Inception

[anart]

Well, I happened to catch this movie a few weeks ago and I think it fell flat. DiCaprio's acting was really uninspired - he was going through the motions only (or so it seemed to me). The basic premise was definitely an interesting one, but they just didn't pull it off - at all. All in all, I felt that the movie would have been much better served with a different lead actor and some clarity of execution - seems a wasted idea on a cloudy script and actors doing it for the paycheck, not the spirit of the film. Just my take though!! :P

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Well, I happened to catch this movie a few weeks ago and I think it fell flat. DiCaprio's acting was really uninspired - he was going through the motions only (or so it seemed to me). The basic premise was definitely an interesting one, but they just didn't pull it off - at all. All in all, I felt that the movie would have been much better served with a different lead actor and some clarity of execution - seems a wasted idea on a cloudy script and actors doing it for the paycheck, not the spirit of the film. Just my take though!! :P

I agree - I liked the idea, but the execution was confusing and seemed kinda lifeless. I didn't get any human connection in the movie, which made it hard to relate and root for the characters.

 

[ianvr]

For me the movie was quite good. I had no preconceived ideas about it but several people told me to go and watch it because it plays with your mind and keeps you guessing after the movie ended. For me the main thing was that you never know if you are in a dream world or real world and if the real world is actually real. That you needed a shock to wake up and also keep attention to details to identify in which world you are. Where it also takes a leap of faith so to speak if you are sure that the current world was a dream world and allow yourself to shock yourself to wake up was a big step to take. One which the character of Bradd Pitt had to make to wake his wife...but not knowing 100% which world was real anymore.

Overall I enjoyed the movie very much, would recommend it to go and watch...it will make you think for sure!

 

[Divide by Zero]

I've had one dream where I was aware I was dreaming- and still then the reality seemed surreal. I flew around the area I was sleeping in and things were known to be not as they seemed. Kind of like 3d residents dreams of rivers flowing upstream, etc. I knew it was not real in the dream as I was aware I was dreaming, yet I accepted it. I think it has something to do with being unlinked from the world of causality. It reminds me of the 'shady' Merovingian in the Matrix movies explaining how everything has a cause and effect.


I was talking to a co worker about this movie as he had seen it.

He said that in dreams, when he falls, he wakes up before he lands. I asked him if he has experienced pain in dreams... he thought for a while and said no.

I then explained how I have fell from a cliff in a dream, felt the excruciating pain and thought I was incapacitated or dying. Then, I stand up like nothing happened. Another dream, I felt that a stray bullet went through my cheek, ran into my apartment, and saw the blood. A few seconds later it healed up.

The co worker who haven't felt pain in dreams is pretty much open minded when it comes to conspiracy, etc... but he is into the new age ideals of creating your own reality. I'm not sure if that pertains to this. So, I wonder, why do some people not feel pain in dreams? Is there some kind of connection or am I making a big deal of nothing? Perhaps pain is something people subconsciously avoid, thus their dreams ignore it? Or, maybe I am making myself feel self-important that I felt something that he did not in dreams?

 

[RedFox]

The co worker who haven't felt pain in dreams is pretty much open minded when it comes to conspiracy, etc... but he is into the new age ideals of creating your own reality. I'm not sure if that pertains to this. So, I wonder, why do some people not feel pain in dreams? Is there some kind of connection or am I making a big deal of nothing? Perhaps pain is something people subconsciously avoid, thus their dreams ignore it? Or, maybe I am making myself feel self-important that I felt something that he did not in dreams?

fwiw off the top of my head I can think of many dreams where I have experienced pain.....jumped off a cliff into a car park, unable to move and in agonising pain before blacking out....then waking up. Being shot (on far to many occasions), stabbed, electrocuted, eaten alive (by parasites, insects, dragons), hit by a truck, grenades/landmine's exploding next to me, buildings collapsing/crushing me, drowning, being gassed, suffocating, bleeding to death from my achilles heal being cut........with all the pain/symptoms that go with each being felt in the dream. And those are only the times I've 'died' in dreams (probably had most of those dreams between 8 - 18)....mostly now though I don't die in the dream and brush these things off. But I've had several dreams I can think of where I was in pain for some time (from a nasty injury) that either persisted in the dream or healed up/went away, and I carried on dreaming.
Good grief...I didn't realise how violent some of my past dreams had been until you brought this up.

 

[ianvr]

I just realized Ive said Bradd Pitt instead of Leonardo DiCaprio...

The other thing I found interesting in this movie was the different levels of dreaming they went into and the effect it had on the time they experienced in the deeper levels. It showed the lead actor in the 4th level where he was very old and could hardly remember why he was there and what everything was about.

 

[svjetlonosa]

I've watched it second time today and i have to watch it several more times to understand more. Is it a very good movie or a very bad one? It sure can either open one's eyes to subject of "time perspective" (How "deep" can we go? Levels of time - are there any?) or manipulate somebody (disordered) to even kill themselves (Your world isn't real and the only way out is death - actually that is not the point in the movie, although it suggests it can be solution in the very rare cause of having no other choice to free one self.).
For sure it is already a cultic movie.

One thing, the way I see it, is for sure: it is a cultic movie! But not in the same line of thinking with you. There were not many movies preparing audience for the Harvest, or were not so obvious. Our world, according to the hidden message in the movie, is nothing but an illusion, a dream, artificially created. 'Death is the way out.' I am afraid that the movie sends two main messages, one encouraging, another one discouraging:
1. Death is an exit from this dream known to us as a reality, meaning: Don't be afraid of it;
2. Even the best among us, experts in 'illusion management' will be trapped by density of illusion. The meaning: Don't resist, you'll lose.

It's been mentioned somewhere in the transcripts that OPS will work on preparing people for the Harvest, on their own way.
One shouldn't waste time (which we are running out of) on the plot, it's irrelevant. The actors' performance is irrelevant. Many people in this thread registered an underline meaning as DanielS said

Who knows what kind of signals are being beamed to us through movies.

Can you imagine how many millions of viewers worldwide received these messages?
How many of them are aware of the hidden agenda implanted in their minds which will probably result like in the movie: inception of an idea.

 

[lsjarvi]

I was irritated by the overly-belabored parts (especially the snow scene stuff) and the over-done music, but was impressed by the elegance of the allegory. Michael Caine as Self-Knowledge. Ariadne (as in Ariadne's thread) as the guide holding the bishop (representing spiritual knowledge) who helps Cobb realize he isn't responsible for Mal's limitations, and must continue his spiritual journey without her. Mal (meaning bad or wrong) and the gravity-limited top represent the limitations of the conscious mind. Another interesting name - 'Cobb' - is a word that can mean a lump of coal, which is a diamond in potential. The children represent an integrated conscious/subconscious that enables creativity - Cobb's goal. The basement contains all of his past beliefs and attachments that are of no use to him and must be abandoned. All of the other characters work as aspects of Cobb's psyche that help him in his inner journey. Robert Fischer represents Cobb's ability to claim his true inheritance, which is self-possession. At the end, Michael Caine allows Cobb access to his children, and he can finally see their faces and embrace them. He abandons the spinning top at the end because he no longer needs to be limited by his conscious mind. It doesn't matter any longer whether the top falls or not.

It is too bad that all this has to be buried beneath the sensory overload of the modern "blockbuster", but such are the times we live in. I am grateful to Christopher Nolan for caring enough to create something with so much inner integrity. People are encountering the deeper messages of the movie whether they are conscious of it or not, and this is a gift to humanity in these times of extreme spiritual challenge.

 

[Vulcan59]

Hi lsjarvi,

Welcome to the forum. :) We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, and how they found their way here. Have a read through that section to get an idea of how others have done it. Thanks.

 

[svjetlonosa]

Michael Caine as Self-Knowledge. Ariadne (as in Ariadne's thread) as the guide holding the bishop (representing spiritual knowledge) who helps Cobb realize he isn't responsible for Mal's limitations, and must continue his spiritual journey without her. Mal (meaning bad or wrong) and the gravity-limited top represent the limitations of the conscious mind. Another interesting name - 'Cobb' - is a word that can mean a lump of coal, which is a diamond in potential. The children represent an integrated conscious/subconscious that enables creativity - Cobb's goal. The basement contains all of his past beliefs and attachments that are of no use to him and must be abandoned. All of the other characters work as aspects of Cobb's psyche that help him in his inner journey. Robert Fischer represents Cobb's ability to claim his true inheritance, which is self-possession. At the end, Michael Caine allows Cobb access to his children, and he can finally see their faces and embrace them. He abandons the spinning top at the end because he no longer needs to be limited by his conscious mind. It doesn't matter any longer whether the top falls or not.

I think that both of us agree that the movie contains several layers and IMO one of them could be as quoted above.

 

[Tristan]

What come to mind through association of ideas is: if there may be some parallel between the argument of the movie and the programs incepted from PTB/ 4th STS

A: The gay "movement" is a CIA program incepted by 4D STS designed to set up antipathy, differences, and to identify individuals for purposes of inflicting further suffering.

Q: (L) Huh.

A: It is the soul that counts.

 

[Gimpy]

Well, I happened to catch this movie a few weeks ago and I think it fell flat. DiCaprio's acting was really uninspired - he was going through the motions only (or so it seemed to me). The basic premise was definitely an interesting one, but they just didn't pull it off - at all. All in all, I felt that the movie would have been much better served with a different lead actor and some clarity of execution - seems a wasted idea on a cloudy script and actors doing it for the paycheck, not the spirit of the film. Just my take though!! :P

We went to see this tonight. I agree with Anart about Di Caprio, I think he was wrong for the part. The only one I thought did a halfway good job was the guy playing the Mark. (Cillian Murphy? I can never get his name right.)

I liked the suspense of it...and the way it dealt with layers of time and space. But it did leave me cold at the end....which I thought was cheap or a cop out.

In trying to make the pacing of the scenes indistinguishable from the way your mind moves through scenes in dreams, the end result was choppy. In dreams our minds take snapshots that encompass time and space and everything we think/feel at that moment. That is really tough to translate. So is the mutability of a dream scape, and how it flows. The film tried to do too much, and as a result it came out flat.

Things I did like had to do with how time doesn't mean much in a dream, and what to use in a dream to figure out where you are...are you awake? Or are you still dreaming? It was interesting that they used gravity to tell where they were instead of consciousness.

Fwiw, I have had dreams in which years passed, and when I woke up, it felt that time had gone by. It was a noticeable change in how I saw the world. I have no idea where they come from, or why, but when they happen I do pay attention. In dreams I've been injured and killed just about every way you can think of, and a few that still give me the willies. In other dreams the environment was so real I couldn't tell where the heck I was....all the senses were there, touch, smell, taste, hearing....but it was so disorienting that clued me in to the unreality of it.

Since that last disorienting dream, things have cooled off a bit. I'm back to being naked in front of my classmates in third grade again, or being chased by a group of Velicoraptors in Bermuda shorts. Stress dreams are normal.

The problem with following your dreams is that you have to spend too much of your time asleep. Instead of letting movies like this lull you into that, or books, look at how these things work at manipulating you and step outside of it...anyway, those are my thoughts on it. Sorry for the ramble.

 

[RflctnOfU]

One thing I really dug was the Ariadne character (ring a bell anyone??) who had to design 'a labyrinth'.

Kris

 

[GRiM]

Well, I happened to catch this movie a few weeks ago and I think it fell flat. DiCaprio's acting was really uninspired - he was going through the motions only (or so it seemed to me). The basic premise was definitely an interesting one, but they just didn't pull it off - at all. All in all, I felt that the movie would have been much better served with a different lead actor and some clarity of execution - seems a wasted idea on a cloudy script and actors doing it for the paycheck, not the spirit of the film. Just my take though!! :P

Different lead-actor you say? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLDSE7RHvno

 

[Beau]

There's also the very funny Caddyshack "Inception" trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YmSylu72bA