Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

inception-explained.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 139 posts

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#101

Post by rdtsc »

Jabbles wrote: post #45

Perhaps someone here can explain something that has annoyed me since I saw Inception. Falling (accelerating under gravity) is meant to "wake you up". Whilst falling you feel weightless - almost by definition (if you and the weighing machine are accelerating in sync, you apply no pressure to it). For some reason falling causes the loss of gravity in the dream world, and there's that whole scene about "recreating gravi…

> Whilst falling you feel weightless - almost by definition (if you and the weighing machine are accelerating in sync, you apply no pressure to it).

Ah but how often do have a chance to feel weightless? Unless you are on a space station, bungee or parachute jumping? So the feeling of weightlessness itself is pretty startling.

Also it is the moment from when you are standing on something and get pushed over the edge and then all of the sudden you are falling that is quite startling.

Think back on a dream of you falling. Everyone has those. For me, it is always the weightlessness that is shake me up and wakes me.

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#103

Post by jerf »

muhammadatt wrote: post #99
jerf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word of God is that this is not true and that the top level of reality was indeed reality. The camera panning away from the spinning top before it fell down was supposed to represent that Cobb is now dedicated to his children and no longer worried about whether it's reality, not a low-class cheap mindscrew about whether it's all a dream or not. Note that having the whole thing be a dream completely drains it of all i…

This seems to be an overly simplified take. If Nolan had intended to make it clear that the final scene was indeed reality then he could have just as well shown the totem falling while Cobb walked away. It seems pretty clear that Nolan explicitly intended to leave it up to the viewer to decide what was "real" and what as not. This ambiguity between dream and reality is one of the most important themes in the film - C…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception#Ending - Nolan himself noted that "I choose to believe that Cobb gets back to his kids, because I have young kids. People who have kids definitely read it differently than those who don't". Good enough for me.

You're still right he meant to leave it up to the viewer, but it completely destroys the rest of the movie if everything is a dream. People want to play games with the rules the movie presented and hypothesize about the whether Mal is in the "level above"... but everything we think we know about the rules comes from that level. We learn about the multi-layer inception, the wife, the concept of limbo, everything in the movie, on that level. If it's all a dream, then there's no target to the obsession in the first place, no children, no wife, nothing.

Incidentally, note I'm sort of making a metapoint... if Nolan came out and said "Yes, it was all a dream" I would accept it. But it would still dramatically destroy the movie.

I'm also sort of hostile to the "all just a dream" idea, whereever it appears in fiction, because it's redundant. It's already just a dream, a movie, a book, a TV show, whatever. It's already not real. Saying that in the context of the not-real work of fiction the entire story was also not-real is silly. (Note the word "entire".) It started at the maximum level of not-realness from the very first word or frame. And it's a short trip from there to the Bergman/Braga incoherent style of ass-pull storytelling. (Or Tennant-era Doctor Who.)

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#104

Post by eric-hu »

swang wrote: post #41

While these scroll sites are pretty cool... I don't know if its the javascript library or maybe that is the affect the site's creator wanted but it doesn't feel smooth. Maybe because of the scroll speed the animations have fewer frames to animate which makes it look choppy? I'm not sure.

I had the same feeling.

I actually switched over to a wheel mouse because I tried using this on an Apple touchpad and it was not a happy animation.

I'm pretty forgiving about the smoothness though. Scroll pages like this are still uncommon and it seems nontrivial to refine the scrolling to the point where it feels smooth and natural.

I would not have the same expectation for an FPS or side scrolling game put out by a studio.

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#105

Post by ekianjo »

agscala wrote: post #43
Pewpewarrows wrote: post #3

This was really well done. I'd just like to point out a few things, as someone who's watched Inception way too many times: 1) It is never said that 3 levels is the maximum depth of a dream until Limbo occurs. My interpretation has always been that Cobb and Ariadne hooked up a shared-dream machine to Fisher's dead body, which brought them into Limbo. 2) Why are there 2 Limbos? There's the one Cobb and Ariadne follow F…

Another issue I had is this: In the scene when they're in the hotel, they lose gravity after the van drives off the bridge. Then they go further to the winter place and gravity has been restored despite the fact they're floating around in the hotel.

One of the numerous inconsistencies of this movie. If you're floating, the expansion of time would not change the fact that would still be floating. This did not make sense at all.

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#107

Post by gadgetdevil »

jerf wrote: post #103
muhammadatt wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be an overly simplified take. If Nolan had intended to make it clear that the final scene was indeed reality then he could have just as well shown the totem falling while Cobb walked away. It seems pretty clear that Nolan explicitly intended to leave it up to the viewer to decide what was "real" and what as not. This ambiguity between dream and reality is one of the most important themes in the film - C…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception#Ending - Nolan himself noted that "I choose to believe that Cobb gets back to his kids, because I have young kids. People who have kids definitely read it differently than those who don't". Good enough for me. You're still right he meant to leave it up to the viewer, but it completely destroys the rest of the movie if everything is a dream. People want to play games with the rul…

How would it dramatically destroy the movie? The term is existentialism. It may all be a dream, but that doesn't mean that you can't give your life (or the movie for that matter) its own meaning. I personally find this more liberating, than the idea that life is a game to played.

>It's already not real. Dreams are real while we are in them.

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#108

Post by muhammadatt »

jerf wrote: post #103
muhammadatt wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be an overly simplified take. If Nolan had intended to make it clear that the final scene was indeed reality then he could have just as well shown the totem falling while Cobb walked away. It seems pretty clear that Nolan explicitly intended to leave it up to the viewer to decide what was "real" and what as not. This ambiguity between dream and reality is one of the most important themes in the film - C…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception#Ending - Nolan himself noted that "I choose to believe that Cobb gets back to his kids, because I have young kids. People who have kids definitely read it differently than those who don't". Good enough for me. You're still right he meant to leave it up to the viewer, but it completely destroys the rest of the movie if everything is a dream. People want to play games with the rul…

You seemed to have skipped right over the first few sentences from the section you cited: "Nolan confirmed that the ambiguity was deliberate, saying "I've been asked the question more times than I've ever been asked any other question about any other film I've made... What's funny to me is that people really do expect me to answer it....I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film."

:)

I agree that resolving the entire film as simply a dream would be a huge let down. If it were another film, would be content to stop there. For my money though, resolving that the ending puts Cobb firmly back into reality is also highly unsatisfactory. The more interesting (and I believe) intended result is force the viewer to question their own sense of reality. Haven't you ever had a dream that was so realistic that you were certain it was real - until you woke up? How do know for sure that we are not simply living a dream that we will one day wake up from?

There is a book by Stanislaw Lem that beautifully explores this sort of idea. In the story, there is mad scientist fellow that has a room full of electronic brains, each being slowly fed a life story via a series of slowly rotating magnetic drums. To the individual brains, the story that they are being told IS their life - they have no idea that they are simply boxes in some mad scientist's laboratory. The book goes onto suggest that our own lives may simply be programmed by a mad scientist who exists a level up from us.

I believe this it is this sort questioning of reality that Nolan is trying to impress upon the viewer. Reducing the whole thing to just a sci-fi film about a couple of dreamwalkers makes it seem frankly one-dimensional and uninteresting.

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#109

Post by salemh »

kstenerud wrote: post #92
pi3832 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not up to Primer's level of complexity, but for bending your brain a little, try: eXistenZ ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/ ) Naked Lunch ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ ) (And other David Cronenberg movies. While I'm at it, although it's completely linear, I'm going to plug: "Crash" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/ ).) Jacob's Ladder ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/ ) is almost a gre…

All great movies. Some others (with varying degrees of sophistication): The 13th Floor ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/ ) A Scanner Darkly ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/ ) Brazil ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ ) Time Bandits ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081633/ ) Dark City ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/ ) - A little disappointing at the end though =/

No Pi? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/

Re: Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

#110

Post by natep »

Jabbles wrote: post #76
natep wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not the falling, it's the jolt of landing. When in free fall, you are not actually accelerating. In terms of landing, though, it doesn't matter if you hit the ground or if, say, the bottom of an elevator hits you.

I haven't seen the film since it came out, so I may be mistaken. Didn't Cobb demonstrate to Ariadne that you wake up when you sense yourself falling? By tipping Arthur's chair over as he was dreaming? Arthur (if it was that character) didn't fall on the floor, there was no jolt. Also, doesn't the van land in the water, and no one wakes up?

According to the Inception Wiki, we're both right.

> One method used to awaken from a dream within a dream is called a "kick", which is the sensation of falling, hitting water, or a sharp jolt that can startle the sleeper awake.

Although I still think it's terribly inconsistent, if the details matter. There's too many different kicks with too many subtle differences and similarity for me to go into in a reasonable-length post.

Post reply on HN