

Inception isn't science fiction (spoilers) - samstokes
http://blog.samstokes.co.uk/post/890499536/inception-isnt-science-fiction-spoilers

======
adelevie
The best interpretation I've seen is that the entire movie is an allegory
about movie-making. The "shared dream" is very analogous to a movie.

Stokes' interpretation doesn't look deep enough. He attempts to figure out
what is really happening before, after, or even during the movie. I find more
use in interpretations that try and figure out what something means and what
the underlying message the writer/director is making (if any).

Stokes focuses too much on plot and not enough on meaning. Reminds me of
people who think the Six Sense is awesome (pretty much everyone) because of
its amazing plot twist. But that's all it really had--not too much meaning. A
movie worth analyzing shouldn't just stand on plot alone. Thankfully Inception
has both an awesome plot and some decently profound meaning.

~~~
Tycho
But where does Cobb's rampant guilt and Fischer's paternal reconciliation fit
into this metaphor for filmmaking? And what does it tell us about filmmaking
that would make this worthwhile?

I think it's safer to say the concepts of creation and inspiration are common
to dream making and filmmaking and leave it at that.

~~~
adelevie
[http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-
THE-...](http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-
AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html)

Not that these excerpts really do the analysis justice, but:

>Except that this is exactly what Nolan is arguing against. The film is a
metaphor for the way that Nolan as a director works, and what he's ultimately
saying is that the catharsis found in a dream is as real as the catharsis
found in a movie is as real as the catharsis found in life. Inception is about
making movies, and cinema is the shared dream that truly interests the
director.

>The whole film being a dream isn't a cop out or a waste of time, but an
ultimate expression of the film's themes and meaning. It's all fake. But it's
all very, very real. And that's something every single movie lover understands
implicitly and completely.

To answer your question more directly, the familial issues in the plot are a
vehicle for emotion. These emotions are just as real in a dream as they are in
a movie, as they are in real life (to borrow from the analysis' phrasing).

~~~
Tycho
Hmmm I read the analysis and I don't think it's all that meaningful: just like
numerous other films Inception has some themes which it explores (regret,
guilt, grieving/loss). If the exploration is insightful enough, then the
audience can learn from it. Is Mighty Ducks a metaphor for filmmaking because
emotions are just as real in a hockey match as they are in a movie, as they
are in real life?

The film touches on some ideas like the intoxicating power of the imagination
but I think saying the whole film's a metaphor for filmmaking goes a bit far
and the evidence is stacked against his analysis.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I dunno. There are enough references to other films, blatant and subtle, that
it makes me wonder.

------
Tycho
No no no... "inception" happens when they plant an idea inside a safe/vault
inside someone's dream (inside someone's dream, inside someone's dream),
rather than extracting one. Cobb doesn't undergo inception, he just works out
his problems as the plot develops with some help from Ariadne. Why? Because it
would be a dull and empty plot if all these characters were brought together
simply to perform a job. Furthermore the film makes clear that Cobb learns to
reject he projection of his wife, so it makes no sense for him to then embrace
projected children instead at the end. The children represent reality not just
in physicality but in the emotional truth that underscores the film. That's
why he spins the top then ignores it soon as his children appear - they're a
more certain anchor for reality.

~~~
philwelch
"Because it would be a dull and empty plot if all these characters were
brought together simply to perform a job."

What you describe is a very common trope for heist movies, and Inception--
despite its depth--satisfies on that level, just as The Matrix satisfies as a
sci-fi shoot-em-up despite its depth.

A lot of the best movies satisfy on multiple levels this way.

~~~
Tycho
They never make movies about 'just another job,' which is what this would be
if not for Cobb's psychodrama/inner-conflict and Ariadne's attempt to help.
Although I suppose the goal of inception would make it unique from the
characters' perspective but that's too weak because it means nothing to the
audience beforehand.

~~~
philwelch
Except it's not "just another job" at all--it's an impossible job, they have
to assemble the best team, they make an elaborate plan that goes all wrong and
they have to clean it up--Cobb's personal issues are part of it, and motivate
his desperation to take the job, but without that angle you still have the
classic heist (or at least caper).

~~~
Tycho
But c'mon, name a classic heist/caper movie that doesn't up the emotional
stakes in some manner not inherent to the job itself (eg. Love interest,
betrayal, apocalypse, even just the time honoured 'one last job' etc). I
didn't say it would necessarily be dull and empty overall but the plot itself
would. There's no way the audience would care enough about the impossibility
of the job or the crackness of the team, because it's all just thrust upon
them wih no prior context. Now, of courae, it could still be a great film
minus the Cobb psychodrama, but there'd be something else there in its place.

------
pbw
"And then he woke up" is the ending to every 5th graders first ambitious
story. I don't buy it.

I did think the little dream machine in the movie looked like game console.
You and several of your friends slide in the IV to play a round of, what
exactly?

I thought the movie portrayed a pretty decent game already, just getting from
one level to the next. More: <http://www.kmeme.com/2010/07/inception-
game.html>

------
cobralibre
As a meditation on the way in which our creations are inexorably haunted by
the personal, _Inception_ works.

As a movie about dreams, it's a missed opportunity. We find dreams compelling
because they're profoundly uncanny in a way that we can never fully express;
and I think most people would agree that when we dream there is a loss of
agency, that dreams simply unfold before us. But there's hardly anything
dreamlike about the movie at all, unless you're a lucid dreamer. _Inception_
models a dream as a location rather than as a series of emotionally charged
impressions, and it employs a Hollywoodesque narrative grammar rather than
dream-logic. It's essentially a heist movie.

Another way to put it is that when I was watching the movie, I kept thinking,
"That's so not real." Which is a funny way to respond to a movie about dreams.
I hate to be that guy, but I think you're better off reading something like
Kafka's "The Judgment" or maybe even watching a good horror movie.

~~~
samstokes
+1 but doesn't reflect my experience.

> when we dream there is a loss of agency, that dreams simply unfold before us

I never feel that way while dreaming, even though when I wake I realise I was
basically on rails the whole time. The closest I've experienced to this is
that sometimes in my dreams I am simultaneously reading a book and _a
character in the book_ \- as the former I am a passive observer, as the latter
I (feel as if I) have agency.

> unless you're a lucid dreamer

 _Inception_ is explicitly inspired by lucid dreaming (the concept of the
totem is very similar to a trick people use to train themselves to dream
lucidly). However, even though I've only once or twice had a lucid dream, I
found a lot about the film reminded me of dreaming in general.

~~~
eru
I have some experience with lucid dreaming. And the movie is nice
entertainment, but real dreams don't work that way. Even lucid dreams.

First: Dream time is approximately real time. (There have been studies to
confirm this. Exercise to the reader: How would you design such a study? (Drop
me an email if you want to know how the scientist did it.)) Second, you can
tell you are in a dream, if: (a) Flipping a light switch doesn't work,
strangely your dream imagination can't cope with rapid changes of
illumination. (b) Gravity works strange. Try jumping up and down. When you can
stay airborne for more than a second you are probably dreaming. (c) If, in
general, strange things happen. There are some more signs that you find in
dreams.

Fortunately, habbits you have in reality carry over into dreams. So if you
make it a habbit to check for dream signs in real life, you will probably
check them in your dreams too, and recognize that you are dreaming. Enjoy!
(Although I often feel the urge to wake up, once I realize that I am dreaming.
It takes a while to resist it.)

------
edanm
If you enjoyed this film and interpretation, I really recommend watching The
Prestige, then reading the following:

 __SPOILER ALERT __

The Prestige has a much better "alternative ending" theory, because it is not
well known and very unexpected.

The Prestige ends with all the questions supposedly answered, i.e. the twin
thing, the machine that Tesla made, etc. Except that, there is one
alternative: the machine never existed! Throughout the entire film, Michael
Caine's character keeps insisting that there is only one way to do a
transportation act, and that is with a lookalike. We already _know_ that Hugh
Jackman's character has a lookalike.

We also never see more than one "replica" of Hugh Jackman. The only time we
actually _see_ replicas being created is during the memories written down by
Hugh Jackman, except, they could be fake!

In short, it's possible that Christopher Nolan has managed to fool pretty much
every audience of The Prestige into believing in Science Fiction, when there
is a perfectly logical explanation for the entire film that doesn't require
magical explanations. But like the film repeatedly says, "Audiences want to be
fooled".

~~~
ubernostrum
Except not really; the novel it's adapted from doesn't leave any opportunity
for ambiguity, and even in the film, as Jackman's character dies Christian
Bale walks past the rows and rows of tanks holding the dead duplicates. If
there were never any real duplicates and the whole thing was faked, there's no
explanation for those tanks to be there.

~~~
edanm
The tanks don't actually have any bodies in them, at least not bodies that you
can see. I checked once: all the tanks hold lifeless human-looking blobs, but
you can't see them. Except for the last tank, but that could be the body of
the actual double.

The reason the tanks are there is for the same reason the diary was written:
to fool Borden.

There are even some people who say that there are differences in makeup
between the real Angier and his look-alike, and that you can see that the only
real, visible body in the tanks is clearly the twin. Can't say I noticed it
myself.

As for the book, still haven't read it, but it doesn't matter: from what I've
heard, the book _also_ doesn't have the whole "killing doubles" theme, since
the replicas are lifeless anyway. But it doesn't matter, the film is its own
story.

I got this whole theory from this forum post, which you should read for a
better explanation of everything:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=531777>.

~~~
ubernostrum
I've seen the film multiple times, read the book multiple times, and now read
that thread you linked. And it's still just plain wrong.

What I see in that forum thread is not a sound argument for this
interpretation; instead, it's someone proclaiming a theory, getting it shot
down and then using ad-hoc immunization and condescension ("that's just what
they _wanted_ you to think", "oh, you believe what you saw, poor thing", etc.)
to try to puff it up into something respectable.

The book makes it as clear as possible that Angier's not using a double in the
sense Borden is; he really is getting duplicated by that machine and having to
dispose of the results. The film never prints it on screen in big block
letters with a signed note from the director saying "this is how it happened,
trust me", but it doesn't need to -- it's following the book and doing a good
job at it. Thus, attempts to read a "ha ha he really put one over on you"
secret into the film are just pointless.

(and unless you can show me you're not in the same take-your-logic-and-facts-
elsewhere camp as the guy in that forum thread, I'm done here)

~~~
edanm
Your last point first: of course I'm not in the same camp as that guy. I
haven't even read through most of that thread (I read through it years ago,
but I don't remember most of it, just the original post). I certainly don't
think anyone should be condescended to; besides, it's just a movie! I just
thought I'd share the inspiration for my comment.

As for the theory itself, like I said, I haven't read the book and it doesn't
matter to me; I'm interpreting the movie as a stand-alone work. Judging just
by the movie, I haven't seen anything that outright contradicts the theory
(for example, the whole "can't really see the bodies" thing). Then again, I
haven't spent _that_ much time digging into it. There is nothing that proves
this theory either. I just think it's nice that it can be interpreted in
another way.

------
klenwell
The it's-all-a-dream interpretation is the only one that makes sense from a
science-fiction point-of-view, however unsatisfying it is from an artistic
perspective. The slightly wobbling top at the end points, rather overtly, to
the real answer: it's meant to be ambiguous.

That said: WTF? We've got to bring down a company on the verge of being The
Most Powerful Corporation in the World. So let's use this highly radical,
unproven and improbable, voodoo-science inception approach. Oh, and by the
way, we have to plant a mole within the highest ranks of the multinational
beast within the next, say, two weeks, so we can get valuable information that
is necessary to penetrate and manipulate the fragile psyche of our target.

Cut-scene: it's done. This is logic that only makes sense within the context
of a dream. The sort of dream Coleridge, or Rube Goldberg, would have.

Science generally favors the application of Occam's Razor: buy the airline and
crash the damn plane with the kid on it. Or just send in the ninjas. The
ensuing infighting among the various executive factions vying for the top spot
after junior is offed will ensure that any plans Acme Energy Inc had for world
domination are put off course indefinitely.

Inception was entertaining. But Memento was the more philosophically
interesting film. That's a film that truly merited this kind of philosophical
scrutiny. Remember Sammy Jankis.

~~~
wlievens
There have been plenty of (non-aweful) movies with more unprobably plots than
that, that weren't in a dream of any kind.

I think that stating that the entire plot is a dream just because the main
plot is not realistic is akin to denying the film's right to being science
fiction!

------
apsurd
Still reading but, first and foremost, I think the _opposite_ of his
conclusion on what the ending meant is more obvious. It was _clearly_ about to
fall over ... =)

~~~
carterschonwald
i second this sentiment (though the metaphor for film making interpretation is
also quite nice.).

by this interpretation (the straightforward naive one), Inception is likely
the best "hard"/logically consistent science fiction film to have characters
that are very engaging and well realized of the past half decade.

If you've not seen Inception yet, fix that soon!

~~~
megablast
I really liked inception, but felt that the character development wasn't
there. All the characters except Cobb exist only superficially, as if they are
just dream projections. We never find out what anyone else wants, why they are
coming along on this mad scheme.

Still a great movie.

------
muhfuhkuh
The best interpretation I've thought of after watching it (and talking with my
wife for hours after) was that Saito is the architect and he wanted to get
back at Cobol Industries twofold:

1) By getting Cobb to convince Fisher Jr. to feel like his daddy loved him and
wanted him to be his own man and dissolve the business to start his own empire
and

2) Get back at Cobb for trying to steal his secrets for Cobol by _incepting_
the little seed of "you want to go back home to your kids" in his head and
making that his obsessive ends to justify all means. Saito, meanwhile, was
willing to wait the dream equivalent of _eighty years_ to exact this revenge.
Then, as DiCaprio fulfills his promise and gets Saito in his 80-year Limbo,
Saito fulfills his promise, architects a layer where Cobb does reunite with
his still-young-as-Cobb-remembers-them children, and the spinning totem
wobbles but doesn't actually fall, then the "I N C E P T I O N" credits roll,
because Saito ran the inception on Cobb.

Ta-da!

~~~
adelevie
I hope this was meant to be funny :)

~~~
muhfuhkuh
Nope, and the fact that you don't dispute it with anything but a smiley leads
me to believe that you believe my belief.

I N C E P T I O N

------
harlowja
Obligatory code that runs the plot. <http://github.com/karthick18/inception>

------
dejb
Surely all or most of these interpretations have been considered by the
director and have been actively and deliberately intertwined into the story.
The budget was $160 million so think of how many startup ideas could be funded
with 10% of this amount. So it's easy then to imagine a team of geniuses
working to plant the seeds for all these interpretations and ideas in our
heads. That, coupled with the art of convincing somebody to fund the movie, is
Inception.

~~~
chc
I really doubt a "team of geniuses" collaborated to "plant the seeds for all
these interpretations and ideas in our heads." For one, that isn't how movies
are generally made and seems like a pretty boring way to approach making a
movie like inception. For another, there's no "team of geniuses" credited —
just Christopher Nolan.

------
dan00
In a way it's funny if people over-analyse a movie. If they put more meaning
into the movie than the director has intended.

Why just can't the reality shown in Inception be the reality, and the spinning
top at the end just a gag, in the way that the director doesn't show us long
enough the spinning top to see, if it falls or not?

So the spinning top at the end could be seen as an encouragement to think
about your own reality.

------
simonjoe
The author is a moron. This movie is amazing, but it's also insanely
straightforward. It doesn't require that kind of analysis; almost nothing
does.

I'm growing increasingly disheartened at the blogosphere simply because it
gives people as stupid as this author a way for even stupider people to
reinforce his bad behaviors.

------
chopsueyar
Well, this would explain why nobody is floating around in the snow mountain
fortress.

------
sabat
Fun ideas, but this is over-analysis. The movie is as it appears to be. There
is no justification for taking a minor aspect of the plot (that the dream-
sharing device is only briefly explained) and using it to concoct a whole new
layer underlying the movie. The spinning top at the end is a red herring --
it's Christopher Nolan having a little fun with us. The true indication of
what happened, that Cobb has reached reality, is in his ability to see his
children's faces at last. That's the give-away.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I think the ending is several things at once, which is why I like it.

One, it's a red herring as you say, though I'd put a slightly different spin
on it. Cobb has chosen his reality, he's had his catharsis and made a very
intentional decision to let Mal go. That's true regardless of if the ending is
a dream or not.

Two, it's an intentional denial of catharsis for the audience. It's a setup
without a payoff, tension without release. Here's the interesting part about
that- the audiences I've seen it with provide their own physical catharsis,
their own reality-based relief of tension, by laughter or by applause. These
physical reactions both release the real physical tension that has built in
their bodies and also returns them to the real world, outside of the filmic
dream.

Three, it captures the feeling of a certain kind of dream. How many times have
you dreamed of almost having the answer, of almost knowing something you want
to know...and then abruptly waking up? Yes, exactly.

It's the best ending shot to a movie in quite a long while.

~~~
barrkel
My personal catharsis was a grunt of "hmph". For a split second I considered
the "question" of the spinning top - is this real or not - then noticed that I
didn't care, that it was a banal and uninteresting question, because the
question relied on its very existence for its interestingness, as either
answer - it's a dream, or it's the final reality - were both cop-outs, were
both unsatisfying and cheaply done. "It's all a dream" is the most childish of
story resolutions, while the idyllic literal interpretation of the shown
ending is unacceptably saccharine for something purporting to be adult
entertainment.

As to feeling that you have the answer in a dream, that's down to the extreme
suspension of disbelief the dozing mind is capable of. That suspension was
something that a movie allegedly about dreams hardly ever brought up. If some
character can dream up bigger guns, and another character a freight train in a
city street, then why not more? And why are the defensive projections of the
dream's owner so tame, merely human, when they could potentially be changing
the whole world? And if being weightless at one level creates weightlessness
in the next level down, why isn't it transitive? And wouldn't dreaming that
the entire building / local area / whatever starts accelerating skywards at
9.8 meters per second per second restore gravity? Why can't that manipulation
be used as "the kick"? Seems like a simpler manipulation than what the
architect was up to.

~~~
ollysb
The sequence where he sees his children seems decidedly like an alternative
ending to the sequence we've been seeing the whole way through the film. This
already made me suspicious, the spinning top then seemed confirmation that you
are not looking at reality.

~~~
vandahm
I agree that the scene in which he sees his children's faces is suspicious --
everything after he wakes up is a bit convenient. Cobb breezes through
customs, Michael Caine's character is right there waiting for him, and his
kids are right where he left them. It's certainly plausible that Cobb is lost
in a dream.

But I don't think the top is evidence of that. At the level of reality in
which the plane ride occurs, we've seen the top fall. Consequently, it seems
clear that, in the last scene, the top will fall, and we do see it start to
wobble before it cuts to the credits.

The question, then, becomes whether the top actually is the reliable indicator
of reality that Cobb thinks it is. If the top really is a totem, then Cobb
made it back to the real world. But where did the top come from? He got it
from his wife after she died. If his wife really did escape from a dream by
dying (if Cobb was dreaming the whole time, this is possible), then Cobb
acquired the top in a dream, and whether it falls or not proves nothing.

I'm pretty sure that I'm reading too much into the ending of the movie.
Personally, I think he made it back to the real world. But the director has
made other movies that invite a similar degree of scrutiny, so who knows?

~~~
jpdbaugh
I haven't seen the movie in a while now but I remember Cobb or maybe Mag
placing the top inside of a safe, spinning it, and locking it up while they
were in limbo. The top would appear to spin forever at in dreams closer to
reality or reality itself because of how much slower time flows at the lower
levels. However, the top will not spin infinitely. It will eventually stop
when it finishes spinning in the deep nested dream reality, therefore I don't
think it is necessarily a great indicator of reality if it topples over or not
because it will stop spinning eventually.

At least this is how I read it. To be honest I didn't really think the top
made a lot of sense but I think this is what it was intended to mean.

------
Ardit20
That is quite a literary interpretation. I think the dream expresses much
deeper truths through the metaphors.

The ending ends that way because the producers clearly wanted us to question
as to which is reality. Remember when he says do not create places from
reality into dreams as that is the best way to lose which is reality and which
is a dream. Also, when he meets his older self and tells him he has to jump.
That indicates that the "reality" on which the film begins is not really
reality, that his wife was probably right. But how can she be right when the
spinner does stop spinning and yet in the end when we are brought to the same
reality it does not stop spinning?

This contradiction is supposed to be there as it communicates this entire
confusion as to which is reality and which is an illusion we have created for
ourselves. Speaking of its applicability to the real world it speaks of
brainwashing, propaganda, and formation of our own perceptions, how we can
through them create a different reality and be lost in there, yet also
struggle to find the real truth. The film, through the metaphor, communicates
perfectly this entire confusion and it ends with such contradiction because
ultimately we as humans and our thinking can not acquire perfection as to what
is truth. We are blind in the end to inconsistencies within our illusions,
hence the always spinning spinner.

Its a good film, but in the end I think it is really rubbish. The subject is
awesome, but it does not go deep enough. The ending is too subtle. There
probably should have been some sort of almighty intervention like in the
ending of Don Juan for it to become a classic. To allure in the end that there
are great forces out there which we depend on and only through taking a leap
of faith in ourself can we acquire reality.

~~~
Tycho
The spinning top at the end is not meant to make you question the reality,
it's meant to question your reasons for believing he's in reality and find a
more satisfying/compelling reason. Whether a top spins or not is an
unsatisfying answer to any deep question - the reunion with his children is
more meaningful. I think we all know we are not dreaming at this moment for a
myriad of reasons, but the strongest is probably that other people seem real
to an extent that you'd never get in dreams.

I'm starting to repeat myself now in this thread so I better check out
(...before I become an old man, filled with regret...).

