Inception

[Raistlin]

Upon further reflecting, and seeing the disputes in this thread on its meaning, I'm going to have to take back what I said about the ending being even reasonably well done, despite my earlier criticism. It was trashy writing just meant to get some cheap gasps.

(SPOILER)Reasons why the ending was likely a dream:

1. There was no kick, and Cobb was under a sedative, so reality would becontradicting everything we were told in the movie.
2. The kids looked just like in the dream.
3. Things moved very fast, everything worked out perfectly.
4. The top spun a long-ass time.


Reasons why the ending likely was reality:

1. Cobb and (possibly) Seito otherwise magically teleporting onto the airplane, so a dream would be contradicting everything we were told in the movie.
2. Seito not being an old man when he "woke up." Though this could be explained by both Seitos being a projection, which would be consistent with the dream theory without contradicting everything.
3. The top wobbled for a split-second, and so a dream would be contradicting everything we were told in the movie.

Either way, something completely contradicted a basic premise of the movie. The very end, top-spinning part just seemed like a last-second thought just thrown in haphazardly to be cool and make people be all "whoa!" at the end, without going through the effort of making either possibility very coherent. It spun a while then wobbled to give the illusion of a major cliffhanger, but both possibilities aren't possible -- in fact, both possibilities are flatly impossible. The ending was rushed like the rest of the movie, only much more so to make these flaws more glaring.

EDIT: I will say that when I first came out of the theater, I concluded that it was a dream. I think that is still most likely. But I also think it was so haphazardly thrown together that the choice is pretty almost meaningless.