Quote:

---

Originally posted by lwaves:
That Hawthorne guy obviously didn't get the movie or the reason for the architecture styles in the dream levels.
It's purpose was that they didn't want Fischer to know he was dreaming until they told him. This means that each level had to look realistic to Fischers POV. If Ariadne had put the Eiffel Tower or the some other famous building in the LA chase scene Fischer would know it wasn't real. Same thing if they'd used fantastical architecture or physics (like the city folding over) that too would have told him something was wrong and the plan would have failed.

As for cliches then every single movie and TV show out there uses cliches, including Serenity. You can't escape it. The guy needs to loosen up a lot or stop watching movies.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Now, did Cobb really kill Mal? Yes, but accidentally.

The scene where Mal jumps is Reality but she thinks it's a dream... another one of Cobb's broken rules.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by lwaves:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
The constructs as autonomous? No. Mal wreaks havoc everywhere, conspiring with Saito in the audition piece, shooting Fischer. If she is a construct of Cobb's, as Cobb thinks.

---

Mal is a memory, or at least a construct from memory, not just something thats been made up. Cobb tells Ariadne that you don't use memories or real locations even though he has broken these rules himself. I took it that because she was a memory it made her stronger (dangerous?) and she could break through into the dreams featuring Cobb by using his guilt. Or something along those lines.

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

After watching a second time, I wondered if Murphy and Caine are the only carryovers Nolan brought from Batman. Anybody know?

---

I know and I'm not telling.
Actually there is another. Murphy and Caine both appeared in both Batman movies and Ken Watanabe also played the 'fake' Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
JSF - yes, that's what I understood from when Cobb found Mal's totem in the doll house. Here's someone else saying it for me: "Now, did Cobb really kill Mal? Yes, but accidentally. In the past,when Cobb and Mal were experimenting with the dreams they went so deep that they got lost in their dreams. Mal was convinced that their dreams were reality and thus locked her totem (the top) in her safe. The safes signify a person's sub-conscious. We see Mal's safe and we also see Fischer's safe where he hears his father's dying request. Back to Cobb and Mal. Since Cobb started the top spinning in the safe, an idea was planted in Mal's subconscious that her reality was a dream. This allowed Cobb to convince her that the dream state they were in wasn't reality and further convinced her to let the train run over them and bring them back to reality.

---

Quote:

---

However, since he planted the idea in her subconscious she forever thought that reality was a dream to the point of killing herself. This is how Cobb found out about Inception. Thus, Cobb essentially killed Mal by planting an idea in her subconscience that her reality was a dream.

In the end, he had to let her go, forgive himself, and stop Mal from guilting him by killing her in Limbo."

http://www.bomann.org/

The scene where Mal jumps is Reality but she thinks it's a dream... another one of Cobb's broken rules.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by lwaves:

I give you someone who hasn't been mentioned much - Miles.


If Mal really is dead and it is reality then as far as the real world is concerned Cobb killed her. He is a wanted man. The letters from the psychiatrists and Cobb's inability to enter the US enforce this point. So as Mal's father the only evidence Miles has against Cobb being a killer would be Cobb's word. I just can't believe that he'd take his word over all the other evidence and his own feelings towards his daughter. And yet we see Miles help him to perform another inception (the very thing that effectively killed Mal)....
I got the idea that Mal's inception was supposed to be the first ever, so if Cobb told him this and explained it would he really believe it was an accident, and then forgive him for it?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Mal's inception was an accidental one. Miles most likely understood this. If the film is in reality then Miles mentions to Cobb that Cobb wants to borrow "another one of his students" for more of the dreamwork that Miles understands.

---

Quote:

---

Cobb seems to break most of the rules he tells others. He explains things one way, but that's not always how things actually are.

---

Quote:

---

The film, or Cobb's explanation, seems to indicate the dream levels are directly up and down, even though many people are sharing the dream. Apparently all the players must also be present in the upper level dream in order to participate in the next lower level dream, except for limboland where anybody can drop to from any other level.
What if this is not really so? what if a lateral move can be made, to jump from one dream to another dream - either one also a level lower than the parent dream (a sibling dream) or even one not dreamt by other players of the current or higher levels of your dream?
If Cobb's "reality" is not really so, then by Mal not appearing anymore in his "reality" level of dream proves that Mal, working in the actual reality above to bring Cobb out of the dream they once shared, can insert herself in his dreams below the level Cobb thinks is reality, effectively skipping a level herself (at this point you can start to speculate which of the Mals were constructs of Cobb's - if any - and which were Mal herself, or a construct of one of the people trying to help Mal bring Cobb back).
So what if Mal and friends are trying to dream and perhaps use several levels - there likely would be a need for similar level compatibility or else the chronopacing would be off - one player's minute would be 20 minutes in the other player's dream. Maybe they are trying to create a dream level that Cobb will drop into, not knowing it was already created before the players in his dream also dropped into it.
So how can two sets of players, in separate dreams, get into each others dream worlds? Up in reality, Mal and friends must hope that Cobb keeps thinking about the wife he lost (in the dream they once shared but he is now alone in) and when he is thinking about her, or he constructs her in his dream and that provides a link for her and her dream and her friends and helpers to "connect" the 2 dreams - sort of like 2 stargates linked by a wormhole, but for dreams.
Maybe Cobb and Mal had not explored this possibility, but after Mal returned to reality she did discover this, but Cobb still doesn't know. So she could be using this to try to trick Cobb into jumping to a parallel dream where she'll have more control and can convince him to come back up to reality.
For those who think the end does not indicate that Cobb escaped limbo, try this on for size now.

After all, these are dreams we're talking about - anything can happen. And nothing else that's presented seems to follow the rules every time - so why should the depth and level structure, as understood by Cobb.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by lwaves:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:

---

Yes it was an accident and I can agree that Miles probably knows as well. But if Miles is in true reality and Mal really is dead then look at it this way....

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Cobb seems to break most of the rules he tells others. He explains things one way, but that's not always how things actually are.

---

This is one point that leads me again to think that it's all a dream. He says one thing but does or has done another thing. The rules appear to be of his making for the most part, maybe because of what happened to Mal. If we take that idea further to say that all (or most) of the important points about Cobb aren't necessarily true then it backs up some of my ideas. I'm not saying that they're outright lies, just not correct as we see them. We know he breaks his own rules so that's covered. If he thinks he's in reality then he isn't. He thinks Mal is dead but she isn't. His/Mal's totem isn't telling him the truth, a point I made awhile ago about his totem not being right I just hadn't had the thoughts to piece it all together.

Quote:

---

The film, or Cobb's explanation, seems to indicate the dream levels are directly up and down, even though many people are sharing the dream. Apparently all the players must also be present in the upper level dream in order to participate in the next lower level dream, except for limboland where anybody can drop to from any other level.
What if this is not really so? what if a lateral move can be made, to jump from one dream to another dream - either one also a level lower than the parent dream (a sibling dream) or even one not dreamt by other players of the current or higher levels of your dream?
If Cobb's "reality" is not really so, then by Mal not appearing anymore in his "reality" level of dream proves that Mal, working in the actual reality above to bring Cobb out of the dream they once shared, can insert herself in his dreams below the level Cobb thinks is reality, effectively skipping a level herself (at this point you can start to speculate which of the Mals were constructs of Cobb's - if any - and which were Mal herself, or a construct of one of the people trying to help Mal bring Cobb back).
So what if Mal and friends are trying to dream and perhaps use several levels - there likely would be a need for similar level compatibility or else the chronopacing would be off - one player's minute would be 20 minutes in the other player's dream. Maybe they are trying to create a dream level that Cobb will drop into, not knowing it was already created before the players in his dream also dropped into it.
So how can two sets of players, in separate dreams, get into each others dream worlds? Up in reality, Mal and friends must hope that Cobb keeps thinking about the wife he lost (in the dream they once shared but he is now alone in) and when he is thinking about her, or he constructs her in his dream and that provides a link for her and her dream and her friends and helpers to "connect" the 2 dreams - sort of like 2 stargates linked by a wormhole, but for dreams.
Maybe Cobb and Mal had not explored this possibility, but after Mal returned to reality she did discover this, but Cobb still doesn't know. So she could be using this to try to trick Cobb into jumping to a parallel dream where she'll have more control and can convince him to come back up to reality.
For those who think the end does not indicate that Cobb escaped limbo, try this on for size now.

After all, these are dreams we're talking about - anything can happen. And nothing else that's presented seems to follow the rules every time - so why should the depth and level structure, as understood by Cobb.

---

I'm not saying you're wrong about jumping from one dream to another laterally, it's an interesting idea, but I don't agree with it. I do believe that you have to be connected together to share a dream and jumping to another would require a disconnection and reconnection to another device in the reality level. Nice idea though.
As for jumping over a level then I can buy that. Oddly when you commented on my point about Mal being constructed from Cobbs memory my next thought was that maybe she was actually a dreamer who was sharing the dream with the others. I think it would be possible to join a dream after the initial people have gone in. In fact it's necessary for it if the whole film is a dream. So I can quite believe that Mal does this.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
If every pioneer stopped what they were doing after the first accidental fatality, the human race would have never advanced, we'd still be neanderthals.

---

Quote:

---

In order for Mal to do this and have similar chronopacing, she must be in the same level dream as the others. So when Cobb thinks he's in his first level and is actually in his second, Mal must also be in her second level. But she's not in Cobb's first level (anymore). Maybe once you die in a level of a dream, you can't go back into that same dream. But she does appear at any and every level below that, when Cobb is at the same level. So if she is doing this, two separate dreams are allowed to mesh at the next lower level, providing asome commonality - and Mal is the commonality in both the dreams of her team, plus Cobb's as long as he doesn't kill her off before she convinces him to come back to reality.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Didn't they say that Cobb cannot be the architect of the dreams, and give some lame excuse? If his "reality" is actually his level 1 dream, that would be the real reason he cannot architect a dream at the next level.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Something that I don't think was clearly pointed out, and I lost the train of thought a few times.

Cobb seems to imply that the concept of the token was his, and also that the concept of Inception was his as well.
Yet he seems to have not token.
He uses the top as if it is his token, however it is his wife's token, and it is explained that you cannot use somebody else's token, it will give you false indications.
The top is his wife's token, so SHE did HAVE a token.
Cobb apparently DOES NOT have a token.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
For example, if the father of the children isn't able to raise them... Why aren't they living with their next nearest relative, such as their grandfather?

I forget who the lady on the phone was who got the children to hang up on him and what her relationship was, maybe they are. Still. There's also the issue Mal4Prez brought up that we never see anything about the pregnancy or birth of the children in the flashbacks or dreams.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Sidenote: I think Leonardo DiCapprio is not a good actor. >_> He can say a line, and say it with emotion, but he always plays the same character in every movie, personality wise.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Storymark:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Something that I don't think was clearly pointed out, and I lost the train of thought a few times.

Cobb seems to imply that the concept of the token was his, and also that the concept of Inception was his as well.
Yet he seems to have no token.
He uses the top as if it is his token, however it is his wife's token, and it is explained that you cannot use somebody else's token, it will give you false indications.
The top is his wife's token, so SHE did HAVE a token.
Cobb apparently DOES NOT have a token.

---

Though most people still havn't caught this, Cobb did have a totem - it just wasn't the top. As you poi8nted out, it was his wife's, he never claimed it to be his. His totem was never mentioned or overtly pointed out, but it's there.

It's his wedding ring.

---

Quote:

---

It's on his hand in every in-dream sequence, and gone during all "real world" stuff (including the end). And every scene has at least one shot that prominently features his hand (so as to track whether or not he's wearing it).

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by lwaves:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mal4prez:

All the big booming music was the wake-up tune that they played through the ear phones, slowed down. Brilliant. The deeper they go, the more time slows, the deeper, slower and boomier the music gets. I just love it.

---

Seeing as you guys bought up the music in the film I thought I'd mention this now as I don't think anyone else has. Probably nothing to do with the plot, just a nice coincidence....

....but the music used in the earphones to wake them up was that French song about regret or no regrets by Edith Piaf. She was recently played by Marion Cotillard in a film who of course also plays Mal.
Something? Not something?



"The greatest invention ever is not the wheel. It's the second wheel." - Rich Hall

---