Inception = Awesome
So I finally got around to seeing Inception last night. Damn, that is one fine movie.
Given the nature of the film, I think its only fair to say...
Wow. So really, and its been confirmed by Nolan himself, the ending of Inception is deliberately vague. They do not, and will not in "The Lady or the Tiger?" fashion, tell us whether the top would fall (indicating that Cobb had indeed returned to reality) or keep spinning (indicating that he was still in the dream.) Personally, I think he was still dreaming. I actually think that Mal was right, and that when she jumped she ended up in reality with Cobb still stuck in the dream. I think guilt-Mal was correct about the assassins coming after Cobb being projections, I think the scene where they wake up together looked unreal, and given that they had to go four layers deep to get Fisher, I think that waking up from the deep subconscious as they did was at least one layer too easy. In other words, I believe that the world that Cobb and Mal spent 50 years in was her dream, but that he was still stuck in his dream, from which she escaped by committing suicide.
But as Nolan himself says, in a way it doesn't matter, since Cobb's character arc of accepting the guilt and re-uniting with his family was completed in the film, since even though he spins the top, he walks away from it and doesn't look...indicating that he's willing to accept this reality with his children in it...
Wait a minute. It DOES matter. Because character growth or not, if he just sits down and accepts the reality he's in, but he's WRONG, then his real kids grow old without him, and Mal never gets her husband back. And Cobb spends the rest of his life as a vegetable or dies of starvation or something. So really, the ending of the movie is only satisfying if and only if Cobb has made it to reality. Because if he hasn't, then he's just as bad as the people the Chemist has in his basement...unable to live in the real world anymore.
So then we have to ask ourselves the following...
1) Does Saito really have enough power to get Cobb off the hook with just one phone call and less than 10 hours before landing?
As presented, Mal did an excellent job framing him. She left word that she was afraid of him, had herself certified sane, set up a very convincing scene...they basically had him cold. What could Saito say that would change all that? I suppose that he could have some kind of other heist team in place to wipe the computer records or buy off a judge or something, but still...
2) Coincidence or Memorex?
Also, what are the chances that Cobb's kids were in the same place, looking the same direction, while wearing the same clothes as when he left them? They actually had aged, contrary to my first impressions, as there were different children playing the roles of "Phillipa Cobb 3 years/James Cobb 20 months" and "Phillipa Cobb 5 years/James Cobb 3 years." Still, it seemed an odd coincidence. But its not a coincidence at ll if it was just a memory.
3) The escape scene in "the real world" seemed pretty similar to the ones in the dream world.
Think about it. Hordes of generic bad guys appearing out of nowhere, spraying the crowd with automatic gunfire, the sudden arrival of Saito as an escape...how is Cobb's escape any different than the one when they kidnap Fisher, or the van escape? I would argue that they aren't, and that in fact the similarity provides evidence that absolutely nothing we see in the whole of the movie is in "reality."
Overall, therefore, I tend to believe that Cobb is in a dream from title to credits. But that is, of course, only my interpretation. There is no right answer, any more than there's a right answer to "The Lady or the Tiger?" There is only what you yourself bring to the film, and what you choose to take away from it.
Which is exactly how the film was intended to be viewed.
Bravo on a job well done.
Given the nature of the film, I think its only fair to say...
Wow. So really, and its been confirmed by Nolan himself, the ending of Inception is deliberately vague. They do not, and will not in "The Lady or the Tiger?" fashion, tell us whether the top would fall (indicating that Cobb had indeed returned to reality) or keep spinning (indicating that he was still in the dream.) Personally, I think he was still dreaming. I actually think that Mal was right, and that when she jumped she ended up in reality with Cobb still stuck in the dream. I think guilt-Mal was correct about the assassins coming after Cobb being projections, I think the scene where they wake up together looked unreal, and given that they had to go four layers deep to get Fisher, I think that waking up from the deep subconscious as they did was at least one layer too easy. In other words, I believe that the world that Cobb and Mal spent 50 years in was her dream, but that he was still stuck in his dream, from which she escaped by committing suicide.
But as Nolan himself says, in a way it doesn't matter, since Cobb's character arc of accepting the guilt and re-uniting with his family was completed in the film, since even though he spins the top, he walks away from it and doesn't look...indicating that he's willing to accept this reality with his children in it...
Wait a minute. It DOES matter. Because character growth or not, if he just sits down and accepts the reality he's in, but he's WRONG, then his real kids grow old without him, and Mal never gets her husband back. And Cobb spends the rest of his life as a vegetable or dies of starvation or something. So really, the ending of the movie is only satisfying if and only if Cobb has made it to reality. Because if he hasn't, then he's just as bad as the people the Chemist has in his basement...unable to live in the real world anymore.
So then we have to ask ourselves the following...
1) Does Saito really have enough power to get Cobb off the hook with just one phone call and less than 10 hours before landing?
As presented, Mal did an excellent job framing him. She left word that she was afraid of him, had herself certified sane, set up a very convincing scene...they basically had him cold. What could Saito say that would change all that? I suppose that he could have some kind of other heist team in place to wipe the computer records or buy off a judge or something, but still...
2) Coincidence or Memorex?
Also, what are the chances that Cobb's kids were in the same place, looking the same direction, while wearing the same clothes as when he left them? They actually had aged, contrary to my first impressions, as there were different children playing the roles of "Phillipa Cobb 3 years/James Cobb 20 months" and "Phillipa Cobb 5 years/James Cobb 3 years." Still, it seemed an odd coincidence. But its not a coincidence at ll if it was just a memory.
3) The escape scene in "the real world" seemed pretty similar to the ones in the dream world.
Think about it. Hordes of generic bad guys appearing out of nowhere, spraying the crowd with automatic gunfire, the sudden arrival of Saito as an escape...how is Cobb's escape any different than the one when they kidnap Fisher, or the van escape? I would argue that they aren't, and that in fact the similarity provides evidence that absolutely nothing we see in the whole of the movie is in "reality."
Overall, therefore, I tend to believe that Cobb is in a dream from title to credits. But that is, of course, only my interpretation. There is no right answer, any more than there's a right answer to "The Lady or the Tiger?" There is only what you yourself bring to the film, and what you choose to take away from it.
Which is exactly how the film was intended to be viewed.
Bravo on a job well done.