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rsadelleI saw Inception this weekend. It was good, if a little long. I think Brad liked it more than I did (he went again yesterday). As a reference point, he's more into film as art where I'm more into film as entertainment.
One of the things I really appreciated about it as a piece of sci fi is that they didn't try to explain the technology that made the shared dreaming possible. It just existed, and we were supposed to go from there. I get impatient with sci fi that wants to explain - I think it strains my suspension of disbelief more than no explanation - when it could just tell me a story.
I think the biggest problem with the length is that the part that was boring was the deepest level of the nested dreams, and each level deeper gives you an exponentially longer amount of time. They did do an excellent job of showing the relative time passing.
My favorite sequences were all the bits in the hotel with all the changes in gravity and orientation, which was totally awesome. Also, the part where Eames says something like, "You have to dream bigger," and outguns Arthur. (I would totally go for Arthur/Eames.)
I also really liked the sound for this movie. I can't figure out if that's because the sound is excellent or because the volume was down to a reasonable level.
And I liked that Ellen Page's character was named Ariadne.
I did not find the ending particularly surprising - I saw the trailer and thought, "Well, it's all a dream, of course," because I understand how genre fiction tropes work. What I think is an interesting question about the ending is this: Does the top continuing to spin mean Cobb knows it's a dream? When he puts the idea that their world isn't real into Mal's head, he does it by spinning the top. If the continually spinning top is an indicator not of the actual dreamworld but of his belief that he's in the dreamworld, then the ending becomes even more interesting.
One of the things I really appreciated about it as a piece of sci fi is that they didn't try to explain the technology that made the shared dreaming possible. It just existed, and we were supposed to go from there. I get impatient with sci fi that wants to explain - I think it strains my suspension of disbelief more than no explanation - when it could just tell me a story.
I think the biggest problem with the length is that the part that was boring was the deepest level of the nested dreams, and each level deeper gives you an exponentially longer amount of time. They did do an excellent job of showing the relative time passing.
My favorite sequences were all the bits in the hotel with all the changes in gravity and orientation, which was totally awesome. Also, the part where Eames says something like, "You have to dream bigger," and outguns Arthur. (I would totally go for Arthur/Eames.)
I also really liked the sound for this movie. I can't figure out if that's because the sound is excellent or because the volume was down to a reasonable level.
And I liked that Ellen Page's character was named Ariadne.
I did not find the ending particularly surprising - I saw the trailer and thought, "Well, it's all a dream, of course," because I understand how genre fiction tropes work. What I think is an interesting question about the ending is this: Does the top continuing to spin mean Cobb knows it's a dream? When he puts the idea that their world isn't real into Mal's head, he does it by spinning the top. If the continually spinning top is an indicator not of the actual dreamworld but of his belief that he's in the dreamworld, then the ending becomes even more interesting.