow left Africa for the sub-continent to get him.
I must have mistaken, I thought I read Mumbai in the subtitles of the movies. I fixed it, thanks for pointing it out.
Interesting infographic trying to explain it all. I’m still not sure it all works.
Better explanation: none of us saw Inception. It was all a dream.
Still, it was a pretty awesome dream.
Rosalind
Girls Are Geeks
I watched it a second time and liked it even more… Its definitely like donnie darko, the more you watch it, the more you catch….
I think I’m the only person who hasn’t seen this! I chose The Last Airbender over it – bad decision!
Really loved the movie. Glad DiCaprio is not that guy from Titanic anymore. Guess gonna watch it this weekend second time.
’bout Donnie darko, i really hated it. maybe i the only one who didn’t get it at all
Daria, Donnie Darko is definitely a movie which gets better the more you watch it but maybe that was just me.
Donnie Darko was real good, there where even essays online about what exactly happens in the movie and meanings of certain things in it.
I liked Jake Gyllenhaal’s acting there more then his recent movies. He has become very “hollywood” like Tom Cruise, but that is just me. And then DiCaprio has become a more evolved actor since Titanic.
In Mombasa when Cobb goes looking for the Chemist we see how people live in the dream world only but they mention they come there for 3 to 4 hours a day, they are not 24/7 hooked up.
5 minutes = 1 hour in the first dream. If I’m not mistaken, they say in the movie that it’s compartmentalized, but I’m not sure what that means in terms of time. They explain at one point of the movie that by the time they get to the third level of dream they’ll have 10 years there. And that’s just the third layer, when you’re stuck in limbo you can be stuck there for decades and decades and in real life only hours have passed.
Basically, Cobb and Mal went into a dream state for hours (so they didn’t need to be fed, you don’t starve in a matter of hours) but they were so deep down in their subconscious (limbo) that a matter of hours translated into decades.
This goes for the old people in Yusaf’s basement. Though they may only come down for 3 to 4 hours a week and though they don’t go into limbo, they’re so far down (2nd level I’m guessing) that it seems like days to them, maybe even weeks.
Now, time for my questions. I have two theories about the endings, and I’d like to present them: Do you believe that Cobb died in limbo from the stab wounds acquired by Mal and simply reentered limbo- finding Saito an old man because so much time at their level had passed? And from this, at the very end when the audience discovers that it’s a dream, do you think that this is Cobb’s creation in limbo, or rather was Mal telling the truth, that reality is the dream?
James – they explain time as becoming exponentially longer with each layer you enter.
The time equivalent for the first layer is 1:12, roughly 5 min = 1 hr. Thus 5 minutes in the real world is 1 hour in dream.
The 2nd layers time has the same equivalent 1:12, thus 5 minutes in the 1st layer equates to 1 hr in the 2nd layer. This being the 2nd layer, the time effect is multiplied, 1:144, 5 minutes real time= 12 hours in 2nd layer
3rd layer – time equivalent = 1:1728
5 minutes in real time = 144 hrs (6 days) in 3rd layer
4th layer – time equivalent = 1:20736
5 minutes real time = 1728 hrs (72 days) in 4th layer
If they were not able to escape from limbo they would have needed to stay there until woken up at the end of a 4 hour trip. This would have equalled 10 years in that layer.
Danja you’re on the right track – but Yusuf’s advanced chemical to allow them to be dormant at each level to enable the Inception was supposed to be 20X normal brain activity, not the ‘standard 12x.’
What I found was that Yusuf’s “about 20x” was inexact, the actual number is 22x – see my numbers here –
http://2thinkgood.com/2012/02/05/inceptions-mal-function/
Im still unclear about the circumstances of Dom and Mal being in a dream for so long. It seems as though they were in a dream long enough to build an entire city, but to be in a dream for that long they would need to be in the 3rd layer. So why is it that they are able to kill themselves to get out, but later on when someone dies in the 3rd layer, they go into limbo.
James said:
Now, time for my questions. I have two theories about the endings, and I’d like to present them: Do you believe that Cobb died in limbo from the stab wounds acquired by Mal and simply reentered limbo- finding Saito an old man because so much time at their level had passed? And from this, at the very end when the audience discovers that it’s a dream, do you think that this is Cobb’s creation in limbo, or rather was Mal telling the truth, that reality is the dream?
——————-
Mal was not telling the truth: Cobb had performed Inception on her, so she was doomed to always believe she was in the dream world and that to wake up, she had to die. IN the dream world, that’s fine: you wake up. But in reality, that’s the end. This is the source of Cobb’s guilt.
I believe Cobb was dreaming at the end, purely because the film implies he had been gone for several years, and his children didn’t appear to have grown at all.
@ Ben best theory I heard was that Cobb and Mal may have heavily sedated themselves and killed each other in their dream forcing themselves into limbo. There a few hours in reality was decades in limbo. So long that Mal forgot that dying-to-kick was an option. Cobb had to use inception to birth an idea in Mal that death would free her from a dream state. This is why Cobb insisted on them dying simultaneously. He knew he could leave via dying-to-kick but was having trouble convincing Mal. Mal built her childhood house in limbo from memories which in turn was populated by her sub conscience, including that safe which Cobb went on to exploit.
@ James Some have said the Cobb’s dream was a fourth level. Your theory of that stab wound would sending him to limbo would then be totally valid. I think they did go to Limbo searching for Fisher due to Cobb not having that big of a reaction to the stabbing it wasn’t fatal. And given that decades could go by in Limbo he healed from the wound then went on to search for Saito.
actually his totem was his wedding ring
I really loved Inception. I like films which I don’t understand, or I don’t understand while first watching, and after watching I must read much and spend a lot of time trying to understand. I feel that such films are real films, because they make people think about them. End the ending of Inception, it’s little annoying from the one hand, since you don’t know eventually what happened, but from the other hand, it makes you think about the film even more! Only genius could create such film.
People who talk shit about leo in titanic, are out of their minds… Around that time people were ooing and awing at brad pitt’s horrible typecast roles, not to mention his horrible acting skills when not in a typecast role (seven years in tebet). Yet leo gets on a badly written overly idealistic, and over budgeted chick flick, and everyone shits on him as the fag from titanic. Joseph Gordon Levitt, and leo both get stuck in their 3rd rock, or titanic roles, it baffles me… To have an opinion like that is to almost completely devoid yourself of watching good movies. They are both among the very best actors film has ever had the pleasure of showing.
The timeline assumes that the airplane was real. Think about it – when is the last time you see the top fall?
I’m not talking about after visiting Yusef – it was knocked off the counter. It FALLS only just after coming out of the first dream sequence with Saito.
What’s one of the ways to tell if you’re dreaming? How did you get here. How did Cobb get to France? (And, BTW, what was his father doing in France, but then suddenly was back in the US?)
Within the established rules, it’s very possible that the entire Fischer job is a dream.
Also, Arthur indicates that the totem will tell you if you are in SOMEONE ELSE’S dream. In your own dream, your totem would feel right (and/or behave correctly). So can we even be certain that the scene with the top & gun was reality?