Comments on: Damon Lindeloff Explains Inception Ending

By: i.am.awake

i.am.awake — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 08:43:07 +0000

totems are used to realise if they are in SOMEONE’S dream or not…basically totem does not work in ur own dream…because..u can control ur dream..if cobb wants he can spin the top forever or just make it topple in his dream unless he gives attention to it…i mean, if he doesn give attention, it will spin forever..cause before losing attention his subsconcious knows that its spinning and subsconcious will keep it spining unless he wants it topple down..which exactly happens in the movie…when cobb does reallity chek in reallity, the top topples cause he wants it to topple but in the end he spins the top and doesn give attention to it..which why his subsconcious keeps it spinning perfectly saying the whole movie was cobb’s dream…and that explains too why mal keeps interfering in the other dreams…because too many dreams make it unstable for cobb…and he loses control over subsconcoius which why his subsconcious keeps interfering.

By: liza

liza — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:12:08 +0000

i think the film ends in reality and thats because dicaprio had as his totem his children.he was just keeping mal’s totem for sentimental reasons and thats why in the last scene he doesnt stay to see if it falls or still spins.he doesnt actually care to see because it was never his totem so it was never a proof of being in a dream or not.in this scene his kids show their faces for the first time and that means he returned in reality.in his dreams they never show their faces and that is a proof for him that he’s dreaming.by not seeing their faces he is never confused about reality and always knows he’s in a dream.

By: Architect

Architect — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:49:37 +0000

The Inception was made to Cobb. The inception of the film is the moment when the seed was left in his mind. He then believes he is dreaming since the beginning which then make he finally believes that when he woke up in the plane he is in the reality. The Architect (Ariadne) is the key. She is a lot more skilled than Cobb, she knows how to manage gravity (so the totem) and made Cobb and all spectator believe that the inception mission to Fischer was the reality. Observe also that Ariadne learned a lot about Cobb’s psychology and Limbo, she is the only one allowed or that had succeeded to enter his Limbo so whenever she got that she would be able to architect the “reality” Cobb was looking for.

By: Rodney

Rodney — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:49:50 +0000

In reply to Ty. Because you keep posting links. The commenting rules are very clear that posting links will result in comments being removed. The spam filter automatically discards posts with links in them.

By: Ty

Ty — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:33:25 +0000

I’m confused why my posts keep getting deleted… but basically the link I posted earlier talked about how an indicator of whether Cobb was in reality or not was his ring.

EVERY inception scene had Cobb with his ring. Whenever he was ‘under’ he always had his ring on. However, whenever he was awake he didn’t have it on. The top falling over – albeit, conveniently – could have been a red herring from Nolan.

The children at the end were also different ages, if you look at the casting list. The clothing could have just been a coincidence. The fact is, they were older (check out the cast listing).

That’s basically the gist of what I posted earlier. Ty – over and out.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:59:54 +0000

In reply to Victor. If following Octany's theory (which to me, makes sense), the phone call from Saito on the plane doesn't have to mean anything. No words were said by Saito after they awoke on the plane, so it could have just been some random guy on a plane making a phone call to his mom or something.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:25:23 +0000

In reply to mia.

I think you are onto something. I must watch this movie again its so frustrating to me. I feel like I missed so much because truthfully just as I accept my dreams as I am dreaming them, I accepted the “reality” that is compromised of Cobb and his team trying to perform inception on fischer. If I would have adopted the viewpoint that Cobb could have quite possibly been dreaming I feel like I would have caught a lot more events and strange occurences that indicate we are always watching a dream world.

Regardless there most likely will be no solid answer, and we all have to accept that. Its still fun to think about…

By: margaret o

margaret o — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:55:07 +0000

In reply to jake 101.

Right, if you remember, Arthur tells Ariadne that people make the totems themselves so they know whether or not they have come out of the dream state. Then Ariadne is told that Cobb’s totem was originall Mal’s – that always bothered me, because if he adopted Mal’s totem then how would he ever know if he was out of the dream state or not, since he did not make the totem himself?

By: Ramneek

Ramneek — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:14:31 +0000

I have a different view here, regarding the ending….

In the last level… where he goes to his wife to confront her… he is stabbed and his wife is shot by the other lady…. to come out of that level… the other lady jumps off the building… but he remains there with his wife… remember they lay down on floor together… I feel there he goes into another level deep… and in that level he dreams that he wakes up in the plane and has completed his job, so saito, makes a call for him to get immigration…. but when he reaches home… it is revealed to us that it is infact a dream because that top never falls…

Another reason to support the above conclusion is, remember in the drowning van, everyone is shown to wake up except for cobb… if he never woke up in van… he would have never got out of sleep in plane… and from the last level he is directly shown to be awake in the plane… and not the intermediate levels…. so thats possible only if he himself dreams about waking up in the plane……

Well… just may be… its just my point of view…

By: Ty

Ty — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:55:52 +0000

In reply to Victor. How did DiCaprio's character come up with the knowledge that Saito would make the phone call, before waking up?

By: mia

mia — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:02:01 +0000

A part of the movie that has got me confused is about Cobb and his wife growing old together while they were in Limbo. When ever she appears she always says to him ‘do you remember when you asked me to marry you, and you said you had a dream that we will grow old together.’ In the final sceen when he revistits the limbo he and his wife had created, he says to her ‘we did’. So why is it that when he talks about getting her out of limbo initially where they lie on the rail tracks they are young? How did that happen? Have I missed something. Even if the entire movie is a dream, this still doesnt make any sence.

By: Victor

Victor — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:50:45 +0000

In reply to Octony.

I thought for sure that the end was a dream because the kids never aged, however, after reading Octony’s interpretation that the whole movie is a dream until the very end, I agree with that. Cobb drifts in and out of reality explaining how that happens always crediting his wife – who apparently killed herself. The totem in his dream was hers and she was the dream expert who eventually couldn’t tell the difference between reality and the dream. If he really was in a limbo state as his subconscious state believes than either he stays in limbo or awakes – not dream he is coming home to his kids. Also, there is no equipment on the plane when he wakes up on the plane and his friends/the people in the airport act as if they don’t know him. Because they don’t! They just shared a plane ride and they were the last people he saw before he began his elaborate dream. The totem was his wife’s (and he only dreamt it meant something to him) that is why when he came home to the kids he spun it and could care less if it stopped.