what follows is my understanding of the chronology of subject's state of mind and his perceptions during the length of the story. From what is being presented in the movie, i see that the objective of Dicaprio's team was not actually met!! Why i think that way would hopefully be apparent towards the end. May be i am missing some point but please feel free to comment.
Objective of DiCaprio's team:
Implant a new idea/thought in the mind of Subject at Level 0.
That is- by the end of the process, the subject in Level 0 should be aware/know with authenticity, about a NEW important information 'xyz' previously unknown to him; and backed by a reason strong enough to believe it is true
Subject's/Victim's(Cillian Murphy) State of mind:
Level 0:
Traveling with bunch of guys in a plane.
Duration of journey is 10hrs.
Level1:
Doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world.
Inception team is his enemy and is harmful to him.
His Godfather/Advisor(Tom Berenger)is a good man.
Level2:
Initially doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world Later, Dicaprio convinces him that,
-this is a dream world, where his godfather is trying to extract info from him and Level 1 is the actual real world.
-and that subject's Godfather knows some very important info relating to Business empire, which need to be extracted from him.
Subject friends with DiCaprio's team.
Level3:
Knows he is dreaming. But still thinking that Level1 is real world, Level2 is Dream and now thinks he entered into Level3 which is the Dream of his Godfather(Berenger), to extract some valuable info.
Level 4:
Dead/Inanimate
Ms.Page gives him a kick so that he could wake up/go live and continue on with his work back in Level 3
Level 3:
Now he extracted valuable info from the subconciousness of Berenger.
Goes through some Father-child emotion and changes his future direction.
(From Dicaprio's perspective, New thought implanted into Subject's mind.(But notice new thought which is real with respect to only Level1 subject but not Level 0 subject ))
Level 2:
Knows he is dreaming.
Thinks he is Just one level from Real world which for him has been Level 1.
Thinks that with the help of his friends, he successfully extracted some valuable info(previously unknown to him) from his godfather's dream
Friends with DiCaprio's team
Equipped with New info he extracted from his god father's dream
Level 1:
Friends with DiCaprio team.
Thinks he is back to real world with the new thought carried from his Godfather's dream to Intermediate dream to real world.
Ready to implement the thought in this Level 1 real world. He is not aware of the existence of any Level 0.
Level 0:
No relationship with Dicaprio team.
Just Remembers about the new thought as a part of the dream(s) he had. But he comes to know that he Level 1 is just a dream but not real world .The new throught is not from a real world experience.
(This is the transition i would like to question. The movie doesn't show what the subject was thinking when he is back to this level 0. Everyone starts walking as if objective was achieved )
what's not convincing is:
The subject thinks that he just had a normal dream of his own, not shared by anyone else, and that all new thoughts were part of his own dream, But not part of some REALLY planned extraction from his Godfather(as in deeper levels) at Level 0, which means there is no authenticity associated with the new thought he now has at Level 0.
But for the Subject who lived in Level1, yes since it is real world to him he would have followed the thought that is being implanted into him. Because at L1, he was aware, that he had really shared dreams with others and came to know about some info from subconscious of other people.
But isn't the objective of Dicaprio team is to implant the idea with authenticity, into the mind of subject in Level 0 ? The subject would not follow the implanted idea in Level 0 because, he knows that the idea belongs to Level 1 which he consciously considers as his own dream, meaning DiCaprio team's objective is not met.
Am i missing something?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Is there a hole in the plot of 'Inception' Or am i missing something here?
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15 comments:
yes. his statement to his dream godfather was on a level he would half remember, showing that his concious mind now has the seed planted that he should break up the company. the idea will grow from there.
^Sort of agree with the above comment. The contract was only to plant the idea. Not see it through to completion in reality. We know that in reality Fischer's father said he was disappointed with him. After Eames learnt this fact in level 1, he turned it on its head to gave it back to Fischer in level 3, suggesting that perhaps he was disappointed because Fischer tried to be like him. So by the time Fischer wakes up on the plane, he essentially has two "new" thoughts. 1. That he could split up the company. This on its own is weak and "is at the mercy of Fischer's prejudice". So Eames planted this on top of idea no.2 - Perhaps Fischer's father loved him after all but didn't show it coz Fischer kept trying to be like him. Idea 2 is hard to verify as Fischer's father is dead. So it has a greater chance of sticking which means idea 1 has a chance of taking root. What Fischer will do with the idea is beyond the scope and would really be highly unpredictable. If I were Saito I wouldn't give Cobb any money for the job, but who knows.
At Level 1, yes the Subject has the Seed planted in his mind. He will follow that thought in L1 because, he knows that his dreams from Level 2 and further are actually constructed/controlled dreams driven and shared by real people (real with respect to L1).
At Level 0, the Subject will know about Level 1 and about the thought that was acquired during that level.
But he doesn't know that Level 1 is a controlled/constructed dream driven by real people(real with respect to Level 0), and would think it is just a normal every day dream driven by himself alone and not shared with anyone else. So, he would give the happenings of that dream just as much importance as those of any normal dream.
you are talking about 5 levels. what, if you add another level and finally take away 4 of them? cobb is waking up at level 0, all the other levels are part of one complex dream, he had during a 10 hours flight. simple, but working :-)
At Level 1, when he woke up he knows that it is not just an other every-day normal dream but an orchestrated one. So whatever comes out of it he has a reason to believe.
At Level 0, when he woke up he is thinks that he had an other normal dream and would give only so much weight to its content(including the new thought he acquired at Level 1) as any other normal dream.
I didn't quite understand the 5 level-4 level comment. Elaborate if you could...please. Thank you.
The goal of Copp's team is to plant an idea into his mind and make it look like it is his own inspiration, so it SHOULD appear like an everyday dream on level 0so that the inspiration (the idea, the seed) takes time to grow.
If he recognise level 0 is the reality, then level 1, 2 and 3 are just too clear and too deliberate to deliver him the message (to break the company), which is obviously not Copp's intention.
It doesn't matter that Fischer thinks it was all a dream, he is supposed to think that and not remember Cobb and his crew (for all we know, he doesn't need to remember any layer of the dream at all).. It just matters that in the dream the idea was planted deep into his mind and we see by his behaviour in the dream that he wants to act upon that idea..
Just as we saw how it worked with Mal. The idea stuck deep into her, and even after waking up she still wanted to act upon that idea.
There isn't any other logic but this, cause this is the logic Nolan created for the Inception, and if everything is right by his logic (and we see it is comparing Fischer's and Mal's experience), then it is simply done right.. so I see no flaw in this.
Now, what troubles my mind is this...
When crew is inside Layer 2 (all but the farmacist, who is still in Layer 1 driving the van), and the van is pushed off the bridge - what happenes? Layer 2 loses gravity, cause people sleeping in Layer 1 are in the air (in van), so it reflects on their dream in Layer 2..
If I got it correctly, the sleeper must wake up by falling from somewhere, that's why the van is falling in Layer 1, the elevator is falling in Layer 2 and the building is falling in Layer 3, with all the people in it. They just need to synhronize it so when they wake up from Layer 3, they are already falling in Layer 2, and again they wake up and go to Layer 1.
So if this is how it's meant to work, how come Layer 3 doesn't lose gravity when in Layer 2 their sleeping bodies begin to fall with the elevator?
The goal was exactly to have the subject think that it was his own dream, so that he wouldn't recognize the idea as coming from someone else although it did.
The reason for going so deep to his subconscious was that the idea would take only if it was buried deep enough into the subconscious. And we're talking about SUBconscious - the idea is not even supposed to be conscious.
It's however rooted so deep into his mind that it'll ideally be impossible to shake and it will shape the future of Mr. Fischer. That's the theory anyways - given some credibility by Mr. Cobb's earlier experiences with Ms. Cobb.
As for the level 3 not losing gravity... Maybe the effects of the upper level only carries to the next. Remember Saito getting shot in the first level? He was told that it will be easier on the further levels, and it was. Perhaps that's the key.
I'm not that convinced though.
I agree with your plot hole.
Here's another one: When they first get to level 1 we are told that if they die in the dream their brain will turn to mush since the chemist used some new 'stronger' prescription. This presumably happens to make the action scenes become meaningful.
BUT - later on at the bottom level Saito is convinced to shoot himself in order to wake up. Why does his brain not turn to mush. Also Ariadne kills herself by swan diving off the building.
Also:
At one point the english guy says 'you have to dream bigger' and pulls out a rocket launcher. If you can dream up new weapons, why don't they whip out loony-tunes style machine guns a la 'the mask'? For that matter, none of the action scenes make sense since its all a dream right? There is no laws of physics determining if the bullet hits you or not.
Also:
they never explain the technology behind the dream sharing device. Dreams within dreams - fine I buy it. But a suitcase with wires that telepathically links people's minds? If such a thing existed, society would be radically different. And billionaires would presumably be aware of the threat of mind-melding and have some kind of defense system (a bodyguard perhaps)?
Also:
Why does Fischer not recognize Cobb at the airport at the end after interacting with him during the crazy 10 hour dream he has just had.
Also:
If Saito has enough spare cash to buy an airline, why is he so threatened by Fischer's corporation? Surely he could come up with a less risky plan than trying to incept the idea of 'breaking up the company'. How does he know that part of the broken up company would not go on to beat him anyway?
Also:
when they first find out that Fisher's mind has been weaponized and that dying in the dream will turn them to vegetables, why don't they abort the mission and all fall over backwards to 'kick' themselves back to reality?
Also:
Why does the chemist create the stronger potentially mind-mushing chemical in the first place? Why does Cobb agree to use it?
Also:
Why does Saito choose to go into the dream in the first place? You don't get to be a genius billionaire by taking unnecessary risks.
Ok I'm going to stop now... :)
@felix:
Some real good points there. yes, its like starting a game and changing the rules of the game as it progresses, at director's will.
For felix. 1. You go to limbo if you die inside a dream while beeing sedated, or dream inside lvl 3 dream. You wake up from limbo if you realize that the limbo is not real(remember Mal locking the totem away) or get killed . Period. That`s the rule of the movie, we stick to it. Ariadne and Saito die inside a limbo so they wake up. We are beeing told that the limbo is a dream that keeps u trapped because you don`t realize you`re dreaming or you don`t want to realize.
2. They use stronger "potions" because they need to sleep very deep in order to get to a 3 lvl dream, that`s why Cobb agreed with the pharmacist
I know this is kind of an old question... but what is possible is that the inception was actually on Cobb himself. He believed that he could not return to his family until his name was cleared and could free his wife from his mind and quit blaming himself for her death. Add 1 level to all of your levels... level 0 and the end of the movie is actually level 1 and Cobb just didn't realize it.
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