horsehead wrote:If the tone in my original post came off condescending, I didn't intend it that way. Certainly the film isn't simple. I've spend hours upon hours thinking through the details, reading the work of other people on this site and other sites and trying to figure out if it all actually works logically. I just think it's a lot simpler than what it seems people are making it out to be. I don't think it's necessary to make up rules like the pull theory just to force things to make sense. Again, not trying to be condescending. The movie wouldn't be half as fun if we couldn't dissect it.
For the record, I read several pages into this thread, skimmed others, and read the last few pages. I also read through the other thread on kicks and I haven't seen anything that disproved anything in my post. Nor have I seen anyone explain it in detail quite the way I tried to. That doesn't mean they didn't, of course.
If you feel like indulging me, what errors are there in my theory? Briefly, generally.
The only reason why I think your logic is flawed is because that is where I started prior to the post. I teetered, I tottered, then I posted, then I changed, then went back, found knew discrepancies, etc. It’s just that its a flawed movie (storytelling logic) not that your theory is flawed. All of them are.
“The only ways we see a dreamer exit a dream level in the film are through death or free fall in the dream.”
The first time a kick is shown, Arthur is pushed from a chair and wakes up. This happens again the next flash scene after.
"It's also implied in certain intances that a character can simply run out the clock, but I can't remember if we see it happen on screen."
This is shown in the scene after, describing how music can be a warning. Arthur and Ariadne are laying in lawn chairs in the warehouse and the music is playing to test the music warning that the timer on the dream sharing machine is running out. This is also shown on the train, when the asian character plays music in the architects ears in warning. Arthur was pulled out because of time running out; he disappears from Saito’s apartment.
"Maybe when Cobb is testing Yusuf's sedative? At any rate, I assume that's how they wake up from level 1 to the plane because they wake up just as they are descending in L.A."
From prior, I agree on this statement, though it comes with its own problems during the Level 1 “wait-out”.
"Since you have to fall in the dream, if you are asleep in the dream level you are falling in, you will not wake up."
Yusuf does in fact fall in the van, but is not awakened on the plane, even though he specifically says that the inner ear function is not hindered.
"That is why Arthur does not wake up when the van is falling. To wake up in the van, he has to fall in the hotel."
Agreed, under this theory.
"During the Cobol job at the beginning of the film, Cobb doesn't wake up when they push over his chair. He doesn't wake up when he hits the water. He wakes up when the waves come crashing down on him within the dream. There is no "pull.'"
According to Arthur falling from the chair and waking, this is a mistake. Either this is, or Arthur falling from the chair is. Either way, it is inconsistent.
"At that moment they awake from the previous level just in time to experience the feeling of free fall,..."
According to your logic, Arthur would have felt the free fall much earlier. I personally believe that the free fall effect didn’t happen until the elevator hit the shaft floor, thereby the elevator thrusting all from the roof of the elevator to the now destroyed floor of the elevator.
"...it was necessary as a plot device for Cobb to drown in the van so that he could end up in Saito's limbo)."
Limbo is a state of mind, not a place, presumably in the lowest level of the mind, the fully subconscious mind. Therefore, he did not need to drown in the van to reach limbo, he was already in limbo. He only had to travel from the space he constructed from his subconscious to the space Saito constructed within the subconscious. Remember that the subconscious space was shared. I could construct a building or world right next or within yours, and vice versa.
Now, as your reading this, you must be going, “Yup, I know”, “Yup, I know”, “I stated that inconsistency. With any (and presumably large) inconsistency’s that this simple and concise theory creates or ignores to elliminate, how can you say that your theory hold up better than any other with just the same (yet opposite) inconsistencies that they create. Show me a simple and concise theory that has no inconsistencies.
I believe that the Pull Theory is the intended one as that is how a “Kick” is introduced to us as (visually with simplified narrative). That comes with its own errors. Only the Push+Pull theory removes all inconsistencies though it is obvious to me that it was not the intended narrative and has just one inconsistency (being inner ear function is not hindered in the slightest).
It’s all the same, all with errors, the movie is flawed, and that is that. Therefore, so is your theory, but again, as an error in the movie and not your intelligence.
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