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cb-smizzle — 5 Levels of Inception SPOILERS
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Published: 2010-07-19 22:30:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 45128; Favourites: 954; Downloads: 19
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Description
This is an infographic I made for Cinema Blend detailing the 5 dream levels of Inception. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I recommend not reading this because it will probably spoil a great movie for you.I did the artwork and Cinema Blend's Josh Tyler did the text. You can read the full article at this link:
[link]
Also a little disclaimer based on some comments I've read elsewhere:
This explanation is based on Cinema Blend's interpretation of the movie. Nobody is trying to tell you this is the definitive explanation of the movie, just our own. Please don't get upset if this doesn't fit with your thoughts on the movie, part of what makes Inception so great is that different people can leave with different thoughts and then go and discuss their theories after seeing the film. That's part of the fun.
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Comments: 163
Guide to dream states
This is nice XD Clear, well done, very nice.
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I love this, it's nicely done, and very clear.
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I read this and many other spoilers before I saw the movie, and I think it actually helped me enjoy the movie more. When the movie started, I felt like I was already up to speed, so I could keep up with all the shifts in dream levels. Otherwise I think it would have all gone crashing over my head. I would have walked out of the theater saying, "Pretty pictures... nice suits... durrr...." As it was, I walked out saying, "YAY! I saw a good movie for once! It lived up to all the hype!"
So, thanks!
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This is so great! and it helps make sense of a few things, though I wasnt that confused, but the i forgot about the plane (reality) so the ending is what confuzzled me more than anything but now I understand it lol
I was waiting til someones dream turned out to be a magical land of unicorns or something lmfao xD that would have bin awesome.
AWESOME FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I believe Ariadne was suppose to have dreamed all the dream levels except for Limbo,
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No, she was the architect. She designed the levels but a different team member dreamed each level. The dreamers stayed behind each time the other members went a level deeper because they had to keep dreaming that level to keep it intact. For further proof that she wasn't the dreamer of all the levels, remember the scene where Ariadne and Arther are sitting in the hotel lobby and Arthur explains to her how Fischer's subconscious is becoming suspicious and looking for him because he is the dreamer?
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I thought each person stayed to deliver the Kick
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They stayed to deliver the kick, but the reason it was the dreamer who stayed and not anybody else was because the dreamer needs to remain conscious to keep their dream world from being destroyed. Since the dreamer had to stay awake anyways, they were the ones who stayed behind to deliver the kick instead of two people staying behind.
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This is AWESOME!
And Inception is awesome too
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thanks! and I agree, Inception is awesome!
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Thank you! I spent three hours aftr the movie trying to explain the movie to my mom and she still didn't get it, but then I showed her this and spent ten minutes explaining, and she understands it now!
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i thought it was, that Ariadne created all the levels, Fisher placed his projections in them, and then Dom tricked fisher into believing that the 3rd level was Browning's to figure out what the will was. Arthur also said that when people die under sedation the go in to the limbo of anyone on the team who has been in there, so technically limbo was Dom's 'dream'
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Awesome, it helped! I have to see him again to understand it completely!
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I thought all the levels were dreamed by Fischer, because it was his subconscious attacking them.
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The dreamer is the host of the environment. They were plugging in Fischer's subconscious via the briefcase contraptions.
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ahh...so it was Fischer's dream, but Yusef was creating the environment? Or no?
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If you're using the first dream as an example, then it goes like this:
Ariadne created the environment as the architect, she actually created all of the levels for the job. Yusef was the dreamer or as PandaKong puts it, the host of that dream. Fischer was plugged into the shared dream and populated it with his subconscious, creating the "security guards ".
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AAhhh!! Thanks so much, that was the only thing that I didn't really get in the film.
Even so it was amazing.
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I thought Level 4 was Fisher's dream?
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No. It can't be his dream because the team uses a shortcut that was installed by Ariadne. That proves that Ariadne was the architect and another team member familiar with her world was the dreamer. Fischer only thought he was the dreamer, but in fact it was Eames.
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Oh, ok I get it now. I was a little confused because they said that they were going to make Fischer attack his own subconscious.
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just saw jaydember's comments. what they said, lol.
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And I thought it was Cobb's. Though I suppose that's impossible since he didn't stay and that would've caused the dream to collapse. Guess I'll have to see the movie again! :'D
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Well, I remember them saying that they were going to make Fisher attack his own subconscious or something like that.
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I just read a bunch of stuff from the link in the artist's comments and it was indeed Eames's dream. So Eames, being the dreamer, was like the host. Fischer then filled Eames's dream with his own subconscious. I think Cobb may have told Fischer that it was his dream (I really need to see this movie again and take notes). But it was definitely Eames's layout (which is why he was able to make that shortcut to get to the snow fort faster, because he had worked on the basics of the dream with Ariadne). Fischer subconsciously filled it with his own secrets, and he had to untangle all of that for inception to work.
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Ohhh, ok that makes sense. I mean, I understood everything else, I was just confused about that part. Well, thanks for clearing that up!! Yeah, I will definetly buy that movie when I comes out on DVD.
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No problemo! I too can't wait for the DVD.
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I'm just wondering.. how Cobb and Saito got all 5 kicks D: Or did they only need the one to get back to the real world from limbo?
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Well, it depends.
If you think Cobb is still in limbo at the end of the movie, then he didn't get a kick, and we don't exactly know where Saito is (or maybe he killed himself while Cobb stayed trapped).
If you think that they're out of limbo at the end, then it is indeed because they killed themselves. For whatever reason, that's how kicks work in limbo. It's not about falling, it's about death (though the two can go hand in hand). Remember when Cobb and Mal killed themselves? That brought them straight out of 50 years of limbo.
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What about when Ariadne and Fischer got out of limbo? Why would they have to ride the kicks back to the real world?
I don't think Cobb is still in limbo, do you? o:
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I hadn't thought about this when writing my previous comment, but maybe because they were so heavily sedated, dying in limbo only bumped them up a level dream-wise, rather than waking them up fully. If Cobb and Saito had stayed in limbo for a period of time extensive enough for the sedative to wear off, then simply shooting themselves would wake them right up.
And then there are theories upon theories that limbo in the movie was not actually limbo, but Cobb's dream.
I do think Cobb's in limbo at the end. Not that he couldn't still get out, but I was under the impression he didn't want to, the way he walked away from the top. When we 'woke up' in 'reality', he seemed to flash from location to location (plane, airport, home). Granted, it's a movie, so cut scenes are ever present, but it seemed very dream-esque to me. Also, his kids hadn't seemed to age at all (did they ever say how long he was gone from them?), they were behaving the same way they had in his memory (albeit actually turning their faces, and man were they cute xD), and they were even wearing the same clothes. They didn't question him about their mother at all, even though the boy had on the phone before and didn't sound convinced that she was 'not here anymore'. Since he had let go of Mal, it'd make sense that all of his projections had too. Also, the grandmother (whom I assumed believed that Cobb had killed Mal) was nowhere to be found.
But don't let me color your opinion. ;D
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That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thank you!
Good points about limbo.. I hadn't really thought about it other than the kids being the same in his memories.. but what about the totem? Every other time he was in the dream it spun perfectly without wobbling off at all.
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Ah yes, my friend pointed that out too.
I think the director was just driving us crazy. ;D
But my guess is that it wobbled and then kept on spinning. It hadn't been shown spinning for such an extensive period until that last shot, so maybe it wobbled in other instances too and we just didn't know.
OOH, BRAIN BLAST. Since Saito touched Cobb's totem in limbo, maybe it doesn't even work anymore (or not as flawlessly). Didn't Arthur say something like that when Ariadne reached for his die (and then she didn't let Cobb touch her pawn)? So in actuality, the top at the end was just a distraction. We really have no clue whatsoever regarding Cobb's state at the end.
...Mind blown. O8
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Ahh.. I still feel like it should spin flawlessly in a dream and keep spinning until he picks it up.
Wouldn't that mean that it wouldn't work for Cobb anyway because it's Mal's totem?
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Quite possibly.
The whole totem ordeal bugged me from the beginning. I felt like the top symbolized Mal more than dreaming. Cobb could've just made a new totem.
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Ah, that's true.. well if Mal was always in his subconscious then it would make sense if it still worked in dreams right? Because if he's dreaming then maybe in some perspective Mal is also dreaming. So the top would work. But once he confronted Mal.. she would be gone and therefore.. not dreaming with him so it wouldn't work? I guess then we still wouldn't know his state at the end.
But I think it would be pretty sad if it was just a dream.
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Omg this is awesome. Cleared some things. @_@
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I understand the movie a little better now XD
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Ah, yes.
This is perfect.
A lot of people are somehow getting confused over this part of the movie?
I hope a visual like this will help.
c:
Also, hahaha at the Arthur picture.
He looks all like, "Oh, gravity is shifting? Well, no big, I've done this before."
what a bro.
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Ah, I freakin' loved this movie! I think I was one of the few people in the theater who knew what was going on throughout the entire movie.
But seriously, this was spellbinding. My favorite scene had to be the one where Joseph Gordon-Levitt was fighting in the rotating hall. Now that was some seriously awesome stuff right there.
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Agreed, that scene was just amazing.
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