I don't get that part. How does getting Saito out of limbo make him realize he was incepted? Plz explain.

Also he says everyone is smiling but Fischer was not. Fischer wouldn't have said "you were in my dream! and you!" because logics would tell him "oh, I saw these people when I entered the plane and so my mind placed them in my dream and gave them made up roles."

^ the original writer of that needs to be consistent with the names and have more concise ideas, I can barely follow what he's saying.

who the hell is Dom, cobol/cobal and colbolt guy? Are they all Cobb?

michael caine = scarecrow?

Dom is Cobb's first name.

Cobalt Engineering is a company who either hired Cobb to steal from someone else, or was the one that Cobb stole from.

Michael Caine is Cobb's father in law.

So is the spinning top Dom's totem or his wifes? My friend thinks Dom's totem is his children's faces.

it can't be his childrens faces because anyone can know what they look like unless its something very particular about their faces. The spinning top was originally his wife's I think.

The first link says that the snow fortress level was Eames Dream but the interview with the chemist says that it's Fischer's dream.

So.....??!?!?!?!?!?!

It's Eames' dream, but Cobb tricks Fisher to believe that they are entering Browning's dream because Fisher thinks Browning is setting him up.

Edit: To clarify, the vault was placed there by the team, in Eames' part of the mission and is the part that inception takes place. (Which is the vault)

damn, never looked at it like that haha

just saw it. It was good. THis thread made me go :O

Ok so I've read a lot into this thing and have figured out most of the answers that I'm comfortable with.

So maybe someone can help me confirm what i'm about to say.

in the 4th level (limbo),
Fischer had to jump off the roof and be woken up by the defibulator - 2 kicks to get out of limbo
Ariadne had to jump off the roof and be kicked by the snow fortress explosion - 2 kicks to get out of limbo
this is because they were all heavily sedated in reality.

so under heavy sedation, in either levels, if you just kill yourself, you go into limbo unless you get a kick from the current level & the level above.

Cobb stayed in limbo because he missed the kick from above.
So in succession, he died from stab wound eventually i assumed, he gets reset back into limbo, dies in hotel elevation explosion, reset in limbo, and drowned in the van, limbo once again and wakes up on beach and is all confuzzled.

since he's still in limbo, if he and both OLD Saito shot eachother at the end, wouldn't they both be reset in limbo??
My theory is because in reality the timer or sedative wore off so they were able to kick themselves out with only one death, maybe that's why they were the last 2 to wake up?

To get out of limbo, does ene would have to understand they are still "dreaming", and have to wake up by killing themself?
Seto forgets about everything until Cobbs come in and tries to remind seto that this isnt real. Once Seto finds out its not real, he kills himself. Therefore he escapes limbo.

There was the link above were one of the actors said being in Limbo is like being in a coma.
the individual needs to be awaken from within inorder to be awaken up in reality

I don't think that's the case and I don't think he dies in the hotel or the van. Remember that time is different so he probably woke up in the hotel five minutes after everyone else and then maybe a few seconds after everyone else in the van and then almost immediately after everyone else on the plane.

The kick is a feeling of falling so he could easily do it to himself in every situation. Remember the only reason they couldn't kick in the hotel is because the van was in freefall. As soon as it hits the water, the hotel regains gravity.

It is NOT a dream: The WEDDING RING gives it away.

We start the movie with Cobb in limbo with Saito, he is wearing a ring. Step back to the beginning, he is trying to convince Saito to let him into his mind to help protect it, this takes place in a dream two layers down. He is wearing a wedding ring. Things go south and we wake up in the apartment, where we think an angry mob is really coming down the street. They threaten Saito's life with him thinking it is reality, only for him to discover otherwise. In this entire scene Cobb is wearing a wedding ring. Wake up on the train, NO WEDDING RING. In the hotel suite on the phone with his kids, NO WEDDING RING. On the roof talking to Saito, NO WEDDING RING. France, the architecture university, NO WEDDING RING. The coffee shop in Ariadne's first shared dream, Cobb is wearing his wedding ring, she freaks out. They wake up in the workshop, NO WEDDING RING. They go back under and Ariadne explores the physics of the dreamworld, again Cobb is wearing a wedding ring.

Cobb goes to see Eames, the entire time not wearing a ring. He meets the new chemist, still no ring. The chemist gives him a quick taste of his latest potion, in that scene we get a quick glimpse of his hand with a WEDDING RING. Wakes up, no ring. See the pattern?

So finally, the inception. We are on the plane, we clearly see is not wearing a ring. Level 1, WEDDING RING, Level 2, WEDDING RING, Level 3 WEDDING RING, Limbo he is wearing his WEDDING RING.

After he meets Saito as an old man, the conversation continues past what we saw in the beginning, yet even here he is wearing a WEDDING RING still. Then, when Saito reaches for the gun, we are on an airplane. He is not wearing a wedding ring here.

HERE IS THE KEY. As he is walking through the terminal, no ring, as he is greeted by father in law, no ring, when he gets home and spins his totem, no ring.

In his dreams he is married to Mul still, as she can still exist there. In reality, he knows she is dead and does not wear a wedding ring as he is no longer married. A simple yet easily unnoticed way to test which parts are reality.

Not done there, I investigated another thing, Cobb's totem:

I have seen many posts of people saying his totem falls when he is in others' dreams. This is simply not true. People say it wobbles and falls over in the beginning. I watched and listened closely, Saito spins the top and we hear it spinning as the scene cuts to the young Saito. Then, in the end when we see him old again, he looks down and it is still spinning, he knows he is not in reality and goes for the gun.

When Cobb uses inception on Mul, it continues and never stops. In the hotel after the failed Saito mission, it falls. A funny thing to note is that every scene in which the top spins endlessly he is wearing a WEDDING RING. In the scenes in which it topples, he is not.

Now, the awakening scene. Looks an awful lot like a dream right? Not really. He wakes up on the plane surprised, but everyone is smiling. They woke up from the sedatives, but Cobb and Saito were down in limbo. When they got back, everyone is happy to see he made it, Saito looks just as stunned only backing up the fact that he really snapped back to reality. They are all getting bags, going through customs, etc. Everyone looks at each other with a grin because they know inception worked and that Cobb is finally home. Not very dream-like except that it seems like a dream come true. Had the scene after he and Saito with the gun been him in his home, him on his way to his home, etc, I would think it is a dream. No, he awakens in EXACTLY the place he went to sleep to start inception. You never really know how you get to where you are in a dream do you? Then how does he know he is on a plane and just successfully completed inception on Robert Fischer, the man in front of him?

Finally, the home scene. Looks like a dream? In this case, yes it does. we see the children exactly where they were, doing the same thing, wearing the same clothes. They appear the same age. On my second viewing this was red flag that it was a dream. But on my third viewing I noticed slight differences, such as the kids looking slightly older. The cast list has two sets of kids listed, ones slightly older than the others. They are not voice casts but actual actors in the film. I especially noticed a difference as the camera pans towards the totem, I chose to focus on the back door with the kids. The girl is seen throwing herself on her father, in this scene she looks clearly older than the memory he has of her.

And of course, the totem itself. I watched each spin my third time through. It spun flawlessly for a while, began to wobble slightly, then started a hard wobble then fall. In the final scene it appears to be spinning smoothly for a long time, he probably gave it a lot of power. It starts to slightly wobble, and the screen goes black after it begins a HARD WOBBLE as if it is about to topple, not correct itself.

Conclusion: The movie isn't a dream, Cobb isn't caught in some "limbo that looks a lot like reality." Cobb spends the entire movie trying to get to his kids in reality, why would he settle for shades in a limbo? What proof is there that he is dreaming the whole time? If he is dreaming at the end, where is he dreaming? Limbo? So he goes from talking to Saito to just waking up on a plane, all as a part of a dream in limbo? Really? Think about it.

Nolan would never take the "eeet was aaaaalll a dreeeeaaaammmmm" cliche way out. But the fact that he cut the film before the top falls over does have a meaning. He is planting a seed of doubt in your mind. He uses inception on the audience to have them question the ending. The concept of the movie thus becomes reality to the viewer, a heavy thing to think about and something that hasn't been done before.

But all the evidence points to reality.

I think that makes the most sense out of everything that's been said. This seed of doubt fucks with your mind and thats where all these different interpretations are coming from. The whole spew about an idea being the most resilient virus is what confirms this theory. ( for me at least ... ) It's mentioned two or three times in the movie with Leo explaining it to someone else, and it's also responsible for Mol's death so it seem pretty important to Nolan. The way he setup the last scene was the perfect way to prove it.

I need to watch this movie again.

good post bounce. makes a lot more sense but i didnt notice the wedding ring in the both times i saw it in theatres. i guess i didnt pay attention enough to that but it does all make sense. however i didnt notice that the kids looked slightly older...they looked pretty damn similar to me

...

...

...NOOOO GET OUTTA MY HEAD, CHARLES

With movies, you often see lots of inconsistencies. So if they were consistent with the wedding ring, then you gotta give them recognition for having such attention to detail.

yeah thats true....i would have never thought of that...i might have to watch it again just to look for that lolol.....not

See the original thread of this theory to read all the arguments against it. This post in particular brings up most of the things I would have. I also would have mentioned that Cobb appeared confused when he 'warped' from the airport to "home", with no time passing in between.

Because as the movie had established, when you are in a dream, you don't know how you got there. You are just there.

Just like how he could travel to Japan, France, Kenya, etc, all without actually traveling. He was just "there". Nolan is too meticulous a director to succumb to shitty editing, so it was probably done this way on purpose. There would also be a plot hole that he is traveling to all these countries on the run for murder. He would have been extradited from Japan immediately. Same as Kenya, they both have extradition treaties with the US.

It's been a while since I watched it, but wasn't Fisher's flight from Australia? So there's another country they 'leaped' to (and another which would have extradited Cobb).

Then the big plot hole that would have opened had this been reality, where Saito somehow has the power to buy Cobb's innocence with a phone call... what? He may be an energy tycoon, but come on.

My theory is, it was a dream. Perhaps an inception on Cobb himself. When his wife jumped off the building, SHE was the one who knew they were in limbo. She went back to reality, he didn't. The ring is only in other dreams because it's his totem (the top is his wife's totem). He had relieved himself of his guilt, and has basically given up and will "live" the rest of time with his kids.

can someone explain this to me.....if cobbs wife was back in reality...couldnt she just pop back in and join cobbs dreams? she was never in the level where cobb thought 'reality' really was. She was always in levels 2 and further....why not level 1 if cobb was actually dreaming?

Who knows where Cobb really is though?

LOL