Requisite Inception reaction post, fresh from the theater.
So, I have just come back from seeing Inception and I think it's, like, an internet law that you have to post about it once you've seen it. Which means SPOILERS and all that.
(I find this movie to be a lot like I find the Sherlock fandom. I am super intrigued and wish to talk about it and possibly read a whole lot of fic, but I know most fic is makeouts fic and while I don't oppose the main ship and was even shipping it myself during the watching of the original canon I am not sure I am prepared in my heart for makeouts in fanfic. This leaves me at a crossroads, you see.)
I can't say I was terribly surprised by the Inception ending--in fact, I would have been disappointed if they hadn't gone there. As soon as they started talking about dreams within dreams, of course there was going to be a whole thing with Dom in a dream that he doesn't know about. Too many clues pointed to the subject not being aware, the whole point was about these differing levels and people that aren't really real but seem real, memories and not using places you know and totems and all that. It couldn't have gone any other way without leaving me feeling unsatisfied by the lack of surprise, not with a con as big as the one the movie was presenting.
Okay, I will say I was a little surprised after the conversation with Mal's shade and the reveal that Dom was the one who planted the idea in her head, that everything was a dream and she killed herself to try to wake up from it, I thought that was going to be the big surprise. But then the top kept spinning at the end and I hadn't quite expected both those surprises, but I wasn't terribly surprised by the top continuing to spin.
Maybe if it had been done a little differently, I would have minded the lack of resolution? I'm not sure. But, thinking about it, I actually like that Inception never really quite said. I spent much of the movie thinking that, well, why is Dom in this dream? Are they trying to extract something from him? The truth about what happened with Mal? But one answer never really seemed super obvious. And, coming away from it with a little time to think, I like that they didn't answer it because there are a million theories to play with and so many of them are so completely interesting.
My initial impulse is that Mal was right, they were still in the dream, and I suspect that is still the most likely. All through the movie, Ariadne (whom Dom connected with rather well) often struck me as being somewhat similar to Mal, there was a certain quality there that reminded me of the two of them. I didn't make much of it, not until I started thinking after the ending, and then I started wondering if, well, wouldn't that make sense if Dom was filling his world with projections, wouldn't the one he connected with the most be the one that reminded him of Mal? It would make sense to me, after all the talk of losing track of yourself and reality while you're that long gone or that far deep like they were in limbo, that Dom could have lost track of things.
Either that or it was a "hahaha, got you, fuckers! the totem actually did fall eventually, but I tricked you because I'm a jerk like that" moment from Nolan because I really wouldn't put it past him.
But I actually really like some of the other theories floating around out there and I like that the movie achieved what it set out to do--to entertain me. It was complex without being impossible to follow, there were never any dull moments but the pace never felt too frantic, I enjoyed the characters but didn't feel that their issues overtook the driving force of the plot, but instead added to it. It probably wouldn't stand up to intense scrutiny but I don't think it was necessarily intended to do that. I went into this movie going "lol shared dreams, okay go!" and shut my brain off for the sciency part of things and instead focused on the story they were trying to tell.
Which was an entertaining heist movie with an undercurrent of the troubles of not being able to tell dreams from reality. It was very slick and shiny the whole way, I was vaguely impressed with Leonardo DiCaprio given that I expected to be completely unimpressed, I liked all the characters a whole lot, I loved that the "ooh, there's this talented new prodigy that's even better than you were!" character got to be a girl and she got to be kind of awesome, and I love the fight scenes and the cg and special effects and the fantastic dialogue and the hotness of the cast. I like that you can think everything was real and Dom woke up for real at the end or you can think it was all a dream because the arbitary nature of the film lent itself very well to dream logic or you can make a case for a lot of different things. But, no matter what, it was an entertaining movie with an entertaining story for me.
I kind of want to rewatch it, like, five different times with an eye for five different theories, despite KNOWING that Nolan deliberately played it so that they were all about as supportable as each other, no one theory is really more "valid" than another, because he was kind of amazing at going, "Ahahahaha, I'm going to deliberately write this like a mediocre writer in places so that you'll think it's Dream Logic... IS IT OR ISN'T IT? AM I DOING MY JOB OR AM I JUST A MEDIOCRE WRITER?" And that kind of worked out really well for this movie. It really shouldn't have, but somehow it did!
And now I am off to poke at fandom with a very long stick. o/
(I find this movie to be a lot like I find the Sherlock fandom. I am super intrigued and wish to talk about it and possibly read a whole lot of fic, but I know most fic is makeouts fic and while I don't oppose the main ship and was even shipping it myself during the watching of the original canon I am not sure I am prepared in my heart for makeouts in fanfic. This leaves me at a crossroads, you see.)
I can't say I was terribly surprised by the Inception ending--in fact, I would have been disappointed if they hadn't gone there. As soon as they started talking about dreams within dreams, of course there was going to be a whole thing with Dom in a dream that he doesn't know about. Too many clues pointed to the subject not being aware, the whole point was about these differing levels and people that aren't really real but seem real, memories and not using places you know and totems and all that. It couldn't have gone any other way without leaving me feeling unsatisfied by the lack of surprise, not with a con as big as the one the movie was presenting.
Okay, I will say I was a little surprised after the conversation with Mal's shade and the reveal that Dom was the one who planted the idea in her head, that everything was a dream and she killed herself to try to wake up from it, I thought that was going to be the big surprise. But then the top kept spinning at the end and I hadn't quite expected both those surprises, but I wasn't terribly surprised by the top continuing to spin.
Maybe if it had been done a little differently, I would have minded the lack of resolution? I'm not sure. But, thinking about it, I actually like that Inception never really quite said. I spent much of the movie thinking that, well, why is Dom in this dream? Are they trying to extract something from him? The truth about what happened with Mal? But one answer never really seemed super obvious. And, coming away from it with a little time to think, I like that they didn't answer it because there are a million theories to play with and so many of them are so completely interesting.
My initial impulse is that Mal was right, they were still in the dream, and I suspect that is still the most likely. All through the movie, Ariadne (whom Dom connected with rather well) often struck me as being somewhat similar to Mal, there was a certain quality there that reminded me of the two of them. I didn't make much of it, not until I started thinking after the ending, and then I started wondering if, well, wouldn't that make sense if Dom was filling his world with projections, wouldn't the one he connected with the most be the one that reminded him of Mal? It would make sense to me, after all the talk of losing track of yourself and reality while you're that long gone or that far deep like they were in limbo, that Dom could have lost track of things.
Either that or it was a "hahaha, got you, fuckers! the totem actually did fall eventually, but I tricked you because I'm a jerk like that" moment from Nolan because I really wouldn't put it past him.
But I actually really like some of the other theories floating around out there and I like that the movie achieved what it set out to do--to entertain me. It was complex without being impossible to follow, there were never any dull moments but the pace never felt too frantic, I enjoyed the characters but didn't feel that their issues overtook the driving force of the plot, but instead added to it. It probably wouldn't stand up to intense scrutiny but I don't think it was necessarily intended to do that. I went into this movie going "lol shared dreams, okay go!" and shut my brain off for the sciency part of things and instead focused on the story they were trying to tell.
Which was an entertaining heist movie with an undercurrent of the troubles of not being able to tell dreams from reality. It was very slick and shiny the whole way, I was vaguely impressed with Leonardo DiCaprio given that I expected to be completely unimpressed, I liked all the characters a whole lot, I loved that the "ooh, there's this talented new prodigy that's even better than you were!" character got to be a girl and she got to be kind of awesome, and I love the fight scenes and the cg and special effects and the fantastic dialogue and the hotness of the cast. I like that you can think everything was real and Dom woke up for real at the end or you can think it was all a dream because the arbitary nature of the film lent itself very well to dream logic or you can make a case for a lot of different things. But, no matter what, it was an entertaining movie with an entertaining story for me.
I kind of want to rewatch it, like, five different times with an eye for five different theories, despite KNOWING that Nolan deliberately played it so that they were all about as supportable as each other, no one theory is really more "valid" than another, because he was kind of amazing at going, "Ahahahaha, I'm going to deliberately write this like a mediocre writer in places so that you'll think it's Dream Logic... IS IT OR ISN'T IT? AM I DOING MY JOB OR AM I JUST A MEDIOCRE WRITER?" And that kind of worked out really well for this movie. It really shouldn't have, but somehow it did!
And now I am off to poke at fandom with a very long stick. o/