

Inception's Usability Problem - samstokes
http://www.gamermelodico.com/2010/07/inceptions-usability-problem.html

======
Tycho
I'm pushing a lot of film criticisms onto my mind's stack of 'possibly
groundless convictions' these days. I keep seeing complaints that a) a good
film needs you to 'care' about the characters who must have 'emotional depth'
through 'development' b) a good film should not be pre-occupied with
'exposition' or 'explaining' what is happening

but... says who? They sound like half-baked ideas that arm-chair movie critics
have internalized and regurgitate at the slightest opportunity.

I was so much more interested in watching Nolan introduce more elegant but
mind-bending ideas about the mechanics of recursive dreaming and then
manifesting them with spectacular action scenes, than I was interested in the
missing 'character development' milieu like watching the protagonist play with
his kids, have a normal domestic argument with his wife, become a workaholic
etc. etc.

The characters explained their plans and problems because it made sense for
them to do so (ie. it never felt contrived for the audience's sake), and the
explanations in themselves were entertaining. Deeper thematic ideas were still
tackled, like the central point of how the protagonist needed to untangle
himself from his subconscious regrets/guilt before he was ready to have a real
life with his children, just not in the usual sappy ways that we've seen
thousands of times before. And I refuse to accept that the film was confusing
-- yes there were a couple of details that we discussed on the way home from
the cinema but satisfactory explanations were forthcoming. All films have
details like that, with Inception they're more fun to figure out.

~~~
mbateman
To defend the film critic regurgitation a bit, I don't think characters have
to have emotional depth or development, but it's typically a good thing when
you care about them and their problems.

As for the exposition point, I think something can be said in defense of the
story in the link.

 _(Spoilers follow.)_

Re: emotional attachment. One of the things that annoyed me about Inception
was that the big reveal of what happened to Marion Cotillard is totally
internal to the weird mechanics of the world. She got driven crazy because she
had to be manipulated into giving up the dream world. Erm, okay. To me the
main plot with Cillian Murphy had a more interesting core: a guy's self-
understanding in relation to his inheritance and successful father. Both are
shallow and not "deep", both "develop" in the movie, but the second has some
meaning to me and the first doesn't, and it seems to me to be a real
advantage.

Re: exposition. I agree that one can get overly concerned with this. But I
think it's annoying when exposition goes on during the entire movie, so that
rules are introduced in order to explain something going on right that second.
For example, all of a sudden it matters whether or not you die in the dream
world, and it has to be explained why. Or the elaborate and (to me) cool idea
of worming one's way through someone's subconscious by constructing labyrinths
and stuff is suddenly thrown out in favor of action sequences involving a
"militarized" subconscious. It makes the movie feel more ad hoc and random.

If the movie is going to just be about the mechanics of a world with weird
rules, then fine. It's not favorite cup of tea, but I can definitely
appreciate it. But there are better and worse constructions and presentations
of artificial mechanics, and more and less involving plot vehicles for
exploring it. Though some of Kirk Hamilton's particular complaints strike me
as silly, I overall agree with him that Inception was inferior to the Matrix
in this regard. If anything I think the right analogy with Inception is the
second Matrix movie.

~~~
Karzyn
\----SPOILER----

Absolutely agree regarding throwing out the labyrinth in favor of a fight
scene. Throughout the entire movie prior to the snow-dream I had really been
looking forward to, what I hoped would be, a thought-provoking or mind-bending
maze through the world of dreams and subconsciousness. To have that pushed
aside in favor of gunfights was incredibly shallow and disappointing.

------
gaius
Actually I would say the opposite. The film wastes no time talking about how
the dream-sharing technology works, there's no Star Trek style technobabble.
The audience is simply presented with a world in which this technology is
taken for granted, and straight on with the story.

~~~
mjac
I went into the theatre not knowing what to expect. I left dumbstruck,
somewhat in doubt of the world. What if I was three levels deep and this
wasn't the real world? It was great seeing the viewers dazed, stepping
tentatively towards the exit.

Many of these ideas were presented in The Matrix but the "idea" of n-deep
illusions was central to Inception. I appreciated the time multiplication,
even given the 20x fast brain function bodge.

Why were the acceleration changes only go one layer deep? Perhaps inner ear
sensation (balance, acceleration) in the dreamer's world are the only
modifiers. It doesn't matter, the construct produced intriguing new effects
that I was pleased to experience.

We should be arguing about interesting ramifications. Personally I'd like to
believe that Mal was correct and Cobb was dreaming all through the film.

The film reminds me of a couple of Red Dwarf books:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Life> (especially)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Human> These are definitely worth a read if
you are interested in science fiction.

~~~
gaius
It made me think of running VMs inside VMs, except then every layer is 20x
_slower_ :-)

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Dilpil
"In-game tutorials are both hugely important and difficult to pull off, and
today's game-designers have gotten pretty clever about putting them together."

Disagree heavily. Many of the most complicated games from the past had no
tutorials, but people were still able to figure them out. Figuring out was
part of the fun in fact. Most people I know simply ignore tutorials.

And I can't blame them, because developers tend to be horrible at putting
tutorials together. Most tutorials today start with the most basic things
imaginable- moving your character and moving the camera. These things don't
change from game to game. Only a very small number of modern games have
tutorials worth playing.

~~~
mhansen
Most new games I see have cleverly disguised the tutorial as the first few
levels (probably because everyone skips them).

Instead of explicitly introducing concepts, concepts are introduced in-game
one by one. There's a gentle ramp-up, and the goal is to have the player
unaware that they're playing a tutorial.

It's very tricky to get the right balance between teaching and action in the
first few levels.

Examples of games where the tutorial _is_ the first few levels (off the top of
my head): Halo, Portal, Half Life 2

~~~
raquo
In HL2 the tutorials are really great.

First, there are a lot of mini-tutorials throughout the game with no
instructions where you can not advance until you learn some easy skill - like
breaking wood with crowbar, shooting a padlock to open a door, putting
concrete blocks on a swing for it to rise, etc.

Then, there are cases where you'd want to practice a skill before the using it
in battle - like using Magnusson devices to hit striders. You get instructions
and a chance to fire it seveal times to get a feeling of its trajectory
without having to load the game a dozen times during the real battle.

------
PaulJoslin
This was exactly how I felt when I left the cinema. Although it was a good
film, I felt the execution of the idea felt sloppy. It had promise to be truly
amazing, but often purposely became confusing in the aim of seeming to be
clever.

I think in Inception they took things too far, multiple dream levels, weird
limbo states, etc. They could've just built a far simpler movie and it
would've flowed a lot better.

It's comparable to software. Often the most enjoyable user experience is one
with very few features executed extremely well. Compared to a piece of
software with every single feature or idea plugged in, executed fairly
sloppily.

Inception was lucky it had a great core concept, cast and good effects to hold
up for the on going confusion throughout the film.

The comparison I feel is Matrix compared to Existence, where 'Existence' in
this scenario is Inception.

~~~
Maro
I agree with PaulJoslin's criticism.

It was a good film, but I didn't think it was great, by the end I had a
certain hollow feeling, same as I had after Dark Knight or Memento (not after
Prestige).

Like in DK, I felt that the plot was overcomplicated, there were too many
dream layers, too much was going on. I also missed somewhat longer, continuous
action sequences. In Inception, every action sequence was over in 30 seconds,
with everything happening in a dream (death just means you wake up), so it
removed what little tension these sequences carried. (But then sometimes the
in-game rules were broken, eg. the Jap. guy get shot but he doesn't wake up,
so from then on shots are lethal? Well I guess not, because at the end
everybody is fine after all.)

Interestingly, the overall plot's tension, whether the act of Inception
succeeds remained, but the action sequences just didn't work. The plot's
overall tension worked for me exactly until they went into yet another
dream/coma state called limbo, at which point I just lost interest.

As PaulJoslin said, a much more effective film could have been built on these
core ideas.

~~~
JadeNB
> In Inception, every action sequence was over in 30 seconds, with everything
> happening in a dream (death just means you wake up), so it removed what
> little tension these sequences carried. (But then sometimes the in-game
> rules were broken, eg. the Jap. guy get shot but he doesn't wake up, so from
> then on shots are lethal? Well I guess not, because at the end everybody is
> fine after all.)

It's true that the rules are changed, but they're changed almost immediately;
we have one encounter in a dream where we see that being killed means that you
wake up, and this understanding is then taken away from us during the next
dream (not counting the various tutorials). One may question the utility of a
rule that is given only to be immediately taken away, but I believe that the
point here was to make us feel the shock of the unexpected danger in which the
characters found themselves—we are supposed to be shaken out of our
complacency just as they are.

The second point seems truly bizarre. I think it's fair to say that a large
chunk of the ‘meaning’ of the movie is that we are left to wonder at the end
whether we have reached a ‘real-life’ ending, or are still watching someone's
dreams. The fact that everyone seems fine, despite the severe dangers that
were advertised, is, from this point of view, not lazy story-telling but a way
of making us uncomfortable with the easy answer of taking the ending
literally.

------
nazgulnarsil
"blah blah blah, I'm hella smart but even I was confused."

It was a hollywood movie, not Primer. Nolan had to explain everything well
enough for mainstream audiences to get it. From my experience watching the
film with several different groups of people, most of whom don't give a damn
about sci-fi, he succeeded admirably.

------
kwamenum86
I disagree with this review. I was told I had to pay close attention so I
concentrated on every last detail (a rarity for me in movies) and was able to
follow the movie pretty effortlessly. My girlfriend was able to do so with no
such hint (but maybe she is a lot smarter than me.)

This movie is a THINKER not unlike the mind-bender Primer, which almost
certainly requires multiple viewings and a wiki page to fully grok.
Understanding these movies is not supposed to be passive (giving you exactly
what you need to know when you need to know it would enable you to be a
passive viewer) and when the movie is over you're supposed to be thinking
about what you just saw for more than 5 minutes and on more than a superficial
level.

This movie was very good at what it tried to do. It didn't get bogged down by
in-depth explanation of the technology involved in dream-diving, didn't give
us super complex character back-stories, and didn't overwhelm the user with
technologies to that world. I felt we were provided with a set of basic
building blocks (in the form of world-unique jargon) and then given a tour of
a complex world based on these blocks - and it was damn cool. If it had tried
to do more than his the movie would have gotten bogged down.

------
marknutter
I think Nolan struck a decent balance between ambiguity and exposition. The
moments that were heavy with "tutorials" were still fun because of the visual
effects, like when they were folding Paris. The OP forgets that the Matrix had
plenty of exposition too. Not to mention, Nolan waits until the movie is well
on its way before he starts to explain the rules of his universe. I think
inceptions concepts are more complicated than the Matrix's, anyways.

------
liljimmytables
I actually wrote a scathing reply to this, complaining that he'd seen a film,
not enjoyed it, and rationalised his experience. Big logic fail. Who is he to
say that having lots of exposition is not enjoyable? I enjoyed it. Sure, he's
obviously got a bit of understanding about a subject and he's put it to good
use in manipulating other people's thoughts, but that's just _wrong_.

Then I realised I was getting upset about a blog entry, and thought: wait, no.
This is how the internet works. People post their opinions on blogs, like-
minded people (of which I am clearly not one in this case) will enjoy sharing
with them. The fellow has opened my mind to another way of interpreting a
story, another angle from which I can appreciate the work. And maybe by
understanding his opinion I can reflect better on my own enjoyment.

Then I thought a little harder. No, the internet works by ignorant people
ranting against each other until they achieve a state of mutual indignation
which overrides any basic logical thoughts they might have possibly had about
the situation. It was at this point I wished I had not deleted my original
post. Sorry internet, I have failed you.

------
bryanlarsen
I think this criticism is right on, but he's got his conclusion backwards --
Inception is so awesome because it's exactly like the first few levels of a
video game. Yes, tutorials in video games are boring, but the most interesting
part of a video game to me is the "figuring it out" part. So I skip the
tutorial and figure it out by failing miserably on the first "easy" level.
Once I've done a few levels in the game, there's more "game" and less "new",
so I move on to the next shiny new toy.

------
nazgulnarsil
well, regardless of other critiques, I think we can all agree that the snow
level could have been something WAY COOLER than what it was. Levels 1 and 2
were so awesome that level 3 felt like a huge let down.

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napierzaza
"For me, Nolan's dreamjacking caper was the film-going equivalent of sitting
through a videogame that is all tutorial and no play."

Are you kidding me? This movies is packed with all sorts of action, character
development and general goings on! For a video game the action stops and you
have to jump or counter 3 or 4 times to continue. At what point in Inception
does the plot stop moving for more than 3 seconds? There is always something
going on.

Even when Ellen Paige is getting a tutorial in architecture (yeah, a tutorial
in the movie) there is tension when the world starts reacting negatively.

Exposition dones wrong does indeed sink movies and makes them boring. But you
have to do it somehow, especially if it's a science fiction. Inception does it
so, so well.

------
gigafemtonano
I went and saw Inception in Mountain View this weekend, and the group of older
couples in front of us on the way out seemed to have gotten it. Come to think
of it, they seemed like they really enjoyed it too. Maybe they were all NASA
systems analysts.

------
SandB0x
Inception was boring. We all knew the basic setup before the movie, which is
fine, but it spends ages explaining minor details like how balance/inner ear
sensation is propagated down the levels, yet uses them inconsistently -
they're not floating about the snow scene, for example. Yes, I realise these
are Comic Book Guy criticisms.

But it wasn't engaging. The dialogue was clichéd, the characters bland, and
for a summer action movie it lacked a "crowning moment of awesome".

More than anything though, it felt as if the writers took a good idea and
tried to make it complicated (but not _too_ complicated) without any real
spark of inspiration. Apart from the reversal or deception going into the
deepest level, they were just piling on the layers.

~~~
JadeNB
> for a summer action movie it lacked a "crowning moment of awesome"

Wow, the fight in the hotel hallway didn't do anything for you? For me, that
topped anything I saw in a Wachowski brothers movie (I was literally gasping);
it felt like a character expertly manipulating rules of physics that he could
not manipulate, rather than simply ignoring the rules that were inconvenient.

~~~
JadeNB
(Err, sorry, “expertly manipulating rules … that he could not manipulate” is
nonsense. I meant “expertly _exploiting_ rules …”; but I can't edit that post
any more.)

