The Inception Movie Thread-New Nolan Movie

[quote name='mappo']Soulreaver! Thank god somebody else in the world noticed this!
It has been driving me crazy that not only does no one else notice how illogical Cobb's totem is, but that even after leading them by the nose to notice it they still don't understand it! And here you are having the same experience. No one else replying to you even understands that the totem is nonsensical. Ever since seeing the film I've been cursing it for this huge, glaring, illogical mistake smack dab in the center of the plot. How could Nolan have created such a convoluted, intricate logical construct of a movie and then hang the whole thing on an illogical nonsensical screw up? It's like he was daring us to notice that it didn't make sense. And then it struck me:

He is! It's not supposed to make sense! The nonsensical totem is the key that tells you it's all a dream! Remember the scene with Cobb and Ariadne in the French cafe where he says "Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange". That's the director daring us to realize after the movie (the dream) ends that the totem was actually strange. That we were in a dream!

This realization blew my mind. It made me instandtly go from cursing this film as a sloppy middlebrow action film to being in awe of it.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm, good point. Some people on IMDB believe the whole movie was an inception on Cobb so that he wouldn't feel guilty over his wife's death. Since his totem was actually his wife's totem, perhaps the people who planted the inception in his mind knew the totem's property and were able to manipulate it to make Cobb think he knew what was reality and what was a dream.


Didn't Saito, in the beginning of the movie, say that he has only seen this particular top twice in his life? Either he means he also saw it in the bathroom scene where Cobb drops the top accidentally or perhaps there is something more to it?


ahhhhhh the more I think about it the more I like this movie.

I'm gonna go on a Nolan movie spree now. Still have never watched Following or Insomnia.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Read the8055's post...he probably has had the best explanation of the spinning totem thus far.[/QUOTE]

Yes but his explanation does not explain why the host of a dream would manipulate a top to spin endlessly.
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']
Hmmm, good point. Some people on IMDB believe the whole movie was an inception on Cobb so that he wouldn't feel guilty over his wife's death. Since his totem was actually his wife's totem, perhaps the people who planted the inception in his mind knew the totem's property and were able to manipulate it to make Cobb think he knew what was reality and what was a dream.


Didn't Saito, in the beginning of the movie, say that he has only seen this particular top twice in his life? Either he means he also saw it in the bathroom scene where Cobb drops the top accidentally or perhaps there is something more to it?


ahhhhhh the more I think about it the more I like this movie.

I'm gonna go on a Nolan movie spree now. Still have never watched Following or Insomnia.
[/QUOTE]

Saito says he's only seen it once if I remember.
Something along the lines of I used to know a man who had that top, or whatever.

[quote name='SoulReaver']
Yes but his explanation does not explain why the host of a dream would manipulate a top to spin endlessly.
[/QUOTE]

Again, pretty sure he only spins it in when it's HIS dream. All the other times he knows when he's going into someone else's dream. So it wouldn't be the fact that the host dreamer has HIS top spin endlessly.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Saito says he's only seen it once if I remember.
Something along the lines of I used to know a man who had that top, or whatever.



Again, pretty sure he only spins it in when it's HIS dream. All the other times he knows when he's going into someone else's dream.
[/QUOTE]

Ah okay, then that makes a lot more sense.


The only problem is, if the top stops spinning, he wouldn't know if he was in someone else's dream or in reality.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Read the8055's post...he probably has had the best explanation of the spinning totem thus far.[/QUOTE]

I don't see anything in that post that explains the inherent flaw with Cobb's totem. Let me spell it out explicitly:

A totem is an ordinary object that has a unique, non-obvious property IN THE REAL WORLD that only the owner knows about. It's not a magic object, there's just something unique about it that only the owner knows. The point of this is for the owner to always be able to test whether they are in the real world or are being deceived in someone else's dream. Since no one else ever knows your totem's unique property, no one can put you in their dream with an accurate dream version of your totem that can fool you into thinking you're in reality.

That's it, that's all a totem is.

But then, Cobb's totem is the exact opposite of this, for no explainable reason. It has no unique property in the real world for Cobb to use as a reality test. Anyone could create a duplicate of the real top in a dream that could fool him into thinking he's in reality, because the REAL top in the REAL WORLD has no unique property. Instead, whenever Cobb is in a dream, even someone else's dream, the dream version of his totem somehow becomes a magic dream detector that spins forever and tells him he isn't in reality.

Do you see this? Do you see how it complete ignores and contradicts the very logic that the movie has set up as its basis? it makes no sense, and it so glaringly doesn't make sense that I think it has to be on purpose.
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']
Ah okay, then that makes a lot more sense.


The only problem is, if the top stops spinning, he wouldn't know if he was in someone else's dream or in reality.
[/QUOTE]

Again, it's more to know if he's in HIS dream. Throughout the film, he's VERY aware when he's in someone else's dream, and he never loses that visibility. It seems that on every job, there's at least 2 "thiefs" + 1 architect. He's never lost a grip on reality when in some other host dream, but he has in the past lost his grip when he's been in his own dreams. Thus, he uses his totem.
 
But isn't your explanation essentially "sure it doesn't make sense, it's just prettier that way."? If you're not supposed to think about this movie, not supposed to reason it out based on it's own rules and figure out what's going on, but just sit back and look at all the pretty pictures, then it's crap.
 
see im telling you guys this movie has some major holes in the plot but everyone here seems to be drooling all over it. if cobbs wife was questioning reality then why didnt she just check her totem (isnt that the whole point of a totem?) before killing herself? they said if you die in fishers dream then you will be stuck in limbo for years. yet after fisher gets shot they go and get him like its no big deal. also if cobbs wife is dead then how can she be stuck in cobbs dream? also wasnt the whole idea of the inception to plant an idea in fishers head while he thinks that it was real life? yet they straight out change their whole plan and tell him its a dream.
 
[quote name='wwe101']see im telling you guys this movie has some major holes in the plot but everyone here seems to be drooling all over it. if cobbs wife was questioning reality then why didnt she just check her totem (isnt that the whole point of a totem?) before killing herself? they said if you die in fishers dream then you will be stuck in limbo for years. yet after fisher gets shot they go and get him like its no big deal. also if cobbs wife is dead then how can she be stuck in cobbs dream? also wasnt the whole idea of the inception to plant an idea in fishers head while he thinks that it was real life? yet they straight out change their whole plan and tell him its a dream.[/QUOTE]



Cobb's wife isn't actually stuck in his dreams, it is his manifestation of her (his subconscious).


They tell Fischer it was a dream in order to gain his trust and make him believe Browning is working against him. He thinks he is going into Browning's dream in the snow level in order to find the secret that Browning is keeping hidden from him, but it is really Eame's dream (I think) and they are planting a fake secret: that Fischer's father wants him to be his own man.



Good point on her not checking her totem first though.
 
[quote name='mappo']I don't see anything in that post that explains the inherent flaw with Cobb's totem. Let me spell it out explicitly:

A totem is an ordinary object that has a unique, non-obvious property IN THE REAL WORLD that only the owner knows about. It's not a magic object, there's just something unique about it that only the owner knows. The point of this is for the owner to always be able to test whether they are in the real world or are being deceived in someone else's dream. Since no one else ever knows your totem's unique property, no one can put you in their dream with an accurate dream version of your totem that can fool you into thinking you're in reality.

That's it, that's all a totem is.

But then, Cobb's totem is the exact opposite of this, for no explainable reason. It has no unique property in the real world for Cobb to use as a reality test. Anyone could create a duplicate of the real top in a dream that could fool him into thinking he's in reality, because the REAL top in the REAL WORLD has no unique property. Instead, whenever Cobb is in a dream, even someone else's dream, the dream version of his totem somehow becomes a magic dream detector that spins forever and tells him he isn't in reality.

Do you see this? Do you see how it complete ignores and contradicts the very logic that the movie has set up as its basis? it makes no sense, and it so glaringly doesn't make sense that I think it has to be on purpose.
[/QUOTE]

Cobb states in the film that his top has a unique weight and feel. Each totem in the film has both a unique weight/feel as well as a unique and specific action that the owner can recognize. I think the confusion is from the fact that Nolan spends a bunch of time emphasizing the "spin" of the top, and mostly ignoring that it DOES indeed have a specific feel that DiCaprio's character can identify.

[quote name='wwe101']see im telling you guys this movie has some major holes in the plot but everyone here seems to be drooling all over it. if cobbs wife was questioning reality then why didnt she just check her totem (isnt that the whole point of a totem?) before killing herself? they said if you die in fishers dream then you will be stuck in limbo for years. yet after fisher gets shot they go and get him like its no big deal. also if cobbs wife is dead then how can she be stuck in cobbs dream? also wasnt the whole idea of the inception to plant an idea in fishers head while he thinks that it was real life? yet they straight out change their whole plan and tell him its a dream.[/QUOTE]

The idea was that she stopped checking her totem because she had lost all sense of reality. She had convinced herself that even if the top did stop spinning, she was still dreaming. She became delusional and psychotic.

And you're right, you do get stuck in limbo for years...but that's only for the person in limbo. In real time, it's literally moments. In layer 1, every 5 minutes of real time = 1 hour of dream time. In each successive layer, the ratio of real time that gets translated into dream time is significantly increased. Literally seconds in real life can mean hours and hours, and in the case of limbo, years and years.

Cobb's wife was a manifestation in his subconcious of the guilt he felt for planting the idea into his wife's mind that everything was a dream initially, and that they needed to kill themselves with the train to get out of that dream. However, even when getting out of the dream after being killed by the train, because of that idea that everything was a dream, she kept thinking real life was a dream, leading her to kill herself in an attempt to get to reality, even though she was already in it after the train death.

As for the explanation for the change of plan on Fischer, they address it in the film. They talk about how they need to start using "Mr. Charles" and lying to Fischer saying that Charles was his subconcious trying to help him escape his alleged kidnappers. They take advantage of Fischer's own subconcious security.
 
[quote name='wwe101']see im telling you guys this movie has some major holes in the plot but everyone here seems to be drooling all over it. if cobbs wife was questioning reality then why didnt she just check her totem (isnt that the whole point of a totem?) before killing herself? they said if you die in fishers dream then you will be stuck in limbo for years. yet after fisher gets shot they go and get him like its no big deal. also if cobbs wife is dead then how can she be stuck in cobbs dream? also wasnt the whole idea of the inception to plant an idea in fishers head while he thinks that it was real life? yet they straight out change their whole plan and tell him its a dream.[/QUOTE]

The idea was that she stopped checking her totem because she had lost all sense of reality. She had convinced herself that even if the top did stop spinning, she was still dreaming. She became delusional and psychotic.

And you're right, you do get stuck in limbo for years...but that's only for the person in limbo. In real time, it's literally moments. In layer 1, every 5 minutes of real time = 1 hour of dream time. In each successive layer, the ratio of real time that gets translated into dream time is significantly increased. Literally seconds in real life can mean hours and hours, and in the case of limbo, years and years.

Cobb's wife was a manifestation in his subconcious of the guilt he felt for planting the idea into his wife's mind that everything was a dream initially, and that they needed to kill themselves with the train to get out of that dream. However, even when getting out of the dream after being killed by the train, because of that idea that everything was a dream, she kept thinking real life was a dream, leading her to kill herself in an attempt to get to reality, even though she was already in it after the train death.

As for the explanation for the change of plan on Fischer, they address it in the film. They talk about how they need to start using "Mr. Charles" and lying to Fischer saying that Charles was his subconcious trying to help him escape his alleged kidnappers. They trick Fischer's own subconcious security against him.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']
Cobb states in the film that his top has a unique weight and feel. Each totem in the film has both a unique weight/feel as well as a unique and specific action that the owner can recognize. I think the confusion is from the fact that Nolan spends a bunch of time emphasizing the "spin" of the top, and mostly ignoring that it DOES indeed have a specific feel that DiCaprio's character can identify.

[/spoiler][/QUOTE]

I think you're still not seeing it.
The magic spinning top does not make sense. According to the film's own logic, you can't just create magical phenomena inside someone else's dream to see if you're dreaming. Only the creator/architect of the dream can do that. If all it took to detect that you're in a dream was to try to conjure up something supernatural, there'd be no need for totems. You could just try to pull a unicorn out of your ass, and if you succeed, voila! you're in a dream. If not, reality. Since it doesn't work that way, you need a secret totem.
 
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[quote name='mappo']I think you're still not seeing it.
The magic spinning top does not make sense. According to the film's own logic, you can't just create magical phenomena inside someone else's dream to see if you're dreaming. Only the creator/architect of the dream can do that. If all it took to detect that you're in a dream was to try to conjure up something supernatural, there'd be no need for totems. You could just try to pull a unicorn out of your ass, and if you succeed, voila! you're in a dream. If not, reality. Since it doesn't work that way, you need a secret totem.
[/QUOTE]

Which again, is why I keep saying
The totems are used exclusively to determine whether they are in their OWN dream, not someone else's. Again, throughout the film, all the characters are very aware when they're in a host dream. The totem comes into play when they need to ensure that they're not dreaming their own dream.

I mean, essentially the idea is that his totem will stop spinning in the real world and when in other host dreams. But it keeps spinning in his OWN dream, which helps him identify whether he's in reality or not. At the point in the film where he puts the gun to his head and spins the top, it was because he wasn't sure he was dreaming his own actual dream, not because he was wondering if he was stuck in a host dream
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']
The totems are used exclusively to determine whether they are in their OWN dream, not someone else's.
[/QUOTE]
No. No they're not. The whole point of a totem is to keep other people from deceiving you in their dream. There is no point in trying to protect yourself from yourself.
 
[quote name='mappo']
No. No they're not. The whole point of a totem is to keep other people from deceiving you in their dream. There is no point in trying to protect yourself from yourself.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I misstated there. But my second paragraph in my previous post is the point I was trying to make. It keeps spinning only in Cobb's own dreams, but would stop in reality and in other host dreams. This helps him differentiate.

But I'd disagree. I think the totem serves both functions The totem does indeed help protect themselves from themselves and not lose touch with reality. The people with the totems don't want to lose themselves in their own dream state.
 
I'm going to throw this out there because it makes sense
Cobb's wife thought the real world was fake after Cobb planted a idea, so he could be in the real world but think its fake.

Or

When he woke up on the plane he went into another dream.
Someone needs to watch it again and make sense of the begining
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']
It keeps spinning only in Cobb's own dreams, but would stop in reality and in other host dreams. This helps him differentiate.
[/QUOTE]

How so?
If he's in his own dream, he can make it do whatever he wants. And if he's in a dream of his own creation that he fears he set up specifically to deceive himself, then the top will do whatever it should to continue deceiving him. That's what I meant by saying there is no point in trying to protect yourself from yourself. You can't. if you're set on deluding yourself, you will always succeed because you can do whatever needs to be done to accomplish the delusion when inside your own dream.

So we're back where I started. The top makes no sense.

P.S. These spoiler tags also make no sense. ;)
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']
The totem does indeed help protect themselves from themselves and not lose touch with reality.
[/QUOTE]

There is no need for a totem to do this. If you think you're in your own dream, just try to fly away. Try the rectal unicorn extraction. Magic totems are completely unnecessary.
 
What I don't get is why someone didn't dream of like a Gundam or go super saiyan within there dream. That would have been the first thing I would have done
 
[quote name='the8055']I am so glad that i'm not the only one that left the movie theater with haunting questions unanswered, this movie was truly magnificent and if you don't agree then why bother commenting on it saying it wasn't?[/quote]
I guess that's me since I think I was the only one that didn't completely gush. I said I thought it was good. I just thought it was overdone. I thought others might feel the same way.
 
[quote name='mappo']
No. No they're not. The whole point of a totem is to keep other people from deceiving you in their dream. There is no point in trying to protect yourself from yourself.
[/QUOTE]


No, that's not true either. The only point of the totem is to tell the dreamer if they are back from reality or not. That is why Nolan cuts away from the top at the end of the movie when it starts to wobble, but before the audience can know for sure if it falls over or not--he wants us to continue to speculate if the entire movie was really a dream or if Cobb was able to come back to reality. It's only a defense mechanism in the sense that it confirms if you're still dreaming or not.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']

Again, pretty sure he only spins it in when it's HIS dream. All the other times he knows when he's going into someone else's dream. So it wouldn't be the fact that the host dreamer has HIS top spin endlessly.
[/QUOTE]

Even if that is true, isn't it funny that Cobb would choose a totem that only works in those select instances when his comrades had totems that worked to prove they weren't in other peoples dreams?
 
[quote name='help1']
Even if that is true, isn't it funny that Cobb would choose a totem that only works in those select instances when his comrades had totems that worked to prove they weren't in other peoples dreams?
[/QUOTE]

Did they ever explicitly say that? I know my statement is an assumption, but I'm making that assumption because of what the film conveyed. I don't think there was ever a line that stated the totems were used to prove they weren't in other people's dreams, but rather just to prove they weren't in A dream? IDK anymore...just arguing in circles now.
 
No you're right--
the main purpose of the totem is to tell the dreamer whether they are dreaming or not--it's a "Tell" to the dream infiltrator if they are back to reality. Entering a host's dream alters the infiltrator's reality too, The totems all have unique characteristics that prevent whoever is hosting the dream from recreating it and causing the infiltrator to get lost in the host's dream. Keep in mind that Cobb and his cohorts are con artists who delibrately induce dreams in order to infiltrate and extract information from their targets, so they are all going into other people's dreams in the first place. They need the totems to insure they can distinguish between the host's dream world and reality or they themselves will get lost and not be able to complete whatever tasks they want to do.

Edit: Ultimately however
it's not so much the totem that we should be focused or worried about, it's that by the end of the movie, Cobb no longer cares about the totem and is instead more focused on what makes him truly happy, which is being with his children in whatever form that might be. Throughout the movie, Cobb is indeed obsessed/paranoid about the spinning top, but at the end he simply walks away from it to be with the kids.
 
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[quote name='gunm']No you're right--
the main purpose of the totem is to tell the dreamer whether they are dreaming or not--it's a "Tell" to the dream infiltrator if they are back to reality. The totems all have unique characteristics that prevent whoever is hosting the dream from recreating it and causing the infiltrator to get lost in the host's dream. Keep in mind that Cobb and his cohorts are con artists who delibrately induce dreams in order to infiltrate and extract information from their targets, so they are all going into other people's dreams in the first place. They need the totems to insure they can distinguish between the host's dream world and reality or they themselves will get lost and not be able to complete whatever tasks they want to do.
[/QUOTE]

That's sorta what I was saying previously...they already KNOW they're going into a host dream. But my argument is that I'd like to believe that they only need the totem to make sure they're not lost in their OWN dream.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']That's sorta what I was saying previously...they already KNOW they're going into a host dream. But my argument is that I'd like to believe that they only need the totem to make sure they're not lost in their OWN dream.[/QUOTE]


Oh I see. Then no, it's merely to distinguish dream from reality, whereever it's in the host's dream or in the individual's. It can (as mappo stated) be used to help the infiltrator from getting lost in the host's dream, but Cobb used his original totem to get back to reality when he and Mal were "dream testing" and started to get lost in their own dreams.
 
Guys, I don't think the totem is for distinguishing between if you are in your own dream or reality. It can't be. You would know the properties of your own totem and could distort the dream to fit with its properties.


It HAS to be for knowing if you are in someone else's dream vs reality/your own dream. WHY else would Arthur and Ariadne not let others touch their totem if it was simply to be used only in their own dreams/reality? Its for differentiating someone else's dream vs reality/your own dream. Its unique property that is known only to the users safeguards the user when in other's dreams, not in his/her own.


Problem is, this makes Cobb's totem flawed in that:

if it kept spinning=his own dream
stopped spinning=reality/someone else's dream/deceiving himself in his own dream.


Whereas everyone else's totem worked in that:

it has its unique properties=your own dream/reality
doesn't have unique properties= someone else's dream
 
[quote name='gunm']Oh I see. Then no, it's merely to distinguish dream from reality. As mappo stated, it's easy for the host dream to warp the infiltrator's reality unless there's a totem (although it's not necessarily that the host's dream is intentionally trying to deceive the infiltrator).[/QUOTE]

I think we're saying the same thing, but in a slightly different manner. I realize the totem is meant to make a distinction between reality versus a dream state (be it a host or the person's own dream) but the leap of logic I'm trying to make is that the totem is mostly irrelevant to use if the infiltrator is in a host's dream. Because they know they're going into a host dream in the first place, why use the totem at all?
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']Guys, I don't think the totem is for distinguishing between if you are in your own dream or reality. It can't be. You would know the properties of your own totem and could distort the dream to fit with its properties.


It HAS to be for knowing if you are in someone else's dream vs reality/your own dream. WHY else would Arthur and Ariadne not let others touch their totem if it was simply to be used only in their own dreams/reality? Its for differentiating someone else's dream vs reality/your own dream. Its unique property that is known only to the users safeguards the user when in other's dreams, not in his/her own.


Problem is, this makes Cobb's totem flawed in that:

if it kept spinning=his own dream
stopped spinning=reality/someone else's dream/deceiving himself in his own dream.


Whereas everyone else's totem worked in that:

it has its unique properties=your own dream/reality
doesn't have unique properties= someone else's dream[/QUOTE]

Mind is getting raped right now.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']I think we're saying the same thing, but in a slightly different manner. I realize the totem is meant to make a distinction between reality versus a dream state (be it a host or the person's own dream) but the leap of logic I'm trying to make is that the totem is mostly irrelevant to use if the infiltrator is in a host's dream. Because they know they're going into a host dream in the first place, why use the totem at all?[/QUOTE]



They can lose track of whose dream they are going into. That is the purpose of the totem, or so I think.



And your totem cannot help you differentiate between reality and your own dream, as you can manipulate yourself into believing the dream is real.
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']They can lose track of whose dream they are going into. That is the purpose of the totem, or so I think.



And your totem cannot help you differentiate between reality and your own dream, as you can manipulate yourself into believing the dream is real.[/QUOTE]

I see your point in your second sentence...but it seems like the film conveys the fact that these guys are pros and would not lose track of whose dream they're going into. Each time they do a job, its mapped out specifically and built by the architect.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']I see your point in your second sentence...but it seems like the film conveys the fact that these guys are pros and would not lose track of whose dream they're going into. Each time they do a job, its mapped out specifically and built by the architect.[/QUOTE]

They may be pros, but regardless, it is a safe guard in case they get lost in the dream.


It's like bank robbers. Even if you're a pro, you want a backup plan just in case something goes wrong.
 
I think we're all a little too hung up over the totems. ^_^

By the end, Cobb is no longer concerned about the totem and simply walks away...I think we as the audience are meant to simply accept that in the movie, true happiness trumps both dreams and reality.
 
^ That is what I took away from the movie after thinking about it some more today.
It didn't matter to Cobb whether that top kept spinning or not, he got what he wanted. But, the way Nolan left it open ended allowed for all this discussion
 
The irony is that when we as the audience become obsessed over the totem, in a way, we're falling into the same traps that the character did by concerning ourselves more about the mechansims and logic of the movie instead of the final message...did we enjoy the film? And is our enjoyment of the film based on seeing Cobb finally happy, or are we going to simply get lost in limbo trying to figure out whether the movie was "real" or just a "dream"?
Bravo Christopher Nolan, another thought-provoking cinematic experience!
 
After watching memento today I sorta respect/appreciate Christopher Nolan, but the guy is a complete douche-bag for messing with peoples minds like this. Oh and honestly I can say that I could care less if Cobb was happy or not all I care about is if the movie was a dream or reality because if he wanted to be truly happy why not just stay in limbo with his wife+children? Oh and Nolan just used us as his guinea pigs and performed INCEPTION on the audience, we should sue for malpractice.
 
lol

Serious answer:
Cobb couldn't live in limbo because the Mal there was not his wife, but his subconcious guilt over planting the idea that ultimately lead to her death in the real world, and the children in his limbo were also obscured because of this guilt.
 
[quote name='gunm']lol

Serious answer:
Cobb couldn't live in limbo because the Mal there was not his wife, but his subconcious guilt over planting the idea that ultimately lead to her death in the real world, and the children in his limbo were also obscured because of this guilt.
[/QUOTE]

Isn't that a bit of an assumption on your part though that his children were obscured because of his guilt? The whole scene where Cobb dreams on his own and the girl enters his subconscious, he specifically tells her that he can't see their faces there because he didn't call out to them so they'd look up at him and that he can't change it because it's based on a memory and not a world he made? I mean otherwise, Mal's face should be obscured too.

My opinion:
I like that the ending was left open to interpretation with the top spinning for a while but also beginning to wobble at the end. On the other hand though, I don't see where people are coming to the assumption that the whole thing is a dream. Cobb and Arthur clearly wake up to reality on the train after going 2 levels deep with Saito, which, unless I missed something, would also confirm the parts in Paris and Mombasa were real too. About the earliest the whole thing could possibly be a dream IMO is when Cobb tests the sedation drug, but even then that wouldn't really make sense because he later goes into his own dream where the girl interrupts and finds out the truth about Mal and Cobb's subconscious. The only thing that is really up for debate in my opinion is if Cobb and Saito waking up on the plane and everything after that is real or if Cobb and possibly Saito remained stuck in limbo.
 
[quote name='graf1k']
Isn't that a bit of an assumption on your part though that his children were obscured because of his guilt? The whole scene where Cobb dreams on his own and the girl enters his subconscious, he specifically tells her that he can't see their faces there because he didn't call out to them so they'd look up at him and that he can't change it because it's based on a memory and not a world he made? I mean otherwise, Mal's face should be obscured too.
[/QUOTE]


Yes, that's his last memory. But think about then why didn't he shape his memory so that he sees them fully and not just that last fleeting moment? Why is he only using his memories (and only certain specific memories) to shape his dreams and subconscious thoughts? The best conclusion is that it is his guilt that prevents him from saving a moment where he sees his children's faces--it's like a metaphor: how can you face your children if you caused their mother's death? Mal's face is not obscurred because his guilty subconscious won't let him.
 
I think people are not understanding
that Fisher did not die (he was close to death but not dead) so he was essentially asleep. Cobb and Juno connected the machine to themselves and Fisher so they could follow him in the next dream state, the fourth which was Cobbs dream (the insanity of his dream proves why he can't be the dreamer anymore) and so Cobb could face Mal to end it once and for all. While there they needed to jump Fisher in sync with the jump from Dream state 3.

Saito then died and went into Limbo so Cobb had to go after him to save him. So when Mal stabbed Cobb he eventually died and went into Limbo (you always wash up on shore and forget reality) and brought a gun/totem to show Saito to remind both of them why he was really there.
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']They may be pros, but regardless, it is a safe guard in case they get lost in the dream.


It's like bank robbers. Even if you're a pro, you want a backup plan just in case something goes wrong.[/QUOTE]

Actually, I think it has more to do with them protecting themselves against having their own dreams invaded/manipulated.
 
I saw it again and it makes sense now, cobb is still dreaming because his kids are projections of what he remembered of them, he's been away from his kids for months but more likely years, whatever the case they look the exact same as he remembers and the movie ends before you can tell if the top fell or keeped spinning. He is also worried everytime he spins it but this time he doesn't care if its dream or reality.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Actually, I think it has more to do with them protecting themselves against having their own dreams invaded/manipulated.[/QUOTE]

Eh, why would an invader manipulating the host's dream cause the totem's unique property to change?
 
Saw it again last night....more questions than answers the second time unfortunately...

How did Cobb get to Saito? Supposedly Cobb and Aridenne went to limbo to go to Fischer, which is where they met Mal, etc....how did Cobb end up back on the beach where he got picked up by Saito's men? And what the hell is that level, its supposedly 1 level below limbo....
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Saw it again last night....more questions than answers the second time unfortunately...

How did Cobb get to Saito? Supposedly Cobb and Aridenne went to limbo to go to Fischer, which is where they met Mal, etc....how did Cobb end up back on the beach where he got picked up by Saito's men? And what the hell is that level, its supposedly 1 level below limbo....
[/QUOTE]

The way I took it was that each limbo starts out as an empty dreamspace but the person who is in limbo begins to fill it with their subconscious.
 
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