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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

#131

Post by MengYuanLong »

pi3832 wrote: post #53
evincarofautumn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not alone. If you want a movie with actual complexity, watch Primer. Oh, you’ll probably think you get it the first time through, because the writing is great. Then you’ll rewatch it a couple times and see just how much you missed, because the writing is brilliant .

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…

Talk about timing. I just wrote up a list for a friend that includes a bunch of weird movies (most of them being head trips). My list includes two Cronenberg movies as well! Though, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of either. Heh, I know this is a little off topic but for those that dove this deep into the thread, maybe you would like to expand your weird movie viewing experience.

01. Eraserhead-- This feature film was the debut for Writer/Director David Lynch. The film is noted for its usage of sound as a theatrical device and "the baby" which is rumored to be created from an embalmed cow fetus. The films script is a scant 21 pages despite a running time of 85 minutes (script pages typically match runtimes).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead

02. Dead Leaves-- Produced in 2004, this Japanese animated film clocks in at 55 minutes long. The films (thin) plot is composed almost entirely of a chase/fight scene that begins on earth and ends on a space station. The movie's weirdness climaxes when when the mutant baby of the the film's protagonists is born and proceeds to kill a giant space catepillar which is attempting to eat the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Leaves http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439533/

03. House -- This 1977 Japanese film certainly ranks as one of the weirdest (if not the weirdest) movies of all time. It was unreleased in the U.S. until after a screening at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival. In an iconic scene, a Japanese girl is consumed by piano monster as a green eyed catch watches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_(1977_film)

04. Jacob's Ladder- Fans of the game Silent Hill should well be aware of this movie from 1990 that inspired many of its elements. Tim Robbins stars as a vietnam war vet suffering from demonic images increasingly polluting his fragile reality. One paticularly gruesome scene includes Robbins being wheeled through a bloody hospital corrirodor filled with limbs and mutating torsos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_Ladder_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/

05. Barton Fink- This Cohen Brothers film stars John Turturro as a novelist. The 1991 film closes with a set of iconic scenes including John Goodman exiting a burning hallway (like a badass).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Fink http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/

06. Naked Lunch- The first of two Cronenberg films in this category. This 1991 film adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel features a protagonist who uses bug spray as a chemical escape from reality. Talking insects and failed "William Tell Routines" are just some of the madness this movie contains.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch

07. Videodrome- David Cronenberg wrote and directed this movie staring James Woods. The movie centers around Wood's character, a sleazy TV exec, who inreasingly loses touch with reality after he comes across a station which airs extreme violence and torture. Key scenes include his merger with a TV set and a VHS tape being thrust into his stomach.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome

08. Donnie Darko (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall sp?)- Donnie Darko served as philosophical fodder for a whole generation of "Emos". Written and directed by Richard Kelly. The movie stars this brother-sister hollywood team. The movie covers a wealth of ideas including fatalism and time travel. Movie goers will inevitably remember the creepy bunny head that pervades entirety of the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko

09. Human Centipede- This 2010 dutch horror film quickly became a meme rivaling Two Girls One Cup for gross-out factor. The film features a mad doctor who connects three unfortunate souls in the most unfortunate way possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_centipede http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/

10. Brazil- The second installment of Terry Gilliam's "Imagination Trilogy". This 1985 film represents the dreams of adults including navigating beurocracy and chasing true love. Robert DeNiro also provides a notable role as a rebel repairman in the film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/

11. Black Swan 12. Paprika 13. Being John Malkovich 05. Teeth

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

#132

Post by InclinedPlane »

Arjuna wrote: post #117
InclinedPlane wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just talking with a friend about favorite Nolan movies. I can't decide between The Prestige, Inception, and maybe Dark Knight. Sounds like as good an excuse for a movie marathon as I've heard.

"I can't decide between The Prestige, Inception, and maybe Dark Knight." I'm surprised that Memento didn't make your Christopher Nolan short-list. Perhaps you didn't care for it, you haven't seen it, or you simply forgot to add it. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

I love Memento, but I'm not sure it's on the same level. I haven't seen it in a while though, I might have to add it to the list.

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

#133

Post by trevelyan »

AndreiVajnaII wrote: post #129
trevelyan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I think that's a really good comparison, because it really is a magic trick, isn't it? I think most good heist films are in the sense that the pleasure is in the misdirection: what makes them satisfying to watch is being "in on the game" -- seeing all of the clues arranged in plain sight and watching how the director pulls it off.

So Inception might not be for everyone since it's heavy on narrative and light on character development (we don't see why Cobb changes, he just does), but there's all of this wonderfully meta sleight-of-hand just below the surface as Nolan tells us how he is making the film. Even beyond the symbolism, the very rules he outlines for how to create dreams apply equally well to the film itself (make the plot a paradoxical maze, get the audience lost in it while you plant ideas in their heads, and make the message stick by forming it around a core message of positive emotional catharsis). And yet we are still surprised, or I was at least!

Anyway, hopefully if you see it again you'll like it better next time. I personally think it's hands-down one of the best films in the last decade, and it's a real pity it got shunted off at the Oscars when it should have swept the field.

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

#134

Post by WickyNilliams »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #116
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok officially need to re-watch this movie.

I was just talking with a friend about favorite Nolan movies. I can't decide between The Prestige, Inception, and maybe Dark Knight. Sounds like as good an excuse for a movie marathon as I've heard.

I love dark knight, inception and memento, but found the prestige to be a little bland. Did i miss something with that one? I really didn't rate it, so to see someone put it above memento makes me wonder if i just wasn't giving it my full attention

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

#135

Post by pak »

yabbadabbadoo wrote: post #17
austintaylor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked it as well. Some other thoughts on the film: 1. The bulk of the story is framed as Cobb & Saito's recollection in limbo. My theory is that the recollection (rather than the gun) is what wakes them up. 2. There is no explanation for why the first kick in dream level 1 (the one they miss) doesn't wake up Arthur, who is awake in dream level 2.

2. Under heavy sedation, a single kick isn't enough - it has to be a series of synchronous kicks from the current level and the level(s) above. This is why the rest of the team doesn't wake up either when the van hits the barrier (the first kick), not just Arthur.

But Arthur's level at that point is the hotel level; he never goes any deeper. He is at the exact same level when the second kick of hitting the water occurs, and for some reason that one wakes him up. He wouldn't experience any of the deeper kicks because he is not asleep in the hotel level, he is setting up all the explosives on the elevator.

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

#136

Post by klez »

sounds wrote: post #59
instakill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) Which kind of proves that the plane was reality. If Fisher dies in limbo he'd wake up in real life (the level above the plane), not on the plane.

3) Though the plane _is_ reality (in my opinion) Fisher could only have entered a dream without realizing it if: He was dreaming ever since Yusuf demoed the sedatives the first time, showing lots of people who dreamed all day (the "no, they come here to wake up" scene). Fisher tries to check his totem at that time but can't do it because he's trembling so bad. Thus, if he were under sedation, dying would not wake him…

s/Fisher/Cobbs/ge

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

#137

Post by klez »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #70
pharrington wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be sure, you're getting downvoted because you're claiming non-programmers can't easily understand the concept of an activity having -multiple layers-. An execution stack is but one example of this. The construction of a cake, for example, is another.

It's nice for someone to actually say so, thanks. I'm getting tired of all the reflexive, unexplained downvotes. HN is an unfriendly and cold place, these days. Meanwhile, sure, it's easy to understand that Inception is a cake. I'll concede that. But: it's not so easy to frost all three layers of the cake at the same time. The part where Inception gets tricky for me is where they start intercutting from layer to laye…

Maybe Common Lisp continuations could be a good example in that you go up the call stack, then down, then up again and so on.

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

#138

Post by joeguilmette »

ars wrote: post #127
joeguilmette wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sente…

You said feeling weightless feels like falling.

I don't know where you get the idea that being weightless feels like falling. Astronauts always feel like they're falling? Do you have a source for that?

They dive bomb a 747 to simulate zero g to train astronauts. I've done it is smaller planes. It feels like your are weightless - floating a pool. It does not feel like you're falling, like you just fell off a roof or a hot air balloon. When you fall, your stomach drops. You go from 0mph to fast.

When skydiving you do not feel like you're falling. Sometimes you get little stomach drop when you leave the plane (the 30mph increase in speed) but after you hit terminal you feel weightless and the sensation of falling is gone - you are no longer accelerating.

Now, we call this state freefall and you say freefall is the state prior to this, when you are accelerating towards terminal. I don't know the physics behind it, nor do I have a grasp on the nomenclature as you do.

That said, I have felt it with my body many thousands of times.

When you jump off something that isn't moving you feel like you're falling because you're accelerating (like a rollercoaster). When you hit terminal you no longer feel like you're falling, you feel weightless, an entirely different sensation, similar to laying in a pool. You have no sense that you are moving at all, let alone at 120mph.

I have never been in space, but I've been in zero g bouncing around the inside of a plane and I can tell you it in no way feels like falling. At all. Not even a little. No way astronauts feel like they're falling the whole time they're in space. They probably feel - weightless :)

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

#139

Post by Jose_GD »

zipdog wrote: post #126
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…

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

... and "evil" in spanish, as a noun
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