Re: Thnigs that may or may not have made sense in this movie

[melikamiki]

I know this is late, but I've just seen this movie. I hate to break it to you all, but Cobb never made it out of the dream realm. At the end, there is the scene where the kids turn to look at him (which is what he's wanted all the time from his memory). After they greet him, the camera pans over to the spinning top, which never stops spinning. Thereby indicating that he's trapped in his own subconscious & just thinks he has made it home. Which then begs the question, is Saito still trapped?

[D.B. Barnes]

I know this is late, but I've just seen this movie. I hate to break it to you all, but Cobb never made it out of the dream realm. At the end, there is the scene where the kids turn to look at him (which is what he's wanted all the time from his memory). After they greet him, the camera pans over to the spinning top, which never stops spinning. Thereby indicating that he's trapped in his own subconscious & just thinks he has made it home. Which then begs the question, is Saito still trapped?

You didn't notice the top start to wobble, something it's never done in the previous dream states?

The ending is purposely ambiguous. Nolan has said as much:

“There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

[Darth Geek]

"...The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

Wow. That's...thats really good. That's emotionally mature and great storytelling.
Especially from a guy who got Anne Hatheway in tight leather fetishwear for his latest movie.

[melikamiki]

I know this is late, but I've just seen this movie. I hate to break it to you all, but Cobb never made it out of the dream realm. At the end, there is the scene where the kids turn to look at him (which is what he's wanted all the time from his memory). After they greet him, the camera pans over to the spinning top, which never stops spinning. Thereby indicating that he's trapped in his own subconscious & just thinks he has made it home. Which then begs the question, is Saito still trapped?

You didn't notice the top start to wobble, something it's never done in the previous dream states?

The ending is purposely ambiguous. Nolan has said as much:

“There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

There was wobble in every scene where the top was shown. In all the other scenes with the top, it falls long before that final scene (I'm talking perceived time in the movie, not frame time). So the final spin is abnormally long as far as the film reality goes. There is enough in those final scenes and in the rest of the film to argue that the entire movie & ALL the other characters are part of a dream of DiCaprio's character. The director chose to cut the film with the top still spinning, regardless of any wobble. Coupled with the ending images of the kids, that says dream state to me. If you want to believe he's back in reality, that's fine with me.

On a side note, does anyone else smell BS with that Nolan quote above? Seriously, did this guy get coached or what & does anyone find the "emotional significance" disturbing? He's basically saying that reality and truth are unimportant. The only important thing is how you feel. The kids don't matter, everyone else in his life doesn't matter, his sanity doesn't matter. Being insane is fine, just so long as you're happy. Great message Nolan. Light up another one.

[CJones]

I know this is late, but I've just seen this movie. I hate to break it to you all, but Cobb never made it out of the dream realm. At the end, there is the scene where the kids turn to look at him (which is what he's wanted all the time from his memory). After they greet him, the camera pans over to the spinning top, which never stops spinning. Thereby indicating that he's trapped in his own subconscious & just thinks he has made it home. Which then begs the question, is Saito still trapped?

You didn't notice the top start to wobble, something it's never done in the previous dream states?

The ending is purposely ambiguous. Nolan has said as much:

“There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

I think this was mentioned earlier in this thread, but it's nearly 1am and I'm too tired to look for it:

Cobb's wedding ring. In all the previous scenes, whenever it was supposedly a dream, Cobb is wearing the ring. Whenever he's supposedly awake, he's not. He's also not wearing it in the final scene. Now, deduce from this what you will, but unless you subscribe to the theory that he was dreaming the whole time (which would make the movie kind of pointless), or that there's simply no reliable way to tell the difference (and I don't buy that when they went to the trouble of including what appears to be at least one way for the audience to do so, albeit a far from obvious one), I would conclude that he was awake at the end, and Nolan just wanted to obscure that fact. But he also wanted it to be possible to figure out.

There's also the fact that Michael Caine has claimed to know that he was, in fact, awake at the end. However, I don't know enough about that to say whether he got that info from Nolan directly or if that's just his own conclusion. But here's what I've read he said:

"[The spinning top] drops at the end, that's when I come back on. If I'm there it's real, because I'm never in the dream. I'm the guy who invented the dream."

   

[CJones]

Coupled with the ending images of the kids, that says dream state to me. If you want to believe he's back in reality, that's fine with me.

You must have posted this while I was typing my last post. By sheer coincidence I just found this a few minutes ago:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/The-Mystery-Of-Inception-s-Ending-Solved-19931.html

The potentially significant part is that the costume designer claims the children's clothes are different in the final scene. I have to admit, they looked the same to me, and apparently to the guy who wrote that article. Next time I watch it I'll have to make a point of looking for some difference. 

On a side note, does anyone else smell BS with that Nolan quote above? Seriously, did this guy get coached or what & does anyone find the "emotional significance" disturbing? He's basically saying that reality and truth are unimportant. The only important thing is how you feel. The kids don't matter, everyone else in his life doesn't matter, his sanity doesn't matter. Being insane is fine, just so long as you're happy. Great message Nolan. Light up another one.

I hope it is BS. I'd rather it be proven to be a dream than that "it's impossible to tell" crap be intentionally the case. If that's the case, there's no point in even thinking about it, because there's no answer to deduce. Heck, I might as well just make up my own ending  where Cobb was actually only dreaming that he was a wanted fugitive with a technology that allowed him to enter dreams, and we just didn't have any way to know it.

And yeah, so the real point of that scene was to show that Cobb doesn't even care whether he's dreaming, insane or whatever the hell, and screw everyone else, including his kids and Saito (That is, if he is, in fact, still dreaming, which Nolan claims is impossible to know).... God dammit, I hate intentionally ambiguous endings (except for Pan's Labyrinth, but that's only because I wanted to believe Ofelia might have really gone on to be a fairy princess after her death.)

Sorry, it's 2am here, I haven't slept since Thursday, and I'm both crabby and more than a little bit out of it.

[D.B. Barnes]

Coupled with the ending images of the kids, that says dream state to me. If you want to believe he's back in reality, that's fine with me.

You must have posted this while I was typing my last post. By sheer coincidence I just found this a few minutes ago:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/The-Mystery-Of-Inception-s-Ending-Solved-19931.html

The potentially significant part is that the costume designer claims the children's clothes are different in the final scene. I have to admit, they looked the same to me, and apparently to the guy who wrote that article. Next time I watch it I'll have to make a point of looking for some difference.  

On a side note, does anyone else smell BS with that Nolan quote above? Seriously, did this guy get coached or what & does anyone find the "emotional significance" disturbing? He's basically saying that reality and truth are unimportant. The only important thing is how you feel. The kids don't matter, everyone else in his life doesn't matter, his sanity doesn't matter. Being insane is fine, just so long as you're happy. Great message Nolan. Light up another one.

I hope it is BS. I'd rather it be proven to be a dream than that "it's impossible to tell" crap be intentionally the case. If that's the case, there's no point in even thinking about it, because there's no answer to deduce. Heck, I might as well just make up my own ending  where Cobb was actually only dreaming that he was a wanted fugitive with a technology that allowed him to enter dreams, and we just didn't have any way to know it.

And yeah, so the real point of that scene was to show that Cobb doesn't even care whether he's dreaming, insane or whatever the hell, and screw everyone else, including his kids and Saito (That is, if he is, in fact, still dreaming, which Nolan claims is impossible to know).... God dammit, I hate intentionally ambiguous endings (except for Pan's Labyrinth, but that's only because I wanted to believe Ofelia might have really gone on to be a fairy princess after her death.)

Sorry, it's 2am here, I haven't slept since Thursday, and I'm both crabby and more than a little bit out of it.

Nolan knows. He just ain't sayin'. He's not gonna serve it up on a silver platter.

NO SLEEP 'TIL INCEPTION!

Seriously though, get some sleep. That'll rot your brain.

[melikamiki]

And yeah, so the real point of that scene was to show that Cobb doesn't even care whether he's dreaming, insane or whatever the hell, and screw everyone else, including his kids and Saito (That is, if he is, in fact, still dreaming, which Nolan claims is impossible to know).... God dammit, I hate intentionally ambiguous endings (except for Pan's Labyrinth, but that's only because I wanted to believe Ofelia might have really gone on to be a fairy princess after her death.)

Sorry, it's 2am here, I haven't slept since Thursday, and I'm both crabby and more than a little bit out of it.

I'm normally crabby, so don't worry about it. I'm with you, I hate intentionally ambiguous movies. I really don't need some moron from Hollywood forcing me to to contemplate any issue du jour. I prefer my films straight up with a nice, neat ending. With that said, since he's making it purposely ambiguous, then the movie is anything anyone wants it to be & we should all make friends so we can turn our ravenous hatred on the writer & director for creating all this forum strife.