But what would prevent Cobb from dreaming either that the top behaved according to the 'dreamworld special property,' OR according to the Reality property? We're shown, time and again, that Cobb brings things to dreams (trains, Mal) without consciously intending to bring them . What would stop him ...

If Nolan has confirmed that he saw Paprika before filming Inception , then it's perfectly possible that the 'woman walks over to spot with hand up, touches, and it crumbles' image influenced his set-up of Ariadne's scene. The influence could have been either conscious or unconscious. I see no dishon...

Most people aren't familiar enough with dreaming to realize how unrealistic some of the movie devices are. True, but (I think) Nolan's screenplay wisely employed aspects of dreaming that we believe are true. The time compression 'feels' true to many of us--even if recent research casts doubt on thi...

Oops--I see that the article-author's name is prominently displayed in the thread title; my apologies to the OP! Please accept my self-facepalm:

Well its not quotable dialogue, but I like dialogue that is loaded with information without sounding like it is. ... As with the response The Blonde gives to The Young Man when he tells her, with a certain amount of self-importance, that he's a writer: "Gosh." Not particularly quotable---but a funn...

Cobb's totem has a special property in the dreamworld, and not reality. That is also a major point. Mal was the genius that created it idea, and Cobb twisted it to get her out, but sadly the idea stuck and the first Inception was done without any cautious pre-planning. Ultimately the totem helped C...

Many thanks, M. Fancypants, for posting this. I agree that it is insightful and beautifully-written. I loved this assessment of Nolan as a filmmaker: ...the creator of cerebral blockbusters that make big demands on audiences’ supposedly modest intelligence and ever-dwindling attention span... I agre...

"But then there's the theory that the entire film could have been a big con to get Cobb to let go of his past guilt..." I think I agree with this. But I do not think that the spinning of the top, on which a lot of people seem to concentrate, is the key to the plot. I think the kids are, more specif...

As many have noted, Nolan's use of the wedding ring is impressively consistent throughout the movie. We see the ring on Cobb's finger in scenes that are clearly marked as being dreams, or as Cobb-described flashbacks; and we see Cobb's ringless finger in scenes not clearly marked as being dreams. M...

I looked for information on this (both by reading thread titles and through Search) but didn't come up with any: I'm wondering if I can change the setting on a sub-board AWAY from the "No unread posts" designation that seems to apply automatically to all threads of a certain age, regardless of wheth...