The "Inception" Thread

[Alex]

Originally Posted by mousepod

Good point. I completely forgot about that. So the absence of Cobb from any scene isn't a plot hole at all. Nice.

True, but then the absence of the dreamer from a particular scene becomes the new plothole. For example, in the snow level, action is shown taking place in at least three distinct locations at the same time. No one person was present for everything shown.

I'm fairly certain that they present Miles as Mal's father, not Cobb's. Perhaps he's the one who is trying to get Cobb to admit that he performed inception on his daughter.

That's possible, I thought he was Cobb's father but may have missed/forgot something. Steve, since you've seen it twice do you recall anything explicit one way or the other?

What if Mal isn't dead, but in some kind of permanent dream state? If she was the dreamer, that might explain why Cobb uses her totem - and why her "secret" was the totem itself.

Agreed, completely possible truth. But not one, I think, with any evidence in the movie itself.

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

It was said that if you spent an inordinate of time in limbo, your brain would melt. I guess they were talking about real time as opposed to limbo time, but both Cobb and Saito spent lifetimes in limbo without any brain-melt on return to "reality."

They also spent times in constructed realities within Limbo. It was said that Limbo was unconstructed empty dreamspace or whatever you yourself created in it. I took melting to meant that you'd go crazy from a near-eterinity in sensory deprivation.

How, in fact, did Cobb escape from Limbo? I forget, if it was told?

The first time? He put his head down on the train tracks with Mal. The second time, if he did escape, presumably he and Saito killed themselves.

I suppose if Mal and Cobb were only in limbo for a few weeks of their real life, no brain melt would be necessary.

Presumably they were in limbo for only a few hours at most in real time. During the limbo explanation it was shown several times that they were lying on their living room floor (same house as he returns to at the end) dreaming. Presumably somebody would have found them and awoken them if they'd been out for much longer than that (having kids and all).