1) It is never said that 3 levels is the maximum depth of a dream until Limbo occurs. My interpretation has always been that Cobb and Ariadne hooked up a shared-dream machine to Fisher's dead body, which brought them into Limbo.
2) Why are there 2 Limbos? There's the one Cobb and Ariadne follow Fisher and Mal into (which has the architecture of the Limbo that Cobb and Mal shared all those years ago). There's then the Limbo that Cobb and Saito share, where it looks like Saito architected the environment (Asian influences). And if they were the same Limbo, why was Cobb washed up on a shore with no memory of how he got there in Saito's Limbo?
3) In the Limbo that Cobb and Mal shared, all they needed to do was kill themselves to wake up. Why then was the defibrillator needed to wake Fisher up from death in Limbo to Dream 3?
So you're not supposed to worry too much about the logic of the dream levels, since all dreams are basically metaphors for life: mazes where people "get lost" and from which they need to "die to wake up". The only thing that makes limbo special is that it is particularly symbolic. Nolan is presenting a metaphor of life itself as a Penrose staircase, and portraying faith as the way out. When Ariadne shatters the mirrors that trap Cobb in a recursive chain, the image is symbolic: she is a gift from Cobb's father ("ask and ye shall receive") and her role in the film is to guide him out of the maze that is the mortal world. This is presumably why she is the character who accompanies him to immigration.
For more evidence that this is intentional, look at the overwhelming creation imagery and the narrative emphasis on father-son alienation and reconciliation (with Fischer as with Cobb). Look at the curious way Michael Caine seems to be playing God when he shows up in Paris. And then look closely at the ending, which shows us neither a dream nor reality. What Nolan presents is symbolic: we see Cobb's judgment and forgiveness of sins at immigration, and then his reunion with his family in the heavenly garden. The film closes with Cobb ignoring his totem (as a crutch of faithlessness it is no longer needed) and then his son James (who represents faith and like his sister shares an apostolic name) telling him that they are building a castle on a cliff.
A what? That last bit circles back to the opening shot of the children on the beach. It is a bookend reference to Matthew 7.24 and the parable of the wise and foolish builders. The contrast (beach -> cliff) reinforces Cobb's character journey while telling us that the ending is NOT a dream (something reinforced by the lack of the water imagery associated with the other dream levels). It also reinforces the parallels Inception creates between the buildings of limbo and the sandcastles on the beach, and explains why all are ultimately washed away by water just as death washes away life in the Christian parable.
Brilliant movie.
I think though that we can go a step forward.
I agree that we all should look at it much more in a symbolic and metaphorical way than a logical way (there are several points in which the internal logic is severely weak).
And exactly because of all the reasons you mentioned above, I've always considered the whole movie being representing something related to Cobbs.
Cobbs is the one receiving the Inception.
No matter if by God or Ariadne, or God through Ariadne or viceversa. Or if this happens in the real life, afterlife, parallel life, dream levels or what. The whole movie is about Cobbs and his subconscious. It's also interesting that Nolan used the name Cobbs for one of the characters of his first movie, Following, in which Cobbs was some sort of serial burglar. Just to keep the metaphor going.
3) The sedation is the difference. Cobb and Mal weren't sedated when they were in limbo, so killing themselves worked to wake them up. In this case, Fischer's under heavy sedation and dying wouldn't wake him up, even from limbo. Hence, the defibrillator was used to 'kick' him up from limbo to level 3.
The dilution of the gravity effect seems consistent with exponential expansion of time.
1. The bulk of the story is framed as Cobb & Saito's recollection in limbo. My theory is that the recollection (rather than the gun) is what wakes them up.
2. There is no explanation for why the first kick in dream level 1 (the one they miss) doesn't wake up Arthur, who is awake in dream level 2.
It was (I thought) very straight-forward. The bigger problems with the movie come from the plot holes pointed out by Pewpewarrows. Do those holes perhaps contribute to the confusion?
You're suffering the mathematician's disease, ably satirized by Feynman in that quote I can't stop paraphrasing: "Mathematicians can only prove trivial theorems, because once proved any theorem is immediately seen to be trivial."
But I think Inception succeeds as a film only because following the plot thread in real time isn't of the essence, just as I was able to enjoy Beethoven's Fifth Symphony long before I was taught its formal structure. Without the education required to really dissect that structure, you nevertheless sense that it's there, and it enhances the emotional experience that the work is trying to convey – in Inception's case, the experience of being a man (well, two men, actually, and possibly also a woman) immersed in a dreamlike world full of symbols, mazes, masks, bluffs, and distractions, a world that he himself is creating to distract his own attention from the pure, simple, but unthinkably awful pain at the center of his life.
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EDIT: Fixed my prose, which got away from me. So tempted to just delete this whole thing, but I try to avoid erasing history even if it's really embarrassing and exhausting.
Personal anecdote: My friend who is in marketing and is not at all a geek also thinks if you have half a brain the plot is obvious. She has no special math training beyond an MBA, and has done absolutely zero programming in her life.
Or a carpenter.
Or a secretary.
... chef, janitor, burgerflipper, librarian, bassist, cop.
Similarly my mother (not a dumb woman by and large) got tripped up because there was a line in the movie that the dream machines were military technology, instead of taking this a handwave she spent the rest of the film assuming that it was a secret CIA sting operation.
Basically not recognizing which parts of a universe you're supposed to just roll with and which parts you're supposed to puzzle out yourself.
Possible side effect: you spend the whole movie/book trying to solve it through a completely broken lens and nothing ever adds up or you're too busy (mentally) to notice the real- straight forward- breadcrumb trail and you come out thinking it was much twistier than it was.
If you want a movie with actual complexity, watch Primer. Oh, you’ll probably think you get it the first time through, because the writing is great. Then you’ll rewatch it a couple times and see just how much you missed, because the writing is brilliant.
eXistenZ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/)
Naked Lunch (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/)
(And other David Cronenberg movies. While I'm at it, although it's completely linear, I'm going to plug: "Crash" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/).)
Jacob's Ladder (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) is almost a great brain-bending movie, but for some damn reason at the very end there's a, "Let's explain what really happened!" scene. F'idiots. (I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son (played by Macaulay Culkin) dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together. Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.)
The complexity doesn't seem to arise organically out of the plotline. A lot of the confusion is generated out of not hearing the one time in the movie someone explained something, or from the movie not explaining something that is easily explainable. It's almost as if the writers could have made the plotline easier to follow while keeping the plot the same, but at times purposefully chose to obfuscate it solely for the purpose of making a "complex" movie.
Edit2: originally said "obligatory" but maybe that's too meme-ish for HN.
...and the audio is pretty inconsistent :P
But seriously, seconded. One of my absolute favorite films of all time, and made on a budget in the thousands. Completely stunning.
The -confusion- around Inception is probably just because the narrative is fairly dense.
It does lend itself well to interpretation and general musing, but sometimes I feel people are reaching too far for allegory and symbolism. It's good to find those things, and to take art and run with it, to let it seed ideas and interpretation, but some are a little over zealous.
Seriously, get off your high horse.
Edit:
Am I the only one who sees the irony of the annoyed pot calling the annoyed kettle black?
At first watch it's clear (apart from the ending sequence) what parts of the movie are dreams and what parts are reality, but when you watch it again you may start to consider that it's a little more fuzzy than that.
But then I read trevelyan's post above and I feel stupid.
I recently re-watched David Lynch's Lost Highway. That is a wonderful and complex film that on the surface seems nonsensical and surreal, but - once you make certain revelations - reveals its beautiful and elegant construction.
Note that having the whole thing be a dream completely drains it of all interesting dramatic tension, turning an interesting movie into one in which nothing (or very little) is at stake and nothing really happens for any particular reason. (Remember, if the whole movie is a dream there's no longer any reason to believe his wife is waiting one level up.) It's an awfully stiff price to pay for a painfully dull, obvious twist.
Maybe because of the scroll speed the animations have fewer frames to animate which makes it look choppy? I'm not sure.
I actually switched over to a wheel mouse because I tried using this on an Apple touchpad and it was not a happy animation.
I'm pretty forgiving about the smoothness though. Scroll pages like this are still uncommon and it seems nontrivial to refine the scrolling to the point where it feels smooth and natural.
I would not have the same expectation for an FPS or side scrolling game put out by a studio.
Ah but how often do have a chance to feel weightless? Unless you are on a space station, bungee or parachute jumping? So the feeling of weightlessness itself is pretty startling.
Also it is the moment from when you are standing on something and get pushed over the edge and then all of the sudden you are falling that is quite startling.
Think back on a dream of you falling. Everyone has those. For me, it is always the weightlessness that is shake me up and wakes me.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19021_5-amazing-things-invent...
The content might be interesting, but it's impossible to tell since this might be the worst way of presenting data I've seen this year. Which is quite an achievement, congratulations :-)
Visuals: Cool Performance: Hot
My guess would be: not much.
I do disagree that was a 'quick' way to make cash however.
But the idea of producing an 'explained' website with a very nice and subtle affiliate link is excellently executed. I'd have thought the HN crowd would appreciate that.