Can we make a "SPOILER: Inception After Viewing Discussion Thread"? I'm tired of clicking spoiler buttons. I've seen the movie twice...
It is, but the ending is a conundrum. I'm just going to have to see it again, real soon. It has me a bit flipped out. I've had many weird dreams, myself, and have posted here in the past about an upper level psychology course I took on altered states, where one of the homework assignments was keeping a journal next to your bed and writing down anything you could remember about your dreams as soon as you woke up. The reasoning, and it has been proven to work for many, is that if you write down what you remember, no matter how little it is, over time, you'll remember more and more of your dream(s). Even become so good at it that you might be able to observe your own dream. Become aware that you are dreaming, but be able to stay with it, even manipulate it to a degree. It works. It certainly worked for me, and is was very freaky. I loved that class. The prof had recently gotten her doctorate and her speciality was altered states. We had all kinds of groovy homework and the lectures were great. Not only that, but she was still in her twenties and an absolute knockout. Damn, there are times I miss going to school.
I've been in that state of awareness before. There are times when i'm being attacked, I realize i'm dreaming, I know longer am afraid. I start to fight back because all of a sudden i know kung fu. it sounds cheesy, but it's true. i also enjoy the occassional hottie that pops up every once in awhile.
I saw it in Imax tonight after seeing it on a regular screen on Saturday. The sound was awesome but the picture really didn't seem Imax worthy.
I'm bringing this up again since I'm still wondering about it but haven't seen too much discussion on this subject. I'm not going to spoiler it since this is already known. How is it possible to be in someone else's dream and inhabit parts of that dream world that the dreamer isn't directly present in or that they are not aware of? For example consider that if I am dreaming that I am in a room in my house and someone else were able to enter my dream and hide out in another room of my house that I can't see. The only reason why I'm raising this question is because it is an interesting metaphysical question and one that relates to Buddhism. The Zen koan, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?" touches on this question by essentially asking whether reality is objective or subjective? If reality is objective, as it seems to be, existence doesn't seem to be limited to singular perception. Someone could come into my house and hide out in another room without me being aware of it. The problem though in a dream everything is based upon singular perception and reality is subjective. That is why if you can lucidly dream you can control that reality. Inception goes along with that by showing how people can alter the reality of their dreams if they are aware that it is a dream. It takes it farther though by making dream reality, no matter who's it is, to some extent objective and not limited to singular perception. So someone can inhabit my dream, hide out in it and even alter it. One belief in Buddhism is that objective reality as we know it is itself like a dream and enlightenment is the realization of that reality is really our own creation, or more precisely the illusion that we have created it. In a way it is like the shared dream of Inception where we can each singularly perceive it but it is nothing more than a fantasy created out of limbo. I don't know if Nolan had that in mind but that is something that adds another layer to the movie.
Spoiler You mean this entire movie was a damn dream? Like Super Mario Bros. 2? But yeah, it all makes sense. Like they said in the movie, it only feels strange after you wake up from the dream.
OK forgive me but I've got some nerdy and specific-y questions for anyone who'll be happy to oblige with answers: Spoiler 1. A "kick" is obviously something used in a lower level to wake the person who's dreaming (in a higher level). But can you kick yourself out of a higher level into a lower level - ie, is that what Ariadne is doing when she improvises in the end and throws herself off the building after shooting Mal? 2. If you CAN kick yourself from a higher level into a lower one (and assuming that is what Ariadne did), what was the purpose of Eames blowing up the snow world - and thus creating the sensation of falling? I thought it was to kick Ariadne, Cobb, and Fischer from limbo and into the hospital world. 3. But then, going back to Ariadne, why does she improvise and throw herself (and Fischer for that matter) off the building? If she had just stayed still then Eames' kick would have woken her up in the hospital world, no?
Spoiler I'm not entirely sure what you are meaning when you say "higher level" and "lower level". The kick is performed in a previous level to people that are in a "deeper" level. For instance, for a person that just goes into a simple, one layered dream state, you would have to perform the kick on the actual, real life person to bring them out of the dream. And thanks for posting that link, durvasa. I read CHUD everyday and I thought that article was fantastic (although devin can often be a complete and utter *******). I has completely convinced me Spoiler that the entire movie was a dream, which I fought against in my mind after seeing it because normally I hate movies that do that...but I think Inception is different. There is a bigger purpose to the entire thing being a dream state besides just saying "Ha! Fooled you!" like movies are wont to do. I highly recommend anyone who has seen the movie to read that link. Absolutely fantastic article and the author makes since really cool analogies about how the movie is one big analogy the the process of movie-making in general.
Spoiler Yeah, by lower level I meant the previous level and by higher I meant the "deeper" level. Just curious as to why Ariadne would throw herself off in limbo AND Eames performs the kick in the previous (snow) level.
I'm not a big of a nerd to understand the mythology and universe of Tron... I've seen just about every 80's movies as much as the next guy but Tron is a movie I'm not smart enough to understand...
people deserved to have the movie spoiled for them if they're clicking here after the movie's been released and they haven't seen it yet. i vote no spoiler tags in this movie and maybe clutch could edit the title to include the word spoilers for the idiots out there.
The Matrix before the Matrix, well Necromancer too but I digress, with state of the art visuals with similiar thematic points.
Don't worry. TRON was one of the dumbest movies of the decade, just like The Black Hole. It was made by people who had no clue about any of the concepts they used when making the movie. It's like when great-Grandpa wants to start using 'that computer thing' to start to get 'electric mail'. TRON was/is an old DOS command to 'trace' the functionings line by line of a DOS program ('TRace ON'). That's it. It's a command used by a 'User' to track down potential problems within other programs. THAT is the sole basis for the entire creation of the original movie TRON. And you can see how it ended up: just a stupid infantile mess. The only thing which it did to make a mark, of sorts, was to be the first movie to really incorporate computer graphics as part of the actual film footage and environment. So don't worry that you are not a big enough nerd. The massive amount of love people are throwing in the direction of TRON: Legacy is just silly.
