On Inception
So last night I saw Inception. If you haven't seen it, you might not want to read this. I don't intend to get too "spoilery" but I don't plan on holding anything back either.
I've basically come to the conclusion that Christopher Nolan and I live on the same narrative wavelength. I've always been surprised by the amount of internet speculation about what "really" happened in Memento when I found the film rather straight forward. After some browsing I again find myself surprised by the amount of internet speculation about what "really" happened in Inception which, again, I found rather straight forward. I've even seen some odd interpretations of The Prestige which, of the three, is the most straight forward.
So I have simply come to the conclusion that Nolan and I speak the same narrative language. In particular Nolan keeps making movies about the things I keep trying to play/design RPGs to be about. The cynic in me found myself pondering all the gamers who are likely out there right now scribbling notes on how to do a "dream heist" game and are likely completely ignoring the thing that gave the movie its soul: Cobb's and Fischer's quests for closure which resolve in two completely different ways.
While watching the film I realized that I've been trying to do the opposite. If you cut out the heist storyline and just left Cobb, Mal, The Elevator of Regretful Memories and maybe Ariadne you pretty much have exactly what I keep trying to design Silent Sound to do. My general preference is to make stories as small an intimate as can be managed. I don't know where that preference comes from as clearly the "mass market" tread is towards larger and longer.
One thing that spoke profoundly to me is Nolan's take on dream death. He skipped the Matrix/Nightmare on Elm Street approach where if you die the dream you die in real life. At first it's presented as a non-issue; you just wake up. But then he offers a far more terrifying proposition.
He suggests the possibility of being sent to a place where you will be trapped, alone with your own thoughts for 50 years. That's a place I often fear I already live. But on the other side of the same coin he offers an incredibly romantic notion. He suggests that in that same place lies the ability to spend 50 years *sharing* your thoughts and dreams in infinite play with a partner. And that is something I crave very desperately.
I've basically come to the conclusion that Christopher Nolan and I live on the same narrative wavelength. I've always been surprised by the amount of internet speculation about what "really" happened in Memento when I found the film rather straight forward. After some browsing I again find myself surprised by the amount of internet speculation about what "really" happened in Inception which, again, I found rather straight forward. I've even seen some odd interpretations of The Prestige which, of the three, is the most straight forward.
So I have simply come to the conclusion that Nolan and I speak the same narrative language. In particular Nolan keeps making movies about the things I keep trying to play/design RPGs to be about. The cynic in me found myself pondering all the gamers who are likely out there right now scribbling notes on how to do a "dream heist" game and are likely completely ignoring the thing that gave the movie its soul: Cobb's and Fischer's quests for closure which resolve in two completely different ways.
While watching the film I realized that I've been trying to do the opposite. If you cut out the heist storyline and just left Cobb, Mal, The Elevator of Regretful Memories and maybe Ariadne you pretty much have exactly what I keep trying to design Silent Sound to do. My general preference is to make stories as small an intimate as can be managed. I don't know where that preference comes from as clearly the "mass market" tread is towards larger and longer.
One thing that spoke profoundly to me is Nolan's take on dream death. He skipped the Matrix/Nightmare on Elm Street approach where if you die the dream you die in real life. At first it's presented as a non-issue; you just wake up. But then he offers a far more terrifying proposition.
He suggests the possibility of being sent to a place where you will be trapped, alone with your own thoughts for 50 years. That's a place I often fear I already live. But on the other side of the same coin he offers an incredibly romantic notion. He suggests that in that same place lies the ability to spend 50 years *sharing* your thoughts and dreams in infinite play with a partner. And that is something I crave very desperately.