INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

[Gwai Lo]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

There's a disparity here:

I'm the one who has a open mind and is looking at the film for what it is, not what I wish it was.

My whole point is that Inception, like pretty much all films, can be better than it is. However, the disparity between what it is and what it has the potential to be is far greater than the norm, and to me, that's a problem.

Sounds to me like you are look at the film for what you wish it was.

You've made more than enough points to explain why you think it's flawed. But your apparent belief that you have taken samples, made empirical measurements, busted out the Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks and created a solution that proves INCEPTION is poorly written film is fundamentally wrong. So too is your apparent belief that anyone who thinks this is a well written film is "making excuses" or is allowing Hollywood to make a fool out of them or undermine their intelligence. These arguments are why I find it hard to take your legitimate criticisms seriously.

[Biohazard]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Sounds to me like you are look at the film for what you wish it was.

Of course I wish it exploited the concept. But I am simply informing those of you with closed minds exactly how it could be better.

By the way, you really need to learn how to make your points clear without resorting to colossal paragraphs of simile and metaphor. Just state your case and let the evidence speak for itself - if you trust in your beliefs.

[Gwai Lo]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Of course I wish it exploited the concept. But I am simply informing those of you with closed minds exactly how it could be better.

By the way, you really need to learn how to make your points clear without resorting to colossal paragraphs of simile and metaphor. Just state your case and let the evidence speak for itself - if you trust in your beliefs.

Right. I'm the one with the closed mind.

Film is not a medium of absolute rights and wrongs. It would be terribly boring if it was. If you are able to matter-of-factly state your case on a film, and be right, that movie is quite likely a fukking bore. Interesting films inspire debate and discussion.

More colossal paragraphs coming up that prove how close-minded I am by addressing logical questions and problems in the story I myself haven't been able to answer.

[Gwai Lo]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

I have two questions that both of my viewings have failed to answer. I do not as of yet consider these "flaws", they do not diminsh my enjoyment of the film. But I am vaguely troubled by my inability to figure them out. To the best of my recollection I don't think anyone has addressed them yet in this thread, even Bio, who is so desperate to find flaws that he has brought up several things that didn't even happen as he described them.

Shall we?

1) What happens when you die in limbo?

The movie suggests that dying in limbo is an exit. Cobb and Mal commit suicide via oncoming train, and wake up in a higher level of reality (let's ignore whether or not it's actually reality he wakes up in!) In the penultimate scene, Cobb and old-man Saito eye a gun like they mean business right before a mysterious cut to both of them waking up on the airplane. Both of these scenes seem to indicate that you can escape from limbo by killing yourself.

This is problematic because it seems to render limbo a lot less perilous than Cobb makes it out to be. What is the risk of dropping into limbo for the team if death is an exit? If death is not an exit (due to sedation), where do they go from limbo? And if death works in limbo even under sedation, then why does it work in limbo but not the other levels?

Assuming death is an exit, I think the film wants us to believe that the danger of limbo is that you have no idea you're there. Ignoring that limbo is objectively the most surreal location in the movie, I think the confusion between limbo and reality is supposed to be so great that killing yourself is no more a viable option than it would be in the real world.

Old-man Saito certainly does seem to behave as if he thinks he's in reality. But as for Cobb, it would be hard to mistake an empty city of skyscrapers as the real world. Not only that, Cobb tells Ariadne that he built everything in limbo with Mal. That suggests conscious effort. Surely you'd realize something was amiss when you constructed whole cities with your mind. I also seem to recall a line from Cobb concerning Mal that implied that it took a while for Mal to start confusing limbo with reality, suggesting that the confusion took time. And indeed, Cobb and Ariadne don't seem too confused when they drop in. They're still their conscious selves from the previous levels.

Now it could be argued that Cobb and Mal in limbo is a whole different ballgame than Cobb and Saito. At this earlier point, they may not necessarily know death is an exit. It's their first time. It might be a dangerous game of trial and error that they're not ready to play. This might explain why it took them decades to even attempt it. Cobb isn't sure that limbo will work, so laying their heads down on the train tracks is a very risky proposition. Perhaps the true danger of limbo is perpetual uncertainty. You can wake up, but where will you wake up?

This brings me to my next question.

2) Why do both of these limbo-related death scenes seem to have two paradoxical presentations?

In the scene where Cobb and Mal commit suicide, they're young. This suggests they escaped relatively early. But in the scene where Cobb and Ariadne confront Mal to rescue Fischer, we see visual evidence that they grew old together in limbo.

In the opening scene of the film, Cobb listens to Saito's "half remembered dream" dialogue. In the penultimate scene of the film, Cobb parrots this dialogue back to him, like he's already heard it, as we the audience have.

What is the significance of this?

I'm going out. Feel free to chew these over while I'm gone.

[Biohazard]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Right. I'm the one with the closed mind.

Film is not a medium of absolute rights and wrongs. It would be terribly boring if it was. If you are able to matter-of-factly state your case on a film, and be right, that movie is quite likely a fukking bore. Interesting films inspire debate and discussion.

More colossal paragraphs coming up that prove how close-minded I am by addressing logical questions and problems in the story I myself haven't been able to answer.

Don't take everything so personally, Gwai Lo. I made a general statement, not an attack. We're all friends, here.

Anyway...


Film is a medium of 'works' and 'doesn't work'.

Inception doesn't work in these regards:

1 - The hero stops actively pursuing his goal of planting the idea. Instead, he goes gallivanting with his dead wife. This is a problem because he is the only one with anything at stake, and because nothing he does or could possibly do with his wife gets the team any closer to planting the idea. It's essentially a waste of time - and felt like one, too.

2 - Tied to 1, nobody besides Leo loses anything if the plan fails or gains anything if the plan succeeds. The secondary characters solve the problem for the hero, and they are all cut-outs - no reason to care for any of them. Leo could have stayed home and did a word find and saved himself the trouble of even going on the mission in the first place. Why does he have to be there if his team does everything for him anyway?

3 - The concept was not exploited to its maximum dramatic potential. There are numerous instances where greater conflict could arise, thus creating a deeper interest and investment in the film, but this was constantly turned down in favor of more mundane events.

4 - The exposition was boring as sin.

That's what I see when I hold a mirror up to Inception - weak stakes, flat characters, meandering hero, bad dialogue, and failure to exploit the concept.

[Twofingeredtypist]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Was the spinning top actually Cobb's totem to begin with? Why was it used to fool Mal? Where/what was Mal's totem? Is it because she wanted to stay in the dream state she refused to have one?

[BurningWorld]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Was the spinning top actually Cobb's totem to begin with? Why was it used to fool Mal? Where/what was Mal's totem? Is it because she wanted to stay in the dream state she refused to have one?

Yup. the spinning top was Mal's to begin with. So if that's true then Cobb has no idea the true nature of it, therefore he never knows if he is in a dream or in reality. So the whole movie to me is a dream.

[emily blake]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Bio, honestly, you need to check your ego.

Saying you had issues with a film is perfectly fine, and lord knows that kind of dialogue is how we grow as writers. But saying that you know what's good and that anyone who disagrees with you is "close minded" is not respectful. We each have valid opinions here and we each deserve respect in debating them.

Saying those who disagree with you have closed minds is the linguistic equivalent of closing your ears and going "Yeah well you're stupid times infinity!"

[Twofingeredtypist]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Yup. the spinning top was Mal's to begin with. So if that's true then Cobb has no idea the true nature of it, therefore he never knows if he is in a dream or in reality. So the whole movie to me is a dream.

That's what I'd been thinking since I saw it. And I need to go again. I think it's GREAT to come out of a big mainstream movie with something to think about and discuss.

That said, roll on The Expendables...

[Biohazard]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Saying those who disagree with you have closed minds is the linguistic equivalent of closing your ears and going "Yeah well you're stupid times infinity!"

And making excuses for fundamental screenwriting errors in a professional Hollywood film is the equivalent of putting on your rose-colored glasses and drinking the Kool-Aid.

[emily blake]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

And making excuses for fundamental screenwriting errors in a professional Hollywood film is the equivalent of putting on your rose-colored glasses and drinking the Kool-Aid.

So you really don't realize it? You're saying that anyone who disagrees with you is incapable of making their own decisions, and that only you see the glorious truth while we poor ignorant saps just have to live with being brainwashed idiots.

Like I said, EGO. I just lost a lot of respect for you in this thread.

[SuperScribe]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Romance is in the air.

[Biohazard]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

So you really don't realize it? You're saying that anyone who disagrees with you is incapable of making their own decisions, and that only you see the glorious truth while we poor ignorant saps just have to live with being brainwashed idiots.

Absolutely not. I'm not better than anybody else and nobody is better than me. I just have high standards and refuse to lower them simply because Hollywood has lowered theirs.

Any inference you derive from that is your own. I am just a guy holding a mirror to a film and telling you what I see. Any reflected fault is not in the mirror, but in the film itself.

I don't have an ego, I just have strong beliefs that I am not afraid to defend.

[Donreel]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

[snip]

Inception doesn't work in these regards:

1 - The hero stops actively pursuing his goal of planting the idea. Instead, he goes gallivanting with his dead wife. This is a problem because he is the only one with anything at stake, and because nothing he does or could possibly do with his wife gets the team any closer to planting the idea. It's essentially a waste of time - and felt like one, too.

[snip]

For me, Cobb's 'relationship' with his wife, and their deeply conflicting views about reality and what to do about it, were the most interesting and engaging parts of the movie. I saw big stakes in that part of the plot; namely, whether the two of them would reconcile and reunite in true reality. I only wish this aspect of the story had been more fully developed. That's the story I became interested in. Sadly, it was woefully underdeveloped. In that sense, I agree with your point that the movie did not live up to its potential. I didn't care much about the "mission" and whether Cobb lost his focus on it. All of that stuff was very clever, but not very involving.

A more interesting and moving story would have used the inception mission as a mere springboard to the real story of the Cobb-Mal relationship and its resolution. "A" storyline: Cobb and Mal. "B" storyline: the inception caper.

[hscope]

Re: INCEPTION - Nolan's masterpiece!

Absolutely not. I'm not better than anybody else and nobody is better than me. I just have high standards and refuse to lower them simply because Hollywood has lowered theirs.

Any inference you derive from that is your own. I am just a guy holding a mirror to a film and telling you what I see. Any reflected fault is not in the mirror, but in the film itself.

I don't have an ego, I just have strong beliefs that I am not afraid to defend.

I think you are confusing your personal tastes with high standards, Bio.

You merely like what you like and don't like what you don't like; just like everyone else. Nothing wrong with that.