EPTAnd it was a nice movie, great action thriller but not deserving of #1 IMDB at all. Those four climaxes that had to happen at the same time, all the kicks, it was pretty nerve wrecking and had me almost falling off my chair, the cast and acting was stellar and the director was totally in control of realizing his own dream of making this movie, but it was really just another action thriller heist flick. I'll certainly watch it again some time.
So after watching it I had a pretty clear idea about what this movie was about, the possibility that the world we live in, the world we immerse our selves in, this world is not the real world, there is something else that is more real than this. I tried to talk to some other human being about this, "So what about that Inception movie, huh?" and they were like "Yea, what was that about, did that top stop spinning or what?".
Now first about the top, a lot of people think that this top is Cobb's totem, and that it determines whether he's in reality or not. They seem to think that it determines whether he's in reality or not, because that's the main unanswered question they have in the end of the movie, and they seem to think that it's Cobb's because he's seen carrying it around with him (also a scene early in the movie suggests these two things). People ignore the facts that totems do not determine whether you're in a dream, only whether you're in someone else's dream, and that the top is Mal's totem and that Cobb's totem is not clearly referenced in the movies (though observant viewers will notice that whenever Cobb is dreaming, he is wearing a wedding ring, and also, Mal and freight trains appear sporadically to spice up his day). I tend to ignore those facts too, because no matter what Cobb's totem is and what it does, the question we are left with is, in the end when Cobb accepts his children as real, is Cobb in reality?
This question is at the heard of skepticism. "Is this reality?", "Is anything?" or even shorter "Is?". Skepticism isn't new, it's been around for quite a while, while Inception and Matrix take them up and say "This isn't real, this is either a dream or it is a big machine used in a scheme to harvest your body energy (or maybe you're in the matrix dreaming that you're in a PASIV)" some dude in France talked about similar questions ages ago wondering if he was being deceived by an evil demon to think that the world around him was real. Also, slightly related, if this is real how can we know that the past is real and it wasn't just put there to look real? Did the first trees that God created have age rings? Was Your Mom created just one second ago, and memories engineered into her brain as well as everybody else's to make it appear that she'd been there all along?
I think that these questions can put anybody into a hopeless and desperate situation, and I know that they can put somebody into a hopeless and desperate situation. Stupid simple questions like "Is?" can occupy a mind for millenia, impossible and infinite. It's hard to distinguish between an answer to this question and the reasons for even bothering with the question in the first place.
When we were born we didn't question reality, mom was real, dad was real, thumb was real, ceiling was real but you started learning about reality. You played peek-a-boo with your mother, and every time she vanished from your reality you cried, but there she was again and you smiled and laughed. Later you looked in a mirror, there was an entire world in there fading in and out of existence. The idea of non-being slowly entered your conciousness. Is this or isn't this? But the idea of being came before non-being, non-being relies on being. It's in the languages too, you can't even say "non-being" without saying "being" too. To human beings the concept of being is more basic and more native to our mind than non-being, so why the sudden fascination with being versus non-being that is at the core of skepticism?
Skepticism is "If you do not know that the world around you is real, then you don't know if anything in the world around you is real. You do not know that the world around you is real, so you don't know if anything in the world around you is real". This is a very basic form of logical argument. In Inception this question is "You do not know that the world around you is not just a PASIV dream, thus you do not know if your children are real or just 'projection of a subconciousness'". While this is a valid argument there are other arguments just as valid. "If you know that something in the world around you is real, then you know that reality exists. You know that something is real, thus reality exists." is an argument that is just as valid. I look my woman straight in the eyes and I know that she is real, I can feel it right here in my soul. She is real so something outside my mind is real, thus reality exists and it is not just an illusion conjured up by a machine or a devil or myself. In the end both arguments are valid, it is up to the perceiver to determine whether his or her reality is real. It is a choice that you make yourself, and, obviously, no one else can make it for you.
This brings me back to the movie, Cobb moves away from the top before he has a chance to see if it topples. Fuck that top. Cobb chooses his reality when he moves away from the top, he chooses that his kids are real and now he is going to be with them. If this is all a dream, can Cobb even trust the top? Mal couldn't. And then the final kick from one reality to another in the movie happens, a sharp hight pitch wobbly sound into a black screen kicks the audience right from the reality that is the movie Inception and into the reality that is ... whatever your reality is, I was sitting on a chair in my room and suddenly I noticed that the sun had gone down and I found myself in a pitch dark room.
People focus on the wrong thing when they say "So what about that top huh? Did it stop spinning?". That is saying that Nolan should answer the question for you. Nolan's answer is of ultimate importance to himself but of no importance to anyone else, at least not before they have answered the question themselves. The movie has some hints to what happens with the top, such as Cobb's real totem and the development of his children, but again, this is a question that people have to answer themselves, instead of begging Nolan to answer it for them. And if you know the answer, then don't even bother telling anybody or arguing about it, 'cause noone cares what you think, at least I don't.
All this brings me to my original question, what is the mean grazing period when you're adopting a harbor master? And why didn't they put another matrix in the matrix instead of just introducing more people with trench coats and crappy titles. Also, something tells me not to forget milk.
