Amph INCEPTION- Christopher (BWONNNNG) Nolan's (BWONNNNG) new (BWONNG) film (SPOILERS)

Yeah...

but...isn't that what they did?

Now I'm confused. (Although I think they were jumping from person to person somehow--1 dream per mind)

I don't know...

maybe it was Utah?

 

Yeah, they did "explain" it as "one dream per mind," but then Leo talked about he and his wife (two people) "kept going down" dream levels until they got stuck in limbo. Presumably that was more than two levels.


Also, that was just one example of my "DREAMS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY" complaint. A guy's need to go to the bathroom so predictably manifests itself as rain that another character immediately chides him for it? (Yeah, it was just a joke, but still.) And the fact that they can experience pain in dreams when they are not actually experiencing it in the real world, handwaved with the oversimplification that pain is just "all in the mind"? Yeah... no. I'm not as confident about that last point so I didn't initially bring it up, but I've never heard of anyone experiencing pain in a dream from an injury or condition that did not really exist. Never mind that if they've never been shot before, they can't possibly know what a gunshot wound feels like so their minds wouldn't even be able to imagine the pain.

 

After my first viewing, I was of a mind with you, until I accepted that the dreams of the film are not the same species as the dreams you or I experience. We do not see even a single naturally-occurring dream in the entire film. What we see are highly controlled, carefully constructed simulations that are so dreamlike in nature that the 'dream' concept is just the most appropriate conceit, metaphorically speaking. And once you accept that these are intended to be different from real-life dreams, and play by different rules, all pre-conceptions about dreaming go out the window.

This, to me, is the only plausible interpretation of the technology once you are presented with the idea that people are able to share in some sort of collective dreamspace.

 

The way the film presented the technology made it seem as though it was merely a conduit, and that everything takes place within the the minds of the people connected to it, as there apparently needs to be a "dreamer" whose mind needs to... uh, host... the dream. Which wouldn't account for why there's a "limbo" or how someone has any use for the technology by himself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't too well thought-out.

For all its flaws (see: PHILOSOPHY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY), The Matrix did the "fake reality" thing a whole lot better. Introducing a super-powerful computer that's specifically programmed to create a world realistic enough and with (generally) realistic rules so as to fool anyone it's connected to. That fantastical element needs not address the limitations of the human mind such as its capacity to create an entire bridge from memory down to the last (noticeable) detail (sorry, I can't believe that even wise-cracking pregnant teen Juno is capable of such a feat). Hell, the film even pointed out how implausible it was when Ken felt that the material of his carpet was wrong, but it was still such a minor mistake that the Japanese businessman wouldn't have noticed otherwise that it wasn't his apartment.

 

Sorry for quoting a large chunk, and from earlier in the thread, but I just wanted to say something that plays off this part of the discussion.

Now, I concede I might have hear wrong and a second viewing sometime soon would be required, but I'm pretty sure Cobb says right when we find out about totems that the top was Mal's because "it would never topple" and that was how she could tell reality.

 

I was just thinking about this the other day and, indeed, it's a shame the Nolans couldn't have bothered to "explain" the technology a little better. Given the need of an architect -- i.e., someone who would shape the basic elements and structures within the "dreamworld" -- I believe the machine is just a device that would enable simulatons built around the architect's plans but still fueled by the dreamers subconcious, not a conduit into the true Dreaming (i.e., where we go to when we're really dreaming). I believe the so-called "Limbo" is the true Dreaming, which is made of raw dreamstuff beyond the ability of any of the dreamers to manipulate or control.

 

Saw it tonight. I haven't been this disappointed in a hyped film since Revenge of the Sith. I wanted to love it. I really did. But my disbelief was not suspended. Forget the feminist critique; if there were more women in this film, I would have become a misogynist.

I was just the opposite. I have maybe seen a couple of trailers--which, in my opinion, had little to do with the movie's actual plot--but otherwise haven't heard much about it. That's mostly because I've been offline for a little while recently, and so have stayed away from any hype, which was nice. So I came out of it thinking it was enjoyable--the sound design in the imax was especially nice.


1. DREAMS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. "Dream within a dream within a dream..."? Huh?

There are many things you could look at and say this. Hearing a train doesn't make you dream about a train, your body shifting doesn't cause gravity to shift in dreams, etc. So either these aren't actual dreams, or dreams work very differently than in reality. I'd be more inclined to think that the dreams are simply an altered state achieved by the drugs--hallucinations would be a better term.

3. Why didn't the inner ear "kick" thing "wake" (as they were still in a dreamworld) them up when the van flipped over?

Yeah. They are using the exact same drug that Arthur was testing just a few scenes earlier, right? The one where he was waking up instantly from a tipped chair? And is that really a great idea, using that kind of drug on a 10 hour flight? What if there was even a little bit of turbulence? An air pocket? They should have just left it to a timer the entire time.

4. Why were the armies of the subconscious limited by physics and human biology? Why weren't they infinitely strong, infinitely fast, immortal, and infinite in number? They don't ever explain why. I guess it'd make for a short film and ignoring this creates cool fight scenes, so whatever.

Further, why is someone trained(lol) in "dream defense" only able to conjure up one train engine? I mean, that was it? Obviously his subconscious was aware of them from the beginning, yet when the train did absolutely nothing except slam into their car, that was it. What happened to the escalating threat of going further down into the dreams? If anything, the first level had just as much defense as the third, and the second had considerably less than the first.

5. The "ambiguous" ending was so unambiguous that it makes me think they just cut the "reveal" far into post-production to give us this contrived manipulative bull****. "But it leaves what happened up to the viewer!" No, it doesn't. Never mind that the whole "leaving it up to the viewer" thing is lazy storytelling. Anyway, Leonardo (don't remember the character's name) just wanted to get back to his kids. He accepted that he'd never see his real wife again, only a twisted "shadow" or whatever. But he still wanted to see his kids. He had mentioned that he and his wife were "like gods" in the dreamworld they lived in for what they perceived to be 50 years, so it makes perfect sense that he'd create the only thing he desired. The film might as well have been punching you in the face and screaming "HE'S STILL GOING TO BE DREAMING AT THE END!!!!" and giving you a kick to the groin for good measure.

I disagree. He has no reason to stay in limbo. The mission was accomplished, he was going to see his kids anyway, he finally let go of his wife, etc. He had accepted reality, so why would he stay in limbo, when he knows how to get out of it? I realize the ending is overly perfect, but that's fine with me. His entire resolution is completely destroyed if he's still dreaming.



2. Where did this technology come from? "The military"? Okay, is it top secret? Are we in the future? Why does seemingly everyone (corporate execs, professors, flight attendants who like taking bribes, a bunch of random addicts in Mombasa) know about it but only a few seem to use it?

It's illegal. My guess is it was developed by people like Cobb's father a while

 

Finally got go see this. I liked it very much but cannot say it lived up to the hype.
Nolan tried to create such an intricate plot/world that he ended up creating several holes he could't fill.
Liked the Matrix/heist flick/psychological thriller/Bond mixture.
Loved the hallway scene, Leo's always good (IMO) and the level upon level layering.

Didn't like the resolution. Wish I had time to read people's comments and really get into this discussion.

 

Wait, I thought the train was part of Leo's subconscious (same as the crazy dead wife), not the victim's own defense.

IIRC, the film only makes it clear that it's illegal to invade peoples' minds against their will. I suppose one can infer that the technology is illegal altogether, but I don't recall it being stated explicitly.

 

My dad had a dream once where he was bitten in the shoulder by a zombie, woke up screaming, and now continues to get pain in his shoulder in real life. It's not all that unbelievable to me.

 

I am pretty sure the movie made the distinction that the techniques depend on the common experience of dreaming. Not everyone's subconscious would be so commonly acclimated to hallucinations that it would be something they manipulate in everyone. So if the experience is dependent on the brain's understanding of dreams but is so obviously different from normal dreams, I would think the mind would be alerted to that. I think its more likely that its a psuedo-science (ie not entirely realistic) approach to dreams where for the sake of the narrative (or perhaps out of ignorance) they adhere to the science properly. I would call it their "one piece of magic".

 

Also I am am pretty sure that if someone puts music into your ears while you dream, it dosen't mean that music will be in the dream, correct?

 

I don't know, I guess that could have been it, but it never said that, and it happened at the same time that the cab was ambushed. I can't see what reason Leo would have for that coming up. He's had trouble with his wife popping up before, but where did this train come from? They were only on the first level still. It was completely out of left field.

 

Well, the train thing popped up throughout the film (mostly with the line "You hear a train coming to take you home..." or something, referring to him and his wife "dying" in limbo from getting hit by a train... for some reason), and it definitely implied that Leo had caused it to appear. Juno even asked him if he had.

 

Where was I when that happened?

 

Drooling over the special effects? It's a TRAIN. Going down a STREET.


AWESOME.



And really, were the pointless train references and the even more pointless "payoff" all worth it for that one sequence? YES.

 

I'm just struggling to understand how someone who is a) not the architect, and b) not the dreamer managed to project a train into the dream. That sort of thing was never established. People outside of the architect and the dreamer can just create anything they want if their subconscious is slightly distressed? And they have zero control over that, given that it is their subconscious? Why is this the first time something like that has happened in this, a two and a half hour movie? How do you go from the memory of your wife sabotaging your fake dreams to hitting yourself with a freight engine?

 

He wasn't "slightly distressed." He was pretty much going insane.


But yeah, it didn't really make any sense that his wife and the train appeared in dreams he shouldn't have had any control over. In fact, his instability is the reason they gave for not making him the "architect." Seems like that didn't avoid anything.

 

I thought the reason he couldn't be the architect was so Mal wouldn't know the layout of the dream. Or am I remembering that wrong?

 

Oh yeah. But still, it doesn't make any sense that she (or the train) would be there in the first place.

 

It does if you subscribe to the theory that the entire film is Cobb's dream. There's a very interesting article on that here.

 

There's a more logical explanation for that since something like that happened to me: One night years ago I dreamt that my ex gave me this box and when I opened it this...evil catlike fanged looking thing jumped straight at my face. I woke up startled and, because of the fact that I usually lean on my right shoulder, using it as a pillow of sorts, the jerking motion was probably so violent that it tore that shoulder's soft tissue. It's been over nine years but the pain of that injury has been there ever since anytime I stress or otherwise repeatedly move that shoulder.

 

I agree with Lowie's comments about the top, and here's why. If the physical properties of the top are known, one can prove that one is in a dream if the top fails to behave the way it ought to under normal physics. One example of that is Mal seeing it in her own dreams as never toppling. However, one can never disprove the possibility of being in a dream simply because the top behaves correctly for its physical properties - anyone who knows its properties can conceivably dream it behaving the way it should. That includes Cobb and Mal.

 

My understanding is that anyone in the dream can affect the dream(how do you think their team got weapons into level 1, much less a grenade launcher?). The reason for a dream architect was never that this was the only person who could create, but because of the fact that the more creation/alteration is done within the dream, the greater the chance that the person you're trying to steal from becomes aware of the other presences. Purely risk management - nothing to do with abilities - hence Leo's subconscious attacking Ariadne when she made too many in-dream changes during training.

In any case, I'd be okay with a plot hole or two so long as it wasn't too distracting. The point of the rules of the dream world isn't to present some sort of cogent, consistent theory about how dreams work - the consistency of the rules is only important insofar as it makes the story compelling. Which it did for me.

I was never really interested in Mal as a character, since she never really existed as a person save for a few minutes as a flashback. But Mal as a representative of the dangers of the subconscious was much more effective than, say, the projections or even the train.