Inception literally makes no sense. I just bought it. I never buy movies, but I liked it a lot in theater. It obviously makes you think. I just feel like I have way more questions than I did the first time. That's probably not true.... but I thought I would understand it more this time.
I just don't get how Cobb and Mal got stuck in limbo for so many years if they weren't using the sedative, because if they died, wouldn't they just wake up? How did they get to limbo in the first place? Whose dream/mind are they in at all the different levels? The person who is "stuck" in that level? How do Cobb and Ellen Page's character get to limbo? Whose projections are all the crazy people who try to kill them throughout the movie? Who is that old man in the beginning/end? Why do the kicks have to be synchronized? And what the heck happens at the very end? Is it a dream?! Is it reality? Ughhh.
Any Inception experts? Help. (:
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Writing Challenge Day 17
I'm doing a 31 day writing challenge, found on the Reverb website, designed to reflect on the past year and look forward to what's to come in 2011.
Lesson Learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?
I feel like these prompts are getting repetitive, because I could write similar things for so many of them. Or maybe that's because there are common themes in the things I'm learning about myself. Or maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something... Maybe that's just the Inception talking. (:
Best thing I learned about myself is that I am resilient. More that I thought I was. I can handle setbacks better than I used to be able to handle them. I never loved change. I liked comfort. In relationships, jobs, classes... but I am starting to embrace change. Even "bad" change. This probably makes no sense to you unless you know a lot about my life.
I'm not needy. I'm pretty independent. I can figure things out on my own, or ask for help if I think I need it. If something crappy happens, I might cry or get angry or fight it... for a while. Then let it go. Resilience. Ability to return to "normal" after being stretched, shaken, challenged...I've learned that I'm getting pretty good at that. I can be put in a pretty awful situation, but still try to figure out what I'm supposed to be learning from it. Sometimes. Sometimes I don't have a clue.
Part of that, I think, is because I'm learning not to get upset about what's out of my control. It helps me get over things faster. I'm also learning to let go of things that aren't good for me. Again...this probably makes no sense unless you really know me. Sorry. It makes sense in my head. (: When I was younger, and something awful happened to me (ie: I got dumped. I got a bad grade. etc.) my mom would tell me that I had one day to be upset and mad about it, then I had to get over it. Well, some things definitely took longer than a day to get over. But the advice helped. You have to learn to move on. If there's nothing you can do to change it, there's no point in dwelling on it. Cry, write angry letters, eat ice cream, and do what you have to do for a day... but then pick up the pieces and get your life back together.
I've also learned that pretending you're over it helps the "moving on" process. Though I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Sometimes your heart will follow your head's lead. Something I should probably learn in relation to dating.
It reminds me of that song by Dashboard:
I am fairly agile.
I can bend and not break.
I can break and take it with a smile.
And I am so resilient.
I recover quickly.
I'll convince you soon that I am fine.
I miss that band.
I have been thinking the same thing: I am writing the SAME STUFF!!! But I think that might be a cool thing because it really drills home what we are learning about ourselves, eh? Maybe?
ReplyDeleteMoving on is difficult sometimes; I've struggled with, as I'm sure everyone does. I'm not sure about pretending to move on; I know I do it but I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. It seems to have helped.
In my crazy opposite way of thinking, I thought: "But...BUT. You have to be careful not to move on too quickly, right?" Because then if you get used to just "BAM! Ice cream. I'm over it," all the time, you'll become a concrete wall, I think. So there has to be a balance, like every other STUPID thing in the world. There always has to be a balance.
You're supposed to lean into the hill when you run up it. Don't lean back. Don't lean too far. Lean just right.
You have to balance dependence/independence in relationships, maybe? I think so.
You have to balance your time. You have to balance your check book. And so life is just one giant circus (balancing act). *Sigh*
No I totally agree with your comment about moving on too quickly. I guess I was thinking about it in specific circumstances. Little things (like failing a test, or someone saying something bratty to you) only merit a day of being upset and angry about it. Relationships and breakups obviously are not things to get over in one day.
ReplyDeleteBut I think it's easy to keep dwelling on things you can't change, too, if you give yourself too much time to be upset about it and not move on. I think I'm bad at finding that balance. Either I try to move on too quickly or I take way too long and stay hurt for longer than necessary. Ugh.
Life is a circus. Agreed.
Ugh, I just typed out this entire comment and it was deleted. I should have copied it beforehand. Here we go again.
ReplyDeleteCobb and Mal did wake up when they died. Mal thought that limbo was reality so in order to bring her back, Cobb had them run over by the train. They were brought back to real life ... but Mal thought that limbo was real life. When she jumped to her death she thought she was escaping the dream world when she was actually just killing herself.
They got to limbo by going deeper and deeper into dreams within dreams. That is also how Cobb and Ellen Page's character got there. Dream level 5 is limbo.
I believe the dreams all belong to Robert Fischer, since it is his mind they are trying to plant a thought into.
The projections are protecting Robert Fischer's mind. Cobb explains this when they are starting to get attacked. Fischer had protection on his subconscious.
The old man is Saito, the asian man who hired them to plant the thought seed in Fischer's mind. Since he died in the dream, he went to limbo. That is why Cobb stayed back in limbo when Ellen Page's character killed herself and woke up. Cobb stayed back to find Saito to remind him of reality. That is why all he had with him was a gun and the totem. The totem to show him it was a dream, and the gun to kill himself.
The kicks were synchronized so they could go directly from the last level of the dream back into reality. It was a domino effect. If the kicks hadn't been synchronized, they would have had to work backwards through the dream levels to get back to reality - and wasted time.
The ending is up to interpretation. Part of me thinks it was a dream because his kids were dressed the same and were the same age as he remembered them ... but another part of me hopes it was reality because the totem shuddered a bit at the end and in dreams it was perfectly balanced.
Hope that helped a bit. :)