Question: Near the end of the movie, when Cobb is home, he gives his totem a spin and it shortly starts to decay in its spin. Then as the movie ends it pans to his totem still spinning smoothly but then it starts to wobble again. So, what are we suppose to conclude? Is it left intentionally ambiguous?
Chosen answer: Yes, it's an ambiguous ending, so we can conclude whatever we want, based on our reading of the film. There are plenty of theories around the internet, so feel free to have a read and decide which one works best for you. However, according to Christopher Nolan it is supposed to signify how Cobb is leaving the dreams behind and doesn't care.
Question: Can someone please explain how each and every totem works? We understand that Cobb's will not stop spinning if it is a dream, but how does Arthur's and Ariadne's work?
Answer: No details are given within the film. However, Arthur's totem is a loaded dice, so it seems logical to assume that it will always come down on a specific side, one that only he knows. As for Ariadne's chess-piece, we only see her working on it, never using it. Probably it has some specific and unusual weighting built into it, allowing her to determine, in some unspecified manner, maybe by tipping it to a certain angle, or simply by feel, that it's the genuine article.
Question: Can anyone clarify the limbo in the film please? At the almost fifth level of dream, the dreamers of limbo - Cobb and Saito, 1. Who has given a kick for them to come to reality as everyone has left the dreams long back? 2. All through the Movie, they used a link to enter other's dream, but what happened to that link when they went to Limbo, can they intersect each other without any link through their dreams?
Answer: Limbo appears to function somewhat differently from the upper dream levels. In the upper levels, the dreams are specifically constructed, the team uses a link system to tie themselves together in the dream and so forth. Limbo, the deepest level, doesn't appear to require this - it's simply a raw dreamstate automatically shared by those who venture into it. Cobb, Saito, Ariadne and Fischer are linked on all the prior dream levels, so they already exist in a shared dream state, thus they all cohabit the limbo level that lies beneath the constructed ones. As for Cobb and Saito, they provide the "kick" themselves, likely by using Cobb's pistol to commit suicide. As time travels so fast in the limbo state, almost no time has passed on the higher levels, despite the pair experiencing years in limbo. As such, they're able to ride the tail-end of the kicks used to extract the others, and eventually wake effectively simultaneously with the rest of the team in the plane.
Question: In one of the first dreams (Think it were the "test" dreams of Cobb and Ariadne) where we're supposed to see some french/Paris-inspired location , from bird's eye view, there can be seen a Mercedes car parking on the left with a German plate (M-IK nnnn, which is most probably assigned to "Sixt" car rental). Where were these scenes filmed? Should car plates be readable?
Answer: IMDB mentions that the filming location is Paris. Streets, monuments are identifiable (you can see the Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower and the Seine) and the French cars all have plates ending with 75 (indicating central Paris). The M on the German car indicates that it is registered in Munich. (Yes, German rental cars are registred in Munich).
Question: I remember Cobb saying that he spent time in Limbo for about fifty years. Was he referring to the time that he spent with Mal, or something else that we weren't shown?
Chosen answer: He's referring to the time spent there with Mal - remember that we see, towards the end of the film, a scene with the pair of them in their Limbo-built cityscape, both of them old-aged.
Question: In the first class section of the plane, after everyone has woken up from the dream and the mission is accomplished, shouldn't Robert Fischer be suspicious as to why he dreamed of everyone of his cabin mates?
Chosen answer: (1) Most people forget most if not all of their dreams shortly after waking, so he probably wouldn't even remember they were there (the only thing he had to remember was the idea of breaking up the company, which the team planted very deeply); and (2) a common theory of dreaming is that it's simply your brain "reorganizing" itself, so it's not unusual to have recent people, places or events incorporated into your dreams (like the people surrounding him).
Question: I'm not sure if it was just one song or not, but what was the song played that cued the "kick"?
Chosen answer: Édith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien".
Question: Why do the team require a 10 hour plane trip from Sydney to LA to spend with Fischer to perform inception? According to the theory of "dream time" 10 hours in reality is equal to 1 week the first level down, 6 months the second level down, 10 years the third level down. If this is true, why do they need 10 hours with Fischer? Surely just 1 hour will be enough to do what they need? Secondly, if they were sedated for that entire 10 hour plane trip then they would have been stuck in the 3rd level dream for at least 8-10 years until the sedation wore off enough for the "kick" to work. According to the film they only spent a few minutes on the 3rd level dream (the Ice Hospital / Fortress) which would have equalled only a few seconds in reality on the plane.
Answer: 1) They didn't know how long the job would actually take, so they would certainly try to build as large a window as possible. A 12 hour flight was convenient because it gave them that window and a valid reason for Fischer to be asleep. 2) They never had to wait for the sedation to wear off for the kick to work. The compound was custom tailored specifically to leave inner ear function unimpaired so that they COULD use a kick to get out of the dream layers.
Question: If they are in a dream and they can imagine and create things (like, for example weapons, or modify the environment) why can't they imagine to create a bunker where the subconscious guys can't shot at them? Or, some kind of any other protection? Or mega-destructive weapons so they don't need to drive and escape all the time in the first layer?
Answer: Possibly the more you change in the dream, the more aggressive and powerful your target's subconscious becomes. Like how in the beginning of the movie, when Cobb warns Ariadne to stop changing things, and then all of a sudden a large group of people, including Mal attacks her. Still, this maybe because of Cobb's subconscious training being so advanced.
Answer: Aside from the obvious "the movie would boring if that were so," if they change too much in the dream, it would collapse. They only have one chance of making it work, so they can't afford to change anything drastic that might be noticed.
Question: Why didn't Mal use the totem to prove to herself she was back in reality instead of killing herself? Or why didn't Cobb spin the Totem in front of her to prove they were back in reality?
Answer: When Cobb used inception on Mal, the idea that her world isn't real and she needed to kill herself took over her mind. Mal made an error in telling Cobb how her totem worked before they ever went into limbo. Cobb was able to use her totem specifically to implant the idea in her head. Since he knows how her totem works, it can't work as a totem anymore. Spinning the top in front of her and having it fall over would not prove that she wasn't dreaming anymore. Ironically, Cobb makes the exact same mistake as he continues to use the totem even after he tells Ariadne how it works. As an important note, the spinning top itself is a poor choice for a totem, since the thing that makes it special (it never stops spinning in the dream world) can be easily observed by anyone else. The entire point is to have you, and only you, know what makes the totem special. Arthur's loaded die is a better choice because only he notices how the weight is uneven in his hand. Ariadne's totem is not described but it seems to have similar properties to Arthur's in that she has altered its balance in a specific way.
Question: Just because Cobb knows how Mal's totem works, how does this mean her totem no longer works for her? Is it because Mal doesn't trust Cobb not to manipulate the spinning of her totem when they're in the same dream together? Or is it because somebody could manipulate somebody else's totem in a dream by accident just because they know how it works?
Answer: Cobb placed a thought in her head that her world isn't real. He intended for this thought to be applied to the limbo world they created, but instead it was applied to the real world. She simply cannot get the idea out of her head that she is still dreaming when in reality, she is awake. Nothing Cobb can say or do can convince her she is wrong, because the one safeguard they have (totems) has been broken because Cobb knows how it works. She simply thinks Cobb is the one with the problem, can't or refuses to wake up, and thinks Cobb is manipulating her totem to make her think she is awake when she is not. We never actually find out if she was wrong or right either :).
Answer: In order for a totem to work a person has to be 100% sure it wasn't manipulated by anyone else. If someone else knew what made the totem special you could never be completely sure someone else wasn't manipulating it. The spinning top itself is a bad choice for a totem anyway, since anyone who sees it being used should instantly tell what makes it special. Think about it like this: if you had to keep valuable information locked away in a safe and had to be sure that nobody could ever sneak into the safe, even someone you know and love, you would want a secure combination for that safe that nobody else could guess. If your combination was your birthday, how could you ever be 100% sure that nobody would ever guess the combination? Could you ever be 100% certain that nobody has looked in the safe?
Answer: She buried the truth that she was living in a dream. She'd chosen to make the dream life her real life. She did it by hiding the totem (which is what they use to distinguish reality from dream) in a safe box.
Garlonuss ★