Everything about THE INCEPTION

Why? Well why not? Let’s crap:

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Here’s a rant on The Inception for all you confused people out there
Got most of it in the first go.. confirmed others in the second yep, seen it twice in the last week

So, think of it as a classic heist/con movie or a Hustle episode, if you will.

First, the character roles:

Cobb is the con man, The Extractor, who gets his target to reveal their secrets.

Ariadne is the fixer, The Architect, who builds the false reality where the extractor brings in the mark, or The Subject.
The dream world has to be a maze like structure, because the architect has a limit, and so that the subject doesn’t reach the ‘edge’ of the construct, to realize they aren’t in the real world or in their own dream; because in one’s own dream, the brain constructs worlds so fast that there is virtually no ‘edge’, just like the real world.

Fischer is the mark, The Dreamer or The Subject, that enters the architect’s dream thinking of it as his own, or not realizing it to be a dream at all. He fills the world with his subconscious, where each person represents some information that is contained within the subject’s mind.

Eames is the impersonator, The Forger, that tricks the subject into believing he is some one else. Since the subject is dreaming, his mind automatically projects the image of the person he THINKS the forger to be, on to him, making him appear like the person he is impersonating, unless he tells them that he is not; that’s when the illusion disappears.

Next, the setting:

If you die in the dream, you wake up. But if under sedation, you need a kick to wake, which may be in form of a fall (off a chair, for example). If under sedation, you die before the kick, you go into limbo, an un-constructed dream space, basically pure subconscious, leaving you confused whether you are in real world or a dream, effecting a coma on the subject.

The Dreamer is a person who allots a space for the dream world, which is created by the architect and populated by the subject. The dreamer can’t enter another dream within a dream, otherwise the base dream would end.

So, in level 1, The Rainy City, Yusuf is the dreamer.
In level 2, The Hotel, Arthur is the dreamer.
In level 3, The Snow Fortress, Eames is the dreamer.
In level X, The Limbo, anybody can bring elements of their own subconscious into it, since its like a blank map in game. Since Cobb has a raging subconscious, he brings the entire city he and Mal built, into it.

Here’s Cinema Blend’s take on it:

On to the points of interest (SPOILER ALERT!):

0. A MAJOR question is that, with Mal ready to jump, why is the room behind her identical to Cobb’s? And why does Cobb say “come towards me” instead of “go back inside”? Moreover, in his MEMORY, she is IN the room and he leaves her there. Has he been lying?
1. If the mark is trained to defend their mind against extractors, it would attack them subconsciously, in form of the militarized security we see in the movie.
2. Mal, Cobb’s dead wife, is simply a projection of Cobb’s subconscious, emerging from his need to be with her. In form of her, his subconscious actually tries to pull him back to The Limbo, where he could “be with her”, as it is the deepest part of the subconscious.
3. The whole point of Eames impersonating Browning was that Fischer would create a projection of him in the dream, and the team could fool him by saying they are taking him into Browning’s dream, where actually they take him into Arthur’s dream. So basically, when Fischer thinks he is fighting Browning’s projections, he is actually fighting his own, as he is the subject, not browning; thus lowering the defenses of his own subconscious.
4. Yes, the paper fan was planted by Eames. It was the simplest form of the idea “be your own man, not what I want you to be” for Fischer, given his relationship with his father. How did he know about it? They stole Fischer’s wallet twice, remember?
5. When Cobb planted the idea of “your world is not real” into Mal’s mind, he only meant for it to make her want to wake up, however, it took hold and destroyed the sense of fulfillment and connection she once had with the limbo. Causing her to question the reality of reality and want to die, to wake up.
6. Yes, Mal’s last words, about the reality being fantastically faceless and dreamy, are stabs towards the current world culture.
7. Although the top doesn’t fall, it does WOBBLE before the movie ends in black.

PS:
1. Read basic concepts. Mal is dead. Dreamer can’t enter another dream. Cobb’s memory shows only two of them dreaming. That means Cobb was never dreaming, throughout the movie, he was in someone else’s dream.
2. He didn’t wear a ring in the real world. He did so in the dream world.
Now guess! Lucky lucky!

So what do we take away?

Throughout the film Cobb is shown spinning the top and watching it intently, being obsessed with reality. But in the end, he spins it, and simply walks away, not caring, thus completing the arc of his character development; because what he sees in front of him, it makes him happy, and he accepts it as his reality.

We already know that Mal was the embodiment of the viewer’s (perhaps the entire people of the world, in general) take on out world; and Cobb, their physical embodiment. So go figure.

The movie is its own maze designed to plant a simple little idea in the viewer’s mind: “reality” is a relative concept.

Cheers to Mr. Nolan. He successfully performed inception on you, leaving you to question the reality of reality.

Here’s something fun: