Because she's dead so it is all his own.

Because her mind was shut down to the fact that she was in a dream. So Cobb broke through that barrier and set the top spinning forcing her to confront the reality of the situation and thus was finally able to convince her that they needed to die to escape back to reality.

But having that top spinning so deeply in her subconscious stuck, the act of inception that eventually lead to her really killing herself.

I dig that ... except that, as someone or perhaps that article pointed out, the "memory" flashback of Mal's suicide is one of the most dreamlike sequences in the film - for reasons that didn't at first occur to me (dreamy of me), but when pointed out, I cannot take for reality at all (waking life logic). So I don't think she killed herself, I don't know if she's the dreamer of the whole damn thing, I don't know if she even exists.

And I don't care. Nothing about the story has to be "real" to me for me to care. A story isn't real ever.

Ah, that once again fits perfectly into my take, that the dreamiest parts of the movie are Cobb's real memories, due to his dependence on the dreaming. (I did spend that whole scene thinking, "How the fvck did she get to the ledge ACROSS the alley?!")

And I'm not saying the, "it's all a dream" interpretation is invalid. Heck, after reading the movie-making analogy I'm pretty well convinced. But I'm still finding it more interesting to ponder as not-a-dream. Doing so has even lead to some things that contribute to the it is a dream side of things (such as examining the totem concept in detail).

Thank you for this, it makes sense.

Ok, so Limbo. Some of this was mentioned above but not delved into very much...

We are told that you spend too much time in Limbo, your brain is mush. How much is too much? I know the time slows so much so that even though it's 50 of Cobb's years it was only a short while out here. So, they're saying you have to be asleep IRL for a long time? How long can someone sleep? What if you wake up normally? Are you unable to wake up normally, like you're in a coma? How about if you wake normally, say after a very long sleep of 15 hours. Would that be enough to mush your brains? I mean, eventually, someone would wake you up, and most likely, it wouldn't be any longer than that.

Is Limbo always 4 levels down? Cobb and Ariadne simply sleep another level down to get there, right? How does this tie into the "whose dream is this" question? They seem to be inside Cobb's version of Limbo. I'm trying to remember how Cobb gets to Saito. I'm thinking he just kind of looks for him and finds his corner of Limbo. It's not like he left and came back, right? So perhaps Limbo is one place with many personalized corners, which could make it very hard to find someone.



Again, I was disappointed that they didn't make it seem harder for them to save people from Limbo. When they first get in and have the discussion about how the drugs change the rules, they impressed on me how horrifyingly dangerous the whole thing was. Too bad they weren't able to make good on that.

The time scaling was exponential for each layer but I don't remember the numbers given. I know it was 5 minutes of reality is an hour of level 1 and I believe they said that the 10 hour plane ride would be decades on level 3 (but don't worry, they won't be there for the 10 hours).

But I don't believe an actual scale for Limbo was ever given. The brain problems I believe were tied to the fact that you'd be there a very long time in isolation, the space would possibly be unconstructed nothingness (total sensory deprivation) or whatever you made of it, and worse you quite possibly wouldn't even know that you were in limbo.

It wasn't explained in any detail how Cobb and Mal had made it to Limbo the first time just that they were playing with going deep. They were shown sleeping on their living room floor with no means of nourishment or care so they can't have expected to be under long, it just ended up being decades in Limbo. As for whether it is always Level 4 i'd guess it must be because Ariadne and Cobb certainly knew that was where they'd go when they went one level down from the Snow Fortress level (though why that level had dreaming equipment would be a mystery, unless she made it up out of whole cloth).

Yes, Limbo seems to be a shared space that exists even when nobody is in it (Fischer ended up in Cobb's constructed area of Limbo before Cobb was back there) and Saito constructed in own part of it. It isn't explained how Cobb got there, just that it was apparently arduous.

The really dangerous part of Limbo seems to be that you don't necessarily know that you're in Limbo and so aren't trying to get out. Cobb and Mal didn't know they were there and when Cobb eventually figured it out after decades from his point of view, he has to completely subvert Mal's subconscious to get her to leave. Saito didn't know where he was and it required Cobb finding him and reminding him. Cobb had been there before so it makes sense that perhaps he'd be psychically prepared for dealing with it.

I don't believe the movie ever makes it clear whether Fischer knew where he was. That leaves just Ariadne that had an easy time of it. It could be argued that this was a combination of having intentionally sent herself to Limbo and having Cobb there from the very beginning explaining where they were.

It could also be (and this barely detracts from my liking of the movie) that for some reason nobody gives a damn that anything makes sense in a script for a 10-year-genesis, 200 million dollar movie project.

If Inception were the only mega-million-dollar movie that made NO SENSE when analyzed by a five-year-old with austism, I'd be very disappointed. But at least it's complex, whereas most movies that fall apart upon a moment's reflection aren't very complicated at all.


I'll never understand why there's someone to deal with continuity problems (and they always miss a ton), but apparently no one to deal with plot holes and script logic.

I'm sure there is, but there's also someone saying, "I know it doesn't make sense, but the scene that explains things so that they do make sense is a really boring scene, so screw it, we're just going to have to be okay with that not making sense."

Yeah, then they're not doing their job. The job is to relay all necessary information in a way that's entertaining. Especially since, oh, 1983 or so when movies are not seen once in theaters, but OWNED by consumers to watch in perpetuity whenever they feel like.


Anyway, my point is you can analyze Inception to death, but the things that don't make sense most likely really Don't Make Sense.


I'm not going with It's All a Dream just to cover the plot holes and logic inconsistencies. That's really the feeling I get about the movie. That, for once in the history of cinema, plot holes and logic problems can be dealt with by the way I truly interpret a film is just a super-rare and enjoyable bonus.

And Nolan certainly shows he's willing to not explain every little detail so it is possible that things slip through where since he knows exactly what underlies everything the logic of certain things seems obvious, forgetting we don't have the same certainty.

But fanwanking is a sign of how well something is liked. When the movie isn't liked everybody just says "well that's stupid and doesn't make any sense." When it is much like then the same people (me included) say "well that doesn't make any sense, how can I duct tape it back together."

Speaking of not liking the movie, almost forgot about my favorite part of the movie going experience.

Part way into the movie, somewhere towards the end of Juno's Matrix training, I heard the guy sitting down the row from us, who had been leaning forward seemingly paying close attention for much of the film thus far, lean back and say in a heavy Israeli accent, "What is this movie?". Not long after, I believe it was when they were going over the model of the levels, he piped up again. "This is a stupid movie."

When the credits roll we were all treated to another, "This was as stupid movie."

I found that very entertaining for some reason.