Has anybody seen it established with certainty whether the kids shown at the end really are the same kids shown in the explicitly dream part of the movie?

The credits for the movie list two sets of kids, about 18 months apart from each other in age.

Some say the young ones were in the dreams and the old ones were in the last scene (though wearing the same clothes and same set up as the dream, but that is also a common Hollywood trope). In which case they did age and just not very obviously and so isn't evidence either way (he could certainly dream them as having aged). Nothing in the movie though said how long Cobb had been in the run so it need not have been "years".

Others I've read online have said that the older ones were actually the voices on the phone when he talked to them while the younger ones appear in both the dreams and the last scene. This would be compelling evidence that the last scene is a dream but contrary evidence that the phone call scene is a dream (since why would he fail to dream them at older ages in one place but do it in another).

But I haven't seen any formal documentation of where the actual various actors were used.

Either way, it just implies that the last scene is a dream, which the movie clearly presents as an open question.

Whether the Entire Film is a dream is another issue entirely, and the film is not explicit about that at all.


I agree with LSPE that the characters were cyphers, but that's just another "flaw" (along with the gaping plot holes) that I patch-up nicely with my it's-all-a-dream theory.


But yeah, it would have been a stronger film with stronger characters. That's gonna be pretty hard to do with Leo DiCaprio in the lead. And, despite the lack of strong characters, there was a pretty stellar cast in this film - - so I guess it was the script that had them all so shadow-depth.

I don't see how either way it implies a dream. If the kids were older in the last scene it doesn't imply a dream, it merely doesn't rule it out (since you could still say DiCaprio just dreamed his children older as appropriate.

As for depth of character, this is a heist movie. They almost never have any depth of character beyond, at most, a single lead and many great heist movies don't even have that.

I have mixed feelings about this film. So. Many. Holes. The only way I can reconcile it to myself is see it as being like a dream. Not a dream itself, because that starts the whole whose dreaming debate, and makes me cranky. But like a dream, the storyline holds together as long as you don't think about it.

The biggest plot hole for me was at the end. If the target was trained to repel extraction attempts, he be familiar with the concept of other people in the dreams. Shouldn't he have recognized the other people in the compartment with him when he awoke? And realized what happened? Plus, every time they needed tofix a warp core breach accommodate a plot development, such as explaining why suddenly people are in *real* danger while in the dream, the was suddenly some sort of jarringly introduced twist.

Anyhow, these are the sort of things that make me thing it was dreamlike - logical in the dreamworld, but falling apart in the light of day - but not an actual dream.

Ocean's 11 had more character depth. Ocean's 11. If you pin a whole movie on the single lead endangering everyone because of his obsession with his dead wife, you ought to make us care about who's in danger. All we know about them is what their jobs are; I didn't even notice particularly different voices among them.

Man, and I was the half of the couple who likes the film, heh. I DO love the film's structure especially. Fantastically creative and unique; I liked feeling like I was in a dream myself. In fact, twice during the movie I caught myself thinking, "man, this is the best dream about a dream ever."

I found the characters likeable, but I didn't give damn about them. In truth, not many film characters go beyond 'likeable' to me, so this wasn't a huge detriment. But I did notice that, despite the stellar cast, I wasn't involved with the characters at all and never felt any jeopardy or suspense - simply interest.


But since the interest was so intense, I give Inception far higher marks than many a film where I feel jeopardy and suspense, but little interest.

Actually, there is an article about a costume designer interview where he mentions that the kids are both older than the ones shown earlier and are wearing different clothes.

http://io9.com/5602799/did-inception...-movies-ending

Thanks for that. Well that takes care of one fact offered by some as definitive evidence that the last scene was still a dream. It could still be a dream but that isn't evidence of it.

No effect on my interpretation. I never noticed one way or the other whether the kids were older or dressed differently. In fact, I attributed them starting off in the same positions as being a cinematic decision of cool staging rather than a "clue."

Still a dream. :p