crap liek this makes me mad, no one will ever know if hes dreaming or not, but in my book hes dreaming... if anyone cares....
tiger99 - 15 years ago
He's awake.
My general rule is that if a movie is good, you stay for the credits. And it is there that we get our answer. When the name of the actors who play his children come up there are two sets. One for when they are at the age of three when Cobb last say them, and another set of actors portraying them at the age of five, when he returns. A good director like Nolan is not going to spend the extra money to get another set of actors unless he was emphasizing that they were older because this was reality, and Cobb had been out of country for two years, and thus the children are two years older. If it were a dream the only reference Cobb would have had would have been his memory of them at the age of three and therefore we would have seen the same actors, but since they are new actors it means that he is in reality
Joe Shmoe - 15 years ago
The simple fact of assembling a team, requiring Cobb to fly around to various countries (granted the training in a dream world although seeming like months would only be condensed to a few days in reality), would still take several months to fully establish. Let alone the initial mission Cobb, his partner, and the first failed architect were on, it is then safe to assume that from his initial departure from viewing the back of his children's heads to accepting the plane ticket, enough time has elapsed for such children at a youthful age to experience some maturation (at least a haircut, and a different set of clothes). Therefore, the ending the director manifests is not simply a question implying whether they completed the mission or not, but if the entire film itself was a dream. Regardless, I found the film to be completely original (something difficult to come by these days).
PS I'm pretty sure the van falling was the longest slow-mo scene in the history of film-making. Not sure how The Matrix is going to one up that one.
Raven - 15 years ago
Dreaming. Aside from all other considerations given above -- his children are utterly *unchanged* despite all his time away from home; they look *exactly* as he remembers them, having grown no older.
MikeyBinMike - 15 years ago
Heidi: Your first paragraph is illogical, unless you suggest that the movie begin with his birth and follow every second of his life, we're always going to be appearing "in the middle" of things.
The rest of your thesis is likeways illogical. In order to believe that he is in a dream, you have to throw out every single rule they talk about in the movie. We could likeways say that everything that ever happens in any movie is a dream.
For example, every dreamworld they enter has a very limited scope, with the sole exception being Limbo (the snow mountain is limited to the mountain, the hotel is limited to the hotel, the rainy city is limited to the city streets and hideout, etc.) so if he is "dreaming," he must be in limbo as he goes from a train in Kyoto to a plane, to paris, to mombasa, back to paris, to sydney, to a plane, to LAX, to his home.
Thus, he cannot be in a simple dreamworld, but must be in Limbo. But how can he be in Limbo if he escapes Limbo with his wife? Are you suggesting (without any implication anywhere in the movie) that there are actually two levels to Limbo and that he exists in a sort of upper level that is populated with at least 20 or so people that he is able to interact with? Is his mind projecting people he knows from the real world, or are Arthur and Ariadne completely constructs from his own mind?
I don't at all believe the whole movie is a dream as A) it's one of the simplest and most cliched Deus Ex Machina's of modern TV and movies, and B) it would make for a very lame and unfulfilling story.
He was dreaming. First, Cobb says the fastest way of knowing whether or not you are dreaming is to try to remember how you got to a scene. As he says to the architect, "notice how you are never at the beginning of a dream? You always find yourself somewhere in the middle." (loosely paraphrased) In every scene, he starts off already in the middle--we never see him leave or enter anything. Think about it.
Second, none of the other characters has any background to them. True, this isn't exactly unusual for a movie, but this movie actually feels well-written enough that I believe this was deliberately done. Also, all the characters are perfect for their situation. First, he needs a new architect, and his father (was that his father? Or Mal's father? I'm not sure) just hand-delivers the perfect girl for the job. Then, he needs someone with imagination, and he is able to just find him right away (again, appearing in the middle of the scene), and the same with the chemist, etc. It was extremely convenient, and we don't really know anything at all about any of these people, except how they are able to carry out their jobs.
Third, when Saito is in the helicopter, offering Cobb the job, he tells him there's no way Cobb has of knowing whether or not he can trust him, but that he'll have to take a leap of faith. This was almost word-for-word what Mal had said to him before she jumped from the building, and this kind of echo is often seen in dreams, but rarely so deliberately in real life.
There were other hints as well, like the fact that he always remembers his children crouching down in the same position, and that the things that seemed like they should be important (like the business deal of the inception--what exactly is in it for the other people? And what were they trying to get from Saito's brain in the first place? And how did he know they were going to attack him in his dream in the beginning? I thought Mal must have told him, but then I learned she didn't exist outside the dream world) sort of fade away, like they do in dreams.
So, I think he was dreaming the whole time. I like David J.K.'s interpretation, that his wife jumped and woke up from the dream, but he couldn't, because the idea that he was in reality was planted in his brain. In this case, all the people he meets are actually just projections of himself. The only thing I'm not sure about is Fischer. Both Cobb and Fischer start out with doubts about themselves, and both of them are able to reach a sort of resolution by the end. Are they both real? Are they in Cobb's dream, or Fischer's?
But ultimately, I think it doesn't matter whether or not he's dreaming--Cobb decides to accept the reality he's in with his children, so that becomes his reality. Even if he's dreaming, since he no longer cares it no longer matters.
MikeyBinMike - 15 years ago
David: Yes you can.
C.S.: He didn't look at his children's faces because he knew it would be too hard to leave. All he's wanted for a long time now is to get back to his kids (but in reality) so if he sees their faces, he's afraid he'll be overcome and choose to stay in Limbo forever.
After he tells his projection of Mal that she doesn't compare to the real one, that she doesn't come close, Mal grabs the knife on the table and stabs him, this is why Ariadne shoots her (and kills her) in return.
David J. K. - 15 years ago
C.S. you are assuming that when the movie starts Cobb is awake. You cannot make that assumption.
C.S. Mamales - 15 years ago
David they both got killed by the train.
Sean they got old in limbo buddy their kids are in reality.
Mikey I like your style and now I get why Cobb was incoherent but I don't think it was a hospital it was a compound. When did he get stabbed in the 4th level? Are you confused w/ Mal's death?
I'd like to think he is awake but I guess it doesn't really matter because he is finally back home and sees his kids faces.
Which brings up something else why couldn't he look at his kids' faces when he was with Mal he kept trying not to look. Would his subconscious give them faces and he would be confused if it was real or not?
MikeyBinMike - 15 years ago
He was awake.
If you die in a sedated dream, you enter limbo and lose your grasp of reality. If, like Cobb and Ariadne, you follow someone else down there, you retain your "consciousness" of the situation, and the fact that you just came from another dream level.
If you enter Limbo after having died in a previous level, the way to escape that Limbo is death; we see this from Cobb and Mal when they lay their heads on the train tracks, and from Fischer when he's thrown from Cobb's home and wakes up back in the third level.
If you enter Limbo by following someone else, you must be kicked to return to the previous level; we see this when Ariadne returns to the third level by the explosion of the hospital. If you die in this stage, you will re-enter Limbo but having lost your sense of "consciousness," that is, you won't know how you got there (but can slowly regain that understanding over time, or if someone "reminds" you).
Cobb dies simultaneously in all four levels. He drowns in the first, blows up in the elevator in the second, blows up in the hospital in the third, and dies of his stab wound in the fourth, thus he re-washes up on the beach not understanding what's going on (hence his look of sudden understanding during his discussion with Saito). Since both he and Saito died to get to this Limbo, their way out is death. We are told that Limbo can be infinite, time works differently there, so while Cobb died only a few minutes after Saito, he arrives in Saito's Limbo 30 or 40 years later. Saito spins the top and it keeps spinning, it starts to dawn on Cobb (who also had previous experience with Limbo and would thus be better prepared for it) and Saito where they are and what they must do to wake up, so Saito reaches for the gun (they shoot themselves) and they wake up back on the plane.
The beauty in the ending, as mentioned earlier, is that Cobb no longer cares if he's in reality or not. He's done playing around with dreams and is ready simply to be a father to his children and live happily with them.
Elmira - 15 years ago
I have a question.
In that scene where the van was plunged deep into the water, and everyone was awake except Saito and Cobb, did the rest of the gang manage to pull Cobb out of the water? Because I remember someone (was it Eames? I don't remember, sorry) giving up. I don't know it it matters, but it can't be a reality if he drowns in the river and died in the first layer of the dream, right? He would be in limbo.
But regardless, I thought the movie - including the cliffhanger ending - is awesome.
Greg - 15 years ago
The final scene is clearly a fill-in-the-blank ending. It is up to you to decide whether the top falls or continues to spin. Either answer is correct.
Jen Lang - 15 years ago
To me I felt like the dreaming or not dreaming was a ploy for the movie. I feel like the true dilemma of the story was more Leonardo's addiction and being able to overcome his demons to get back to real life.
Sean Brancato - 15 years ago
Remember the scene where he and his wife had growm old. The children were too young in the last scene for a couple that old.
David J. K. - 15 years ago
He was dreaming, this is why. His totem wasn't his, it was his wife's. He first touched it as far as we know in the dream world. But here is the kicker. Who do you think the first inception was on? Not Mal. It was Cobb. If he introduced the thought that the dream wasn't really reality, he first would have to believe the opposite. He unwittingly used inception on himself with this thought, I am in reality, I cannot be dreaming. So when Mal kills herself, she gets out of the dream, he's still in it. So at the end of the movie the top keeps spinning because he's still dreaming, because he believes "I am in reality, I cannot be dreaming."
I called the ending before it happened. As the top spun, I looked at my friend and said "This is about to be a Sopranos ending." Fade to black. 5 seconds later I was proven right. It made me chuckle. Most of the audience chuckled. I thought (unlike many angry fans) that the Sopranos ending was GREAT! In this case it was cool, but I didn't find it original. I called it the "sopranos ending." Sometimes I think the art is in letting the audience decide for themselves and I think Nolan did it just as they did with Sopranos. Is Tony dead..Is Cobb dreaming? It's all up to us, the viewer.
Scott Childress - 15 years ago
In my Inception experience, most of the audience chuckled at the end, I did as well, but also thought, "Son of a____" while smiling at Nolan's cruel trick.
I am not really sure if he was dreaming or not - but "forced" by the poll, I chose "dreaming". The one fact that pushes me in that direction is that Cobb is the first one we see awake on the plane - so Nolan removes the one proof that it is in fact reality. Of course, this isnt "proof" that he is dreaming either, but just the mere fact that Nolan does it this way seems to lead the viewer into the possibility.
crap liek this makes me mad, no one will ever know if hes dreaming or not, but in my book hes dreaming... if anyone cares....
He's awake.
My general rule is that if a movie is good, you stay for the credits. And it is there that we get our answer. When the name of the actors who play his children come up there are two sets. One for when they are at the age of three when Cobb last say them, and another set of actors portraying them at the age of five, when he returns. A good director like Nolan is not going to spend the extra money to get another set of actors unless he was emphasizing that they were older because this was reality, and Cobb had been out of country for two years, and thus the children are two years older. If it were a dream the only reference Cobb would have had would have been his memory of them at the age of three and therefore we would have seen the same actors, but since they are new actors it means that he is in reality
The simple fact of assembling a team, requiring Cobb to fly around to various countries (granted the training in a dream world although seeming like months would only be condensed to a few days in reality), would still take several months to fully establish. Let alone the initial mission Cobb, his partner, and the first failed architect were on, it is then safe to assume that from his initial departure from viewing the back of his children's heads to accepting the plane ticket, enough time has elapsed for such children at a youthful age to experience some maturation (at least a haircut, and a different set of clothes). Therefore, the ending the director manifests is not simply a question implying whether they completed the mission or not, but if the entire film itself was a dream. Regardless, I found the film to be completely original (something difficult to come by these days).
PS I'm pretty sure the van falling was the longest slow-mo scene in the history of film-making. Not sure how The Matrix is going to one up that one.
Dreaming. Aside from all other considerations given above -- his children are utterly *unchanged* despite all his time away from home; they look *exactly* as he remembers them, having grown no older.
Heidi: Your first paragraph is illogical, unless you suggest that the movie begin with his birth and follow every second of his life, we're always going to be appearing "in the middle" of things.
The rest of your thesis is likeways illogical. In order to believe that he is in a dream, you have to throw out every single rule they talk about in the movie. We could likeways say that everything that ever happens in any movie is a dream.
For example, every dreamworld they enter has a very limited scope, with the sole exception being Limbo (the snow mountain is limited to the mountain, the hotel is limited to the hotel, the rainy city is limited to the city streets and hideout, etc.) so if he is "dreaming," he must be in limbo as he goes from a train in Kyoto to a plane, to paris, to mombasa, back to paris, to sydney, to a plane, to LAX, to his home.
Thus, he cannot be in a simple dreamworld, but must be in Limbo. But how can he be in Limbo if he escapes Limbo with his wife? Are you suggesting (without any implication anywhere in the movie) that there are actually two levels to Limbo and that he exists in a sort of upper level that is populated with at least 20 or so people that he is able to interact with? Is his mind projecting people he knows from the real world, or are Arthur and Ariadne completely constructs from his own mind?
I don't at all believe the whole movie is a dream as A) it's one of the simplest and most cliched Deus Ex Machina's of modern TV and movies, and B) it would make for a very lame and unfulfilling story.
He was dreaming. First, Cobb says the fastest way of knowing whether or not you are dreaming is to try to remember how you got to a scene. As he says to the architect, "notice how you are never at the beginning of a dream? You always find yourself somewhere in the middle." (loosely paraphrased) In every scene, he starts off already in the middle--we never see him leave or enter anything. Think about it.
Second, none of the other characters has any background to them. True, this isn't exactly unusual for a movie, but this movie actually feels well-written enough that I believe this was deliberately done. Also, all the characters are perfect for their situation. First, he needs a new architect, and his father (was that his father? Or Mal's father? I'm not sure) just hand-delivers the perfect girl for the job. Then, he needs someone with imagination, and he is able to just find him right away (again, appearing in the middle of the scene), and the same with the chemist, etc. It was extremely convenient, and we don't really know anything at all about any of these people, except how they are able to carry out their jobs.
Third, when Saito is in the helicopter, offering Cobb the job, he tells him there's no way Cobb has of knowing whether or not he can trust him, but that he'll have to take a leap of faith. This was almost word-for-word what Mal had said to him before she jumped from the building, and this kind of echo is often seen in dreams, but rarely so deliberately in real life.
There were other hints as well, like the fact that he always remembers his children crouching down in the same position, and that the things that seemed like they should be important (like the business deal of the inception--what exactly is in it for the other people? And what were they trying to get from Saito's brain in the first place? And how did he know they were going to attack him in his dream in the beginning? I thought Mal must have told him, but then I learned she didn't exist outside the dream world) sort of fade away, like they do in dreams.
So, I think he was dreaming the whole time. I like David J.K.'s interpretation, that his wife jumped and woke up from the dream, but he couldn't, because the idea that he was in reality was planted in his brain. In this case, all the people he meets are actually just projections of himself. The only thing I'm not sure about is Fischer. Both Cobb and Fischer start out with doubts about themselves, and both of them are able to reach a sort of resolution by the end. Are they both real? Are they in Cobb's dream, or Fischer's?
But ultimately, I think it doesn't matter whether or not he's dreaming--Cobb decides to accept the reality he's in with his children, so that becomes his reality. Even if he's dreaming, since he no longer cares it no longer matters.
David: Yes you can.
C.S.: He didn't look at his children's faces because he knew it would be too hard to leave. All he's wanted for a long time now is to get back to his kids (but in reality) so if he sees their faces, he's afraid he'll be overcome and choose to stay in Limbo forever.
After he tells his projection of Mal that she doesn't compare to the real one, that she doesn't come close, Mal grabs the knife on the table and stabs him, this is why Ariadne shoots her (and kills her) in return.
C.S. you are assuming that when the movie starts Cobb is awake. You cannot make that assumption.
David they both got killed by the train.
Sean they got old in limbo buddy their kids are in reality.
Mikey I like your style and now I get why Cobb was incoherent but I don't think it was a hospital it was a compound. When did he get stabbed in the 4th level? Are you confused w/ Mal's death?
I'd like to think he is awake but I guess it doesn't really matter because he is finally back home and sees his kids faces.
Which brings up something else why couldn't he look at his kids' faces when he was with Mal he kept trying not to look. Would his subconscious give them faces and he would be confused if it was real or not?
He was awake.
If you die in a sedated dream, you enter limbo and lose your grasp of reality. If, like Cobb and Ariadne, you follow someone else down there, you retain your "consciousness" of the situation, and the fact that you just came from another dream level.
If you enter Limbo after having died in a previous level, the way to escape that Limbo is death; we see this from Cobb and Mal when they lay their heads on the train tracks, and from Fischer when he's thrown from Cobb's home and wakes up back in the third level.
If you enter Limbo by following someone else, you must be kicked to return to the previous level; we see this when Ariadne returns to the third level by the explosion of the hospital. If you die in this stage, you will re-enter Limbo but having lost your sense of "consciousness," that is, you won't know how you got there (but can slowly regain that understanding over time, or if someone "reminds" you).
Cobb dies simultaneously in all four levels. He drowns in the first, blows up in the elevator in the second, blows up in the hospital in the third, and dies of his stab wound in the fourth, thus he re-washes up on the beach not understanding what's going on (hence his look of sudden understanding during his discussion with Saito). Since both he and Saito died to get to this Limbo, their way out is death. We are told that Limbo can be infinite, time works differently there, so while Cobb died only a few minutes after Saito, he arrives in Saito's Limbo 30 or 40 years later. Saito spins the top and it keeps spinning, it starts to dawn on Cobb (who also had previous experience with Limbo and would thus be better prepared for it) and Saito where they are and what they must do to wake up, so Saito reaches for the gun (they shoot themselves) and they wake up back on the plane.
The beauty in the ending, as mentioned earlier, is that Cobb no longer cares if he's in reality or not. He's done playing around with dreams and is ready simply to be a father to his children and live happily with them.
I have a question.
In that scene where the van was plunged deep into the water, and everyone was awake except Saito and Cobb, did the rest of the gang manage to pull Cobb out of the water? Because I remember someone (was it Eames? I don't remember, sorry) giving up. I don't know it it matters, but it can't be a reality if he drowns in the river and died in the first layer of the dream, right? He would be in limbo.
But regardless, I thought the movie - including the cliffhanger ending - is awesome.
The final scene is clearly a fill-in-the-blank ending. It is up to you to decide whether the top falls or continues to spin. Either answer is correct.
To me I felt like the dreaming or not dreaming was a ploy for the movie. I feel like the true dilemma of the story was more Leonardo's addiction and being able to overcome his demons to get back to real life.
Remember the scene where he and his wife had growm old. The children were too young in the last scene for a couple that old.
He was dreaming, this is why. His totem wasn't his, it was his wife's. He first touched it as far as we know in the dream world. But here is the kicker. Who do you think the first inception was on? Not Mal. It was Cobb. If he introduced the thought that the dream wasn't really reality, he first would have to believe the opposite. He unwittingly used inception on himself with this thought, I am in reality, I cannot be dreaming. So when Mal kills herself, she gets out of the dream, he's still in it. So at the end of the movie the top keeps spinning because he's still dreaming, because he believes "I am in reality, I cannot be dreaming."
I called the ending before it happened. As the top spun, I looked at my friend and said "This is about to be a Sopranos ending." Fade to black. 5 seconds later I was proven right. It made me chuckle. Most of the audience chuckled. I thought (unlike many angry fans) that the Sopranos ending was GREAT! In this case it was cool, but I didn't find it original. I called it the "sopranos ending." Sometimes I think the art is in letting the audience decide for themselves and I think Nolan did it just as they did with Sopranos. Is Tony dead..Is Cobb dreaming? It's all up to us, the viewer.
In my Inception experience, most of the audience chuckled at the end, I did as well, but also thought, "Son of a____" while smiling at Nolan's cruel trick.
I am not really sure if he was dreaming or not - but "forced" by the poll, I chose "dreaming". The one fact that pushes me in that direction is that Cobb is the first one we see awake on the plane - so Nolan removes the one proof that it is in fact reality. Of course, this isnt "proof" that he is dreaming either, but just the mere fact that Nolan does it this way seems to lead the viewer into the possibility.