Quick hit - good film, enjoyed greatly. Full of holes but that's the way it goes. I love a film that demands your whole brain and every ounce of your attention. iSm mentioned On Her Majesty's Secret Service - I was already thinking this was a great Bond film with all the travel and intrigue, especially in Mumbai, and when they showed up at Hoth world I almost laughed out loud in glee. (Special thanks to the Bond thread, I think.)
The film started a little too quickly but as GD pointed out to me, one could tie that in to the dream-like feel (you never know how you got there). On the other hand, it seems that all the "hey this might not be great filmmaking" comments get answered with "it's like that in dreams".
BTW I shy away from the all-a-dream interpretation for reasons similar to Alex's. I am sure that the film was designed to evoke this and leaves it up to you to "believe" in it or not...I choose not to.
If they had invested just a few extra minutes here and there with certain dropped details, it would have been much more engaging. For instance, when Ariadne rips Cobb apart for his issues, I felt they hadn't sufficiently indicated that she was now so well-versed in all this dream stuff that she could take him to task. When Cobb is trying to remember what he came to Limbo to do for Saito it just isn't enough to sell me on "keeping your head in Limbo is hard." There were a bunch of these moments.
Quite a few important lines of dialog were rushed and hard to hear over music and background sound - unsure if that was our print (I'm never seeing an action/visual heavy film in old-school projection again) or poor editing, though Dark Knight seemed to have similar issues.
I enjoyed all the acting (I don't have a Leo grudge) and felt empathetic to all the characters. When Saito was shot I was surprised how much I cared.
I'm still puzzling out the Limbo issues. There are many. More on that later.
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Originally Posted by Alex
In the dream with Ariadne when she makes the mirrors, why did Cobb's projections only attack when she tweaked things even though Cobb was entirely aware the whole time that it was just a dream (in other words, what changed that triggered his subconscious to attack)?
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My interpretation is that the subconscious is supposed to be very separated from the conscious Cobb. As Cobb can't tap into or control his subconscious mind, the subconscious can't control or tap into the conscious either. The projections exist only in the realm of the dream (whether constructed by the dreamer or an architect) and no alarm bells go off until the dream's fabric is tampered with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
Also, since it is shown in that dream that Ariadne can physically change the dream world ad hoc and in situ, why didn't she do this even a little bit at key moments in the movie. Make a medical kit appear for treating Saito, create a tunnel that would lead directly to the safe in the snow level.
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I thought of this after the "dream big" line where one of the guys pulls out a humongous gun. If you can dream any weapon you want, it kind of unravels a lot of things. These movies always have huge plotholes like this once characters are given some measure of god-like powers. I accept that even though it does bug in the days following the viewing.