Can the director be wrong? (Inception)

[drwex]

This entire post is a spoiler if you still haven't seen Inception

I wrote about this back in July, in a post about the problematic ending of the movie.

Now there's a book out that contains the shooting script and, crucially, the director's timeline. Here, just stare at the picture for a while: http://incontention.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/inceptionpic-bg.gif

What this diagram seems to say is that the director believes that things happened as shown, and that everyone wakes up on the plane. Saito is screwed - stuck in Limbo - but Cobb makes it out and is reunited with his children. That's nice, and it's very interesting to see what the director thinks happened, but it doesn't deal with any of the problems people have noted with the film-as-filmed.

I'm reminded of the conversation around Blade Runner in which Harrison Ford denies that his character is a replicant, and Ridley Scott just shakes his head in amusement. Sometimes even the creators don't know what they've created.

Comments

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

I had avoided as much spoilery as possible, and only saw the movie a couple weeks ago for the first time.

Hmm...I get all brain hurty reading through all your previous posts comments and links...so this may have been posited as a theory already that I missed...


My take? It was not a dream, not the whole movie. Everything as far as obvious non-dreaming actions happened as it appeared (them getting hired, bringing along the genius child, forming plan, getting on plane with the son, going through the levels to do the incepting, yada yada). But, after they wake up on the plane, and Saito makes his call and Cobb does get into the states...

Saito puts Cobb into the permadream of being with his kids.

I got there because Cobb mentions you can know it's a dream when you realize you are somewhere and don't remember how you got there. They wake up on the plane and go through customs, and you see Saito's look amazed and all, and makes his phone call, and that worked (but showing them deboarding would be boring and unnecessary, but they showed enough of waking up and grabbing coats and overhead luggage or whatever to show folks did wake up, etc) but then...Cobb is in the house with the kids all of a sudden. And Caine's character was in England, right? Not in that house in the states? But there he is welcoming Cobb. And there's the kids, at the exact age, dress, activity as when he last saw his children, but they turn to him.

Saito wanted *his* energy company to be the world monopoly whatever, so hired Cobb to take out his main competition, it was not some altruistic "we can't let someone have an energy monopoly". Cobb succeeded with Inception, something everyone believes is impossible, thus proving that Cobb is the mega-dreammaster.

And thus, Cobb is entirely too dangerous to leave roaming around threatening Saito's ultimate power. Saito may have already been considering this as a plan, you know....to hire an assassin then kill the assassin, so to speak. But after not only succeeding with Inception but *also* finding Saito in limbo and getting him out...I think his amazed look on the plane is the knowledge that Cobb is, indeed, entirely too powerful of a mind to leave roaming about, but also too powerful of a dreammaster to kill, in case his services should ever be needed again.

And Cobb had been through the catharsis of admitting his guilt and did all this heroicness to go to limbo and get Caito, and he's just...done. He's tired. So even though he's the mega-dreammaster, and could realize he was in a permadream...he doesn't care anymore. He wants to just leave the top spinning and live with his children, even if it's a dreamworld.

Which also leaves open the possibility of a sequel...with Saito bringing Cobb back out to do some more inceptioning...or Cobb's friends trying to save him, or Cobb getting tired of being tired and just living in a dream...etc.

are these supposed to be multiple links?

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

They all appear to link to your first post, not the other bits. :(