That's it. The endless spinning top represents Cobb being trapped by guilt, and to an extent Fischer being trapped by shame. In the end they saved each other.
Very true. Even though *SPOILERS?* Nolan has revealed that Cobb was not dreaming, it still has some intriguing debate left to be had, especially since it contradicts some previously established concepts (concepts, not rules....which is a running theme in the film.) I love that it's still a discussion regardless, and while it's often a bit of a let-down when a Director reveals his true narrative angle in a film (can you imagine if John Carpenter just straight up told us the truth of "The Thing"? Without being cheeky, i mean?) Nolan's actual explaination was very satisfying, and actually reinforced both the themes of the film, but also went beyond them.🙂
The loudest and most frustrated exclamations I've _ever_ heard in a theater was that final shot of the spinning top and the cut to black. Amazing way to end the film.
I love the end of this movie because they gave Cillian Murphy's character a happy ending. It doesn't matter that they manipulated him, he became happier in thinking his father did love him so much
I just wanted to let you all on the internet know that I too get invited to many parties at which I am fun, so you should take my life philosophy very seriously please.
George: “What? How?” They built a 40 foot long hallway on a gimbal that they could rotate along the long axis. Then, they mounted a camera to the floor of the hallway, locked the camera’s orientation so the image wouldn’t rotate along with the hallway, and filmed the sequence. Buster Keaton did the same thing in the 1920s.
There's also a movie with Fred Astaire dancing on the wall and ceiling, later copied in an MTV music video of Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" doing the same thing. And for some scenes they put the whole hallway vertical, so they could suspend the actors in the middle hanging over the camera pointing up. That's what Kubrick also did on A Space Odyssey for its zero-G scenes. It's funny how many tricks work just with the right view angle.
Simone talking about the Freddy Kruger knockoff at the start had me immediately think of A Nightmare on Elm Street when he asked that. They did a similar trick with the whole blood fountain out of the bed. And almost accidentally killed some of the crew, because they didn’t think about the weight of the blood sloshing around on the ceiling/floor, which made it unstable. In any case, one of the really great things about this movie was the renaissance of practical effects. Prior to it, EVERYTHING was going the CGI route.
George has the best subconscious security. A stoned dude eating cheetos but his secrets are at the bottom of the bag. You're not getting the bag away from that dude.
Not only eating Cheeto's, but eating them out of an old Cool Whip Bowl. It isn't enough to just have the Cheeto's as a detail but the Ghetto true container as well. That is attention to detail.
The score for this movie is mindblowing when you know some of the details that went into composing it. You may not have noticed this, but the score take many cues from the musical piece "Non je ne regrette rien" by Édith Piaf, the same song used to alert the dreamers that the kick is coming. As explained in the movie, the deeper in levels you go, the slower time goes, and so the song would be heard slowed down. The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the film score match the slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song. Amazing movie overall.
Yup. And not just match, I seem to remember hearing Hans Zimmer went to get the masters for "Non je ne regrette rien", so he could specifically extract the horn sound as a sample.
I saw Inception for the very first time in IMAX. As part of its anniversary release. It's an experience I'll never forget. Easily one of my all time favourites.
A different film but since it's still Christoper Nolan I'll share my experience. I was lucky enough to see Interstellar at the European Premier in IMAX. Steven Hawking and Kip Thorne were in the audience, and Nolan and McConaughey turned up to make a speech before leaving. One of the coolest movie experiences of my life!
25:20 How!? Well if you look at the DVD extras you'll find it was by building a corridor fixed to a gymbal that could be rotated 360 degrees and shooting with a fixed camera from one end. Plus teaching a stuntman and Joseph Gordon Levitt some VERY complex fight choreography.
Simone and George hit the nail on the head. The Inception in this movie is the ultimate grief counseling slash father son reconnection. At the time of his death Robert Fisher hated his father, but after the Inception he gave himself the resolution that his father actually lived him. Such deep concepts and premises. That's what takes, "Inception" to the next level.
George figured it all out right away with dream scenes starting in the middle just like movie scenes. All the rules about dreams in this movie are really just Nolan sharing his rules about telling stories to an audience. You can in theory do anything in a movie, but if you go too crazy, the audience doesn't believe it, hates the movie, and turns on you. And as Ames says, you can't make the "lesson" of the story too complicated. The important part is that the audience understands the emotions of of the story, even if they are completely confused about what's going on. The team is making a movie, and Fisher is the audience.
Yes! It's really about how films plant ideas in culture, but you have to do it right, give people catharsis and closure, but it's still essentially a con... but of our very own dreams, just one we accept. Thats also what Hollywood has learned about frame-rates. The classical 24/sec frame rate is just slightly perceptible... barely... but we feel it's real, we're transported and we love it, like a dream, its slightly off but accepted. But when the frame rate goes up, like when Peter Jackson released the extremely high Def/high frame rate version of The Hobbit... people were weirded out by it, i know I was. It looked so real, like people sitting right there in front of you, especially because I saw it in 3D. You couldn't perceive the interlacing. It was nuts. On s scene without effects, like the dwarves just sitting around the camp fire, it was HYPER-real... and it made me feel strange. Thats because I know it's not real, I see the make up, the fantasy, but the camp fire is RIGHT THERE. It made it feel *more fake* . Ironically. 24 frames a second doesn't do that. It's dream like. The difference is so subtle, but we accept it and enjoy it. It's like a pact between Hollywood and the audience. We're not being gaslit, or tricked, we're just dreaming.
I really like the part where the old man explains to the group how some people dream in order to wake up. I remember a dream where I had a family, made friends, had a job and lived a life. When I woke up it was heartbreaking to leave those people behind and I tried for weeks to go back..but it was just a dream.
@@jaroslavsvaha6065 it was confusing when I woke up, had to lay there for about 45 minutes. It’s been a long time but I still think about that dream sometimes
Love your reactions. Great chemistry between the two of you and you both pay attention! Pretty new to this channel but I love seeing your new posts. Keep it up, definitely make my days better with a CineBinge ep. I love all these movies!
I've been thinking of upgrading my Patreon membership and Simone's rant about exposition finally made me do it. That's such a pet peeve of mine! In many ways, I feel like Inception was the high point of Nolan's career where his strengths were best balanced against his weaknesses. The complicated weirdness works because of the relatable emotional stakes and for plain coolness factor. George's stoner subconscious sounds more like a Philip K. Dick story than a Nolan film. Which sounds like an excellent idea. I wanna see or read stoners getting into layers of stonedness and psychedelics. I'm pretty sure the snow level is an homage to old Bond films; Nolan's favorite is On Her Majesty's Secret Service if you wanna look into it.
The thing is, Nolan's concepts for movies are usually so original and out-of-the-box thinking that in some ways (maybe because of studio pressures), he has to dumb it down to exposition between characters because the audience isn't smart enough to understand it. Inception is among his top best work with making that so seamless compared to other films.
7:45 "How did they do this?" The typical Nolan answer: an astounding amount of practical effects, with touches of CGI and composition to tie it all together.
I love this film - I think Nolan can get a bit too wrapped up in being tricksy at times (I don't know if the overlapping timelines in Dunkirk really works or if it makes the film a bit impenetrable for some audiences), but with this one and Memento, I think the use of the technique is perfect. I highly recommend that you guys watch Memento by the way The thing I don't think gets talked about often enough is just how good Marion Cotillard is in this film. It's not an easy role to pull off because she has to be menacing, psychotic, but also gentle and sympathetic at various points in the film. It is such a range and she gives the audience exactly the right pitch every time. I wish you had included Tom Hardy's "dream bigger darling" line as that always makes me laugh
I personally didnt like dunkirk on my first viewing because of just how differently the movie was structured and narrated...i.e.the 3 timelines intersecting slowly towards the end...it was hard for me to properly understand it...and i was not used to this style of storytelling in war movies...so i didnt like it much...but my second viewing however i absolutely loved it...things were more clear and the choice of narrating 3 different stories of survival of multiple characters and cross cutting from one scene to another maintaining the same level of tension was just AMAZING.I admire the visuals and the epicness the scale the music of nolan's movies on my first viewing but i always admire the his movies as a whole after about 2nd or 3rd viewing.
Michael Caine asked Nolan, when he got the script: "I don’t understand where the dream is...When is it the dream and when is it reality?’ Nolan tell him: "Well when you’re in the scene it’s reality." Nolan has continually maintained that the ending is”subjective” and that the only thing that matters is that Cobb doesn’t care if he’s dreaming or not. Going by Caine’s words, however, his appearance in the scene confirms the events were all real.
Wonder if he meant specifically Caine's character, or if he was being intentionally sly with the answer, so that he would get the performance he wanted from Caine.
There is nothing to debate. If you are staying in a hotel, it does not make sense for you to be in the next hotel room (when his wife killed herself hi was in a another hotel in front of him). Of course they were dreaming and his wife was right, he has to kill himself to wake up. His Totem was not his, it was his wife's. If the totem stops spinning it doesn't matter because he believes the dream is real and his own mind is going to make it stop spinning. I mean, it doesn't mean he's in the real world.
The "Hallway Scene" absolutely floored me in the theater. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but it looked so real. Because it was. The entire set was on a gimble for rotation, and the camera was fixed in-place so the viewer's perspective remains the same, even when gravity doesn't. Still one of the coolest action beats in a movie, if you ask me. It's so small, but it's so effective in building on the rules of the movie in an exciting and unexpected way.
I believe the Christopher Nolan is one of the very last original filmmakers left in Hollywood. His films (outside of The Dark Knight trilogy) are so original. Inception is one of the greatest films in the history of Hollywood cinema. Great reaction! 👍🏿
@JamesASharp there’s still original filmmakers in Hollywood but they don’t get as much attention because of the nature of the industry. Hopefully production companies like A24 will help turn the tide.
24:20 But "there is no cow level" Major bragging rights to the first person to know off the top of their head what game that cheat code was originally in. 😁
I always found it interesting that his totem is his wedding ring, not the top. That's how you know the ending is reality, because he's not wearing his wedding ring. When he is in a dream, he's wearing the ring because Mol still exists in that reality.
I think the exposition is so well done in this movie because it feels organic, because the characters are legitimately in the dark as much as the audience, but also because Nolan is so good at the show instead of tell kind of exposition. Like the clever trick with Tom hardy turning into the old guy.
Yes. The new season of stranger things is so heavily inspired by nightmare on elm street and I'm sad that most younger reactors don't get it, missing some cool references.
1. The top isn't Cobb's totem, it was his wife's. The theory is that his totem is his wedding ring. It appears and disappears depending on if he's dreaming or not. 2. There's a theory that when Cobb meets the chemist and tries the drug that puts him to sleep, the ENTIRE rest of the movie is his dream.
@@Raptor213 fuuuuuuuuc- I never heard headcanon 2 about the whole thing being a dream... Spoilers Black Mirror: . . . . . . . . . . . . . reminds me of the video game episode from Black Mirror, "called mom"
Simone: “How did they do this?” George: “Now he (C. Nolan) is showing off”. - Spinning hotel hallway? C. Nolan’s tribute to S. Kubrick special effects in 2001. - Many Easter Eggs near end … final scene, the kids are playing with a model of the mountain castle from dream sequence. The open question, is Cobb still in the Dream forever?
The coffee scene in Paris... It's awesome Basically just exploded (for real) all what you saw, and later just added Leo and the girl in the same frame but slowed (you know) and a little of CGI for the floor explosion
It's still amazing to me how Scary this film can be without ANY traditional scary locations or tropes. It's pure Tension when Mal is on screen and the music hits hard.
So people have mentioned that Cobb's totem is not the spinning top, but is his wedding ring because in his dreams he's still married. However, I haven't seen anyone else mention the interview Michael Caine did where he said that he asked Christopher Nolan which of his scenes are dreams and which are real and Chris Nolan told him that all of the scenes with him in it are reality and he's in the last scene where Cobb reunites with his kids.
Christopher Nolan once said don’t pay too much attention to the totem spinning but pay attention to the sound. When the screen goes black the totem falls and the music stops. So many of us are visual so when we don’t see something immediately with our eyes first we assume it didn’t happen. Food for thought. I remember everybody thinking he was still dreaming in theaters. Some keys to take away too were Michael caines character in his house and him seeing the faces of his grandkids as opposed to in the dream where their faces were never shown. Great film overall one of my favorites.
24:17 Fun fact for my fellow Canadians, that "snow level" as you call it was filmed in the closed Fortress Mountain Ski Resort in Kanaskis Country, Alberta.
People think this movie is about dreams but it really is about how an idea can change your entire outlook in life. Sometimes ideas are productive and positive but sometimes ideas lead people down a self destructive path.
Remember one thing : the spinner was MALL totem, not COBB, Cobb does have his own totem, once you notice what it is, you'll know if the spinner falls or not after the movie ends ;)
2:54 George, if the sleeper falls there is the concept the person wakes-up. This scene is As Simone indicates the dream person falls, which does not transfer the physical shift.-Ernie Moore Jr.
Funny how George said dreams are like movies (7:25 or so), cause Nolans intention was just that. The parallel between movies and dreams. We have an actor, a set designer, a director, a producer etc etc
In many ways, I feel Inception and Interstellar are very closely related because time, memory, and dreaming encircle the giant star that is grief behind Leo and Matthew McConoughey's respective characters. Dating back to Memento, Leonard's actions circle around grief and the inability to forget his wife.
I still think Cobb was the one who was being played.. The Inception being his kids, which don’t exist.. The idea of his kids was planted at the beginning of the film and reenforced by Saito in the helicopter..
I watched this movie for the first time in my 20s and with a history of lucid dreaming it was very cool to see someone try and capture the experience for others to witness.
When this movie came out I was spellbound watching it for the first time. So I can imagine how you felt. I watched it three times in a row at the movie theater. I had this concept of being half asleep quite often. Plus I LUCID DREAM quite a bit. of course, I was nowhere near the level of deep themes, concept execution, and world-building of Christopher Nolan. The man is a mad genius.
7:25 was on point. A lot of this movie can be applied to filmmaking. Like the chase after meeting Tom hardy there’s a random narrowing corridor that is conviently juuust wide enough to squeeze through
Yeah this is my third favorite movie of all time. The Big Lebowski is my number one, then The Shawshank Redemption, and then Inception. I love this movie. So many layers and stuff you pick up on with multiple viewings
Man, I haven't seen this movie in forever, but I never realized how many actors were in the Dark Knight trilogy that were also in this. Crazy how many actors he reused.
5:10 a shared dream is like a MMORPG...you can dream the chair but I control my character choices and you control what you control, but you hold no sway over another besides logical persuasion. if you create the chair then they are subject to the effects of the chair because they accepted that experience.-Ernie Moore Jr.
Watching Inception in the cinema was probably my most intense movie experience ever. I've never seen so many people hold their breath and lean forward in their seat before (and since).
Awesome reaction. I remember this movie blowing my mind seeing it in the cinema, and the soundtrack is incredible. Hans Zimmer does it again! P.s It's pronounced Killian, rather than 'Sillian' Murphy =]
I got to see this in theaters when it came out and I remember the yelling when the final scene cut and people were debating for years whether or not the top fell and whether or not he was dreaming. Just one of the most amazing moments....😂 Random story by the way.... I want to say about 6 months to a year after this movie came out bertoli (they make like Frozen Italian food and sauce and stuff like that) started running commercials that played the song that Cobb's team used to signal it's the chemical was about to run out and everyone wake up. And I didn't know that commercial was a thing. So I was in my apartment and I can't remember what I was doing but the TV was on and just off in my periphery I started hearing this song from inception and started freaking out cuz I had no idea where it was coming from. 🤣 Because there's literally no other single context where that song would normally be played. Can I just take 2 seconds to appreciate Hans Zimmer? He's just amazing.
I remember watching this in a packed theater. That last scene, we all forgot that wasn’t his totem so it spinning and spinning and then the movie ending, the entire crowd gasped with mock anger and then everyone clapped. It was a good time.
He’s in reality in the end. He only wears his ring in the dreams, & when Sir Michael Caine is in the scene, that also establishes he’s in reality. Caine explains this in a public interview
Try wrapping your head around this one: For the final spinning top's fade to black, it wasn't so much a case of "did it fall?" or didn't it, it was Cobb walked away without waiting to see. He was home and he had his children back - he no longer cared if it was real or a dream; either way he was willing to take it.
As an Edmontonian the banter between you two made me laugh! Honestly I love the city though I've gotta say! Great reaction guys inception is one of my top 10 movies, the amount of creativity Nolan had to come up with even just the concept and make it all work and be a coherent story that you can then explain to an audience in a short period is just insane! It blew my mind when I first saw it.
Ah yes, the movie that put me on to Christopher Nolan! This was an instant favorite when I saw it at a drive-in theater with my sister and brother in law. My parents got me the blu-ray for that following christmas and i got Cobb's totem on amazon as a good fidget toy lol Inception and Interstellar are my favorite Nolan films
Fun fact, the hospital in the mountains was filmed out in Banff Alberta (Fotress Mountain ski resort to be specific). I think this was Nolan's best movie, which is saying a lot, considering his filmography. Everything seems too make sense (once you accept the original premise). Fun reaction - especially since I am a Flames fan :)
At the end of the movie, when the top is spinning, Cobb's son says to him, "We're building a house on a cliff." At the beginning of the movie Saito's house is on a cliff. Still a dream. All a dream. The top is still spinning.
George: All the Nolan movies we’ve watched so far definitely have a distinct look to it. That would be thanks to Wally Pfister, Nolan’s cinematographer from Memento through Dark Knight Rises.
Everyone debates about that ending and whether it was a dream or not. My favorite part is in the middle of the movie when Cobb never gets to check his totem after Yousef has Cobb try out the sleeping agent in the basement where many are out to sleep. Cobb is interrupted after washing his face, and never finds out if he really woke up or not.
My theory is that there is no dream technology at all. The whole thing was Cobb dreaming about everything while on a long flight. At the end he wakes up and goes home.
I think what makes the exposition in Inception work is that it uses exposition to set up all the different components of the story, and then pays off literally everything. If the exposition was done in any other way, then this movie would probably be incomprehensible, and not in the good way either. This is fundamentally a story where Nolan invites the audience and immerses them in the world, so for it to work would require the rules of the world to be clearly explained. Inception does it brilliantly
Cast-wise it's like watching Nolan play with Lego. He takes Michael Caine & Cillian Murphy from previous Batman films and adds Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Marion Cotillard who then transfer over to his last Batman film.
Your new upload always comes in right on time after I came home from work, took a shower and made some food. It's the best timing on youtube I've ever experienced :D Oh and btw: The "weird monster in the dream" is an homage to Freddy Kruger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series [which you should watch ;)] which is super funny in that inception episode since Kruger murders people in their dreams and that simply puts Scary Terry on another level.
"The real point of the ending is that Cobb isn't interested in looking at the top. He's looking at his kids. He's moved on." - Christopher Nolan
That's it. The endless spinning top represents Cobb being trapped by guilt, and to an extent Fischer being trapped by shame. In the end they saved each other.
Aren't the kids the EXACT same age and position - all through the movie ?
@@promontorium Or maybe proves his dreams have 'moved on ?'
@@ennesshay5040 in the last scene the kids are played by different, slightly older actors
@@ennesshay5040 They aren't. They look older at the end
Just remember, the spinning top isn't Cobb's totem, it's Mal's. This movie is mind blowing with its detail.
Exactly. Cobb's totem is his wedding ring. He is only wearing a wedding ring in the dreams.
Oh you mad genius’… I’d forgotten about those details
Very true. Even though *SPOILERS?* Nolan has revealed that Cobb was not dreaming, it still has some intriguing debate left to be had, especially since it contradicts some previously established concepts (concepts, not rules....which is a running theme in the film.) I love that it's still a discussion regardless, and while it's often a bit of a let-down when a Director reveals his true narrative angle in a film (can you imagine if John Carpenter just straight up told us the truth of "The Thing"? Without being cheeky, i mean?) Nolan's actual explaination was very satisfying, and actually reinforced both the themes of the film, but also went beyond them.🙂
was going to say movie was overrated but this thread is interesting
Dude relax -_-
The loudest and most frustrated exclamations I've _ever_ heard in a theater was that final shot of the spinning top and the cut to black. Amazing way to end the film.
And it's not even HIS token, it's Mal's :)
Imagine if they went the Clue route and had 3rd of the cuts fall, another 3rd not fall, and last 3rd with the warble just before cutting to black.
Yeah that was one of the best moments I've had too. The "Gah!!" from the audience was hilarious.
@@smith22041 In the age of the internet, that would just piss people off.
That was probably me haha
I love the end of this movie because they gave Cillian Murphy's character a happy ending. It doesn't matter that they manipulated him, he became happier in thinking his father did love him so much
@@NovusIgnis yikes, you must be fun at parties. Let someone be happy, even if it's false. Life doesn't gotta be piss and vinegar, bub
@@NovusIgnis That was very Rorschach of Watchmen of you. I like it.
I just wanted to let you all on the internet know that I too get invited to many parties at which I am fun, so you should take my life philosophy very seriously please.
George: “What? How?”
They built a 40 foot long hallway on a gimbal that they could rotate along the long axis. Then, they mounted a camera to the floor of the hallway, locked the camera’s orientation so the image wouldn’t rotate along with the hallway, and filmed the sequence. Buster Keaton did the same thing in the 1920s.
There's also a movie with Fred Astaire dancing on the wall and ceiling, later copied in an MTV music video of Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" doing the same thing.
And for some scenes they put the whole hallway vertical, so they could suspend the actors in the middle hanging over the camera pointing up.
That's what Kubrick also did on A Space Odyssey for its zero-G scenes. It's funny how many tricks work just with the right view angle.
@@Cau_No Royal Wedding (1951)
Simone talking about the Freddy Kruger knockoff at the start had me immediately think of A Nightmare on Elm Street when he asked that. They did a similar trick with the whole blood fountain out of the bed. And almost accidentally killed some of the crew, because they didn’t think about the weight of the blood sloshing around on the ceiling/floor, which made it unstable.
In any case, one of the really great things about this movie was the renaissance of practical effects. Prior to it, EVERYTHING was going the CGI route.
George has the best subconscious security. A stoned dude eating cheetos but his secrets are at the bottom of the bag. You're not getting the bag away from that dude.
Nice. That's why George is always a step ahead.
Not only eating Cheeto's, but eating them out of an old Cool Whip Bowl. It isn't enough to just have the Cheeto's as a detail but the Ghetto true container as well. That is attention to detail.
"Oh you f*ckin asshole..."
"But it was going to, it was wobbling..."
I think this is exactly what my friends and I said coming out of the theater
The score for this movie is mindblowing when you know some of the details that went into composing it. You may not have noticed this, but the score take many cues from the musical piece "Non je ne regrette rien" by Édith Piaf, the same song used to alert the dreamers that the kick is coming. As explained in the movie, the deeper in levels you go, the slower time goes, and so the song would be heard slowed down. The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the film score match the slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song. Amazing movie overall.
Thank you for that information!
I love the final song.
Yup. And not just match, I seem to remember hearing Hans Zimmer went to get the masters for "Non je ne regrette rien", so he could specifically extract the horn sound as a sample.
If you listen to the end credits to the end, they play "Non je ne regrette rien" and then slow it down to the point it matches the score. It's genius
Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for portraying Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. Just throwing that out there.
This moview is so darn cool. And the planning and execution that went into making it is just ridiculous.
It took Nolan almost a decade to write the script.
I know right, I can't believe Nolan flipped an entire whole city for that one dream sequence all with pratical effects, the man's a genius
I love how wide eyed Simone was the entire time lol.
The hallway fight scene is a masterpiece of action. No CGI, all practical. That makes it real. Love this film.
I saw Inception for the very first time in IMAX. As part of its anniversary release. It's an experience I'll never forget. Easily one of my all time favourites.
A different film but since it's still Christoper Nolan I'll share my experience. I was lucky enough to see Interstellar at the European Premier in IMAX. Steven Hawking and Kip Thorne were in the audience, and Nolan and McConaughey turned up to make a speech before leaving. One of the coolest movie experiences of my life!
You should really check out "Memento", one of Nolan's first movies and one of the most ingenius piece of storytelling I've seen.
Yup.
100%
^ THIS
Great flick. Now… where was I?
@@rustybarrel516 I see what you did there...
25:20 How!?
Well if you look at the DVD extras you'll find it was by building a corridor fixed to a gymbal that could be rotated 360 degrees and shooting with a fixed camera from one end. Plus teaching a stuntman and Joseph Gordon Levitt some VERY complex fight choreography.
Simone and George hit the nail on the head. The Inception in this movie is the ultimate grief counseling slash father son reconnection. At the time of his death Robert Fisher hated his father, but after the Inception he gave himself the resolution that his father actually lived him. Such deep concepts and premises. That's what takes, "Inception" to the next level.
"c'mon Nolan, let it fall ......... f#$kin' asshole." LMAO
34:00 for anyone who wants to jump there. 😂👍
George figured it all out right away with dream scenes starting in the middle just like movie scenes.
All the rules about dreams in this movie are really just Nolan sharing his rules about telling stories to an audience.
You can in theory do anything in a movie, but if you go too crazy, the audience doesn't believe it, hates the movie, and turns on you. And as Ames says, you can't make the "lesson" of the story too complicated. The important part is that the audience understands the emotions of of the story, even if they are completely confused about what's going on.
The team is making a movie, and Fisher is the audience.
Yes! It's really about how films plant ideas in culture, but you have to do it right, give people catharsis and closure, but it's still essentially a con... but of our very own dreams, just one we accept.
Thats also what Hollywood has learned about frame-rates. The classical 24/sec frame rate is just slightly perceptible... barely... but we feel it's real, we're transported and we love it, like a dream, its slightly off but accepted. But when the frame rate goes up, like when Peter Jackson released the extremely high Def/high frame rate version of The Hobbit... people were weirded out by it, i know I was. It looked so real, like people sitting right there in front of you, especially because I saw it in 3D. You couldn't perceive the interlacing. It was nuts. On s scene without effects, like the dwarves just sitting around the camp fire, it was HYPER-real... and it made me feel strange. Thats because I know it's not real, I see the make up, the fantasy, but the camp fire is RIGHT THERE. It made it feel *more fake* . Ironically. 24 frames a second doesn't do that. It's dream like. The difference is so subtle, but we accept it and enjoy it. It's like a pact between Hollywood and the audience. We're not being gaslit, or tricked, we're just dreaming.
This is a very cool explanation. Thank you.
Michael Caine already let everyone know what the ending meant. Every scene Michael Caine is in, is real
That's what he believes anyway.
nolan only told caine what he need to hear... =)
I really like the part where the old man explains to the group how some people dream in order to wake up. I remember a dream where I had a family, made friends, had a job and lived a life. When I woke up it was heartbreaking to leave those people behind and I tried for weeks to go back..but it was just a dream.
Damn are you okay? That's sad
@@TequilaToothpick it was about ten years ago but I still remember big chunks of it.
I've heard of people who had dreams that lasted for years. Must be hard to stay sane after waking up from that.
@@jaroslavsvaha6065 it was confusing when I woke up, had to lay there for about 45 minutes. It’s been a long time but I still think about that dream sometimes
@@promontorium which one?
Love your reactions. Great chemistry between the two of you and you both pay attention! Pretty new to this channel but I love seeing your new posts. Keep it up, definitely make my days better with a CineBinge ep. I love all these movies!
They not a couple are they in separate rooms? Why?
The fact that most of the things shot with practical effect makes me appreciate Nolan and his team that much more.
I've been thinking of upgrading my Patreon membership and Simone's rant about exposition finally made me do it. That's such a pet peeve of mine! In many ways, I feel like Inception was the high point of Nolan's career where his strengths were best balanced against his weaknesses. The complicated weirdness works because of the relatable emotional stakes and for plain coolness factor.
George's stoner subconscious sounds more like a Philip K. Dick story than a Nolan film. Which sounds like an excellent idea. I wanna see or read stoners getting into layers of stonedness and psychedelics.
I'm pretty sure the snow level is an homage to old Bond films; Nolan's favorite is On Her Majesty's Secret Service if you wanna look into it.
The thing is, Nolan's concepts for movies are usually so original and out-of-the-box thinking that in some ways (maybe because of studio pressures), he has to dumb it down to exposition between characters because the audience isn't smart enough to understand it. Inception is among his top best work with making that so seamless compared to other films.
Between this movie and Tenet, it's obvious that Nolan really wants to do a Bond movie, and I for one think he should be given that chance.
it certainly helps that the dialogue is audible in this one.
7:45 "How did they do this?"
The typical Nolan answer: an astounding amount of practical effects, with touches of CGI and composition to tie it all together.
“Couldn’t they architect an umbrella” hahahaha 😂
I love this film - I think Nolan can get a bit too wrapped up in being tricksy at times (I don't know if the overlapping timelines in Dunkirk really works or if it makes the film a bit impenetrable for some audiences), but with this one and Memento, I think the use of the technique is perfect. I highly recommend that you guys watch Memento by the way
The thing I don't think gets talked about often enough is just how good Marion Cotillard is in this film. It's not an easy role to pull off because she has to be menacing, psychotic, but also gentle and sympathetic at various points in the film. It is such a range and she gives the audience exactly the right pitch every time.
I wish you had included Tom Hardy's "dream bigger darling" line as that always makes me laugh
I personally didnt like dunkirk on my first viewing because of just how differently the movie was structured and narrated...i.e.the 3 timelines intersecting slowly towards the end...it was hard for me to properly understand it...and i was not used to this style of storytelling in war movies...so i didnt like it much...but my second viewing however i absolutely loved it...things were more clear and the choice of narrating 3 different stories of survival of multiple characters and cross cutting from one scene to another maintaining the same level of tension was just AMAZING.I admire the visuals and the epicness the scale the music of nolan's movies on my first viewing but i always admire the his movies as a whole after about 2nd or 3rd viewing.
Michael Caine asked Nolan, when he got the script: "I don’t understand where the dream is...When is it the dream and when is it reality?’
Nolan tell him: "Well when you’re in the scene it’s reality."
Nolan has continually maintained that the ending is”subjective” and that the only thing that matters is that Cobb doesn’t care if he’s dreaming or not. Going by Caine’s words, however, his appearance in the scene confirms the events were all real.
Wonder if he meant specifically Caine's character, or if he was being intentionally sly with the answer, so that he would get the performance he wanted from Caine.
There is nothing to debate. If you are staying in a hotel, it does not make sense for you to be in the next hotel room (when his wife killed herself hi was in a another hotel in front of him). Of course they were dreaming and his wife was right, he has to kill himself to wake up. His Totem was not his, it was his wife's. If the totem stops spinning it doesn't matter because he believes the dream is real and his own mind is going to make it stop spinning. I mean, it doesn't mean he's in the real world.
Gotta go through the rest of Nolan's filmography: Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, Dunkirk, etc...
The "Hallway Scene" absolutely floored me in the theater. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but it looked so real. Because it was.
The entire set was on a gimble for rotation, and the camera was fixed in-place so the viewer's perspective remains the same, even when gravity doesn't. Still one of the coolest action beats in a movie, if you ask me. It's so small, but it's so effective in building on the rules of the movie in an exciting and unexpected way.
"I bought the airline" is such a baller move
I believe the Christopher Nolan is one of the very last original filmmakers left in Hollywood. His films (outside of The Dark Knight trilogy) are so original. Inception is one of the greatest films in the history of Hollywood cinema. Great reaction! 👍🏿
@JamesASharp there’s still original filmmakers in Hollywood but they don’t get as much attention because of the nature of the industry. Hopefully production companies like A24 will help turn the tide.
24:20 But "there is no cow level"
Major bragging rights to the first person to know off the top of their head what game that cheat code was originally in. 😁
the cheat or the reference?
Diablo 2
Starcraft (Brood War)
I always found it interesting that his totem is his wedding ring, not the top. That's how you know the ending is reality, because he's not wearing his wedding ring. When he is in a dream, he's wearing the ring because Mol still exists in that reality.
This is one of the all time greats, I remember seeing this in theaters when it came out and at the end the whole room gave it a standing ovation.
I think the exposition is so well done in this movie because it feels organic, because the characters are legitimately in the dark as much as the audience, but also because Nolan is so good at the show instead of tell kind of exposition. Like the clever trick with Tom hardy turning into the old guy.
Simone's summary of Rick and Morty makes me think you guys need to watch Dreamscape and Nightmare on Elm St, too. ;)
Yes. The new season of stranger things is so heavily inspired by nightmare on elm street and I'm sad that most younger reactors don't get it, missing some cool references.
1. The top isn't Cobb's totem, it was his wife's. The theory is that his totem is his wedding ring. It appears and disappears depending on if he's dreaming or not.
2. There's a theory that when Cobb meets the chemist and tries the drug that puts him to sleep, the ENTIRE rest of the movie is his dream.
The top IS Mal's totem. Mal is the name of Cobb's wife.
@@rabid_si oops,I mixed the names up. Fixed.
@@Raptor213 fuuuuuuuuc- I never heard headcanon 2 about the whole thing being a dream... Spoilers Black Mirror:
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reminds me of the video game episode from Black Mirror, "called mom"
Simone: “How did they do this?”
George: “Now he (C. Nolan) is showing off”.
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Spinning hotel hallway?
C. Nolan’s tribute to S. Kubrick special effects in 2001.
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Many Easter Eggs near end … final scene, the kids are playing with a model of the mountain castle from dream sequence.
The open question, is Cobb still in the Dream forever?
The coffee scene in Paris...
It's awesome
Basically just exploded (for real) all what you saw, and later just added Leo and the girl in the same frame but slowed (you know) and a little of CGI for the floor explosion
"you could cut to a scene from batman and it would work" *cuts to the actor who played alfred* that was so perfect
Ahh yes, I too love Silly-Ann Murphy.
It's still amazing to me how Scary this film can be without ANY traditional scary locations or tropes. It's pure Tension when Mal is on screen and the music hits hard.
So people have mentioned that Cobb's totem is not the spinning top, but is his wedding ring because in his dreams he's still married. However, I haven't seen anyone else mention the interview Michael Caine did where he said that he asked Christopher Nolan which of his scenes are dreams and which are real and Chris Nolan told him that all of the scenes with him in it are reality and he's in the last scene where Cobb reunites with his kids.
One of my top 10. Been waiting for this one!
And wow, Simone sure is flexible in the thumbnail!
Christopher Nolan once said don’t pay too much attention to the totem spinning but pay attention to the sound. When the screen goes black the totem falls and the music stops. So many of us are visual so when we don’t see something immediately with our eyes first we assume it didn’t happen. Food for thought. I remember everybody thinking he was still dreaming in theaters. Some keys to take away too were Michael caines character in his house and him seeing the faces of his grandkids as opposed to in the dream where their faces were never shown. Great film overall one of my favorites.
24:17 Fun fact for my fellow Canadians, that "snow level" as you call it was filmed in the closed Fortress Mountain Ski Resort in Kanaskis Country, Alberta.
my dad started saying that to me IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THEATRE WHILE WATCHING IT and I was like Dad "shhhhhh im watching the movie"
People think this movie is about dreams but it really is about how an idea can change your entire outlook in life. Sometimes ideas are productive and positive but sometimes ideas lead people down a self destructive path.
With this film Christopher Nolan has proven once again that he is a genius. The cast, the script, the special effects, the details. Fantastic
32:09 George perfectly framed to look like he's the guy in the hospital bed.
The interesting idea is that the top isn't Cobb's totem. Remember that was his wife's. His real Totem is his wedding ring.
MEMENTO.... That is a Nolan Masterpiece.
Remember one thing : the spinner was MALL totem, not COBB, Cobb does have his own totem, once you notice what it is, you'll know if the spinner falls or not after the movie ends ;)
2:54 George, if the sleeper falls there is the concept the person wakes-up. This scene is As Simone indicates the dream person falls, which does not transfer the physical shift.-Ernie Moore Jr.
Funny how George said dreams are like movies (7:25 or so), cause Nolans intention was just that. The parallel between movies and dreams. We have an actor, a set designer, a director, a producer etc etc
"A weird monster" wow the disrespect on Scary Terry 😕
In many ways, I feel Inception and Interstellar are very closely related because time, memory, and dreaming encircle the giant star that is grief behind Leo and Matthew McConoughey's respective characters.
Dating back to Memento, Leonard's actions circle around grief and the inability to forget his wife.
I still think Cobb was the one who was being played.. The Inception being his kids, which don’t exist.. The idea of his kids was planted at the beginning of the film and reenforced by Saito in the helicopter..
As an Albertan I have to say that I really appreciate your comments about how much Edmonton sucks.
5:00 -- those three were all famous child actors -- Lukas Haas, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio
I watched this movie for the first time in my 20s and with a history of lucid dreaming it was very cool to see someone try and capture the experience for others to witness.
The practical effects in this movie are truly amazing. You are right the built a spinning room, there are amazing videos showing how it was done.
When this movie came out I was spellbound watching it for the first time. So I can imagine how you felt. I watched it three times in a row at the movie theater. I had this concept of being half asleep quite often. Plus I LUCID DREAM quite a bit. of course, I was nowhere near the level of deep themes, concept execution, and world-building of Christopher Nolan. The man is a mad genius.
Not that you care at this point, but Cillian Murphy's name is pronounced "Kill-ian".
The van flip hallway fight scene was done in the way Simone guessed, and George agreed with. An insane spinning rig with camera tracking.
Lol! "... there goes how to drive ..." Brilliant :)
18:33 y’all made me burst out laughing in the middle of class with the touching his totem comment 😂😂😂😂😂😂
7:25 was on point. A lot of this movie can be applied to filmmaking. Like the chase after meeting Tom hardy there’s a random narrowing corridor that is conviently juuust wide enough to squeeze through
Y’all been dropping heat consistently for a while now. Keep it up!
Yeah this is my third favorite movie of all time. The Big Lebowski is my number one, then The Shawshank Redemption, and then Inception. I love this movie. So many layers and stuff you pick up on with multiple viewings
Man, I haven't seen this movie in forever, but I never realized how many actors were in the Dark Knight trilogy that were also in this. Crazy how many actors he reused.
5:10 a shared dream is like a MMORPG...you can dream the chair but I control my character choices and you control what you control, but you hold no sway over another besides logical persuasion. if you create the chair then they are subject to the effects of the chair because they accepted that experience.-Ernie Moore Jr.
Watching Inception in the cinema was probably my most intense movie experience ever. I've never seen so many people hold their breath and lean forward in their seat before (and since).
The famous synth blare of the Inception soundtrack is actually Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien slowed down to an extreme degree.
Awesome reaction. I remember this movie blowing my mind seeing it in the cinema, and the soundtrack is incredible. Hans Zimmer does it again!
P.s It's pronounced Killian, rather than 'Sillian' Murphy =]
I got to see this in theaters when it came out and I remember the yelling when the final scene cut and people were debating for years whether or not the top fell and whether or not he was dreaming. Just one of the most amazing moments....😂
Random story by the way.... I want to say about 6 months to a year after this movie came out bertoli (they make like Frozen Italian food and sauce and stuff like that) started running commercials that played the song that Cobb's team used to signal it's the chemical was about to run out and everyone wake up.
And I didn't know that commercial was a thing.
So I was in my apartment and I can't remember what I was doing but the TV was on and just off in my periphery I started hearing this song from inception and started freaking out cuz I had no idea where it was coming from. 🤣
Because there's literally no other single context where that song would normally be played.
Can I just take 2 seconds to appreciate Hans Zimmer? He's just amazing.
There’s a theory that Cobb’s real totem is his wedding ring. It’s on during dream sequences but off when he’s in the real world.
"It's probably just a stoner sitting in a corner eating." George, you crack me up!
Wow. I read this right as he said it in the video.
Awesome, my favorite movie of all time! such an incredible movie and definitely requires multiple viewings.
I remember watching this in a packed theater. That last scene, we all forgot that wasn’t his totem so it spinning and spinning and then the movie ending, the entire crowd gasped with mock anger and then everyone clapped. It was a good time.
I died laughing at the "He got to touch his totem! That sounded wrong..." 🤣🤣
He’s in reality in the end. He only wears his ring in the dreams, & when Sir Michael Caine is in the scene, that also establishes he’s in reality. Caine explains this in a public interview
Aww, you can see poor Simone got a real fright in the Mal sequence there.
Simone’s face seeing the grenade launcher is everything
Try wrapping your head around this one: For the final spinning top's fade to black, it wasn't so much a case of "did it fall?" or didn't it, it was Cobb walked away without waiting to see. He was home and he had his children back - he no longer cared if it was real or a dream; either way he was willing to take it.
As an Edmontonian the banter between you two made me laugh! Honestly I love the city though I've gotta say! Great reaction guys inception is one of my top 10 movies, the amount of creativity Nolan had to come up with even just the concept and make it all work and be a coherent story that you can then explain to an audience in a short period is just insane! It blew my mind when I first saw it.
Ah yes, the movie that put me on to Christopher Nolan! This was an instant favorite when I saw it at a drive-in theater with my sister and brother in law. My parents got me the blu-ray for that following christmas and i got Cobb's totem on amazon as a good fidget toy lol Inception and Interstellar are my favorite Nolan films
As much as I love Interstellar and the Dark Knight trilogy, this was Christopher Nolan's magnificent octopus! Absolutely sublime movie!
5:42 This made me burst out laughing. Excellent editing. Great reaction and movie too, this is my favorite film of all time 👌🏻
12:25 ... isn't that a bishop tho?
A very tall pawn if so, and I thought I saw a slit cut in the head.
Nolan said that if Michael Caine is in the scene,it's the real world
Fun fact, the hospital in the mountains was filmed out in Banff Alberta (Fotress Mountain ski resort to be specific). I think this was Nolan's best movie, which is saying a lot, considering his filmography. Everything seems too make sense (once you accept the original premise). Fun reaction - especially since I am a Flames fan :)
At the end of the movie, when the top is spinning, Cobb's son says to him, "We're building a house on a cliff." At the beginning of the movie Saito's house is on a cliff. Still a dream. All a dream. The top is still spinning.
George: All the Nolan movies we’ve watched so far definitely have a distinct look to it.
That would be thanks to Wally Pfister, Nolan’s cinematographer from Memento through Dark Knight Rises.
Everyone debates about that ending and whether it was a dream or not. My favorite part is in the middle of the movie when Cobb never gets to check his totem after Yousef has Cobb try out the sleeping agent in the basement where many are out to sleep. Cobb is interrupted after washing his face, and never finds out if he really woke up or not.
My theory is that there is no dream technology at all. The whole thing was Cobb dreaming about everything while on a long flight. At the end he wakes up and goes home.
Such an intelligent movie; one of the few I've seen where the entire audience gave it an ovation.
Nolan’s Trilogy: The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar.
I think what makes the exposition in Inception work is that it uses exposition to set up all the different components of the story, and then pays off literally everything. If the exposition was done in any other way, then this movie would probably be incomprehensible, and not in the good way either. This is fundamentally a story where Nolan invites the audience and immerses them in the world, so for it to work would require the rules of the world to be clearly explained. Inception does it brilliantly
Man the day becomes immediately much better when i get CineBinge new upload on my yt home page!
Cast-wise it's like watching Nolan play with Lego. He takes Michael Caine & Cillian Murphy from previous Batman films and adds Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Marion Cotillard who then transfer over to his last Batman film.
Your new upload always comes in right on time after I came home from work, took a shower and made some food.
It's the best timing on youtube I've ever experienced :D
Oh and btw: The "weird monster in the dream" is an homage to Freddy Kruger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series [which you should watch ;)] which is super funny in that inception episode since Kruger murders people in their dreams and that simply puts Scary Terry on another level.
The movie Dreamscape did something similar but less SFX back in the 80s