Inception

[Rase]

I just want to point out that(SPOILER) the top still spinning doesn't really matter. According to Cobb it was his wife's totem, not his. And it was also said that you can't let others touch your totem and risk them getting to know it. It was originally Moll's totem. Seito also touched it while they were in limbo.

Make of it what you will.

(SPOILER)Seito "touching" Cobb's totem in Limbo did not strike me as breaking this rule, as it as in a dream. He never physically touched it, so he can not know the weight and dimensions of it. As for Moll, I took the "no one touch your totem" thing to mean that way only you knew the dimensions, weight, etc. While Moll obviously knew these things when living, after she died it hardly mattered.

[Del Murder]

My take on the ending:

(SPOILER)I think it's left purposely open ended for people to interpret it how they want. Whether he was still in the dream, reality, or hell even if the whole damn movie was a dream, it's up to the viewer. If you asked Nolan he probably wouldn't have a definitive answer. For me, the top was wobbling and about to fall over and that was enough evidence for me that he was in reality. The other reasons would be that many layers of dream is too damn confusing and also I like happy endings.

[Bunny]

(SPOILER)I think it's left purposely open ended for people to interpret it how they want. Whether he was still in the dream, reality, or hell even if the whole damn movie was a dream, it's up to the viewer. If you asked Nolan he probably wouldn't have a definitive answer. For me, the top was wobbling and about to fall over and that was enough evidence for me that he was in reality. The other reasons would be that many layers of dream is too damn confusing and also I like happy endings. :)

This is basically my opinion of the ending. Though I was a bit tired when I watched it and almost fell asleep due to only have two hours of bad sleep in 30 hours.

[Miriel]

Do we have to keep up this spoiler business? If you haven't watched the movie, GTFO!

The whole point of that ending was to be ambiguous. It's like Nolan did an inception on the whole audience. Planted this idea, this nugget of an idea right from the start of the movie with the whole totem business. And then took the audience on a wild ride, building and building on this idea until you get to that last scene. And everything that came before and combined with that ending was meant to make you question, doubt and think. Nolan was the architect, we were all in a shared "dream" or quite literally, a shared cinematic experience. So on that purely cinematic level, I think Nolan's achieved something truly incredible. How many movies are there that spark this kind of discussion? I've read SO many interpretations of the ending (SPOILER)(they're still in limbo, they're in reality, the ENTIRE movie was a dream, Ariadne was doing an inception on Cobb, etc), and each one makes me think and wonder. And I know there's a ton of people going in for repeat viewings because they want to catch all the little details that might clue us in on the ending.

Some interesting things to point out:

Ariadne - In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the immortal wife of the wine-god Dionysos, as well as the daughter of King Minos of Krete. She assisted Theseus in his quest to slay the Minotaur, and helped him along in his journey through the labyrinth and eventually to escape from it.

The name is meaningful I think.

Also, Nolan and other cast members have said that at the ending, it's more important to listen than to see. In my theater, there was too much, "Ahhhgghg" going on to really hear anything.

(SPOILER)A lot of the evidence is pointing towards the fact that the ending is a dream. But I don't think accepting it as reality is the wrong conclusion. Cobb spun the totem but didn't even wait to see if it fell, he just left it and ran to his children. Which to me says that Cobb accepted this as his reality regardless of the totem. And if he accepted it as his reality, and continues to live that life as his reality, is it the wrong conclusion for the audience to accept it as reality too? I choose to believe that Cobb and Saito both managed to come back from limbo. Thinking otherwise would break my heart. Either way, reality, dream, limbo, whatever, Cobb's catharsis was still real. And I'd like to believe that Ariadne was the catalyst for that and she, like her Greek predecessor, did lead Cobb out of the labyrinth.

God, the more I think about this movie, the more I love it. I think it's an even more thought provoking film than the Matrix was, and I do love me some Matrix.

[Raistlin]

KSK does Inception. (spoiler warning)

"Ariadne: What’ll we do? I could try all that fancy building shifting stuff I pulled out when my character was first introduced and then never used again. On second thought… no."

(SPOILER)If I had to pick one, I think the ending was probably a dream. It just makes the most sense given what the movie says. The "entire movie was a dream" theory is just too big of a stretch; though technically possible, it just rests exclusively on loads of assumptions. Someone mentioned before that Cobb always has his wedding ring on when he's dreaming, which is an excellent catch and a very persuasive piece of evidence for the ending being a dream.

[JKTrix]

I'm planning on watching it again in the next couple of days to pick out more details, but I believe that in the ending sequence (SPOILER)the random people in the airport were looking at Cobb as if they were someone else's subconscious projections.

[Miriel]

EDIT: Except there is ONE thing that completely discredits this theory (SPOILER)and that is the fact that in every dream sequence Cobb is wearing his wedding ring. In every reality sequence he is not. In the final scene the ring can be seen.

Are you sure about this? Because other people are saying that he is definitely NOT wearing his ring during the final scenes. And if the ring serves as the audience's totem, then it means the ending was (SPOILER)reality.

[Ouch!]

EDIT: Except there is ONE thing that completely discredits this theory (SPOILER)and that is the fact that in every dream sequence Cobb is wearing his wedding ring. In every reality sequence he is not. In the final scene the ring can be seen.

Are you sure about this? Because other people are saying that he is definitely NOT wearing his ring during the final scenes. And if the ring serves as the audience's totem, then it means the ending was (SPOILER)reality.

I just got back from seeing the movie a second time. I was specifically looking for this, but after (SPOILER)they wake up in the airplane, the camera never shows Cobb's left hand. The people in the airport were not looking at Cobb.

I also noticed the second time through that there is one point at which everything beyond could be a dream. When Cobb and Eames visit the chemist and he shows them the ten men sharing the dream in the basement, Cobb tests the sedative compound. When he wakes up from the memory of committing suicide in limbo, he runs into the bathroom to splash his face with water. Before he can spin his totem, he is interrupted by Seito. From this point forward, he never spins the totem again until the very end. It's possible that he hasn't actually woken up from the dream in the basement in Mombosa, but I still doubt it.

[McLovin']

EDIT: Except there is ONE thing that completely discredits this theory (SPOILER)and that is the fact that in every dream sequence Cobb is wearing his wedding ring. In every reality sequence he is not. In the final scene the ring can be seen.

Are you sure about this? Because other people are saying that he is definitely NOT wearing his ring during the final scenes. And if the ring serves as the audience's totem, then it means the ending was (SPOILER)reality.

Oh heh, I was actually just making an assumption. Because I just assumed it was reality and that he would have been wearing the ring. Hadn't fully thought about that the movie could have really differing views. Sorry

[blackmage_nuke]

Excuse me but Im going to rant it's praises for abit:
Just saw it and it is one of the best movies I have seen in a while. Pretty much everything about it was perfect. The way it had had action and suspense at the same time and I kept thinking the ending was near but the movie just kept going and climaxing over and over. And the music that just kept my heart pounding, and it was physically exhausting when I forgot to breathe. Those moments happen occasionally in movies but I have never had it happen for half an hour straight.
And the trailers were brilliant. It got you interested but didnt give you any expectations about the movie plot. Thats what trailers should.
And the ending credits! The way they showed the title of the movie three times im sure there is some hidden meaning behind that but I was too thrilled after the movie to think about it. (and the music choice at the very end of the credits was clever) it felt like a little hint for the few of us who stayed after the credits.
Theres probably alot more I swooned over when I saw the movie but im a bit too dazed at the moment to recall it all

One minor thing though:
(SPOILER)I found it strange how after the first architect betrayed them they were so quick to trust three new members and what was especially surprising was how the two of them revealed how thier individual tokens worked to the new architect when they barely knew her.

edit: or did he not betray them and only got kicked off because of his lack of skill? im not sure

[Goldenboko]

One minor thing though:
(SPOILER)I found it strange how after the first architect betrayed them they were so quick to trust three new members and what was especially surprising was how the two of them revealed how thier individual tokens worked to the new architect when they barely knew her.

edit: or did he not betray them and only got kicked off because of his lack of skill? im not sure

(SPOILER)He betrayed them. However, I felt throughout that desperate times called for desperate measures. Cobb knew he had a time-limit for the inception (whenever the current president of that company died), and if they're new architect betrayed them mid-dream, they'd all be stuck in limbo after a failure anyway. If they failed the inception but got out of the dream Cobb was going to prison anyway, so it doesn't a betrayal after-the-fact probably didn't seem very pressing to Cobb either.

[blackmage_nuke]

In response to a few posts about the totem and the ending:
(SPOILER)I think the totem only works as an indicator as to whether you are in someone elses dream. Since each individual knows how thier own totem works it will not work in thier own dreams. Since totems are ordinary objects with a slight unique variation if you are in someone else dream they will act and feel like their ordinary counterparts, but in your own dreams you can subconciously manipulate them to work like thier unique counter parts so they are no indication that you are dreaming. As such there is no indication at the end as to whether Cobb is in reality or dreaming

I also think the point of Cobb's totem was that in reality it was designed so it doesnt stop spinning. In the dream world it would topple at a normal rate which is shorter than it would in reality

However if that is not the case (edit, now that i think about it, it likely isnt the case) then Cobb's totem is strange in that it works in the exact opposite way as the other totems. Where the other totems are normal items with strange properties in reality (dice is loaded, chess piece has a hole in it) Cobb's totem is a normal item with strange properties in the dream world (spins forever) which doesnt make as much sense as a totem indicating when you are in someone elses dream. It could only work as an indicator of whether you are in your own dream and even then it can only give you a positive result (if it spins forever) and not a negative result, as if it topples you cant tell if it was your subconcious toppling it

[Drift]

that rule of story writing about never ending it "it was all a dream"? yeah this movie threw it out the window xD movie was excellent. i'm personally not sure about what the ending meant yet. still thinking it through.

[blackmage_nuke]

"Ariadne: What’ll we do? I could try all that fancy building shifting stuff I pulled out when my character was first introduced and then never used again. On second thought… no."

I believe the whole dream mechanic works as such:
(SPOILER)You have one 'main' dreamer, everyone else is a 'shared' dreamer. Thats pretty well backed up since throughout the movie they say "we're going to go into 'such and such's' dream". The main dreamer (with training) have complete control over the dream environment (at the begining when Ariadne was bending buildings she was the main dreamer and had a knack for it), the shared dreamers can also manipulate the dream but the main dreamer has priority control. However sometimes if one of the shared dreamers has an extremely powerful subconcious emotion it can come out and trump the main dreamer, like how Moll appears out of no where on the bridge during the girl's training dream and kills her. This dream trumping can also be done by training mental defenses as Fischer had done. When the plan was put into action Ariadne was not able to use her powerful manipulation abilities for two reasons i can think of

1- She was not the main dreamer, why? because the main dreamer had to be the one to stay behind and enter the rest of the shared dreamers into the next level, she had to follow Cobb all the way as she was the one who knew about his crazy subconcious
2- Everything Cobb said in the begining about how the more crazy things you do in the dream the more likely it is that the person you're trying to fool will figure out and all the subconcious onlookers will attack you.

Also I feel a lot of the people (not anyone in particular) saying "the ending is a dream" are only saying that because it's the edgy ending. I cant think of any reason the ending couldnt be reality, that it couldnt just be a straight foward story with a straight foward happy ending. I think people say "it's a dream" because they want it to be a dream and then they go on to reject the theory that it's reality as unrealistic becuase it's the "happy ending" when really they themselves seek the "sad ending" because thats the ending theyve gotten use to in past years and it makes them happy to think that way.

Im not argueing for or against either theory, I accept both possibilities

edit: though i didnt notice the ring thing, that would be a clear indicator but i dont know if he's wearing the ring or not because i wasnt paying attention to it

edit: More relating to my previous post about totems
(SPOILER)Now that I think about it Cobb's totem does make quite abit of sense. If he is really the 'best' extractor there is then he would be able to manipulate it to spin forever regardless of the 'main' dreamers manipulation. (in my previous post when i said "someone elses dream" i was refering to a main dreamer)

Something I dont think they covered:
(SPOILER)How and why did Cobb and Mal go into the first limbo? What were they doing at the time? It only shows them waking up on the floor, there is no one else around that they were trying to extract information from and no one to operate the machine. If there isnt an answer it begs the golden question presented in the film "How did they get there". This seems to support the "the entire movie is a dream" theory

[Slothy]

Also I feel a lot of the people (not anyone in particular) saying "the ending is a dream" are only saying that because it's the edgy ending. I cant think of any reason the ending couldnt be reality, that it couldnt just be a straight foward story with a straight foward happy ending.

I personally subscribe to the idea that the entire thing was a dream upon a lot of reflection (at least until I can watch it a few more times), but regardless, I'd say that Cobb's kids not having aged a day and even being in the exact same position playing as they were the day he left is a pretty strong indicator that the end was a dream all on it's own. Not to even mention how quickly and cleanly everything wrapped up in the end. It was like he woke up and everyone's there and he's home a minute later. It was just such a sped up, neat and tidy happy ending that it all seems more like a dream than an ending that actually takes place in the real world.