Kids and their faces and clothes aside, if the ending is real, tell me how Codd orchestrated the triple kick he needed to wake up with the others in the plane if we see Fisher and Ariadne kick and Codd still needs to find Saito. That’s what I want to know…

The top never wobbles in any other dream sequence, from what I can remember. While the kids point is good, there also could be artistic license at play. I am fair
Iy certain it is real, just because it is the easiest way for me to not be cheated by the ending.

@Morgan:

Maybe. But to me, that ending is the cheat — if it’s real, then we as the audience are asked to believe something purely out of artistic license. We’re asked to believe that the dreamlike warmth of this alarmingly positive ending is true. We’re asked to believe that the kids are the same age, wearing the same clothes, are playing on the same spot, and aren’t looking at their father in precisely the same way. Odd, too, given that they’re supposed to be with their grandmother, who doesn’t want them to speak to Cobb in the first place.

The ending is awash in a warm, almost phantasmagoric glow. Nobody says anything. Everybody smiles. It all works out so elegantly.

As for the top: I’ll continue to assert I think it’s misdirection.

The top’s wobble is inconclusive: a wobble but a failure to fall is still telling. We’ve seen it fall before, and this wasn’t that.

Further, one thing that I missed on my first “think-through” –? The top isn’t Cobb’s totem. It never was. It was always Mal’s. Once more, a misdirection: what the top does is irrelevant for Cobb, because it isn’t his totem (and I suspect he doesn’t even have one).

– c.

First, Victoria: The triple kick is death and remembrance in Limbo. The same death Cobb and Mal experienced on the train tracks. A nice murder-suicide. Or maybe a double murder with Saito going first (he’s already awake when Cobb wakes up). *thinks* Okayokayokay, so we know that when Cobb and Mal when too deep, and found themselves in Limbo, they knew something wasn’t quite right, but they couldn’t ever put their finger(s) on it. They woke up on the beach of their own mind, the old (real) world sort of forgotten. They spent fifty-something years together in that shared world of theirs, rebuilding parts of their memories, but never knowing if the world they were in was the same world those memories came from, right? So they didn’t want to kill themselves, just in case, but at least Cobb knew some shit was wrong. Mal locked away her only connection to the “real world”, with the intent of staying in Limbo forever, and Cobb used that to change her mind (the spinning top in the lock-box), leading her to question the reality of her reality, and leading her to decide to kill herself (probably at his gentle urging). Thus, the train tracks.

So at the end of the movie, Ariadne lets go on the porch and falls to her kick. Cobb takes the gun and shoots himself, flying into Limbo. At this point, it has been an unknowable eternity for Saito, but Saito won’t die because he’s unsure about his reality, just as Mal was. Cobb shows up, and Saito has the realization about everything, causing Cobb to have the same. *sings* SUI-CIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!

Chuck: It’s only been six or nine months since the incident with Mal at the hotel. He’s not any younger during the train scene. He’s not aged noticeably, and when he talks to his kids on the phone, they ask when he’s coming back, as if it hasn’t been long enough for them to realize he won’t be returning (though Philipa is having her doubts, so it’s been more than a couple months). He refers to what he’s on as a business trip. Reminded me of pilots or Army folk. “Father is away at the war.” “But when’s he coming home?” It’s not totally unrealistic that the kids might be wearing the same things. Also, as an unreliable narrator (this is a weird suggestion, so bear with me), maybe because those are the clothes they wear at the end, they inform all of his memories of them, so the clothes match. If I remember correctly, they’re wearing the same clothes on the beach when he and Ariadne step out of his memory-elevator for a moment.

Also, the top wobbles. It never once shows any signs of wobbling when he’s at the table with Saito, or when he spins it in Mal’s vault box. The fact that it is not absolutely perfect in its spin means that this reality is the physical.

Double-also, I was really hoping Cobb would become infected with the same idea he gave to Mal, and the ending would be him killing himself even though he has his life back, because he willing chose to save Saito at the risk of losing himself. Maybe a sweet alter-ending on the DVD?

Noah

p.s. Sorry for the no-paragraphs.

@Noah –

No worries, re: paragraphs.

I don’t buy it. We don’t know how long it’s been, do we? Further, it’s awfully bizarre and convenient that the end scene is so cozily portrayed. We’re really to believe that the kids are the same age, in the same clothing, in the same position, offering to him redemption from the same conflict?

And by the way, I don’t think this is a bad ending. I think that’s good: I think it shows that in his dream, he’s finally past… well, his past.

But that ending, nope, I don’t buy it’s the real world. Not anymore. I thought it was when I walked out of the theater, but now I’m not so sure.

Further, I’m more and more arriving at the feeling that a great deal of the film is a dream. Maybe all of it. He’s stuck in a wall in Mombasa: a truly nightmarish sequence, enemies everywhere, claustrophobic walls crushing inward, and then — bam! Dream logic, there’s Saito, magically saving him.

Re: the wobbling top — just because it wobbles means nothing. We have no confirmation of this as a rule. And as noted, it’s not his totem. The top’s behavior is almost without meaning.

Again, the top is a misdirection. In my mind, anyway.

– c.

@chuck Touche Touche.

Ok, oh bearded one. I’ve also been thinking about this movie – perhaps too much. I was talking with the hubby about it again last night.

He thinks it was reality at the end.

I don’t. I think it *was* all a “dream” – Kobb is still in limbo. Everything you pointed out is also why I think he is in limbo – but the kids – that is what nailed it for me. Same clothes, same ages, same hair – SAME EVERYTHING – except now they turn and look at him. His own subconscious finally ALLOWED him to see them again b/c he had finally worked out his issues with Mal, his own guilt, etc. etc.

And you are right – the way it was filmed or the lighting or something – it seems like it was different. There is no way a director would do that and it not MEAN something – right?

But more than that. Remember the dialogue. Remember how different characters – all throughout the film – say to Kobb THE VERY SAME THINGS THAT MAL SAYS TO HIM during her death scene.

I’m asking you to take a leap of faith – Saito says this to him at least once and I *think* I remember someone else saying that too.

A life filled without regret – again – this is repeated several times to Kobb and from different people

It was like his own mind kept throwing these important phrases at him at different times begging him to DEAL with what had happened with Mal. It was all a dream – it was all happening within his mind.

I think there are more but those are the two that jumped out at me and that stayed with me. I NEED to see this film again. I told hubby last night we will have to buy this dvd when it comes out.

Thanks for this. My head hurts again just thinking about this film but in a good way.

I think it’s a dream, but I’m going to hold off judgement until I watch the film for a second time…hopefully sometime this week. I need to analyze the details this time.

I believe it is reality at the end, for a completely out-of-the-movie reason: in the credits, the actors playing the kids in the dream sequence are listed as 3 and 5 years old, and there is a separate listing for the kids at 5 and 7 years old. I may have the ages wrong, but to me, that proves that the ending is real, that the kids have grown up since Cobb’s visions of them in the dream.

Also, the top wobbled.

But then, Saito touched the top in Limbo, and Cobb had previously said no one was supposed to touch another person’s totem.

Yeah, I don’t care. I come down firmly on the side of reality.

I’m still not sold that the “wobbling top” means anything at all. Cobb also said that you couldn’t let anyone else touch your totem — and the top isn’t his totem.

The kids of two ages — I saw that on IMDB. My feeling is that it’s Kids On Beach versus Kids At House. Or, alternately, Kids On Phone (Audio), Kids You See (Visual).

Voice actors are the older kids. The kids you see are the younger kids.

Just my guess.

Even if you assume that they’re older, the fact they appear at precisely the proper spot to give precisely the redemption he needs is a little… finicky.

My feelings have essentially become that if the end *is* real, it’s too neat. It’s a cheat. But Nolan is an elegant craftsman, and one who loves misdirection and playing with the audience, which is why I’m comfortable with the ending being a dream.

And maybe the whole film.

Again, it’s very possible that the entire storyline is a con on Cobb — a massive in-dream psychotherapy session, with Ariadne as his guide.

– c.

Ok…I lied. I went and trolled the internet for some additional feedback. I stumbled upon this blog which seems to contain some interesting theories.

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/07/19/dissecting-inception-six-interpretations-and-five-plot-holes/#comments

I’m leaning towards one of these scenarios but I’ll let you judge for yourself.

My first reaction to the ending was similar to yours; it was a cheat. The filmmaker elects NOT to give us closure, leaving us to decide for ourselves… the lady or the tiger.

But then, as I thought about it, I came to a different conclusion. Not quite your misdirection theory, but something else…

By cutting to black where he did, Nolan doesn’t tell us if this is dream or reality. Thus, he leaves the viewer with the SAME UNCERTAINTY that Mal felt upon waking. Is what we saw a dream? Is it reality? It could be either. Nolan has planted an uncertainty in our heads, much the same way that Cobb planted uncertainty into Mal’s head. I like this take on it, as it seems to fit the major theme of the film.

Here’s my current thoughts.

Firstly, the “meaning” of the ending. I think it means that it doesn’t matter. I think it’s saying that Cobb has finally learned to let go and embrace the reality he is in (whichever one it is) which is the thing he and his wife both struggled so hard with. So it doesn’t matter which reality he committed to, it just matters that he committed.

As to what the ending “means to the story,” i’m still divided. I think there’s a good chance that the whole film is Cobb lost in a series of dreams. He’s the only guy who doesn’t have a totem. Okay, he does, but its not his. Its his wifes. Where is his? When did he lose it? Is he drifting through dreams without a compass? Then at the end finding one that he can live with.

The other possibillity is that his wife was right, she managed to escape the dreams and he never did.

Or that the whole film is a long con -which we already knew- but the mark is Cobb, NOT Cillian.

There’s also the issue of Michael Caine picking him up at the airport in the U.S. when he clearly lives and works abroad. Not impossible but, again, a little too neat – especially given the father relationship being so important to ‘inception,’ leading to a possible Cobb-is-the-target scenario.

Ultimately, though, I just don’t see that leaving the ending open is NECESSARILY a cop out. It certainly can be and more often than not is, but it can be done artistically too. For example, the ambiguity could be echoing Cobb’s own lack of certainty — we never saw what happened in those final moments; does he remember them?

Noah: Problem with you explanation though is that Cobb was already in Limbo with Ariadne, Saito and Fisher. So Ariadne drop kicks Fisher and herself out of limbo to ice world, this leaves Cobb an immense time span to get himself and Saito kicked too. Then Cobb washes up and meets Saito old and shriveled. So… for that to work Cobb must have suicide kicked himself out of limbo to ice world and back into limbo for Saito to have aged so much and Cobb to stay the apparent same age. Okay… possible. Then what ? They simul-suicide kick themselves back into iceworld ? But then there’s still hotel world and van world to go to reality. With reality ‘happening so much faster’ than dream worlds (falling van at 9.81 m/s squared takes, what ? 30 seconds at tops) and even hotel world having only a few minutes to make the kick, I don’t see how Cobb’s got enough time to kick six times all the way through to reality !

In general: Nice as this discussion of real vs. dream is, I’ve officially changed my opinion. What happened ? Schrodinger happened ! The cat is both dead and alive !

Longer answer later, but just because it’s not a dream doesn’t mean it’s real, and I’m ok with the final spin of the top being on the meta layer.

There are even more reasons it could be a dream, but one missing element keeps me from thinking it is. More on that later.

-rob d

Ok, time for the story logic dance. The top is a bit of sleight of hand. The dreaminess of the conclusion is sleight of hand. The question is not “Is the conclusion a dream?” because that’s not important. The question is “Is Cobb the mark?”

If he is the mark, then a lot of stuff cascades from there, and there is a reason for the ending to be a dream, but if he’s not, then it’s a genuine ending that very artistically leaves in a dangling thread in a movie that has been meticulous in keeping things tidy. Other possibilities (like that he’s just hallucinated EVERYTHING and never left limbo) are so narratively unsatisfying that I dismiss them out of hand on the basis that Nolan is not a useless douche.

Now, the idea that the con man is actually the subject of a long con over the course of a movie is not new territory, so that certainly makes it fair game. In addition to the number of sequences (Mumbasa especially) shot in the real world that seem dreamlike (including possible subtle things, like the fact that Michael Caine is where _Cobb_ would envision him – in a classroom – rather than an office) , there are a number of pointers that would be consistent with a con. the two biggest:

1) Cobb’s own point about Catharsis being the most powerful route to inception definitely resonates with his own situation. If he’s being setup for an inception himself, it could hardly be more perfect.

2) Ariadne’s insertion is perfect for a con (and the name is so on the nose as to be hard to ignore). Remove the known quantity, force the mark to bring someone in so he feels like he’s the one making the decision so he has no reason to question it. She is both unusually talented and unusually insightful[1]. Perhaps not impossibly so, but certainly in a way that someone who already knows more than their letting on would appear to be.

There are other interesting pointers – the Mister Charles gambit resonates with some real world material – and all in all it’s safe to say that if it _is_ a con, all the pieces are in place. Enough pieces, laid out artfully and not particularly hidden, to raise the question.

The problem is, as a con, it goes no farther than that.

On a practical level, if the entirety of real world in the movie was a dream, then the movie violates its own rules about how dreams work (either in terms of how numbers of layers work or in terms of how Limbo works) and while that’s possible in the abstract, it would be a horrible cheat. And since Nolan is smart enough to not cheat and, as noted, not a douchebag, I reject that possibility.

But that doesn’t mean the resolution, and possibly other parts of seeming real-world events weren’t actually dreams. He doesn’t always have a chance to test the top, and to be frank, the icon defense only works against people who don’t know you. People who can rifle through your pockets while your asleep can get their hands on the thing easily enough[2] and make one in a dream that “feels right”

So, again, the prospect of a con is _possible_, but this is where I hit a wall.

If he’s the mark, what’s the endgame? What is it that someone is trying to plant (or remove)? It’s possible that the endgame is to save him from himself, but if so, that moment of resolution (and catharsis) happened in Limbo when he let his wife go. Returning to see the kids is a nice conclusion to that, and emotionally powerful, but it’s not what fixes him. So while I would not rule out the prospect of a benevolent scam, that would actually argue against the conclusion being a dream.

But outside of that? I see no endgame. And I’ve looked pretty hard for one. There’s enough evidence of how a caper could be pulled that I’m willing to believe the conclusion is a dream if someone can present a compelling argument for what con is being pulled. That one piece, and I’ll totally flip. But i don’t see it.

Otherwise, Nolan’s totally playing with us – a bit of uncertainty was the best possible way to end it since it’s only as uncertain as you want it to be, and it’s uncertain in a way that upholds the theme nicely.[3]

Plus, clocking in at 3 hours of intensely tight construction with a magnificently sustained climax, a brief coda of a happy ending is hardly a cop out. It’s a summer movie, after all.

-Rob D.

1 – Minor aside on this. Arthur totally knows the problem and how bad it is. But he lets it slide. He’s that guy. Leo’s performance was fantastic, but Levitt’s Arthur really nailed it for me.

2 – And, notably, we know what every character except for Saito’s icon is, and Saito probably shouldn’t have one. Though it is curious that he recognizes Cobb’s.

3 – Oh, and one more bit of nerdbait. You know what would make the top rattle like that (because, no, dream top is not uncertain)? The dream shaking as the dreamer notices an incongruity. Like the age of the children! Da-Da-DUUUUUM!

Pure theory here, but it hung together for me.

Limbo gets a bit of a pass because it’s laid down pretty clearly that the rules there are different. Nothing, for example, demands that time passes at the same rate for Saito and Cobb, and, in fact, I’d posit that it probably doesn’t, at least in part because of the structural nature of Limbo.

Notice that in each layer of a dream, one person couldn’t go any deeper – the person whose dream it was. Limbo seems to violate that rule as it’s an unformed space. Note that if all Cobb needed to do was to get to limbo, he could have shot himself in the head, but since they needed to get Fisher out (explicitly, because they needed to get Fisher out in a VERY SPECIFIC ORDER) they needed to go down procedurally, so Fisher could be drawn back up procedurally.

So, given that Limbo is unformed dreamspace, it is likely that it is personal (albeit connected, if the dreamers are connected) rather than architected in the head of an external dreamer. Now, maybe Cobb and Ariadne really went to limbo, but it’s equally possible that they just got very close. Ariadne had not architected a fourth level, so it got filled with all the necessary elements from Cobb, so it looked like his Limbo.

Now, the “anteroom to limbo” thing is mostly just splitting hairs, but it does tie up one loose end: If Cobb does not truly go on to limbo until after Ariadne is sent back up and everyone kicks, the Saito went their first, and we don’t need different timeflows to account for his aging up before Cobb arrives.

All of which comes back to the point that the waking from Limbo is direct, and does not pass through intervening layers (which would be a feature rather than bug, except for the fact that Limbo is dangerous, and killing yourself out of limbo when your body will send you back is probably a bad cycle) . This seems to hold up as it seems everyone else on the plane had been awake, at least for a little while, when Cobb and Saito wake up (and it’s at least implied that Cobb and Moll woke directly to reality).

Anyway, that was my impression.

-Rob D.

I disagree that it was a dream, but thanks for an interesting read. Here is my own article about the ending (leaning more towards it being reality) if anyone is interested:

http://alternativemagazineonline.co.uk/2010/07/21/feature-article-spinning-tops-and-unicorns-the-ending-of-inception/

So, thinking about it more, there is one point where, structurally speaking, it would not be a cheat for it all to have been a dream. It is possible that, when Leo wakes up in the first class cabin, about to land in LAX, that is the first time he has woken up in the entire movie. While there are a few looks, there’s nothing concretely communicated, and it’s possible that he simply populated his dream (about coming home to a family that’s lost their mother) with the other people in first class (a la the wizard of oz). Curiously, this means that the topspin actually means nothing (except him carrying forward a bit of dreamlogic) except perhaps that it reveals the true nature of the top – actually spinning like a top rather than spinning forever or falling immediately (which are both, in this logic, false flags). The dreaminess of the conclusion is more _because_ it’s real than anything else.

This holds together, but I admit I don’t like it. I loved the supporting characters, and am dissatisfied with the idea that they aren’t real (so to speak). However, while I reject it personally, I have to concede that it would not be cheating, so it’s definitely within bounds.

-Rob D.

@Rob:

I’m so sad I haven’t gotten to talk this up more with you. Your comments and brain-work are, as always, kick-ass.

Lemme comment a moment about the supporting characters, though –

I’m of a mind where, if the whole film is a dream, I’m very happy with the supporting characters.

If the film is by and large reality, then I’m a bit disappointed in them.

The backup team — excluding Saito — is filled with somewhat flimsy characters. We have little glimpse into their motivation. We have almost zero glimpse into their backstory. We get a feeling of how they act, but mostly it’s shallow — “Arthur is cautious, Eams is eager, Ariadne is the therapist, the chemist is… uhhh.” But we don’t really know why they’re that why. Ariadne’s rather bold and caution-free exploration of Cobb’s psyche is interesting, but not that believable.

But! But, once you start putting them to the test as either projections *or* as part of a con on Cobb himself (“Con on the Cobb?”) (Sorry.), then their cipher-like nature actually makes sense. It becomes a feature, not a bug.

– c.

Really, the only one I wouldn’t want to let go of is Arthur (and to a lesser extent Eames; he was fun – I dig that kind of character) because I really feel like he was all there and all in, in a way that didn’t wear it on his sleeve. While the Chemist was one-note, I really feel that Arthur was merely understated – he’s that guy that stands by his friend as everything is going to hell, but without making a big deal of it.

But as with all understatement, much rests on the observer. The text as presented definitely holds up with the crew as imaginary, and I could be projecting onto Arthur. So, yeah, I’m still sticking with it being real because that satisfies me, but I can’t argue structurally against “Dream on the flight”.

-Rob D.

(which is why, in the “Con for his own good scenario” I consider it highly likely that Arthur is both genuinely his friend and probably the client. Fits my sensibilities of Arthur as the friend who will also one day decide to put you in rehab whether you like it or not.)

I should clarify that I always enjoyed watching the characters — but when I walked away from the theater, I felt ultimately unsatisfied. I couldn’t now tell you their motivation, and in a heist movie, motivation is everything. I wrote once (maybe on Do Some Damage) that crime is such a great genre because it’s always active, because it always demands something from the character — we must know their motivations. Nobody commits crime in a vacuum. Yes, it can be about money, but it’s never *just* about money.

In INCEPTION, it’s not even about money. I mean, it technically is, but we never know how much, and nobody seems particularly greedy, and they’re all gleefully on-board in this lunatic con.

When I walked away, I felt myself wondering, who are those characters?

I knew Saito well enough. I knew Fischer. Cobb, definitely, and Mal, too.

The others were just… well, to use the chess metaphor, pawns.

I very much enjoyed them, but they felt like roles, not characters. Which, given the possibly dream-like nature, can be a good thing — but if it ends up as reality, I feel they’re a bit hollow.

– c.

I pondered the notion that Arthur is the “con-man,” but the father(-in-law) is the client.

– c.

I think, if it’s a non-friendly con, the invader (tourist, natch) is almost certainly Saito, hacking his brain on the flight. But the endgame concern stands.

-Rob D.

interesting thoughts there, folks. I like the idea that the ending in first class is the first time we see reality. Interesting.

Well, I just saw this — and have been pondering it, too. A couple of observations:

Near the beginning, Mal (I think), asks Cobb if he’s still being chased by an anonymous international corporation, implying that it’s a dream thing. The corporation sure sounds like the defenses of a someone trained to resist these dream invasions.

When Cobb is in Mombasa, the agents that are following him quickly multiply in number, and suddenly sprout guns. This also follows the pattern of trained defenses.

Other than the 747, there are no scenes devoted to Cobb traveling in the “real” world, he’s just where he needs to be. And, while I admit that scenes depicting people going places are dead pieces of a film, they are a common motif used to segue between locations. Their absence is notable.

When Cobb and Ariadne are in Limbo, and Cobb is showing Ariadne the houses, they walk into a sky scraper as Cobb is telling her about the house he and Mal built in the dream, the one they never owned — the design sensibility of a steel and glass skyscraper, with the house they wanted to live in contained in it (you can have that because it’s in a dream). The room where Cobb and Ariadne then meet Mal in Limbo, is the room where Cobb couldn’t call to his kids, where Ariadne finds Cobb when she sneaks into his dream, and the room at the final moment of the film.

Cobb and Mal did get trapped in Limbo, and Cobb showed Mal how to get out of it — or, at least, up a layer. Mal (the real one), I believe, realized that she was still in a dream (she left her top on the floor in the hotel room before jumping), so she could have tested for reality with it before she jumped. She tried to convince Cobb to jump, too, but he wouldn’t listen to her — even after she stacked the chips in favour of that option. Cobb never had his own token, as @stringer pointed out.

Which makes me think about the legal charges against Cobb; those feel pretty contrived, too. Mal got three psychologists to pronounce her sane and then wrote a letter saying how her husband was planning to kill her. That’s not exactly a guaranteed conviction, it would be easy to prove reasonable doubt just by asking why would she go to those lengths to prepare that kind of documentation, why not just go to the police? I think the charges are part of the guilt Cobb is dealing with.

Now, if this is all dream, then the tragedy of the film is that Cobb never had faith enough to wake up. Though, I think the real story is about Cobb forgiving himself from the guilt he’s carrying, and that’s compelling enough for me.

Besides, the assumption is that we weren’t allowed to watch the top long enough for it to fall. What if we did see the top spinning for log enough? Now, the top spinning isn’t a really good pass/fail kind of test. We are lead to believe that it will either fall (we’re seeing reality), or keep spinning (we’re seeing dream). But we don’t know how long it will take to fall, so we are never able to conclude, with certainty, if we’re seeing a dream. Because of that, I don’t think it’s a cop-out to conclude, because the top didn’t fall, that we are seeing a dream. It only feels like the certainty about that was robbed from us because we weren’t allowed to see the top fall — but isn’t that the Pollyanna inside of us? The top was spinning for a very long time before the credits rolled.

I’d say it was a dream. I mean, it was meant to be “ambiguous”, but since the top doesn’t fall and that’s not very ambiguous at all, I don’t really think it is. How long would we have to watch the top to know for certain it was a dream? I think saying it’s ambiguous is a way of the audience pussying out of admitting that they got the Bad Ending.

I haven’t read the comments, though, so maybe someone else mentioned this a bit more eloquently already.

… That said, I hadn’t really considered that the whole thing could be a dream. Very, very interesting.

I have nothing to add – at least not yet – but wanted to say thanks. This post and a lot of the stuff in the comments (esp Rob D’s insight) were EXACTLY what I needed.

[...] bad for the main protagonist. Check: assuming you believe Inception has an ending (which I know Chuck Wendig does), it’s certainly an ambivalent one at [...]

[...] you want to read more thoughts about this film, check out Chuck Wendig’s post at Terrible Minds or Cinematical’s exhaustive study of the movie.  Also, check out this interview with Dileep [...]

I finally saw Inception. Wow!

My post about it is here: http://geekcentricity.com/2010/07/inception-planting-ideas-here-be-spoilers.html

[...] is trying to tell us.  among the more interesting parsers and theory-spinners are the folks at terrible minds and cinematical—and when i say “folks” i absolutely mean to include both the original [...]

The sound of a top falling to rest can be heard after the credits have finished.

Pro-tip: never leave until the fat perfectly balanced spinning top sings, I mean stops

Some really great conversation here. I’d like to pick people’s brains a bit on names and the significance thereof.

Ariadne, as Rob notes, is just too on-the-nose to be coincidental (it could be the screenwriters being cute, rather than the in-movie dream designers, but I doubt it, given how deliberate the other aspects of the film are.)

Cobb is a Middle English word for spiders (hence cobwebs). And Cobb certainly spins webs in this film.

The Eameses (Charles and his wife Ray) were rather famous architects and designers, another common theme in the movie, so I suspect this is not a coincidence.

There are two Robert (Bobby?) Fischers, and we see that Ariadne’s fetish is a chess piece. Probably some sort of connection there, I’d guess.

That’s enough that the rest are probably significant as well, but I’m not quite sure how.

Yusuf: Possibly just for the notion of drugs being linked to Arabism (hashish and opium, which are associated with dreaming)

Arthur: the zero-g fight scene reminded me of some sequences from 2001, which makes me think perhaps this is a nod to Arthur C. Clarke, but that’s definitely a stretch.

Saito: nothing comes to mind, but it’s so common a Japanese surname that there are lots of options to chose from.

And of course:

Mal: bad…in the latin (as River Tam would say) Probably it’s not that straightforward. Short for what, then?

They didn’t have the same clothes:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5650734/inception_ending_clue_given_by_costume.html?cat=40

My opinion on the end of the movie was that it was more thematic than plot-deciding. The ending was left for the individual viewer to choose because it was left for Cobb to choose.

At a certain point, no one can prove anything to be real. The universe can’t be really proven to exist as it seems, or even at all.

So people have to choose their own realities, which is a major theme of the movie. Whether the top fell or not is actually irrelevant to the ending, because the point was that Cobb had chosen his reality and was ready to go home.

This is the whole point of the director, lol
Its to make you guys do THIS kind of talk .. and you guys are doing it
Totally falling for it.

I would just like to point out to you that the children are not the same age at the end. And not just in the movie, but in real life. In all of the dream sequences, Cobb’s daughter Phillipa is portrayed by 3-year-old Claire Geare and his son James is portrayed by Christopher Nolan’s 20-month-old son Magnus. But at the end of the film, Phillipa is portrayed by Claire Geare’s 5-year-old sister Taylor Geare and James is portrayed by their brother, Jonathan Geare.

Soooooooo, not a dream.

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