Are the main characters people we should be rooting for, or are they really Villain Protagonists? In a way it all hinges on whether Saito is sincere in feeling that Robert Fisher achieving total global energy dominance would be bad for the world, or if he's just using that as an excuse for wanting to weaken his competition in the market.
Is Saito simply a Corrupt Corporate Executive trying to sabotage the competition, someone who sees the threat of transnational monopoly and is willing to be a little Necessarily Evil to counter it, or both? Did he soften up throughout the film through his relationship with the gang? Or was that something that was there all along and needed a catalyst to come out?
Can we really conclude that Dom killed Mal? Yes and no.
Are the main characters themselves Villain Protagonists simply out for a payday, or, in Dom's case, a chance to reclaim a normal life?
Was Ariadne "wrong" in "invading" Cob's memories, or was she trying to protect herself and the gang by informing herself of the dangers of Dom's mind and helping him confront his memories and move on? It's more complicated than mere secret-keeping.
Award Snub: It was nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay at the Golden Globes, but no nominations for acting (leading or supporting). It lost each of those to The Social Network (even Best Original Score). At the Oscars, Nolan wasn't nominated for Best Director (yet still managed to nab Best Picture and Best Screenplay nods) while Lee Smith wasn't nominated for Best Editing. It did, however, win best sound editing, best sound mixing, best cinematography and best visual effects. The only other film to win as much was The King's Speech.
Hans Zimmer's entire score is magnificent. Highlights include "Dream Is Collapsing," "Dream Within A Dream" and "Time."
Zack Hemsey's "Mind Heist", the trailer music is epically awesome.
Common Knowledge: "Inception" or "[object]-ception" has now become the term for whenever one object is placed inside an identical object (or indeed any form of recursion), referencing the "dream within a dream" technique. "Inception" actually refers to planting an idea in the person's subconscious. The "dream within a dream" plan is just a method of performing the inception, and it's also used in the Bond Cold Open for an extraction job (which is the opposite of an inception job). Although this is an excellent example of how films have an effect on cultural terminology and vernacular.
Death of the Author: Nolan is fully aware of this. His own answer to the ending's question is that Cobb was awake, but even then he admits he was biased due to being a father as well.
Ending Fatigue: The final layers begin to drag a bit, as the action (and dramatic music) start to go non-stop. This with the constant switching between layers can make it draining. On top of that, one can feel that the two big dramatic moments of Cobb confronting what he did to Mal and Fischer finding catharsis with father get suffocated by the ongoing action (and loud dramatic music) around them. There isn't much room to breathe.
Fanfic Fuel: It's clear that Cobb and his team are not the only extractors in the world, opening speculation as to what other operations might be like. For instance, are roles, terminology, and methods standardized to some extent across the occupation, or could they be wildly different but still effective?
Robert Fischer's father is dying of a long-term illness and passes away before the Inception begins. Just under seven months after the film was released, Pete Postlethwaite lost his second battle with cancer. Especially given the persistent rumor that suggests Postlethwaite knew this and told Cillian Murphy right before shooting. Those tears Murphy is crying for Postlethwaite are apparently very real.
Elliot Page and Marion Cotillard were up against each other for the Best Actress Oscar for the same year, with Cotillard being the winner, In Inception, Page's character shoots Cotillard's, so in a way, Page got his revenge.
The film opens with Leonardo Dicaprio washing ashore on a beach. Titanic (1997) ended with Leonardo Dicaprio dying in the sea. Cue plenty of Memetic Mutation about Jack Dawson floating in the ocean for years before making it back to land again, often jokingly portraying him as mad at Rose for ditching him.
Arthur is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played Tommy on 3rd Rock from the Sun. The most memorable episodes of that show are the 3D episodes, which center on dreams. Tommy's own dream included him chasing a book down a hallway, that was not following the laws of physics. Also, he was a young man again, as he was actually the oldest of the aliens on his home planet.
After Page came out as lesbian note This was before he came out as transmasculine., you have to wonder if Ariadne and Arthur's attempt to distract the dream characters with a kiss only failed because Ariadne couldn't sell it. Ditto Mal sensuously asking if she's ever been a lover. Page later said he felt most of his characters were queer, even if they didn't realize it.
A story where people go inside a target's subconscious to mess with a valuable symbolic thing in there in order to mind control him into doing something they need him to do? Sounds like it would make a great JRPG.
Eames and "darling" Arthur, especially on Eames's part. Especially when they're headed into the third level and Eames is getting all concerned about Arthur going up against security. It's amplified by the staging, since Arthur is kneeling by Eames's side and holding his hand (To hook him up to the PASIV, but still). Even better in the French dub, where Arthur's answer ("I will lead them on a merry chase") is translated using the adverb gaiement ("gaily"). Yes, it carries the same connotation as in English, nope, it's not commonly used much anymore for that exact reason.
Solid example: while Eames is making his way through the hotel in the second dream, disguised as a gorgeous blonde woman, he stops Saito in the elevator and starts stroking his face. Saito looks pleasantly surprised at first, then catches their reflection in the mirrors, sees through the disguise, and realizes it's not a woman at all. Yeah... he wasn't so pleased then.
There's also a teensy bit of this between Cobb and Fischer during the bathroom scene.
Cobb and Saito. Cobb stays in a rapidly crumbling limbo to find Saito and rescue him from thinking limbo is reality in a direct parallel to what happened between Cobb and Mal. Complete with the similar repeated phrases "grow old together" (Cobb and Mal) and "be young men together" (Cobb and Saito).
Mal walking close to Ariadne and asking her if she knows what it's like to be a lover (which at the time undoubtedly became even stronger in light of Elliot Page, who pre-transition, came out in as a lesbian in real life, though as they are now openly trans this has been left irrelevant). It Makes Sense in Context.
Jerkass Woobie: Mal's dream self. Yes, she ruined Cobb's life by framing him for her suicide, but this was only because she had spent so much time in the dream world that she was unable to distinguish what was a dream and what was reality. This would lead to her killing herself, convinced that she could wake up into what she perceived as reality. In the end, all she wanted was to go someplace where she could be happy forever. Of course, it turns out that her delusion and paranoia is a direct result of Cobb implanting the idea of it in her mind.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Arthur, if the kink meme page and fanfiction.net are to be believed. The usual suspects are (in descending order) Eames (Darlingshipping), Ariadne, Eames and Ariadne, and Cobb. Mal, Saito, and occasionally Robert Fischer too, though that's less common.
Dominic "Dom" Cobb is the world's best "Extractor", who is hired by Saito to do the near-impossible job of performing an inception, the act of implanting an idea instead of stealing one within the mind, in exchange for being exonerated for the death of his wife, Mal, that he was framed for. Assembling the best team for the job, Cobb is able to cleverly guide his group through the various and unexpected obstacles that appear within the target's dreams. After managing to convince their target, Robert Fischer, that he's a projection of his mind along with his crew and getting him to join and aid the group in pulling off the job, Cobb is forced to go into limbo and confront "Mal", overcoming and ending her influence on his psyche before going on to save Saito from the limbo after the inception has been properly inserted, ending the story free to see his children again and able to move on from his wife's tragic death.
Arthur is Dominic Cobb’s best friend and partner in his extraction business. When Dom is convinced to perform an inception on Robert Fischer, Arthur agrees to help despite his worries, performing research on Fischer to help with the job and training the team’s dream architect Ariadne. Arthur aids the group in deceiving Fischer in the first layer and is able to evade the militarized projections when they attack the team. Becoming the dreamer of the second layer, Arthur defends the rest of the team when they go into the third layer, using his control of the dream and his own fighting prowess to fight off projections. When the layer is left without gravity, Arthur is able to quickly devise a way to give them the kick and wake them up.
Saito is a brilliant businessman who arranges a test for Dom Cobb under the guise of a meeting between himself and Cobb, who has been sent to "extract" information from him by Cobol Engineering. Managing to outwit him, Saito manipulates Cobb into working for him by promising to clear his criminal charges in exchange for performing an "inception", the implanting of an idea into someone's mind, on the heir of a rival company. Saving Cobb from the failure intolerant Cobol agents, Saito assists in the inception to ensure it succeeds, and even upholds his end of the bargain to Cobb by clearing his charges once the inception is successful.
Eames is a smooth forger and gambler recruited by Dom Cobb to enter the mind of Robert Fischer Jr to sway him away from taking over his father's company. A master at playing people, Eames disguises himself as Fischer's godfather and uses the disguise to slowly sway Fischer against his godfather in order for Fischer to take his own path away from his father. Eames is also a master tactician and helps orchestrate the defeat of Fischer's militarized subconscious sent to stop them. Eames is able to distract and eventually annihilate them, which buys enough time for Cobb and Ardiane to be able to successfully infiltrate Fischer's mind and succeed with their plan.
Memetic Badass: The fandom very rapidly turned Saito into one of these. In the movie, he's a corporate executive who hires Cobb's services and simply goes along to ensure the job is done, and at one point he even rescues Cobb from a few Cobol thugs that are chasing Cobb. The fandom has taken all of this and amplified it to making him ruthlessly efficient with guns and able to survive Limbo with his mind intact, among many other things.
Eames' use of pet names; In the film, he calls Arthur "Darling" once, with definite irony. But in many fanfics, he not only calls him "Darling" left, right and centre, but also "Love", "Pet" and sometimes "Sweetheart". And he often uses the same pet names for Ariadne (although she gets "Darling" less often because apparently that one belongs to Arthur) and occasionally other characters get pet names too. Sometimes it's almost like he's Spike without the bleached blond hair and vampirism. Unless it's a Vampire!AU fanfic, of course.
X within an X.
"We have to go deeper." Alternately: "We have to go deeper." "That's whatshesaid."
Mind Game Ship: At times, Cobb and Mal can become this. Especially on Mal's part.
Misaimed Fandom: There's been some of this regarding the movie's ending. Family reunited, delightful countryside, everything appears to be perfect. But the camera pans down to the top still spinning, and it may or may not start to wobble just as the movie cuts to black and ends. So was that a dream, or was it reality? The answer is "it's up to you", as the creators wanted it to be ambiguous and have the audience draw their own conclusions. Cue people arguing "it's a dream/it's reality" for a long time, including citing "proof" of what the creators wanted within the movie. While the creators did want people to wonder, they wanted it to be unclear on purpose, without trying to leave behind any other evidence one way or the other. In short, arguing as to whether the ending was real or not isn't misaimed; saying that the creators intended it to be one or the other is misaimed.
Not the movie itself, but in the Netflix subtitles for the movie, when Cobb kisses Mal goodbye for the final time at the end, the subtitler, for whatever reason, went with "smooches" for the kiss sound instead of a more neutral "kisses". Takes a bit of the air out of the drama.
Eames summing up the team's predicament with Fisher's militarized subconscious, which very much comes off as Nolan not trusting the audience to have understood the previous lengthy dialogue scene of them figuring it out.
The minivan taking forever to fall from the bridge, as the shot of the vehicle sloooooowly inching towards the water makes a very jarring contrast with the action-packed scenes in the other dream layers.
Forget Scrooge; try 1984's Dreamscape, complete with internal fear- and guilt-born dream-constructs posing a threat to intruders and dream-alteration technology being applied for both therapeutic and criminal purposes.
Paranoia Fuel: Both in the movie and outside the movie.
In the movie, the extractors have to be careful not to alert the projections to their presence or they will be physically assaulted, which Ariadne learns the hard way.
Outside of the movie, it's a similar problem that people had with The Matrix. What if, at this very second, you are asleep and there are people poking around in your brain searching for secrets? Or maybe you're stuck several layers down in your own dreams, and have forgotten. Maybe your entire "life" has taken place over a few minutes. Eek.
The scene where Ariadne is in Cobb's dream, right after she presses the button leading to the proverbial Basement of Cobb's memories. The scene is presented in such a terrifying fashion; the elevator door opens and Ariadne steps into a fancy hotel room...that's been trashed. The background music is gone, and there's absolute silence. Then Ariadne steps on a glass. Then we see Mal. And she's looking at you. The net result of the entire scene can be summed up as Cobb has a grade-S Yandere in his subconscious and she wants out.
Signature Scene: Most viewers generally consider Arthur's zero-gravity fight in the second dream layer to be the best action scene in the entire film.
If not for the present-day setting and distinct lack of Artificial Intelligences, this movie could easily be a film adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer (and maybe the only one that we ever get to see). A thief who specializes in stealing data with a machine that puts him in lifelike VR simulations? Check. A mysterious businessman who gives said thief one last job in exchange for erasing the effects of a major screw-up from his past? Check. An elaborate heist in an ornately designed building with weird architecture and gravity? Check. Scenes where the protagonist is repeatedly visited by the hallucinatory ghost of his dead lover? Check. A scene where the protagonist gets trapped in a virtual construct of a surreal seaside locale where time moves at a crawl? Check.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The chord progression of "Time" sounds a lot like the chord progression in "Candy" by Paolo Nutini.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Despite taking place in a dream, most of the action scenes while well-choreographed tend to be relatively straightforward. The film justifies this by stating that drastically warping the dream reality attracts the attention of the mark's projections, but given that Real Dreams are Weirder, some viewers felt that this was a missed opportunity to have more outright surrealistic fight scenes.
Fischer Jr. The poor guy doesn't know a damn thing and gets dragged into this dreamy mess just because a rival businessman wants him to split his company. He longs for the respect and affection of his dad whose last words were that he was a disappointment, and then Cobb's team hijacks his mind, injects a completely engineered and probably false solution to his daddy issues and makes him believe what Saito wants him to believe. Plus, what with the seed of doubt the team planted in him for their own ends, he will most likely come to distrust his godfather from now on — the only family he has left, and who in the real world has shown nothing but genuine care for him.note unless you count that newspaper article implying that Browning resented Robert for being first in line for a position that Browning had objectively earned, and hated the idea of working for him.
Cobb as well. Living with the guilt and belief that he caused his wife's death, being on the run for being falsely accused of murdering her (though not too far from the truth), probably never getting to see his kids again, and always being tormented by visions of Mal in long-held dreams really makes you want to hug the poor guy.
Mal (the living one) as well. She killed herself fully convinced that this would cause her to wake up in the real world, so she could be with her real children again, unaware that this was the real world. Maybe, and those were her children. And it all happened because her husband underestimated the power of the suggestion he implanted in her mind. Her dream-self, however, is a...
Saito. Amoral or underhanded as he might be, he is sent to the Limbo and passes there what from his perspective could be easily thirty or forty years. Now imagine that much time in a place you can't leave and you know it is not the true reality, away from your life, your friends and loved ones, waiting for a rescue that may never come, and not knowing if your plan to save the world from an energy monopoly was ever successful. When Cobb finds him, he has been reduced to a hopeless, decaying old man who barely remembers his own life.
of Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Saturday Night Live.
