To me it feels like the idea of dreams that they are using to set the tone is like wallpaper. They have a fairly regular heist story going and then they paste the wallpaper over it to give it a distinct tone and feel. To me that doesn't add complexity, it jsut gives the movie it's style. It's a very fancy and well made wallpaper but in the end it seems rather interchangeable to me and that is basically it. Like i said earlier i have a few gripes with the lack of characterisation and stuff too but the wallpaper thing is pretty much the gist of my take on the movie.

The ending isn't cheap. It's merely the point where you see the paradox show some bit of an end. Equivalent to Joseph Gordon Levitt's character pointing that out on the stairs in the movie. It fits the film. The whole film is a paradox, which is what makes it unique. It's an idea.
I said it earlier but the movie isn't simple and the plot isn't simple. It's simple to people here, but we aren't the majority. The majority of people probably don't understand.

Also you talk about Mal like she isn't a major part of the entire movie. Cobb is the main character and it's all about his personal battle. The job/heist to me is secondary to Cobb's story, not the other way around.
I don't think the dreams are used in any way to dress up this movie at all. They are a device to add suspense and a tool to make you question reality, that's all. The dreams even simply show up as simple cities instead of anything fanciful.
How can you fault character development too? How much character development do you want in a movie based around suspense that moves so quickly?

There is a lot of untapped potential with a film like this. From the characters that you mention (which are all very interesting and likable), to the entire idea of the dreams, and invading minds. The whole movie is rich and dense enough where Nolan could easily make sequels or prequels if he wanted. I'm curious to see if that happens.
Personally I'd like to see a prequel just so I could understand more how these people invading minds fit into society.

I am. The "inconsistencies" are indeed deliberate and make the film worth watching. If the ending would be clear cut no one would be talking about it. Imagine everyone is happy in the end and every little detail is visible for us all (I mean every scene). How satisfying would that be?

Not at all, it would be a standard flick with some fancy story telling and some well choreographed action scenes. What makes this special is the idea behind it.

I disagree. Following the movie from point A to point B is easy, and I believe the inconsistencies are accidental. But then again, I also believe that endings that aren't clear cut are absolutely lame. I'd rather not be left feeling that the writer/director didn't want to commit to one ending out of fear or, worse yet, some half-hearted need to make the movie seem more complex than it is.Very.

I disagree.

I believe that Nolan picked the best possible ending for Inception; it wasn't a cop-out, and it wasn't used solely to get people talking. Well, not from my point of view anyway. If you paid attention to the film's prevalent themes and messages, I just don't see how the ending of Inception can be seen as cheap - but, then again, I don't necessarily look for closure in a film's ending.

I'm pretty sure I paid attention, but for clarity's sake, maybe you'd like to illustrate the prevalent themes and messages and explain how the ending was suitably best. Either I missed something, or what you find deliberate and thoughtful I find misleading.

Seems to me that people are willing to bend over backwards to make this movie works and be awesome :P

Well, this is just my interpretation; what I felt the film was getting across and how the ending testified to that. But anyhoo:

The main theme that came across to me was the boundaries between reality and dream, and deciphering what is real with what isn't. I think there are many aspects of the film which support this:

- The fact that a very real scenario - essentially a heist - takes place within the dream world.
- The dream world itself isn't exactly abstract. Sure, when Ariadne's character is first introduced to it, she manipulates the dream world to make it more abstract, but look at the reaction that triggers: the subconscious around her wises up to it.
- Mal, in my opinion, represents the boundary between the two realms - she constantly asks Cobb to come back to the real world, and yet the audience is made to believe that she herself is from the world of the dream.
- This phrase, 'come back to reality', is also mentioned by Michael Caine's character when Cobb first approaches him in the film - a line which seems, in the context of the movie's themes, significant.
- A lot of the dialogue actually hints at this particular theme: "Dreams feel real while we're in them".

And so on.

Now, in my opinion, the ending plays into this quite heavily. As soon as Cobb wakes up, Nolan intentionally leads us to believe it's all a dream. The way the other characters smile at him, as if it was all too easy, with the sweeping musical score and slow motion cinematography; it's all too good to be true. And yet the most important part begins when he enters his house. With it being most likely that Cobb is still in limbo, he spins the totem - and it will just continue to spin, right? But the most important part for me personally, was that he completely ignores it. He spins and watches it for a few seconds, but then looks towards his children; it's as if he trusts them more than he trusts the totem. And when we finally see their faces, the audience can potentially begin to doubt the initial conclusion that he is still in limbo. We come to know that Cobb chooses not to imagine their faces in the dream state and so, at the end when he sees them, we start to question which state he is in. And now the camera pans towards the totem, which begins to wobble before the soundtrack takes a haunting turn and cuts to the main credits. And so we're left with no definitive conclusion, and when answering the question 'was it real, or was it a dream?' We can't be certain about either side, no matter how much we think we are.

And that's my interpretation.

You can think I'm talking bull, but that really doesn't bother me in the slightest. And if what I think is deliberate and thoughtful you think is the opposite, then fair dues. That's the beauty of film-making.Or maybe you're bending over backwards to achieve the opposite? ;)

I can't help the fact that I love the movie, and I'm not going to apologise for holding it in higher regard than people like you.

Possibly, though i'm not doing it on purpose if i do. I jsut think that becasue this movie is stapled as a deep and complex movie, people are more prone to look for things and he who looks will find, in most cases.

It took him a decade to write. I have a hard time believing anything is accidental when a screenplay takes someone that long to write. Everything felt really purposeful and carefully planned. It's a movie with a story that could very easily get fucked up if he had any accidents as you say.

The ending of the movie was echoed throughout the entire film. The ending fit into the entire system the film followed. How it is cheap is confusing to me.

You're completely off the mark. It doesn't even make sense. The film has only one possible ending and Nolan fully committed to it, if we dug deeper into it, we'd probably find more evidence. And speaking of accidents when everything fits together nicely and what was undoubtedly thought over a million times over several years by one of the better directors in our time... well that's just being stubborn.

So basically, the whole movie sets up that we may or may not be in Cobb's dream, and the end doesn't really go one way or another, and if it happens to be a dream, then a very large part of the movie that seems to be a focus, or at least one of the foci, is rendered moot and ultimately inconsequential. Blech.

That kind of storytelling really doesn't do it for me.

Yeah but you liked the film did you not?

Absolutely not. As we have discussed it here a few times, there is a lot of evidence that points towards a happy ending, things you can see with your naked eye and things you can read "between the lines". The last scene was merely some food for thought.

Considering your posts in the last two pages don't necesarily say definitively where the movie takes place despite my last post apparently being "absolutely" incorrect, what do you consider a happy ending? For me, the ending that is happiest and makes the rest of the movie worthwhile is the characters accomplishing their real-life mission.

Cobb conquering his demons is the happy ending

LOL thread tittle!

That makes no sense. The focus of the story is quite obviously Cobb's own mission to see his kids again and overcome the guilt he's felt ever since Mal's death. I think the fact that he ignores the totem at the end of the movie, and instead looks towards his children for clarification, in which he finally sees their faces makes it a happy ending because, whether he's in limbo or not, I think Nolan tries to convey that it's almost irrelevant from Cobb's perspective. The fact that we never see know the outcome of the totem is for the audience to question, not Cobb.

In that sense, we come to perhaps the most significant line in the movie: "You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together."

[quote= Megido]

Hell, if you want pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo questioning reality try watching the last 3 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion ;)[/quote]

Oh lord, Those last three episodes made me want to kill myself- It was just a bunch of barely relevant and confused psycho-babel. It was the equivalent of the tech-talk in Star Trek. And it was absolutely boring, so there was no payoff and didn't fit the anime at all.

On Inception, I think some people get lost in the actual plot/deep story conversation and lose sight of how well the movie itself was crafted. The pacing, how they work the loops on many levels, making it interesting to watch, things like that that make a good movie. If made right, you don't have to chart out the characters entire life for the audience- what they say and how they react to the situation can make them believable enough and acceptable. I found it interesting that they didn't dig too much into their past and I still found myself engaged with the characters. The crafting of a good movie is an art form in and of itself, and I think Nolan knocked it out of the park. I never had any problem understanding anything there, but just because it's not some vehicle for philosophical debate doesn't remove it's ability to be a great movie.

I am interested in exploring what you consider a great, thinking man's movie. Can you recommend some movies that are what you call Great, non-mainstream movies that are actually good Movies?

Evangelion is probably one of the best anime's ever made. They did remake it though for those who didn't like it you know :p

I agree that Evangelion is one of the best, but that doesn't change how I feel about the ending. I did hear that they remade it, but I didn't get the chance to see it...

They are two movies. One is called You Are Not Alone, and the other is titled You Can Not Advance. Gainax even redid a lot of scenes and improved much of the look/animation

Before this too a few years back they did alternate endings as well. Forget the names of those

I'll go ahead and assume that was directed at me. Well like i mentioned earlier in the thread the korean movie "I'm a cyborg, bu that's ok" at least for me qualifies as a lot more thought-provoking than inception, and it's pretty much on the same theme too. That movie is not "smart" in the same way people would have Inception be with allegory up the wahzoo and stuff like that, but i still think it offers more in way of having the viewer think a little about it's topic.

Also evangelion is not the greatest anime ever, the fact that there are like 3 bloody versions of the ending speaks to that if you ask me. It's a good shonen type anime until the last 3 episodes where it just goes batshit insane for no good reason and...well, screw taht crap is all i can say. No resolution or conclusion whatsoever, the story just hangs there, ends flailing in the wind and at least for me that just makes the previous episodes meaningless in the overall arch. Sure, watching teh Eva's fight angels is still kind of cool but there's no point in geting to know the characthers and their struggles when you never get any bloody resolution. It just cuts to black in the middle of the story arch, and it's BS.

Haibane Renmei, not that's possibly the best anime ever :P