Inception Explained: a really cool scrolling animation of the plot • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by instakill » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

yabbadabbadoo wrote: post #9

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…

2) It's the same limbo. Based on Saito's look, it's been 'decades' since Cobb set out to find him, and actually found him. In that time, Cobb's memory of how he ended up there has faded. Meanwhile, Saito's been architecting his immediate environment (and that's all we see, we don't see anything else in the distance and if we did, my guess is that it would be the same 'skyline' Cobb and Mal architected). 3) The sedati…

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.

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

#52

Post by swang » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

jfarmer wrote: post #42

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 found if you use the mouse scrollwheel rather than the keyboard it was much smoother.

I was using my mouse scrollwheel though... :(

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

#53

Post by pi3832 » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

evincarofautumn wrote: post #13

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

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 great brain-bending movie, but for some damn reason at the very end there's a, "Let's explain what really happened!" scene. F'idiots. (I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son (played by Macaulay Culkin) dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together. Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.)

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

#54

Post by pharrington » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

Inception's plot was certainly straight forward. But just about every movie that exists is packed with layers of meaning and open to wide spectrum of interpretation. Inception may seem deeper than the average movie only because talk about dreams is a fairly reliable way to trigger philosophical thought in people.

The -confusion- around Inception is probably just because the narrative is fairly dense.

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

#55

Post by jpeterson » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:44 PM UTC

evincarofautumn wrote: post #13

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

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 .

Congratulations, you're smart. Do you want a cookie?

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

#56

Post by RuggeroAltair » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #46

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…

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 Inception.

No matter if by God or Ariadne, or God through Ariadne or viceversa. Or if this happens in the real life, afterlife, parallel life, dream levels or what. The whole movie is about Cobbs and his subconscious. It's also interesting that Nolan used the name Cobbs for one of the characters of his first movie, Following, in which Cobbs was some sort of serial burglar. Just to keep the metaphor going.

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

#57

Post by theycallmemorty » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

I agree that the concept of the movie is not hard to understand.

But then I read trevelyan's post above and I feel stupid.

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

#58

Post by mechanical_fish » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 8:09 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

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 Feynman in that quote I can't stop paraphrasing: "Mathematicians can only prove trivial theorems, because once proved any theorem is immediately seen to be trivial."

But I think Inception succeeds as a film only because following the plot thread in real time isn't of the essence, just as I was able to enjoy Beethoven's Fifth Symphony long before I was taught its formal structure. Without the education required to really dissect that structure, you nevertheless sense that it's there, and it enhances the emotional experience that the work is trying to convey – in Inception's case, the experience of being a man (well, two men, actually, and possibly also a woman) immersed in a dreamlike world full of symbols, mazes, masks, bluffs, and distractions, a world that he himself is creating to distract his own attention from the pure, simple, but unthinkably awful pain at the center of his life.

---

EDIT: Fixed my prose, which got away from me. So tempted to just delete this whole thing, but I try to avoid erasing history even if it's really embarrassing and exhausting.

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

#59

Post by sounds » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

instakill wrote: post #51

yabbadabbadoo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) It's the same limbo. Based on Saito's look, it's been 'decades' since Cobb set out to find him, and actually found him. In that time, Cobb's memory of how he ended up there has faded. Meanwhile, Saito's been architecting his immediate environment (and that's all we see, we don't see anything else in the distance and if we did, my guess is that it would be the same 'skyline' Cobb and Mal architected). 3) The sedati…

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, though my argument doesn't explain how he moved up multiple dream levels to the plane...

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

#60

Post by libraryatnight » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 8:18 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people think inception was some stupid-deep, hard-to-understand movie? It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?

You're not alone, as others have pointed out, but I'll add my name to the list. I came out of Inception with my fiance and we almost simultaneously said, in different words of course, "That seemed a fairly straight forward twist on a heist movie, to me." And every viewing after I've felt the same way. It's a very cool heist movie with very cool effects and a clever plot.

It does lend itself well to interpretation and general musing, but sometimes I feel people are reaching too far for allegory and symbolism. It's good to find those things, and to take art and run with it, to let it seed ideas and interpretation, but some are a little over zealous.