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Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot

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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

RuggeroAltair wrote: post #56
trevelyan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason there are two passages through what seem to be limbo is that Inception is Christian allegory. If you look at the structure of the film you can see Nolan using the opening and closing heist sequences as allegorical bookends to demonstrate Cobb's character development. In the first Cobb is a faithless and money-oriented thief who embraces violence and selfishly abandons his team when this fails ("every man f…

Good analysis. I think though that we can go a step forward. I agree that we all should look at it much more in a symbolic and metaphorical way than a logical way (there are several points in which the internal logic is severely weak). And exactly because of all the reasons you mentioned above, I've always considered the whole movie being representing something related to Cobbs. Cobbs is the one receiving the Incepti…

[deleted]

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

#122

Post by mnutt »

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 =/

One more is Timecrimes (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480669/)

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

#123

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

trevelyan wrote: post #83
instakill wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is post-rationalization if I've ever seen it.

Any act of film/literary analysis obviously requires thinking about something after you've seen/read it. The harder you think the better, and what you need to look for when evaluating arguments are evidence of internal consistency, plausibility and authorial design. So where is the problem? Nolan himself has said in media interviews that the significance of the top is that Cobb walks away. He's also remarked on the c…

So the importance of the top at the end - one of the most debated points - isn't whether it falls or not, but the fact that Cobb having spun it doesn't bother to check?

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

#124

Post by joeguilmette »

ars wrote: post #112
rdtsc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

Feeling weightless feels EXACTLY like falling. It does not feel like floating.

I disagree. I have around a thousand skydives. The only time I feel a sense of falling is when acceleration is involved. When acceleration is involved, weightlessness is not.

When jumping out of an aircraft you are already going around 100mph, close to terminal velocity. There is not a pronounced sensation of falling. It feels more like laying on your stomach in water, it a bit windier.

When jumping out of a stationary object, the feeling of falling is quite pronounced until you stop accelerating. A hot air balloon or helicopter produces this effect (and is pretty damn fun). While I've never done it, BASE jumping provides a similar sensation.

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

#125

Post by bad_user »

bh42222 wrote: post #65
mechanical_fish wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the plot of Inception really is very complicated for many people, but probably not if you're a computer programmer in which case you literally have years of formal education in the structures that this plot is built on, and even a formal vocabulary to describe it with. (e.g. " Inception is a movie that keeps pushing other movies onto the stack.") You're suffering the mathematician's disease, ably satirized by Fey…

No, the plot of Inception really is very complicated, unless you're a computer programmer Personal anecdote: My friend who is in marketing and is not at all a geek also thinks if you have half a brain the plot is obvious. She has no special math training beyond an MBA, and has done absolutely zero programming in her life.

I do have at least one acquaintance that watched it multiple times to understand it. In fact this acquaintance convinced me to go watch it, as I was actually curios about what's so hard to understand about it. And while watching it, I kept asking myself what's the big deal with it, as the plot unfolded itself pretty linearly.

So there is something about it that makes it hard to understand for some people, although my non-technical wife also had no problems with it.

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

#126

Post by zipdog »

trevelyan wrote: post #83
instakill wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is post-rationalization if I've ever seen it.

Any act of film/literary analysis obviously requires thinking about something after you've seen/read it. The harder you think the better, and what you need to look for when evaluating arguments are evidence of internal consistency, plausibility and authorial design. So where is the problem? Nolan himself has said in media interviews that the significance of the top is that Cobb walks away. He's also remarked on the c…

'Mal' means 'bad' in latin, btw.

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

#127

Post by ars »

joeguilmette wrote: post #124
ars wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling weightless feels EXACTLY like falling. It does not feel like floating.

I disagree. I have around a thousand skydives. The only time I feel a sense of falling is when acceleration is involved. When acceleration is involved, weightlessness is not. When jumping out of an aircraft you are already going around 100mph, close to terminal velocity. There is not a pronounced sensation of falling. It feels more like laying on your stomach in water, it a bit windier. When jumping out of a stationa…

Why do you disagree? You are describing EXACTLY what I said.

Did you typo and mean to write agree?

When you hit terminal velocity you are no longer in free fall, I would expect it to feel like pressing lightly on something - which is what you describe.

To be in free fall you have to be accelerating (that's why it's called free fall and not zero gravity), and again that's what you describe.

This is not a correct sentence: "When acceleration is involved, weightlessness is not." In fact it's exactly the oppose of that.

You can't have zero gravity near the earth - the earth has gravity, and you can't get away from it. Instead you accelerate at exactly the same speed as the acceleration from gravity. In order not to hit the ground due to your acceleration you move in a big circle and keep missing the ground.

The reason you don't keep getting faster and faster is that you keep accelerating in a different direction, your average is zero, but you are always accelerating, just in different directions (and you make sure to always put the earth in the right place to match your acceleration).

People on the space station feel like they are falling the entire time. Presumably they get used to it after a while, but that's what it feels like.

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

#128

Post by trevelyan »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #123
trevelyan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any act of film/literary analysis obviously requires thinking about something after you've seen/read it. The harder you think the better, and what you need to look for when evaluating arguments are evidence of internal consistency, plausibility and authorial design. So where is the problem? Nolan himself has said in media interviews that the significance of the top is that Cobb walks away. He's also remarked on the c…

So the importance of the top at the end - one of the most debated points - isn't whether it falls or not, but the fact that Cobb having spun it doesn't bother to check?

Exactly. The totem is "an elegant solution for keeping track of reality." And reality is the garden on the cliff, something emphasized not only by the comparison of life to a dream and dreamers to "figments" and "shades", but much more directly in such lines as Cobb's father urging his son to "come back to reality" when none of the characters are even dreaming.

We know Cobb doesn't need his totem by the end, because his rejection of Mal at the climax is an expression of faith. To understand the implicit alternative, look to the parallel heist sequence which opens the film. There we had a very different Cobb place his faith in the "reality" of Mal when he lowered himself out the window above a fatal fall. Nolan emphasizes that this is the wrong decision by showing us Cobb's immediate (biblical) fall, blasphemy and then betrayal and loss. Death destroys the world by water as foreshadowed in the parable that opens the film.

At the end of the film the logic of this sequence reverses. Cobb resists Mal's temptation to stay with her in limbo. He rejects her for the first time ever, telling Mal she is not "real" where even moments before he was expressing lingering doubts to Ariadne ("how can you know"). And whereas his lack of faith had previously led to his defeat, here his expression of it leads directly to Fischer's symbolic reconciliation with his father. And while the film presents another death sequence as required by Matthew 7.24, this is but prelude to a heaven sequence that breaks the endlessly circular logic of the dream world / penrose staircase. The rules are violated because they no longer apply: Cobb is free of the maze.

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

#129

Post by AndreiVajnaII »

trevelyan wrote: post #128
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the importance of the top at the end - one of the most debated points - isn't whether it falls or not, but the fact that Cobb having spun it doesn't bother to check?

Exactly. The totem is "an elegant solution for keeping track of reality." And reality is the garden on the cliff, something emphasized not only by the comparison of life to a dream and dreamers to "figments" and "shades", but much more directly in such lines as Cobb's father urging his son to "come back to reality" when none of the characters are even dreaming. We know Cobb doesn't need his totem by the end, because…

Your explanation has just made the movie more interesting to me. Until now I thought it was quite idiotic, but your revelations do make sense.

Though I still think that the ending scene is badly handled. If the point is that Cobb doesn't care any more about the outcome of the spinning top, then Nolan should have just slided from the image of the top to Cobb and his children.

By zooming in on the top and cutting the shot right before it should falls, it just adds this unneeded baggage of questioning whether all that happened is real or not. Like some sort of magic trick. "Do you doubt what you've just seen?" And I just didn't find that that was the point of the movie.

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

#130

Post by AndreiVajnaII »

mortenjorck wrote: post #73
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…

The cut away from the totem was simply the film's final inception: a seed of doubt in the viewer's mind.

I agree - kind of a cheap magic trick if you ask me...
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