This film’s final scene is real. You can tell because, what so many people fail to realise is that the Spinning Top is NOT Cobb’s Totem, it is his wife Mal’s. Cobb’s Totem is his WEDDING RING. Whenever he is in the REAL WORLD…he does NOT wear it. But whenever he is in a DREAM…he DOES wear it. Because as he says very clearly…”In my dreams, we’re still together.” In the final scene…he isn’t wearing his ring. So he clearly is in the real world.
I've often seen that argument that the totem is Mal's and not Cobb's, but that forgets that in the real world, physics would still exist and the spinning top would topple, no matter whose totem it is.
Nolan said recently that the point of the ending is not whether it is a dream or reality but that Cobb no longer cares. He was focused on trying to figure it out the whole movie and then in the end he was happy with his kids and didn’t even look to see if it fell or not.
That's a good explanation. It just would have been nice it was made more obvious rather than the typical "is it? is it not?" type of shot. But I'm glad to know and have a definitive answer on the matter.
This is a film that just keeps on giving! The times I've watched it, I was so focused on the top, that I hadn't even noticed Cobb was not even looking at it. Brilliant. Thanks for that bit of Nolan trivia.
This will always be my favorite film. The characters names spell DREAMS: Dom Robert Eames Arthur Mal Saito Other cool fact: The movie is also about movies: Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio and Fischer is the audience.
Even more than that, they spell: D om R obert E ames A rthur M al S aito P eter (Browning) A riadne Y usuf Which they do, if you're in the business of extracting!
Your reaction to the final shot was perfect! My interpretation, based on what he told Ariadne in the beginning, is that Dom’s homecoming was real, because we see how he got there. We see almost every step from the plane to when he gets home. If it was a dream, he wouldn’t know how he got there. Plus, the kids are older when he gets home than how they appear in his memories.
Also, the top was never Dom's totem. It is explained that not only is it Mal's totem, but it was also the first, prototype totem. Addie notes that Dom wasn't wearing his wedding ring in the real world early in, in fact - a common theory is that Dom's actual totem is the wedding ring. Dom's trapped by the totem not because it was his proof of dreamstate, but because by manipulating it he managed the inception on Mal and on some level he worries he also trapped himself (notably, Projection Mal taunts Dom by stating he doesn't believe in one reality anymore; she's part of his subconscious, so she would absolutely know that to be true)
A lot of people like to say the ending left it open to debate for fans. But the reality (no pun intended) is in the final scene he isn't wearing his wedding ring. You will only see Leo wearing his ring in dream sequences. The final scene of the movie was real life. Leo didn't have his ring on.
Right. It's dramatic, but not particularly ambiguous. The wobble, the missing wedding rings, the kids faces, Michael Caine... all signs pointing to real life.
Cobb's totem doesn't work anyway. It will only keep spinning if he's in his own dream and his subconscious wants the dream to be a dream. In reality it will fall. In someone else's dream it will fall. And even in his own dream it will fall if his subconscious wants it to. It's completely useless.
Also, though they did a good job of making it look similar enough to get people questioning, the two kids at the end are different actors (slightly older) and wearing slightly different clothes than the ones he constantly sees on the dream world based on his memory.
Greatest ending. I stood and shouted “YES!” in the theater when I saw it. Others were murmuring in disappointment but there was no other way to let that end. So good.
I think the reason that this movie is so much more accessible than Nolan's other time-wonkey movies is that even if you are lost what's going on with all the rules about the dreams, it's still very easy to follow what the main characters want, feel, and are trying to do in every scene. You might get confused at times where they are and why things happen, but you're barely ever lost about what the characters are feeling or trying to do. Which unfortunately is a problem with many of Nolan's other movies.
You never had a dream inside a dream. Numerous times I have dreamed that I woke up and was getting ready for work only to have my alarm clock go off and wake me up. Of course I was annoyed I had to get ready for a second time.
This is in my top 5 movies of all time! Phenominal movie and in a world where Hollywood just puts out remakes and sequels, this is a breath of fresh air and such an original concept. Wish more movies would be like this in terms of originality.
Crazy thoery... Cobb was the one being incepted to let go of Mol, but to get inside his mind they had to find a way in which he had to open it via the possibility of incepting someone else which would allow them to follow.🙂
The ending is constantly debated, and that was sorta Nolan's intent. It's up to your own interpretation. His main point is that to Cobb, it doesn't really matter anymore. But you picked up on something very early that leads to a popular theory. The top isn't Cobb's totem, it's Mal's. So when you said "was he only wearing a wedding ring in the dream?" A popular theory is that his wedding ring is his totem.
Thats a common point people like to point out - but his ring doesn't really indicate anything. It was never confirmed in the movie that it was his totem.
This film is two stories and a meta-level argument all in one. On one level it's like a "heist" film where a team of specialists is hired to do a job. Only they are there to leave, rather than take, something. On the next level, the film is about Ariadne performing Inception on Cobb, to show him the way out of the maze of his guilt for his wife's death (as her namesake did for Theseus). She was likely hired by the Miceal Caine character. Also, the entire film argues that all movies are like shared dreams, where sometimes we end up in places without knowing how we got there, or where odd things happen that we just need to accept if we are into the narrative, and we can share these experiences with anyone who has seen the same film. Finally, in the end, it does not matter if Cobb is awake or dreaming. If he is awake he is home with his kids. Some suggest lack of his wedding ring means he is no longer in the dream because he only has it on when he is in the dream. However, in his dreams, his ring could also be a representation of his guilt over his wife's death and his not having it on in the end could mean he has forgiven himself. If he is in Limbo, because of the way time works there, then he will still get to see his kids grow up, get married, and have a life. That dream world will become his reality and to paraphrase the old man in Mombassa, "Who are we to say otherwise?" Either way, he is "home" with his kids. Sorry, but if you can't tell, this is my favorite film.
Most people get confused at the end because they think the totem is his, it's not, it's his wife's. His was always the wedding ring, which he only wears in a dream. As for the totem though, they literally can't wobble unless they are about to fall. And as other has pointed out, Caine is in the last scene and he is only in real world scenes not dreams
The totem wouldn't have started to wobble if it were a dream. In a dream it spins indefinitely. It's just to tease the audience and end the film with some suspense instead of wrapping everything up in a bow.
Michael Caine once cleared up the ambiguity surrounding the film’s final scene. In a clip from 2018, which recently resurfaced on Reddit, the British actor is seen introducing a Film 4 screening of the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film. According to Caine, the filmmaker explicitly told him which scenes were real and which were a dream. “When I got the script of Inception, I was a bit puzzled by it and I said to him ‘I don’t understand where the dream is’,” Caine told the crowd. “I said, ‘When is it the dream and when is it reality?’ He said, ‘Well when you’re in the scene it’s reality.’ So get that - if I’m in it, it’s reality. If I’m not in it, it’s a dream.”
I hate to lawyer words so what Caine says would be at least partially right. Every scene with him IS in reality but is he IN every scene from reality? That sounds like something Nolan could say to allow the actor resolution during his performance. :)
That doesn't prove anything, it could have been a throwaway silly comment to an actor by the director. Nothing was actually confirmed in the movie and several hints show that its still a dream at the end.
This movie is just fantastic! It is also an allegory of filmaking. Them performing Inception is representative of them making a film. Cobb serves as the director. Arthur is the producer. Eames is the actor. Ariadne is the production designer. Robert Fischer is the audience. Saito I suppose would be the studio paying for it. And Yusuf... he just provides necessary drugs to the crew, haha.
Yusuf is special effects. That's why he asks if everyone just saw that really cool thing happening, but nobody gives him any credit. Also, projections are the audience. They are okay with it all being fake, but when your movie makes no sense, then they will hate you. And when you tell the audience what the message of the story is (inception), they will reject it. They have to connect the dots themselves to accept what you want to tell them.
The ending was one of the things that made the movie so great, as you don't know 100% if it's real or a dream. It's just like at the end of "The Thing", was one of the guys the thing, neither one, it leaves you guessing and looking back on what happened and if you may have missed something. For me, I always thought the ending was real life and he made it back to his kids, but if it wasn't, would that have been so bad for him?
Christopher Nolan has made some fantastic movies. This one in particular is epic. It has so much depth. When I get home tonight, I am going to rewatch it.
I can spin polyhedral dice and they go longer than that, so a well-designed and properly spun top can definitely spin for much longer. Like many a D&D player, I've probably spent more time spinning dice than taking my actual turn.
A lot of "experts" loved to say that this ending was ambiguous. *IT WASN'T.* 😂😂😂 The kids were older (different actors) and we saw their faces. Leo didn't have his ring on. The top started wobbling, which means it would have fallen shortly after the end of the movie... that's how physics work. The top in the dream world never wobbled... it continued with the same speed forever. The spinning top was not his totem, anyway... 😂 And so on...
This movie is in my top 3 movies of all time. The music, the acting, the story and just the unique feeling that we have pretty much all experienced in a dream state.
I'm just starting the reaction, but the fact you caught the wedding ring so fast. Nolan took major inspiration on some of the scenes where guys are walking on walls from 2001 A Space Odyssey which you have seen. Built a whole rotating set to film stuff.
The important part for me in the ending was, that Leo doesn't have to look anymore at the totem to know if it is reality or not. In his last scene with Mal he has this enlightment of the complexity of reality and he comes to terms with his psychological bagage, so now he is no longer clouded in his mind to distinguish between dream and reality
The spinning top wasn't his totem, it was his wifes, his real totem was the wedding ring. Everytime he was in a dream he was wearing it. The children at the end have different clothes and in the credits are different kids. Plus whenever Michael Cane is in a scene it's in the real world
My theory: Cobb was the target all along, not Fischer. Cobb had somehow convinced himself that he couldn't return to his kids and someone (my guess is Miles) hired Ariadne to be the extractor; this explains why she took to bending dream reality so quickly and easily, she was pretending to be the novice. It's almost always Ariadne making the suggestions and convincing others to follow along. She was hired to implant the idea into Cobb's mind to let Mal go, and she succeeded.
I don't think Nolan wanted there to be one answer but I think this one is actually "correct" as much as anything can be. The totem he uses is Mal's, not his. We literally never see his totem used to check if he's dreaming or not. Then her name being Ariadne, the way that when he's trying to lose the tail the walls seemed to be closing in literally just at the point they would be metaphorically, and then he's saved perfectly conveniently by the guy hiring him who ought to be busy as a CEO, characters sometimes know the wrong things, in the plane the mark doesn't recognise the CEO of his major rival. All of that, once you remember that he never checks if he's dreaming using his own totem, makes it seem like, however much he didn't actually intend to, Nolan accidentally created a pretty compelling argument that the "this is Inception on Cobb to let Mal go" theory is the correct one.
Short and simple version: Cobb no longer cares to check if being back with his children is a dream or not. Longer and more complicated version: The totem at the end could never tell Cobb if he's awake or dreaming. 1. Mal and Ariadne both know the totem, so he could be in one of their dreams and the totem wouldn't tell him. 2. Since the behavior of the totem depends on what the owner of the dream thinks it should do, it can always only tell you if you're in someone else's dream. If you are in your own dream and your subconscious controls it, then the totem will do and tell you whatever you want it to. If you want your totem to tell you that you are awake, it will tell you you are awake. He could be in his own dream and never know. 3. And regardless of all of that, Cobb's totem can never work because it's made backwards. It needs to behave strange in reality, but behave normally in someone else's dream. In reality it will fall. In someone else's dream it will fall. In your own dream it will fall, if you subconsciously want it to. It will only stay up if the owner of the dream knows about it, and subconsciously wants it to stay up. It's completely useless.
you are the first person I've seen also question Mal's totem. my own head canon is that it's the main contributor to why Mal's accepted Limbo as reality. they did say the totems were Mal's idea so I imagine she created an ineffectual prototype without considering what truly is required to keep a grip on reality.
@@alsims2007 except that you've both overlooked something, the spinning top is NOT Cobbs totem, its Mal's. Cobb explicitly tells Ariadne that its Mals. Cobbs totem is his wedding ring.
@@ozcanison read either of our comments again. We are talking about Mal's totem when she was using it. It doesn't work as a totem, Regardless of the user, because it needs to act weird when in someone else's dream but act normal in real life. That's backwards from what a totem should do. It needs to secretly act weird, or have a weird property in real life. That way, in the dream, the person creating the dream has no idea of this weird property and it will instead act normal. This will indicate to the totem's owner that they are dreaming.
@@mrclean29 I'm talking about Mal using her own totem when the only person that knew was Cobb but your explanation is very flawed. If someone can manipulate your totem at will then what can it tell you to verify your not dreaming? If they want you to believe you're dreaming, they keep it spinning. If they want you to believe you're in reality then they let it fall. Cobb knowing is the reason why his inception was successful on her. And bonus correction Ariadne is the architect. She designs all the levels and teaches them to the dreamers. From the moment she learns about the top she never again was the dreamer. She doesn't have control over the shared dream and she originally wasn't meant to be there at all.
I think narratively the idea that it's actually a dream basically throws away the entire film's development. During Cobb's emotional climax he literally says to Mal that the version of her in his dreams could never be good enough. The same would be true of his children.
The "NO" from the audience at the very end still rings in my mind till this day xD The ending doesn't matter because he is finally with his kids. Also, the spinning top is his wife's totem and we never got to see his totem.
Yes, it is open to interpretation. Nolan doesn't like to tell the audience an exact story and tell you what you must think and feel. It's something that makes his movies great, everyone has their own experience with his movies. Can't wait for your Oppenheimer reaction :) Also, don't know if you noticed the music in this movie but Hans Zimmer set a standard that is imitated by hollywood in 'large scale epic movies' to this day. also known as the BRAAAM sound, lol!
You caught the slight wobble before the cut 👌🏾. When I first saw this, and noticed that, I felt it was definitely about to topple. So as far as I'm concerned, everything worked out and he made it home to his kids for real. No point in stressing ourselves out, thinking he might still be stuck in a dream 😂. Great reaction Addie, as always. This is still one of the most unique, creative and visually stunning movies I've ever seen. Christopher Nolan doesn't miss....well, Momento still irks me a little bit 🤣
@dunbardunelm3924 Well first off, spoiler alert for those who might come across this. I mean it's not a bad movie or anything, I just personally didn't like the ending. It wasn't the resolution I was looking for, if you can even call it that. I finished it feeling just as bad for the guy as I did in the beginning, and I'm like...That's a horrible story...fascinating, but horrible 😂.
These are some good movies to watch. * In Bruges * History of violence * Grand Budapest hotel * Brooklyns finest * Eastern promises * Manchester by the sea * Peanut butter falcon * The departed * No country for old men
“You’re waiting for a train.” The top to stop spinning. “A train that will take you far away” To the real world “You know where you hope this train will take you” Back to his children “But you can’t know for sure and it doesn’t matter. Now tell me why.” It doesn’t matter if the top falls or not. That’s the reality he’s chosen. That’s where his kids are seen. Real or not, he’s committed to that reality now.
Rarely can I say a movie was a "master class" in film making, but this epic was one of those times. I saw it 3x when it was at theaters, and I rarely see most movies once, as more often than not, most films just aren't worth my time and for sure not my money. But Inception was the rare situation that proved me wrong, and I was happy to give my funds those three times.
I always thought that there could've been a part 2 where it would be explained that Cobb's wife had been trying to save him from a level far deeper than what they depicted in the movie. The fact that the totem at the end never falls, and the constant messaging about him having to "come home", they could've easily made the ending another dream within a dream.
I've seen a lot of people argue that the spinning top at the end doesn't matter because it isn't Cobb's totem. Of course it matters. If I saw a perpetual motion machine on my desk, I'd have to be asleep, even if it's "not my totem". Now if it fell, perhaps that would be inconclusive, because a dream could "fake" that. But if it spins forever Cobb has to be asleep (*). As it happens, the movie leaves it ambiguous whether it would fall or not. It starts to wobble but then stabilizes and then the movie cuts, so we don't know. * = Artsy interpretation: Maybe the story has already ended, and the final appearance of the top is only for us in the audience - to tell us that *we* are dreaming, all these characters are figments of our imagination, because this experience we just had was a movie. And then the "alarm" music plays as the movie ends and it's time for us to wake up. It seems apparent that Cobb relies on the top as his totem. We see him using it as such, including the scene where he's ready to shoot himself until he sees it fall. It's a bad totem because other people know about it - but nevertheless he is using it. It's not the only thing he does that he would tell others not to do. The weight/etc of his wedding ring wouldn't make an effective totem because he doesn't wear it in reality, so he isn't maintaining an IRL frame of reference. Perhaps it's only a totem in the sense that he believes he'll always find himself wearing it when he's asleep - but once he has let go of Mal, that idea ceases to be reliable. Whether Cobb is wearing his wedding ring is an interesting detail, but it doesn't prove anything. Every good movie has a character arc. Cobb has changed by the end of the movie, he has faced his guilt and let Mal go. He might not constantly dream about her and his marriage anymore. And he might not always have the ring in his dreams anymore. The scene with the kids is so perfectly "arranged" and similar to previous scenes that it seems dream-like, but that can also just be the staging of a Hollywood movie, so I can see it either way. Regardless of what somebody said in an interview, there is nothing within the movie to show that Michael Caine can't appear in Cobb's dreams. He knows and trusts the guy, he can certainly dream about him. Maybe the actor was told to play all his scenes like reality, but that just lends to the ambiguity. It doesn't make it impossible for the scene to actually be a dream. The cool thing about a movie like this is that it's open to interpretation.
Makes you wonder who planted an idea to who. The real inception was pulled off by Nolan - where we all wonder if the top is gonna fall or not and we can't stop thinking/talking about it. Brings a whole new level to inception haha
Nolan is generally masterful making complex film that you can enjoy even you don't get / understand quite everything. Interstellar, Inception, Prestige. Only Nolan film that has actually given me head ache (literally) every time I tried to watch it was Tenet.
Nolan is one of the greatest living filmmakers. Memento, the Prestige, and Oppenheimer are also top-notch alongside his stuff that you have seen... Interstellar, The Dark Knight, and Inception. But his entire filmography is pretty great.
It might be just my personal interpretation, but, about the spinning top at the end: That probably just representing that Cobb doesn't care anymore if he is in a dream or not.
My favorite concept for a movie and amazing acting that brings all the dreams we have to life in a way that makes us question everything after we watched this film. Are we in a dream? Where do our thoughts and inspirations come from? Do we ever have dreams within our own dreams? Or did we not have dreams within dreams until the idea was inceptioned into our mind via this movie? Loved your reactions to so many parts of this film! Keep up the great work that you do by entertaining us all! Even if you are a dream projection within our subconscious mind. 🙃🧠
I saw this opening night and it took me 13 years to realize what they were saying about “limbo”…Cobb was there, and Saito ends up there, which means that consciousness is shared by everyone.
Interesting connections: 'Je ne regrette rien' the kicker song, made famous by Edith Piaf, played to an Oscar win by the actress playing DiCaprio characters suicidal wife. (also a Nolan regular #TheDarkKnightRises ) a 'jump epiphany' I had.
This film was amazing. Can remember as I watched it in the premiere. The ending was a mind-f*ck, and the whole audience reaction...wow. And it was the first time I experienced that all people stay sitting in their seats the whole credits
I know what Nolan said the ending meant but he did leave it open for interpretation. The fan theories also have some question marks like his ring being his totem but we see him use the top more than once to see if he was awake. If you went by strictly percentages it would be 75% it is still a dream and 25% that he is awake using the top. If the top doesn’t fall it’s obviously still a dream since that would be physically impossible, if the top falls it is 50% chance of still a dream and 50% chance he is awake since the totem is not actually his, which makes it unreliable. That was the rules the movie set as the standard.
The top isn’t his totem, which makes its results suspect. He wasn’t wearing his ring which points to the end being real as well as the wobble (which it never did in dreams)…and knowing her as well as he did, I can see the potential weight of the top being enough for him too… This movie is GREAT for conversation…
Inception is inspired by a Japanese anime from 2006 by famed director (who sadly passed away) Satoshi Kon. The movie, Paprika, is about a doctor who can go into her patient's dreams as the avatar named Paprika. There's a conspiracy where minds are highjacked. Very trippy film, absolutely worth the watch. All Kon movies are superb and had a huge impact even on the non-anime world. Paprika is the direct inspiration for inception, Perfect Blue, his first feature lenght anime is a tense pshychological thriller with horror undertones which is the direct inspiration for Black Swan by Daren Aronofski and his two other films, Millenial Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are fantastic as well.
I was watching an interview of someone, don't remember who, and they were talking about this movie. I think it was an interview with a scientist who was a consultant for this movie. He said that he liked that they didn't even mention how they were getting into someone else's dream, just a machine with wires and stuff but not explaining how anything worked, because according to him that's not a thing we can do, look into people's dreams. But after the movie was made and he got talking to another scientist, the scientist informed him that he was able to begin to be able to look into someone's dream, and he showed him the research. Wild.
Awesome reaction, especially to the final shot! I loved it when I first saw it in theaters, and this movie gets better and better with multiple viewings.
This movie blew me away when I saw it in the theater, in a way not many movies have. One of my all time favorites. It's crazy to me that Inception is now older than The Matrix was when Inception came out. (Or that the Matrix is now older than Star Wars was when the Matrix was released).
Dang, Addie, good catch that he was wearing a wedding band in the dream but not IRL! I've seen this a dozen times at least over the last decade and I never noticed! It's revelations like that which keep me onboard with watching tubers react to my favorite shows and films :D
Regardless of wether the ending means that Cobb is still in a dream or not, I find it kind of clever and ironic that the filmmakers managed to put the seed of the idea that all was just a dream into the mind of the viewer. That's real inception....
The open ending left it as a debate but it was more about the fact that he left it spinning and didn't look back. He didn't need the top anymore because it was about what he felt and knew reality was. It was about him letting go of the past and inception not mattering anymore.
You have to look at the movie from a philosophical perspective. All the characters can be suggested as different aspects of Cobb's consciousness if it is still a dream at the end of it all, etc. there are many debates as to the meanings behind this movie. Enjoy! 😊
This movie alongside Memento & The Dark Knight solidified my love of Nolan. Highly recommend watching Tenet (2020) next since I feel it’s highly under appreciated. It’s not perfect and definitely not better than Inception but excels at Nolan’s talent for making awe-inspiring premises & set pieces
If you don't want the mystery of the ending spoiled, stop reading. Michael Caine was told by the director that any scene he is in is real life, and he was in the last scene... so... its real. But the Dom not caring is a way cooler message.
It was about to fall over. It was real. His actual totem was his wedding ring. It only appears when he is dreaming. If you watch the movie again you will notice he doesn’t have one in the real world and does in the dream. Remember he said that the topper was Mal’s totem.
The theory I have is the whole film is Cobbs Inception on himself (after failing the Saito job) Cobb couldn't work because his guilt made him feel like he didn't deserve to go home. Causing the projection of Mal to sabotage his efforts. He wouldn't let himself go home while that guilt weighed on him. So he; made up the job with Saito, forgave himself for Mal's death which allows him to move on and made up a reality where he could go home (hope that makes sense). I just feel it's a little convenient that he is offered a job by a CEO that for no explainable reason, will get his murder charge dropped
What I found interesting is that he didn’t wait for the token to topple or not. He accepted where he was, was reality. If he completely thought he was in reality, then there would be no reason for him to doubt to be able to see his kids faces and for everything to have worked out. For all we know, Saito may have ended his own life in limbo and Cobb accepted that as reality. I love when movies and shows have open endings like this. I’ve also read a crazy theory that Cobb is stuck in limbo and Mal keeps coming back to try to bring him back to reality.
How did they never get a "kick" from the plane? All that movement on a plane, all that turbulence etc, and they didn't wake up? Even if you consider the sedative. The whole point was that falling still wakes you up. They even showed this.
The last scene is in the real world because Michael Caine said Nolan told him that all of his character’s scenes were in the real world. Nolan has never confirmed that and he’s made it clear that he never will, lol. I believe Michael Caine.
I like the fact that this ending was not a definitive statement and left it a tad ambiguous. It leads to audience discussions and thought-provoking states of minds. It reminds me of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction (what was that golden glow?).
If I remember correctly, Nolan's own comment is that the spinner wobbles just before the cut, so it's about to topple over... and therefore it's reality. (You could compare it to Ridley Scott describing the presence of the origami unicorn in the closing scene of Blade Runner)
Cobb runs outside because he clearly wishes this to be real and be with his real children, which is the most important thing to him now. So if this is his dream, his subconscious will make the top fall and tell him what he already wants to believe. If this is not his dream, it will also fall. It will fall either way, and clear up nothing.
There are so many theories about how much of this film is real or a dream, and what it all means. My two personal favourites are as follows: 1. The events of this film are actually Cobb performing Inception on himself, planting the idea that it's safe to return home. His wedding ring appears to be his Totem, since there are some scenes where he has it and others without it - but whether or not the scene at the end is real or not doesn't really matter since the spinning top is Mal's totem, so it cant expose reality for Cobb, and either way he has accepted the idea he planted in himself and will now see his kids again. 2. This film is Christopher Nolan performing Inception on US, to make us question our own realities.
My favorite theory is a modification of your first. It’s that it’s not Cobb performing inception on himself, but the whole job is arranged by his father in law to have Ariadne to perform inception on him and she wasn’t as novice as she made out to be. When we first see the grandfather he tells Cobb to come back to reality and then the whole time Ariadne is working with him she’s reinforcing the idea that he needs to let go of Mal or else he’ll end up old and alone and that becomes his invented idea - don’t end up old and alone, but let go of the past and return to the real world.
Great reaction Addie like always, There are thrillers, and then there are thrillers. Gripping every second and couching its pages of exposition in the smartest way possible, this movie is original filmmaking at its finest i love Nolan movie. There are some fun-facts about it Christopher Nolan thought of the idea behind this movie when he was 16, and the script took him 10 years to write, Cobb's team used the French song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," which translates to "No, I Don't Regret Anything" in English, as a "kick" to signal that it's time to leave a dream. Translated in English, "No, absolutely nothing / No, I regret nothing / It is paid, done, forgotten / I don't care about the past," may allude to Cobb and Saito's recurring line: "Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?" The song is also a direct contrast to Cobb's inability to let go of his late wife, Mal. The cast and crew traveled to a total of six countries while filming this film the locations included the U.S., Morocco, Canada, France, the U.K., and Japan. Nolan's son Magnus played James, Cobb's son. Nolan also cast his cousin, Miranda, as a flight attendant. Joseph Gordon-Levitt said the scene in the hallway was both the most fun and the most painful experience he's ever had on a set. Arthur's totem, an object that signifies whether or not he's in a dream or reality, is a red pair of dice. When he shows it to Ariadne, the side with five dots faces the camera. In his dream at the hotel, the number appears several times. The hotel has at least five floors, and two "5" signs frame Gordon-Levitt several times during the zero-gravity fight scene. The license plates in Yusuf's dream were marked as "The Alternate State." The characters' dreams are filled with subtle hints that separate the subconscious from the real world. Though a minor detail, Nolan changed the cars' license plates to read "The Alternate State," dropping a hint that the action scene was happening in a dream. The scene between Cobb and Miles was shot at the architecture school at University College London, the university where Nolan studied English and met his wife Emma Thomas. Miles makes a reference to DiCaprio's role in "Catch Me If You Can." "Extradition between France and the United States is a bureaucratic nightmare," Cobb told Miles as he discusses his plan to return home to his children in the U.S. That line is a reference to his role as Frank Abagnale Jr., who gets arrested in France and sent back to the U.S. in the film "Catch Me If You Can." Keep up the good work.
LOL, that totem at the ending tho. But like some people says, the ending isn't about that totem. It isn't about whether its real or not. The ending is, he no longer care if it is real or not. He choose to life with his kid no matter what.
Total Recall asked this question (As did Wizard of OZ :P ) but Nolan has a way of making things his own. While it's easy to get lost in the details, I find the story tragic overall and it's kinda hard to ignore that myself on subsequent viewings.
After many years of guessing, it has finally been confirmed by Michael Caine that Christopher Nolan told him that whenever he is in the scene, its reality.
This film’s final scene is real. You can tell because, what so many people fail to realise is that the Spinning Top is NOT Cobb’s Totem, it is his wife Mal’s. Cobb’s Totem is his WEDDING RING. Whenever he is in the REAL WORLD…he does NOT wear it. But whenever he is in a DREAM…he DOES wear it. Because as he says very clearly…”In my dreams, we’re still together.” In the final scene…he isn’t wearing his ring. So he clearly is in the real world.
I've often seen that argument that the totem is Mal's and not Cobb's, but that forgets that in the real world, physics would still exist and the spinning top would topple, no matter whose totem it is.
He also said no one is supposed to know your totem, but he shows Adrienne. To me, that meant the spinning top was never his totem.
@@Baiko It's also clearly losing control in the final few frames though so it does topple.
Nolan said recently that the point of the ending is not whether it is a dream or reality but that Cobb no longer cares. He was focused on trying to figure it out the whole movie and then in the end he was happy with his kids and didn’t even look to see if it fell or not.
i like that
That's a good explanation. It just would have been nice it was made more obvious rather than the typical "is it? is it not?" type of shot. But I'm glad to know and have a definitive answer on the matter.
The way I took it until Nolan specified was that it didn't matter... of it's real or a dream, he has what he has worked for. Nolan's is more nuanced.
Besides that it was Mal's totem, Saito also held it at the beginning. Whether he knows it or not, that's in Saito's mind now. Almost like a trade.
This is a film that just keeps on giving! The times I've watched it, I was so focused on the top, that I hadn't even noticed Cobb was not even looking at it. Brilliant. Thanks for that bit of Nolan trivia.
This will always be my favorite film.
The characters names spell DREAMS:
Dom
Robert
Eames
Arthur
Mal
Saito
Other cool fact: The movie is also about movies: Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio and Fischer is the audience.
Even more than that, they spell:
D om
R obert
E ames
A rthur
M al
S aito
P eter (Browning)
A riadne
Y usuf
Which they do, if you're in the business of extracting!
@@IveGotAMatchdamn bro
Your reaction to the final shot was perfect! My interpretation, based on what he told Ariadne in the beginning, is that Dom’s homecoming was real, because we see how he got there. We see almost every step from the plane to when he gets home. If it was a dream, he wouldn’t know how he got there. Plus, the kids are older when he gets home than how they appear in his memories.
Also, the top was never Dom's totem. It is explained that not only is it Mal's totem, but it was also the first, prototype totem. Addie notes that Dom wasn't wearing his wedding ring in the real world early in, in fact - a common theory is that Dom's actual totem is the wedding ring. Dom's trapped by the totem not because it was his proof of dreamstate, but because by manipulating it he managed the inception on Mal and on some level he worries he also trapped himself (notably, Projection Mal taunts Dom by stating he doesn't believe in one reality anymore; she's part of his subconscious, so she would absolutely know that to be true)
A lot of people like to say the ending left it open to debate for fans. But the reality (no pun intended) is in the final scene he isn't wearing his wedding ring. You will only see Leo wearing his ring in dream sequences. The final scene of the movie was real life. Leo didn't have his ring on.
Right. It's dramatic, but not particularly ambiguous. The wobble, the missing wedding rings, the kids faces, Michael Caine... all signs pointing to real life.
Here is a fun thing though: The spinning thing is not HIS token, it's hers
@@CyberBeep_kenshi he's in her fantasy?? 👀!!!
Cobb's totem doesn't work anyway. It will only keep spinning if he's in his own dream and his subconscious wants the dream to be a dream.
In reality it will fall. In someone else's dream it will fall. And even in his own dream it will fall if his subconscious wants it to.
It's completely useless.
Also, though they did a good job of making it look similar enough to get people questioning, the two kids at the end are different actors (slightly older) and wearing slightly different clothes than the ones he constantly sees on the dream world based on his memory.
Michael Caine recently told when he was in a scene, this is reality. And when he wasn’t, this is dreams.
That was never confirmed by Nolan himself
Greatest ending. I stood and shouted “YES!” in the theater when I saw it. Others were murmuring in disappointment but there was no other way to let that end. So good.
I think the reason that this movie is so much more accessible than Nolan's other time-wonkey movies is that even if you are lost what's going on with all the rules about the dreams, it's still very easy to follow what the main characters want, feel, and are trying to do in every scene.
You might get confused at times where they are and why things happen, but you're barely ever lost about what the characters are feeling or trying to do.
Which unfortunately is a problem with many of Nolan's other movies.
especially when you can clearly hear the dialogue
This movie explodes our brain until the end. 🤯
But what a masterpiece made by a great director.
You never had a dream inside a dream. Numerous times I have dreamed that I woke up and was getting ready for work only to have my alarm clock go off and wake me up. Of course I was annoyed I had to get ready for a second time.
This is in my top 5 movies of all time! Phenominal movie and in a world where Hollywood just puts out remakes and sequels, this is a breath of fresh air and such an original concept. Wish more movies would be like this in terms of originality.
Yes. It's sad I have no interest in movies anymore. Even superhero movies are being remade over and over.
Crazy thoery... Cobb was the one being incepted to let go of Mol, but to get inside his mind they had to find a way in which he had to open it via the possibility of incepting someone else which would allow them to follow.🙂
Nice ☺️
The ending is constantly debated, and that was sorta Nolan's intent. It's up to your own interpretation. His main point is that to Cobb, it doesn't really matter anymore. But you picked up on something very early that leads to a popular theory. The top isn't Cobb's totem, it's Mal's. So when you said "was he only wearing a wedding ring in the dream?" A popular theory is that his wedding ring is his totem.
Thats a common point people like to point out - but his ring doesn't really indicate anything. It was never confirmed in the movie that it was his totem.
This film is two stories and a meta-level argument all in one. On one level it's like a "heist" film where a team of specialists is hired to do a job. Only they are there to leave, rather than take, something. On the next level, the film is about Ariadne performing Inception on Cobb, to show him the way out of the maze of his guilt for his wife's death (as her namesake did for Theseus). She was likely hired by the Miceal Caine character. Also, the entire film argues that all movies are like shared dreams, where sometimes we end up in places without knowing how we got there, or where odd things happen that we just need to accept if we are into the narrative, and we can share these experiences with anyone who has seen the same film.
Finally, in the end, it does not matter if Cobb is awake or dreaming. If he is awake he is home with his kids. Some suggest lack of his wedding ring means he is no longer in the dream because he only has it on when he is in the dream. However, in his dreams, his ring could also be a representation of his guilt over his wife's death and his not having it on in the end could mean he has forgiven himself. If he is in Limbo, because of the way time works there, then he will still get to see his kids grow up, get married, and have a life. That dream world will become his reality and to paraphrase the old man in Mombassa, "Who are we to say otherwise?" Either way, he is "home" with his kids.
Sorry, but if you can't tell, this is my favorite film.
Most people get confused at the end because they think the totem is his, it's not, it's his wife's. His was always the wedding ring, which he only wears in a dream. As for the totem though, they literally can't wobble unless they are about to fall. And as other has pointed out, Caine is in the last scene and he is only in real world scenes not dreams
The totem wouldn't have started to wobble if it were a dream. In a dream it spins indefinitely. It's just to tease the audience and end the film with some suspense instead of wrapping everything up in a bow.
I saw this 3 times in a row in cinemas. With 3 different groups. Each time I saw something new.
Michael Caine once cleared up the ambiguity surrounding the film’s final scene.
In a clip from 2018, which recently resurfaced on Reddit, the British actor is seen introducing a Film 4 screening of the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film. According to Caine, the filmmaker explicitly told him which scenes were real and which were a dream.
“When I got the script of Inception, I was a bit puzzled by it and I said to him ‘I don’t understand where the dream is’,” Caine told the crowd. “I said, ‘When is it the dream and when is it reality?’ He said, ‘Well when you’re in the scene it’s reality.’ So get that - if I’m in it, it’s reality. If I’m not in it, it’s a dream.”
I hate to lawyer words so what Caine says would be at least partially right. Every scene with him IS in reality but is he IN every scene from reality? That sounds like something Nolan could say to allow the actor resolution during his performance. :)
@@terrylandess6072nitpicking, he obviously meant "if im not in it, it can be a dream", its a real life sentence not a prewritten official statement
@@alexo_pog I hope you feel better now - I simply pointed out an obvious possibility.
That doesn't prove anything, it could have been a throwaway silly comment to an actor by the director.
Nothing was actually confirmed in the movie and several hints show that its still a dream at the end.
This movie is just fantastic! It is also an allegory of filmaking. Them performing Inception is representative of them making a film. Cobb serves as the director. Arthur is the producer. Eames is the actor. Ariadne is the production designer. Robert Fischer is the audience. Saito I suppose would be the studio paying for it. And Yusuf... he just provides necessary drugs to the crew, haha.
Yusuf is special effects. That's why he asks if everyone just saw that really cool thing happening, but nobody gives him any credit.
Also, projections are the audience. They are okay with it all being fake, but when your movie makes no sense, then they will hate you.
And when you tell the audience what the message of the story is (inception), they will reject it. They have to connect the dots themselves to accept what you want to tell them.
The ending was one of the things that made the movie so great, as you don't know 100% if it's real or a dream. It's just like at the end of "The Thing", was one of the guys the thing, neither one, it leaves you guessing and looking back on what happened and if you may have missed something. For me, I always thought the ending was real life and he made it back to his kids, but if it wasn't, would that have been so bad for him?
Christopher Nolan has made some fantastic movies. This one in particular is epic. It has so much depth. When I get home tonight, I am going to rewatch it.
I can spin polyhedral dice and they go longer than that, so a well-designed and properly spun top can definitely spin for much longer.
Like many a D&D player, I've probably spent more time spinning dice than taking my actual turn.
A lot of "experts" loved to say that this ending was ambiguous.
*IT WASN'T.* 😂😂😂
The kids were older (different actors) and we saw their faces.
Leo didn't have his ring on.
The top started wobbling, which means it would have fallen shortly after the end of the movie... that's how physics work.
The top in the dream world never wobbled... it continued with the same speed forever.
The spinning top was not his totem, anyway... 😂
And so on...
This movie is in my top 3 movies of all time. The music, the acting, the story and just the unique feeling that we have pretty much all experienced in a dream state.
I'm just starting the reaction, but the fact you caught the wedding ring so fast. Nolan took major inspiration on some of the scenes where guys are walking on walls from 2001 A Space Odyssey which you have seen. Built a whole rotating set to film stuff.
The important part for me in the ending was, that Leo doesn't have to look anymore at the totem to know if it is reality or not. In his last scene with Mal he has this enlightment of the complexity of reality and he comes to terms with his psychological bagage, so now he is no longer clouded in his mind to distinguish between dream and reality
The spinning top wasn't his totem, it was his wifes, his real totem was the wedding ring. Everytime he was in a dream he was wearing it. The children at the end have different clothes and in the credits are different kids. Plus whenever Michael Cane is in a scene it's in the real world
My theory: Cobb was the target all along, not Fischer. Cobb had somehow convinced himself that he couldn't return to his kids and someone (my guess is Miles) hired Ariadne to be the extractor; this explains why she took to bending dream reality so quickly and easily, she was pretending to be the novice. It's almost always Ariadne making the suggestions and convincing others to follow along. She was hired to implant the idea into Cobb's mind to let Mal go, and she succeeded.
Awesome! 👏
Lame
I don't think Nolan has anything to worry about . .
I don't think Nolan wanted there to be one answer but I think this one is actually "correct" as much as anything can be. The totem he uses is Mal's, not his. We literally never see his totem used to check if he's dreaming or not. Then her name being Ariadne, the way that when he's trying to lose the tail the walls seemed to be closing in literally just at the point they would be metaphorically, and then he's saved perfectly conveniently by the guy hiring him who ought to be busy as a CEO, characters sometimes know the wrong things, in the plane the mark doesn't recognise the CEO of his major rival. All of that, once you remember that he never checks if he's dreaming using his own totem, makes it seem like, however much he didn't actually intend to, Nolan accidentally created a pretty compelling argument that the "this is Inception on Cobb to let Mal go" theory is the correct one.
Short and simple version: Cobb no longer cares to check if being back with his children is a dream or not.
Longer and more complicated version: The totem at the end could never tell Cobb if he's awake or dreaming.
1. Mal and Ariadne both know the totem, so he could be in one of their dreams and the totem wouldn't tell him.
2. Since the behavior of the totem depends on what the owner of the dream thinks it should do, it can always only tell you if you're in someone else's dream. If you are in your own dream and your subconscious controls it, then the totem will do and tell you whatever you want it to. If you want your totem to tell you that you are awake, it will tell you you are awake. He could be in his own dream and never know.
3. And regardless of all of that, Cobb's totem can never work because it's made backwards. It needs to behave strange in reality, but behave normally in someone else's dream.
In reality it will fall.
In someone else's dream it will fall.
In your own dream it will fall, if you subconsciously want it to.
It will only stay up if the owner of the dream knows about it, and subconsciously wants it to stay up. It's completely useless.
you are the first person I've seen also question Mal's totem. my own head canon is that it's the main contributor to why Mal's accepted Limbo as reality. they did say the totems were Mal's idea so I imagine she created an ineffectual prototype without considering what truly is required to keep a grip on reality.
@@alsims2007 except that you've both overlooked something, the spinning top is NOT Cobbs totem, its Mal's. Cobb explicitly tells Ariadne that its Mals. Cobbs totem is his wedding ring.
@@ozcanison read either of our comments again. We are talking about Mal's totem when she was using it. It doesn't work as a totem, Regardless of the user, because it needs to act weird when in someone else's dream but act normal in real life. That's backwards from what a totem should do. It needs to secretly act weird, or have a weird property in real life. That way, in the dream, the person creating the dream has no idea of this weird property and it will instead act normal. This will indicate to the totem's owner that they are dreaming.
@@mrclean29 I'm talking about Mal using her own totem when the only person that knew was Cobb but your explanation is very flawed. If someone can manipulate your totem at will then what can it tell you to verify your not dreaming? If they want you to believe you're dreaming, they keep it spinning. If they want you to believe you're in reality then they let it fall. Cobb knowing is the reason why his inception was successful on her.
And bonus correction Ariadne is the architect. She designs all the levels and teaches them to the dreamers. From the moment she learns about the top she never again was the dreamer. She doesn't have control over the shared dream and she originally wasn't meant to be there at all.
I think narratively the idea that it's actually a dream basically throws away the entire film's development. During Cobb's emotional climax he literally says to Mal that the version of her in his dreams could never be good enough. The same would be true of his children.
If you want more Leo watch "Shutter Island" for sure, great movie, new things to discover with every rewatch
The "NO" from the audience at the very end still rings in my mind till this day xD The ending doesn't matter because he is finally with his kids. Also, the spinning top is his wife's totem and we never got to see his totem.
Yes, it is open to interpretation. Nolan doesn't like to tell the audience an exact story and tell you what you must think and feel. It's something that makes his movies great, everyone has their own experience with his movies. Can't wait for your Oppenheimer reaction :)
Also, don't know if you noticed the music in this movie but Hans Zimmer set a standard that is imitated by hollywood in 'large scale epic movies' to this day. also known as the BRAAAM sound, lol!
You caught the slight wobble before the cut 👌🏾. When I first saw this, and noticed that, I felt it was definitely about to topple. So as far as I'm concerned, everything worked out and he made it home to his kids for real. No point in stressing ourselves out, thinking he might still be stuck in a dream 😂. Great reaction Addie, as always. This is still one of the most unique, creative and visually stunning movies I've ever seen. Christopher Nolan doesn't miss....well, Momento still irks me a little bit 🤣
Which aspect of Momento or just it's overall dragging nature? 😂
@dunbardunelm3924 Well first off, spoiler alert for those who might come across this. I mean it's not a bad movie or anything, I just personally didn't like the ending. It wasn't the resolution I was looking for, if you can even call it that. I finished it feeling just as bad for the guy as I did in the beginning, and I'm like...That's a horrible story...fascinating, but horrible 😂.
These are some good movies to watch.
* In Bruges
* History of violence
* Grand Budapest hotel
* Brooklyns finest
* Eastern promises
* Manchester by the sea
* Peanut butter falcon
* The departed
* No country for old men
“You’re waiting for a train.” The top to stop spinning.
“A train that will take you far away” To the real world
“You know where you hope this train will take you” Back to his children
“But you can’t know for sure and it doesn’t matter. Now tell me why.”
It doesn’t matter if the top falls or not. That’s the reality he’s chosen. That’s where his kids are seen. Real or not, he’s committed to that reality now.
She caught the wedding ring on first viewing. Super impressed ! Great reaction!
Rarely can I say a movie was a "master class" in film making, but this epic was one of those times. I saw it 3x when it was at theaters, and I rarely see most movies once, as more often than not, most films just aren't worth my time and for sure not my money. But Inception was the rare situation that proved me wrong, and I was happy to give my funds those three times.
I always thought that there could've been a part 2 where it would be explained that Cobb's wife had been trying to save him from a level far deeper than what they depicted in the movie. The fact that the totem at the end never falls, and the constant messaging about him having to "come home", they could've easily made the ending another dream within a dream.
I've seen a lot of people argue that the spinning top at the end doesn't matter because it isn't Cobb's totem. Of course it matters. If I saw a perpetual motion machine on my desk, I'd have to be asleep, even if it's "not my totem".
Now if it fell, perhaps that would be inconclusive, because a dream could "fake" that. But if it spins forever Cobb has to be asleep (*).
As it happens, the movie leaves it ambiguous whether it would fall or not. It starts to wobble but then stabilizes and then the movie cuts, so we don't know.
* = Artsy interpretation: Maybe the story has already ended, and the final appearance of the top is only for us in the audience - to tell us that *we* are dreaming, all these characters are figments of our imagination, because this experience we just had was a movie. And then the "alarm" music plays as the movie ends and it's time for us to wake up.
It seems apparent that Cobb relies on the top as his totem. We see him using it as such, including the scene where he's ready to shoot himself until he sees it fall. It's a bad totem because other people know about it - but nevertheless he is using it. It's not the only thing he does that he would tell others not to do.
The weight/etc of his wedding ring wouldn't make an effective totem because he doesn't wear it in reality, so he isn't maintaining an IRL frame of reference. Perhaps it's only a totem in the sense that he believes he'll always find himself wearing it when he's asleep - but once he has let go of Mal, that idea ceases to be reliable.
Whether Cobb is wearing his wedding ring is an interesting detail, but it doesn't prove anything. Every good movie has a character arc. Cobb has changed by the end of the movie, he has faced his guilt and let Mal go. He might not constantly dream about her and his marriage anymore. And he might not always have the ring in his dreams anymore.
The scene with the kids is so perfectly "arranged" and similar to previous scenes that it seems dream-like, but that can also just be the staging of a Hollywood movie, so I can see it either way.
Regardless of what somebody said in an interview, there is nothing within the movie to show that Michael Caine can't appear in Cobb's dreams. He knows and trusts the guy, he can certainly dream about him. Maybe the actor was told to play all his scenes like reality, but that just lends to the ambiguity. It doesn't make it impossible for the scene to actually be a dream.
The cool thing about a movie like this is that it's open to interpretation.
Makes you wonder who planted an idea to who. The real inception was pulled off by Nolan - where we all wonder if the top is gonna fall or not and we can't stop thinking/talking about it. Brings a whole new level to inception haha
Nolan is generally masterful making complex film that you can enjoy even you don't get / understand quite everything. Interstellar, Inception, Prestige. Only Nolan film that has actually given me head ache (literally) every time I tried to watch it was Tenet.
The Revenant is probably Leo’s best movie. Def worth a watch
You mean not counting _Critters 3,_ of course.
@@johnsensebe3153 Ah yes. The classic masterpiece that is Critters 3. How could I forget.
Nolan is one of the greatest living filmmakers. Memento, the Prestige, and Oppenheimer are also top-notch alongside his stuff that you have seen... Interstellar, The Dark Knight, and Inception. But his entire filmography is pretty great.
It might be just my personal interpretation, but, about the spinning top at the end: That probably just representing that Cobb doesn't care anymore if he is in a dream or not.
thing is, it is HER token, not his
The Prestige is another excellent Nolan movie. Recommended!
My favorite concept for a movie and amazing acting that brings all the dreams we have to life in a way that makes us question everything after we watched this film. Are we in a dream? Where do our thoughts and inspirations come from? Do we ever have dreams within our own dreams? Or did we not have dreams within dreams until the idea was inceptioned into our mind via this movie?
Loved your reactions to so many parts of this film! Keep up the great work that you do by entertaining us all! Even if you are a dream projection within our subconscious mind. 🙃🧠
I saw this opening night and it took me 13 years to realize what they were saying about “limbo”…Cobb was there, and Saito ends up there, which means that consciousness is shared by everyone.
Nolan is frigging brilliant. LOVE this movie.
Interesting connections: 'Je ne regrette rien' the kicker song, made famous by Edith Piaf, played to an Oscar win by the actress playing DiCaprio characters suicidal wife. (also a Nolan regular #TheDarkKnightRises ) a 'jump epiphany' I had.
This film was amazing. Can remember as I watched it in the premiere. The ending was a mind-f*ck, and the whole audience reaction...wow. And it was the first time I experienced that all people stay sitting in their seats the whole credits
I know what Nolan said the ending meant but he did leave it open for interpretation. The fan theories also have some question marks like his ring being his totem but we see him use the top more than once to see if he was awake. If you went by strictly percentages it would be 75% it is still a dream and 25% that he is awake using the top. If the top doesn’t fall it’s obviously still a dream since that would be physically impossible, if the top falls it is 50% chance of still a dream and 50% chance he is awake since the totem is not actually his, which makes it unreliable. That was the rules the movie set as the standard.
The top isn’t his totem, which makes its results suspect. He wasn’t wearing his ring which points to the end being real as well as the wobble (which it never did in dreams)…and knowing her as well as he did, I can see the potential weight of the top being enough for him too…
This movie is GREAT for conversation…
Inception is inspired by a Japanese anime from 2006 by famed director (who sadly passed away) Satoshi Kon.
The movie, Paprika, is about a doctor who can go into her patient's dreams as the avatar named Paprika.
There's a conspiracy where minds are highjacked.
Very trippy film, absolutely worth the watch.
All Kon movies are superb and had a huge impact even on the non-anime world.
Paprika is the direct inspiration for inception, Perfect Blue, his first feature lenght anime is a tense pshychological thriller with horror undertones which is the direct inspiration for Black Swan by Daren Aronofski and his two other films, Millenial Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are fantastic as well.
i've always felt that cobb isn't in a dream because he sees his kids faces. every moment before that the scene cuts before the kids look at him.
I was watching an interview of someone, don't remember who, and they were talking about this movie. I think it was an interview with a scientist who was a consultant for this movie. He said that he liked that they didn't even mention how they were getting into someone else's dream, just a machine with wires and stuff but not explaining how anything worked, because according to him that's not a thing we can do, look into people's dreams. But after the movie was made and he got talking to another scientist, the scientist informed him that he was able to begin to be able to look into someone's dream, and he showed him the research. Wild.
Awesome reaction, especially to the final shot! I loved it when I first saw it in theaters, and this movie gets better and better with multiple viewings.
33:58 this moment ( and facial expression ) was so relatable
Great reaction to an incredible movie!
You are smart & caught way more details the first time around watching than I did.
Thank you!😊
This movie blew me away when I saw it in the theater, in a way not many movies have. One of my all time favorites.
It's crazy to me that Inception is now older than The Matrix was when Inception came out. (Or that the Matrix is now older than Star Wars was when the Matrix was released).
Dang, Addie, good catch that he was wearing a wedding band in the dream but not IRL! I've seen this a dozen times at least over the last decade and I never noticed! It's revelations like that which keep me onboard with watching tubers react to my favorite shows and films :D
Thank you for the reaction
Watching you spiral out there at the end was highly enjoyable!😂😂😂
I've always loved the idea of the ending - He was home.
your face to the literal ending LOL
Regardless of wether the ending means that Cobb is still in a dream or not, I find it kind of clever and ironic that the filmmakers managed to put the seed of the idea that all was just a dream into the mind of the viewer. That's real inception....
I remember watching this movie in the cinema when it was first released. Mind-blowing is the right description for it, to say the least.
I prefer to think that the ending is open to interpretation.
The open ending left it as a debate but it was more about the fact that he left it spinning and didn't look back. He didn't need the top anymore because it was about what he felt and knew reality was. It was about him letting go of the past and inception not mattering anymore.
You have to look at the movie from a philosophical perspective. All the characters can be suggested as different aspects of Cobb's consciousness if it is still a dream at the end of it all, etc. there are many debates as to the meanings behind this movie. Enjoy! 😊
This movie alongside Memento & The Dark Knight solidified my love of Nolan. Highly recommend watching Tenet (2020) next since I feel it’s highly under appreciated. It’s not perfect and definitely not better than Inception but excels at Nolan’s talent for making awe-inspiring premises & set pieces
Yep. Half the cast from Dark Knight movies. :)
Fun Fact : In the hotell hallway scene, they actually had a room that spun all the way around built
'Memento' is another MUST watch from Nolan. And on another, unrelated note.. 'Mad Max: Fury Road'.
Leo's filmography is so goated
Ps every scene where Michael Kane is present. Is real life & every other scene in the movie is a dream. So the ending is reality.
LOL, the look on your face in the moment of realizing... 😄
In dream Cobb wears his rings, in reality he don’t.
If you don't want the mystery of the ending spoiled, stop reading.
Michael Caine was told by the director that any scene he is in is real life, and he was in the last scene... so... its real. But the Dom not caring is a way cooler message.
It was about to fall over. It was real. His actual totem was his wedding ring. It only appears when he is dreaming. If you watch the movie again you will notice he doesn’t have one in the real world and does in the dream. Remember he said that the topper was Mal’s totem.
The theory I have is the whole film is Cobbs Inception on himself (after failing the Saito job)
Cobb couldn't work because his guilt made him feel like he didn't deserve to go home. Causing the projection of Mal to sabotage his efforts. He wouldn't let himself go home while that guilt weighed on him. So he; made up the job with Saito, forgave himself for Mal's death which allows him to move on and made up a reality where he could go home (hope that makes sense). I just feel it's a little convenient that he is offered a job by a CEO that for no explainable reason, will get his murder charge dropped
Michael Caine, the kid's faces, and the lack of a wedding ring mean the ending was real. The top was Mal's totem, not Cobb's.
What I found interesting is that he didn’t wait for the token to topple or not. He accepted where he was, was reality. If he completely thought he was in reality, then there would be no reason for him to doubt to be able to see his kids faces and for everything to have worked out. For all we know, Saito may have ended his own life in limbo and Cobb accepted that as reality. I love when movies and shows have open endings like this.
I’ve also read a crazy theory that Cobb is stuck in limbo and Mal keeps coming back to try to bring him back to reality.
The absolute mind bending cinematography was is beautiful, on top of the story & music🤌🏽
Just the right video to start off the weekend🙏🏽
How did they never get a "kick" from the plane? All that movement on a plane, all that turbulence etc, and they didn't wake up? Even if you consider the sedative. The whole point was that falling still wakes you up. They even showed this.
The last scene is in the real world because Michael Caine said Nolan told him that all of his character’s scenes were in the real world. Nolan has never confirmed that and he’s made it clear that he never will, lol. I believe Michael Caine.
I like the fact that this ending was not a definitive statement and left it a tad ambiguous. It leads to audience discussions and thought-provoking states of minds. It reminds me of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction (what was that golden glow?).
If I remember correctly, Nolan's own comment is that the spinner wobbles just before the cut, so it's about to topple over... and therefore it's reality. (You could compare it to Ridley Scott describing the presence of the origami unicorn in the closing scene of Blade Runner)
Cobb runs outside because he clearly wishes this to be real and be with his real children, which is the most important thing to him now.
So if this is his dream, his subconscious will make the top fall and tell him what he already wants to believe.
If this is not his dream, it will also fall.
It will fall either way, and clear up nothing.
The movie itself gives us the suggestion that we ourselves may be in a dream. So it is another level of inception.
There are so many theories about how much of this film is real or a dream, and what it all means.
My two personal favourites are as follows:
1. The events of this film are actually Cobb performing Inception on himself, planting the idea that it's safe to return home. His wedding ring appears to be his Totem, since there are some scenes where he has it and others without it - but whether or not the scene at the end is real or not doesn't really matter since the spinning top is Mal's totem, so it cant expose reality for Cobb, and either way he has accepted the idea he planted in himself and will now see his kids again.
2. This film is Christopher Nolan performing Inception on US, to make us question our own realities.
My favorite theory is a modification of your first. It’s that it’s not Cobb performing inception on himself, but the whole job is arranged by his father in law to have Ariadne to perform inception on him and she wasn’t as novice as she made out to be. When we first see the grandfather he tells Cobb to come back to reality and then the whole time Ariadne is working with him she’s reinforcing the idea that he needs to let go of Mal or else he’ll end up old and alone and that becomes his invented idea - don’t end up old and alone, but let go of the past and return to the real world.
@@AdamNisbett Oooh, that's not bad either! I can see that one.
Great reaction Addie like always, There are thrillers, and then there are thrillers. Gripping every second and couching its pages of exposition in the smartest way possible, this movie is original filmmaking at its finest i love Nolan movie. There are some fun-facts about it Christopher Nolan thought of the idea behind this movie when he was 16, and the script took him 10 years to write, Cobb's team used the French song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," which translates to "No, I Don't Regret Anything" in English, as a "kick" to signal that it's time to leave a dream. Translated in English, "No, absolutely nothing / No, I regret nothing / It is paid, done, forgotten / I don't care about the past," may allude to Cobb and Saito's recurring line: "Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?" The song is also a direct contrast to Cobb's inability to let go of his late wife, Mal. The cast and crew traveled to a total of six countries while filming this film the locations included the U.S., Morocco, Canada, France, the U.K., and Japan. Nolan's son Magnus played James, Cobb's son. Nolan also cast his cousin, Miranda, as a flight attendant. Joseph Gordon-Levitt said the scene in the hallway was both the most fun and the most painful experience he's ever had on a set. Arthur's totem, an object that signifies whether or not he's in a dream or reality, is a red pair of dice. When he shows it to Ariadne, the side with five dots faces the camera. In his dream at the hotel, the number appears several times. The hotel has at least five floors, and two "5" signs frame Gordon-Levitt several times during the zero-gravity fight scene. The license plates in Yusuf's dream were marked as "The Alternate State." The characters' dreams are filled with subtle hints that separate the subconscious from the real world. Though a minor detail, Nolan changed the cars' license plates to read "The Alternate State," dropping a hint that the action scene was happening in a dream. The scene between Cobb and Miles was shot at the architecture school at University College London, the university where Nolan studied English and met his wife Emma Thomas. Miles makes a reference to DiCaprio's role in "Catch Me If You Can." "Extradition between France and the United States is a bureaucratic nightmare," Cobb told Miles as he discusses his plan to return home to his children in the U.S. That line is a reference to his role as Frank Abagnale Jr., who gets arrested in France and sent back to the U.S. in the film "Catch Me If You Can." Keep up the good work.
LOL, that totem at the ending tho.
But like some people says, the ending isn't about that totem. It isn't about whether its real or not.
The ending is, he no longer care if it is real or not. He choose to life with his kid no matter what.
" I have unintentionally watched several Leonardo Dicaprio movies recently"
Total Recall asked this question (As did Wizard of OZ :P ) but Nolan has a way of making things his own. While it's easy to get lost in the details, I find the story tragic overall and it's kinda hard to ignore that myself on subsequent viewings.
A true masterpiece of cinema! It's one of my favorite movies! Great reaction, Addie!
Remember to add many layers to the dream so you can dream longer before dying to thirst.
After many years of guessing, it has finally been confirmed by Michael Caine that Christopher Nolan told him that whenever he is in the scene, its reality.
Finally!!, i was waiting for this, Inception is the masterpiece of the last decade.
Michael Caine said an interviews later that whatever scene he was in was the real world so the last scene was the real world
So the plane was reality , the VAN was stage one , the Hotel was stage 2 , The Snow castle was stage 3 , the beach was STAGE 4
This is one of my favorite movies. I was so mad i didnt see it at the theaters 😢