INCEPTION - Discussion Thread(SPOILERS!!!)

[Faded.Memories]

I'll give you guys a clue, every time Cobb is in a dream, he has his wedding ring on his hand. That is enough to know if the top did stop spinning when it was cut.

Really? Good eye. I want to see the movie again so I can pick up on things like this.

Glad you loved it & welcome back. We miss your sexyness.

Thanks!

 

[CPS]

Or the easier way is Google. That's how I found out about the ring and the kids clothes being slightly different.

 

[Bolt]

That would give extra weight to the bit when Arthur (probably repeating something Cobb told him) emphasized the idea that you should be the only one to touch your totem "so that you know you're not in someone else's dream." The fact that Cobb had access to Mal's totem could have been what let him perform his "inception" on her. That would emphasize the guilt he felt, adding in a betrayal of trust on top of everything.

I didn't think it was that you couldn't touch someone else's totem, but that familiarizing yourself with your totem's physical properties is one of the only ways to be sure you're not dreaming. The fact that Cobb basically got a hand-me-down totem is yet another example of how confused reality and fantasy has become for him.

 

[SaikoDragon]

but you can differentiate reality with the dream with Cobb's wedding ring.

ARe you guys seeing this in the movie or reading it off a website? When I went and rewatched the film at the IMAX, there were hardly any scenes where you clearly saw his ring finger. I honestly couldn't discern from my point of view, where people were picking up this obscure detail.

Really? Good eye. I want to see the movie again so I can pick up on things like this.

really good eye. Like I said, I saw the movie on the largest screen and I had a difficult time finding his ring finger in the scenes and determining if he was wearing a ring or not.

 

[musashi03]

I wonder if maybe he got his hands on the top before they even went into limbo the first time -- wouldn't that be why he could set it spinning in her dream, planting that seed of doubt? That would give extra weight to the bit when Arthur (probably repeating something Cobb told him) emphasized the idea that you should be the only one to touch your totem "so that you know you're not in someone else's dream." The fact that Cobb had access to Mal's totem could have been what let him perform his "inception" on her. That would emphasize the guilt he felt, adding in a betrayal of trust on top of everything.

That would actually be a good take on Cobb, giving him more depth for that possible betrayal. But I think he never was able to hold the top before they went to Limbo since if he were able to, he'd know the trick and the top would stop spinning. That's why the top won't stop spinning in somebody else's dream, since the dreamer doesn't know the trick of the top on how it falls down, so it just keeps spinning. That's why we see Ariadne sculpt something with her chess piece totem, to make it uniquely imbalanced in which she's the only one who knows how. Same with Arthur's imbalanced die when he explained the whole totem thing to Ariadne.

I didn't think it was that you couldn't touch someone else's totem, but that familiarizing yourself with your totem's physical properties is one of the only ways to be sure you're not dreaming. The fact that Cobb basically got a hand-me-down totem is yet another example of how confused reality and fantasy has become for him.

Yep, me thinks he didn't even know he had a totem of his own in the form of the wedding ring, which might explain his constant attempt to spin the top every time he wakes up even though it was his wive's totem and not his. Even the fact that his wife was no simple projection in a dream, that she can adversely effect the whole dream where Cobb is in and the whole intention of Cobb not wanting to know the details of the world in the dream since his wife will know... So I think it works both ways, Mal might have been letting the top fall down since she knows the trick since it was her's before even though we think that Cobb's awake if we prefer to see the whole reality level as just another dream... But I think the wedding ring still supersedes that take.

Really? Good eye. I want to see the movie again so I can pick up on things like this.

Thanks, I believe that was the purpose of putting in that "audience's totem", so that people who didn't see it will try to watch it again.

ARe you guys seeing this in the movie or reading it off a website? When I went and rewatched the film at the IMAX, there were hardly any scenes where you clearly saw his ring finger. I honestly couldn't discern from my point of view, where people were picking up this obscure detail.

I saw it in my first viewing, just got lucky since I'm the type of guy who's also in the same relationship predicament as Cobb (except my ex-girlfriend is still alive), so I wanted to know if his wife was dead/alive/really existed at all/just made-up, so I looked at his hands. I'm not the kind of guy who tries to spoil myself by reading off stuff about something I'm about to watch, I want to be surprised.

You can clearly see his hands in the train when they exited Saito's dream, and when the stewardess asks Cobb if he wanted the immigration papers near the end. Me thinks that was the whole purpose of that scene because we seldom get to see the whole immigration papers thing when characters are about to land in the airport in other movies. IIRC, it could also be seen when he hands it to the immigration guy who stamps his passport. I remember seeing it somewhere inside Saito's dream in the beginning where Saito was having a party, then in Nash's dream in the apartment... Though I didn't notice it at first when he was dragged to Saito's Limbo where Saito was already old since I didn't know of the wife yet. So when I told my friends about the wedding ring and they re-watched it again, they confirmed to me about seeing it way in the beginning in Saito's Limbo.

 

[Faded.Memories]

A friend of mine sent me this link full of infographs for Inception. It doesn't make anything LESS confusing.

http://clutch.mtv.com/2010/08/02/the-six-most-brain-scrambling-inception-infographics/

 

[musashi03]

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This picture is inaccurate though, since "limbo" is a shared state as was mentioned in the movie I believe, so Saito's limbo is supposed to be the same level as Mal's limbo, though have different set of events per person, hence we see Saito really old even though it is just the same level as Cobb when he went after Fischer. The explanation to this was the fact that when Cobb went for Fischer after being shot in Eame's dream, we see Fischer held captive by Mal in the limbo where Mal and Cobb built their world. Saito getting old is just some sort of illusion as we see Cobb explain to Mal that they did grow old in limbo, hence the shots where they have wrinkled hands and walking together. There really isn't any "old" or "young" in limbo, it's just how you perceive things which makes it looks different to other people. Though the 1st level of that picture was one of the popular beliefs as what is "reality", though the wedding ring already refutes that fact as it acts as the audience's totem since Nolan is quite popular with having his stories parallel to his directing (ie Memento being a movie about losing your mind, hence the story becomes confusing giving that effect, and The Prestige having 3 stages in a magic trick, the pledge, turn, and prestige, in which the movie was also divided into 3 story arcs which represents each part).