Sally, I'm starting to think you're bipolar. When the movie first came out, you said it was mediocre. Then the other day you were calling it a masterpiece and denouncing the fact that it won't win any serious awards. Now you're back to complaining about the movie. Make up your mind.

By the way, exposition is not the primary reason that it won't win any serious awards. The fact that it's an action/sci-fi movie is the primary thing holding it back.

redfirebird2008 wrote:Sally, I'm starting to think you're bipolar. When the movie first came out, you said it was mediocre. Then the other day you were calling it a masterpiece and denouncing the fact that it won't win any serious awards. Now you're back to complaining about the movie. Make up your mind.

By the way, exposition is not the primary reason that it won't win any serious awards. The fact that it's an action/sci-fi movie is the primary thing holding it back.

And the fact it's a weird existential sci-fi/action movie. Definitely weirder than The Matrix in terms of construction.

I do believe that people are just saying that Inception spends too much time explaining the rules of the dream world because they already have watched it for multiple times. They already grasped all of it by the third time they viewed the film that’s why whenever they watch it again, they weren’t paying attention now to the exposition thing. Well, I think they’re just after the STORY. Not the PLOT. Not about the NARRATIVE. Not how artistically the story unfolds. They are overlooking this creative process laid down by Master Nolan.

INCEPTION is very much OSCAR-worthy!!!

To be honest, I don't see how the film could have been done any other way.

It's a heist film. Therefore, much of the movie is the planning of the heist. To plan a heist, you have to go in to detail about what exactly you are going to do.

The Paris scene was a lesson for Ariadne, of course it was didactic, that was the whole point.

Now that I think about it, I can't think of a single scene that had dialogue that didn't fit naturally with the story. Exposition wasn't a crutch, it was a necessity for telling the story that Nolan wanted to tell. If you don't like that story, fine, but don't argue that Nolan was just lazy in his execution.

Complaining about the "exposition" in Inception is the equivalent to complaining about Two-Face's inclusion at the end of The Dark Knight: changing or eliminating it would change the story, not make it "better".

Vasticity wrote:And I mean, honestly, think about if you were in Ariadne's shoes for a bit. If you didn't ask any questions and didn't know things about people who you would be sharing your subconscious with, you'd be dead in five minutes.

hoppity-kick wrote:I do believe that people are just saying that Inception spends too much time explaining the rules of the dream world because they already have watched it for multiple times. They already grasped all of it by the third time they viewed the film that’s why whenever they watch it again, they weren’t paying attention now to the exposition thing. Well, I think they’re just after the STORY. Not the PLOT. Not about the NARRATIVE. Not how artistically the story unfolds. They are overlooking this creative process laid down by Master Nolan.

INCEPTION is very much OSCAR-worthy!!!

tokkaandrahzar wrote:To be honest, I don't see how the film could have been done any other way.

It's a heist film. Therefore, much of the movie is the planning of the heist. To plan a heist, you have to go in to detail about what exactly you are going to do.

The Paris scene was a lesson for Ariadne, of course it was didactic, that was the whole point.

Now that I think about it, I can't think of a single scene that had dialogue that didn't fit naturally with the story. Exposition wasn't a crutch, it was a necessity for telling the story that Nolan wanted to tell. If you don't like that story, fine, but don't argue that Nolan was just lazy in his execution.

Complaining about the "exposition" in Inception is the equivalent to complaining about Two-Face's inclusion at the end of The Dark Knight: changing or eliminating it would change the story, not make it "better".

AGREE!!

George wrote: Which is my point. Inception is show and tell rather than show, don't tell.

I think what he was trying to say is a refference between what Cobb said about inspiration and perception and creation in the same time.

Anyway I don't want to make it a long post so I'll just say that even 'less exposition' would make Inception too much of a different kind of movie and god knows how the rhythm of it would work out then. In addition to that I can't imagine how the characters could execute every single task without discussing it and you all know that. Even if everything's supposed to go by plan there's gonna be talk about it. And not only that many things aren't going as planned in the movie but there's a newcommer.

Picture this. You're a worker on a construction site. You and your collegues have all been doing this for a long time, you all know your jobs and purposes there, you all know the plan, but communication and further planning and discussion in real time is still inevitable.

I know some people would preffer more time with the characters, but this deffinitely isn't that type of movie and I don't think that's bad, it just isn't that type of movie. We all know we can't have everything and even with the exposition we already got in the movie after several seeings there's still too many why-s and why-not-s and I hate repeating other people, but that's the truth.

And I gotta say this:

-It's a heist movie. Some guys doing something very important for some guy who's very important. For one of the characters this means freedom or prison. It then turns out that for all of the characters it means sanity or insanity (waking life or dream).

So. Having in mind all this. What else do you expect them to talk about in the current setting we have in the movie? Eames sharing some kind of needless info about for example... sometimes not lifting the toilet seat or uhm... a really devoloped love theme between Arthur and Ariadne or... Cobb and Arthur having a longer conversation about the old days, having in mind that the conversations Cobb had with Eames and with Ariadne about his past (and in Cobb's conversation with Eames in Mombasa did establish a certain kind of relationship between them to which contributed to their characters, Arthur and Eames' relationship also did that) already said enough...

Really I don't get it. At first (after the 2nd viewing) I did think about that bland character thing. But now I'm ready to argue. Now I think the movie did more than enough characterization to keep it working. Ofcourse the characters are bland if we compare them to characters from a character-driven movie for example There will be blood. There it was all about Daniel Plainview and Eli and the whole purpose of the movie was to show you more about those characters, while here it ain't so. And once accepting that Inception's goal wasn't delivering truly rich characterization then it would be all ok for everyone, having in mind everything else it achieved.


EDIT: Also I think... what this movie lacked (lacked not in a bad way, it just didn't have place there) was conflicts between characters. Conflicts are a great test of character but here there wasn't any room for such. Only Cobb had a conflict with himself and that is all. And that did its purpose too.

Seriously, I still don't get when people say there's no character development. I mean, I'm not being an asshole here, I really do not get it! What do you want to see? Arthur on his way home crying because his daugher was hit by a motorcycle 20 years ago and he still can't cope with it? I don't get it. It would be anything except "natural". You do get to know a lot about Cobb and his wife and that's all that matters. The other ones just help with the "heist". It's like in real life.

Rob wrote:Seriously, I still don't get when people say there's no character development. I mean, I'm not being an asshole here, I really do not get it! What do you want to see? Arthur on his way home crying because his daugher was hit by a motorcycle 20 years ago and he still can't cope with it? I don't get it. It would be anything except "natural". You do get to know a lot about Cobb and his wife and that's all that matters. The other ones just help with the "heist". It's like in real life.

What you're describing is characterisation – the fleshing out of a character, either by description or by actions from which we, the audience, can infer the character's qualities.

Character development is the transformational change that a character undergoes during the course of the narrative. Cobb and Fischer both change through the film. On a surface level (excluding any wild theories) none of the other characters really do. You could argue that Ariadne, as a result of being schooled by Cobb, steps up and takes control when she makes the decision to follow Fischer into Limbo but I see that as her continuing to provide the same function she does throughout the film: guiding Cobb through the labyrinth of his flaky subconscious by giving him a fresh outlook on the situation.

In real life (our real life) other people are not the two-dimensional personae that all the other characters in Inception are. It's not just that they are static (as opposed to Cobb and Fischer being dynamic characters), it's that they're also not fleshed out to any discernible degree. Characteristically, they're pretty much interchangeable (as Nolan's dream layer map showed; he couldn't decide whether Eames or Arthur would be the dreamer in levels 2 and 3).

Within the boundaries of the film none of this is an issue. They're stock characters and they're intended to be - they perform the roles within the plot that Nolan needed them for. The story revolves very much around Cobb's 'man vs. himself' conflict and all of the other characters are merely orbiting that central point. Cobb himself says that the only thing he cares about is getting back to his children, regardless of the danger he puts everyone else in. From an existentialist perspective it is, as you say, just like in real life.

I think the problem is that Inception comes off pretty badly in terms of character when compared to other ensemble films (which is what most heist movies are). Essentially it's not really an ensemble piece and it's not really a heist movie. Essentially it's not really a science fiction movie. Those are all genres and facades that the real story is disguised by. For me it's the story of a man overcoming (or succumbing to, depending on whether or not the spinning top falls at the end) his psychological inner demons. That's why the other characters are not fleshed out more and why there's 'no' character development.

There's plenty of characterisation and character development in The Prestige, and I think that's partially what he was playing with in Memento. It's not like Nolan can't write that stuff. If he'd wanted it in Inception it would be there. That it isn't, in my opinion, is primarily because he wants us to be fully committed to Cobb's emotional journey, including not being 100% certain (as Cobb himself never is) that he's not in a dream and they are not all just figments of his imagination.

Anne Elk (Miss) wrote:

Rob wrote:Seriously, I still don't get when people say there's no character development. I mean, I'm not being an asshole here, I really do not get it! What do you want to see? Arthur on his way home crying because his daugher was hit by a motorcycle 20 years ago and he still can't cope with it? I don't get it. It would be anything except "natural". You do get to know a lot about Cobb and his wife and that's all that matters. The other ones just help with the "heist". It's like in real life.

What you're describing is characterisation – the fleshing out of a character, either by description or by actions from which we, the audience, can infer the character's qualities.

Character development is the transformational change that a character undergoes during the course of the narrative. Cobb and Fischer both change through the film. On a surface level (excluding any wild theories) none of the other characters really do. You could argue that Ariadne, as a result of being schooled by Cobb, steps up and takes control when she makes the decision to follow Fischer into Limbo but I see that as her continuing to provide the same function she does throughout the film: guiding Cobb through the labyrinth of his flaky subconscious by giving him a fresh outlook on the situation.

In real life (our real life) other people are not the two-dimensional personae that all the other characters in Inception are. It's not just that they are static (as opposed to Cobb and Fischer being dynamic characters), it's that they're also not fleshed out to any discernible degree. Characteristically, they're pretty much interchangeable (as Nolan's dream layer map showed; he couldn't decide whether Eames or Arthur would be the dreamer in levels 2 and 3).

Within the boundaries of the film none of this is an issue. They're stock characters and they're intended to be - they perform the roles within the plot that Nolan needed them for. The story revolves very much around Cobb's 'man vs. himself' conflict and all of the other characters are merely orbiting that central point. Cobb himself says that the only thing he cares about is getting back to his children, regardless of the danger he puts everyone else in. From an existentialist perspective it is, as you say, just like in real life.

I think the problem is that Inception comes off pretty badly in terms of character when compared to other ensemble films (which is what most heist movies are). Essentially it's not really an ensemble piece and it's not really a heist movie. Essentially it's not really a science fiction movie. Those are all genres and facades that the real story is disguised by. For me it's the story of a man overcoming (or succumbing to, depending on whether or not the spinning top falls at the end) his psychological inner demons. That's why the other characters are not fleshed out more and why there's 'no' character development.

There's plenty of characterisation and character development in The Prestige, and I think that's partially what he was playing with in Memento. It's not like Nolan can't write that stuff. If he'd wanted it in Inception it would be there. That it isn't, in my opinion, is primarily because he wants us to be fully committed to Cobb's emotional journey, including not being 100% certain (as Cobb himself never is) that he's not in a dream and they are not all just figments of his imagination.

Bingo

redfirebird2008 wrote:By the way, exposition is not the primary reason that it won't win any serious awards. The fact that it's an action/sci-fi movie is the primary thing holding it back.

You hit the nail right on the head then. If you believe the "The Academy", SF must be some sort of crap that nobody is interested in. BUT, look at how SF dominates the most successful films of all time........