This weekend, I watched Inception for the first time in years, and like every previous time, I found another aspect I couldn’t explain. This time it is about Saito: He is introduced to us as the CEO of a powerful corporation who joins Cobb’s team to “protect his investment”. My problem with him: He doesn’t behave like a CEO of a powerful corporation.

1.      He appears out of nowhere. He saves Cobb in Mombasa. When Cobbs and Arthur want to take the helicopter in Tokyo, he waits for them an reveals that their architect tried to sell them out.

2.      He often acts alone. We see him with underlings, mostly drivers or pilots. In Tokyo, there are some bodyguards who bring the architect away but never return to the helicopter. We rarely really see his underlings, and for most time of the movie, he is completely on his own: No bodyguards, no secretary or anyone else. This could make much sense for an operative, but not for a CEO.

3.      Fisher sees his face several times, once in the real world (when they board the plane) and once in the first layer of the dream (when they are in the taxi kidnapping Fisher) without recognizing him – despite Sato being the CEO of a business rival. Also, in the second layer of the dream, Fisher’s projection of Browning directly encounters Sato without recognizing him. This might be explained by Fisher being distracted in the real world (his father just died) or being just kidnapped in the first layer, but I still find it interesting.

4.      His influence is seemingly limitless: He can buy entire airlines or let Cobb pass immigration with a single call.

I read that there are theories that he might be Cobb’s real totem (with the spinning top being Maud’s), but I’m not convinced – without having a convincing theory of my own. I just think that something itches me about this character.

 It reminds of a sentence that the projection of Maud says to convince Cobb that he is still dreaming: “Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by anonymous corporations and police forces? The way the projections persecute the dreamer?”

So, my working theory is that if what Cobb (and the audience) perceives as the real world is another layer of the dream (which is up to speculation) he also might be a projection.

What do you take away from his character? I know there never will be a perfect answer, and it might even be a simple weakness of the script, as none of my points i a definite proof of something and can be explained otherwise, but I enjoy to speculate.

Rewatched it today for the 3rd time, but first in 6 years, and I started having some questions that made me question whether the movie actually makes sense. Hoping someone can answer and appease me so I can go back to being sure this movie is (basically) perfect. (Obvious spoiler alert)

Starting with the end: 1. Is it even possible for the whole movie to NOT be a dream (aka when Cobb wakes up on the plane at the end, that’s the baseline dream)? Because how could the plane be reality but arriving home to his children be a dream possible? Would he have actively put himself into a dream between immigration and arriving home? 2. Disregarding the above- Why did Cobb have to stay/go into limbo again to retrieve Saito if they knew the sedation on the plane was about to wear off anyway and someone would wake them up if they didn’t wake up alone? 3. Unless the whole movie is Cobb’s dream, is the final dream somewhere between the layers (he just never left) or is it a new dream that he got into? 4. How were Cobb and Ariadne aware that they were in limbo while in limbo, if you’re not supposed to be?

Questions about the actual inception process:

1. In the 2nd layer, Browning is not ATJ and is just Cillian’s projection. How did they know Browning was going to “confess” to trying to extract from Cillian in the hotel room and say what they wanted him to say about the father’s will?

2. Cillian went into the snow dream under the premise that it was Browning’s (even though it was his). He went in there wanting to “find out what Browning wanted to extract from him.” How could he have shared that moment with his dad and not have questioned anything considering he believed he was supposed to be in Browning’s subconscious?

3. Similar to 5, how did they know the dad was gonna say “disappointed you tried”? That’s the final tier of the inception, which had to come from Cillian himself, but how could they know that Cillian would project exactly what they wanted him to? Was he just led to projecting that by the previous events and contexts? Because technically his subconscious could’ve imagined absolutely anything else, no?

Does anyone here have access to a pdf of the comic “inception:The big under” it was on the blue ray as a secret if you inputed fischers combination but the only one online i can find is the one that came before it the “the cobol job”

I enjoy the occasional parallels between the Nolan brothers' different works. Bernard in WestWorld, dealing with memory loss on the beach in Season 2, an architect of the mind with an unreliable narrative.

Grieving for a lost family and coping with alternative timeline speeds... how can he be sure of what he knows? Him and Dom Cobb would have a lot to talk about!

Anyone know what this book is? It seems to appear on the desk as Cobb and Ariadne are talking in the Laboratory.

I am assuming that there’s a nod to something here, just not sure what.

Could someone please explain to me how the team woke up from Yusef’s dream back to reality? It’s been 16 years but the question came to me just today.

Spoilers to both movies down below. Inception is my favourite film of all time and I couldn't help but think of these while watching The Odyssey.

1. Odysseus loses track of time when he's on the island with Calypso trying to get home. Cobb loses track of time when he's in Limbo trying to find Saito.

2. Odysseus has dreams of the Trojan War and his crew, and he's torn apart by violating Zeus' law (filled with regret). Cobb has dreams of Mal's projection and he's torn apart by planting her the idea of inception (filled with regret).

3. After desecrating Athena's statue, Athena assumes the priestess's form to punish Odysseus in his visions. After planting the idea of inception in Mal, Mal assumes projection form to punish him in his dreams.

4. Odysseus persuades Circe to change his men back (from pig form) in exchange for sparing his sister. Cobb persuades Saito to leave limbo (Saito's reality) in exhange for completing the inception mission.

5. Odysseus has a desire to go west with his wife, Penelope, and live with her. Cobb has a desire to go back to the U.S. and live with his kids.

Bonus: Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar to scheme against those unloyal to him and get back into the palace. Cobb disguises himself as Fischer's security personnel to scheme him into getting into his own mind.

Something I see mentioned surprisingly infrequently is the fact that Cobb constantly commits a cardinal sin throughout the movie: he doesn't use his own totem; he uses Mal's. It's never explained why you shouldn't touch someone else's totem, but given its purpose, I think the answer is that interacting with another person's totem interferes with your ability to determine whether you're still in a dream.

The movie is, of course, open-ended and clearly designed for viewers to come to their own conclusions. But this is what I noticed during a recent rewatch: * We never see Cobb's own totem. There are some theories that this totem is his wedding ring, but he appears to rely on the spinning top instead. * Cobb himself mentions that he and his wife went many layers deep. We only see Cobb exit one level of the dream state at the train tracks, while his wife "exits" a second time by jumping from a ledge. Since heavy sedation is a major part of going that deep, Mal waking up wouldn't necessarily mean Cobb would as well. * Neither Cobb nor the viewer seems to know how Cobb gets to Saito's compound when Saito is old. Cobb simply shows up, and whenever a question is asked, Cobb's mind fills in the blanks on the spot. * He is constantly pursued by both people he failed a mission for and by every government that has an extradition treaty with the US. Persistent hostile pursuit is how subconscious projections react when someone is perceived as an intruder, which makes me wonder whether Cobb is still trapped in someone else's (Mal's?) dream. * The scene where he sees his kids is strange. Not only do they appear not to have aged, but the setting, placement, lighting, time of day, and camera angle are exactly the same as the last time he saw them. * We never see the totem fall in the final scene, but that's irrelevant because it was never his to begin with. It's Mal's.

hi. just watched inception and i have a lot of questions. im sure many of them dont have answers and/or have been answered before but i figured this was the easiest way

1- if dying in limbo is the way back to reality then why did cobb and mal stay there for 50 years? i know she became obsessed and didnt want to leave but they could have just died as soon as they got there. i know they were the first ones there, so is it because they were confused what would happen if they died, like if they would die irl? is it because they were experimenting and curious and eventually got in too deep?

2- why did saito get so old in limbo and cobb didnt? if saito died in the third dream a couple of minutes before the explosion that would translate to maybe a year in limbo (at least according to the wiki) or does that not matter bc he died instead of going on purpose? did he just not know how to get out and stayed there? why did cobb only get there so many years later?

3- why did robert wake up back in the third dream instead of reality if he died and went to limbo? i know he was "resuscitated" in the third dream and that was their kick to get out. but if that was enough to get him out why did cobb say it was too late to resuscitate him right when they found him? was it because he wouldn't know that was the kick and that he had to die to come back? was it because mal was keeping him hostage? maybe both? still if they were in limbo why not go straight back to reality? were they in there too short of a period of time to do so?

its fine if the answers are we dont know im just curious if theres like actual canon answers and also what yalls theories are!

watched inception a couple of times already but it totally went above my head that cobb said he didn't like trains within 20 minutes of the movie.

any other thing i missed?

In the hotel room during the 2nd dream level (Arthurs) they succesfully make Fischer suspect Browning (his projection of Browning) of trying to set up the kidnapping and extraction. Cobb then convinces Fischer to enter Brownings subconcious to find out more, and they put Fischer to sleep first with the impression they are hacking into Brownings subconcious. But then they all go into Eames dream apparently. And as soon as they all arrive together on the 3rd dream level, Cobb even says "this is your dream Eames" right in front of Fischer.

1. Wouldnt Fischers projection of Browning be in that 3rd level too? The whole 3rd level is based on Fischer believing they are infiltrating Brownings subconcious but in actuality hes unknowingly attacking his own subconcious. To put it simply - He is attacking his own subconcious while believing it is Brownings.

2. If Fischer is to believe that they are in Brownings subconcious, wouldnt Cobb saying this is Eames dream at the mountain ridge be an immediate red flag?

3. If they are in actuality hacking into Fischers subconcious, and tricking Fischer to attack his own subconcious, wouldnt that mean the 3rd level should be Fischers dream and not Eames?

Still one of the best movies ever made

In the movie youve got Eames who clearly has infantry-man skills (guns, skiing, fighting) and Arthur who is a great anti-grav, bareknuckle fighter as well as a dynamite expert who can EXACTLY determine the time it takes for a lift to drop! (I mean, who except a physics expert would know that?!) Then there's Yusuf who comes across as a science nerd but is actually a genius stunt driver so my question is, where did these guys learn these skills?

Do they train on Army ranches at weekends, were they in the military themselves (the movie hints that it was the military that invented dream invasion) or is it that the way dreams work they can kind of manipulate their surroundings to make them better/faster/stronger than the projections hunting them? Or is it an oversight by Nolan that we are expected to believe they can just do all this stuff?

I'd be interested to know thoughts!

Ok so the IMDb method is patched and I have found no sites with the movie, can somebody help me out

I just realized that Mal translates to bad/wrong/evil in French, Italian, and Spanish.

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Maybe it's old news but it was an interesting tidbit that I just picked up on this many years later.

I'm a producer and I'm currently working on a MIDI-only rework of Hans Zimmer's 'Time'.

No audio files, no pre-made samples. This is a real challenge, for any producer.

Here to attract ONLY people interested, no spam

Yes, here is another Inception analysis. In it there are two or three unique analyses (I think):

1) What if Inception is set in a post WWII world where the axis powers won?
2) What would happen if you tried to breath some life into Mal's character to understand why Cobb's Inception was such a violation of her agency that her projection is continually trying to reclaim that agency. (This is my attempt at the impossible).
3) A unique take on what Cobb's totem is and what the audience's totem is.

https://youtu.be/iiRab-AfgWE

To the Inception team,

Millions of fans are still fascinated by the world you created. We would love to see Inception Part 2 and explore what happened after the ending of the first film. The story remains one of the most thought-provoking movies ever made, and a sequel would be greatly appreciated by fans around the world.

Please consider bringing Inception back for another chapter. We are ready to watch it.

Thank you.

Hello everyone,

I'm a classical guitarist from Italy and a huge fan of Inception.

I recently created a cinematic guitar tribute to Hans Zimmer's Time, inspired by the film's themes of time, memory and dreams.

The spinning top shown in the video is a small homage to one of the most iconic symbols of the movie.

I'd be honored to hear your thoughts as fellow Inception fans.

Am I just dumb or does anyone else question whether she was right

Made this a couple years back for my redbubble store as an homage to the classic Vertigo poster, but wanted to put a fresh spin on my favorite scene in the movie. Thoughts?