How Science Fiction Failed Us Goes To The Movies – Inception (2010)
July 29, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado
Over the weekend, I let my curiosity get the better of me and I went to see the latest Leonardo DiCaprio epic: Inception. Normally, I’m not a big Leo fan. He’s just got one of those voices that’s hard to take seriously in a dramatic role. That and I will always see him as the snot-nosed Luke in “Growing Pains” or the mentally handicapped brother of Johnny Depp in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”. I just don’t see him as all that dramatic. I got so sick of see his awful New York accent in the trailers for “Shutter Island” that I decided against going to see a movie I would have probably enjoyed.
That said, I went into Inception with mixed hopes; I knew it had been well –received, and anyone I knew that had seen it had enjoyed it, but could I take Leo seriously in what was likely an action role? The players in action movies really require the right mix of comic book absurdity and real life believability. I mean would “Predator” have been as easy to swallow with Adrian Brody playing Dutch? OK, bad example. I suppose this topic related to a recent article in which Sylvester Stallone blamed Tim Burton’s “Batman” for the decline of the muscle-bound action hero of the 80’s. I’m not sure about all that (even if I am sure that casting Michael Keaton was the worst idea in the history of cinema… after, of course, anything to do with “Ishtar”), but he does have a point. The advent of the “muscle suit” meant that action stars could be more cerebral, while still giving the appearance of being muscular and sturdy, even if they weren’t. Toward the end of the 90’s and into the 00’s, we started seeing a pleasant combination of both, which allowed for Toby McGuire to pull of being Spider-Man AND Peter Parker, and for Ryan Reynolds to do… well… whatever he effin’ wants to do.
Back to the topic at hand. So I sit down with my $1 drink and my $1 popcorn (thank you AMC) to watch the first movie to focus on the dream world since 1984’s Dreamscape (one of my personal favorites), and I immediately realize that this isn’t a typical Sci-Fi Action movie. It has elements of a Thriller, too, since the movie started with the viewer asking, “OK, what the heck just happened?” In fact, the whole first 20 minutes of the movie had me asking one question after another. What made this a good movie, and really is a hallmark of any good story, is that all the questions I asked were SUPPOSED to be asked, and they all got answered… in good time. You see, they left just enough information out to make me start trying to guess what the answers were; which I like, by the way. The best part was that I couldn’t just guess how things were going to go. There was a real feeling that the heroes (or more accurately anti-heroes) were going to fail, and in fact, failure was an integral part of the plot. That’s good story telling.
As for the Sci-Fi aspect, they didn’t really delve much into what made the whole thing work. They dip your toes tantalizingly into the physics of the dream state (i.e. that time passes differently because the subconscious perceives events differently), but they never explain how the process works. Not even a little. All you see is the cast put a thing on their arm and “BAM!” they fall asleep. Another interesting aspect is the concept of the “Kick”, which is the action of forcing someone out of a dream by making them fall (which seems easy enough, but the movie uses this as a major plot device, so it’s not as easy as you might think). There is a lot of potential here, and I felt it wasn’t explored enough. Additionally, and I’m speaking only for myself here, but my dreams are utterly effing bizarre. I’m talking anthropomorphic animals and talking cars bizarre. There was none of that, though. I imagine that the subject matter was serious enough to warrant realistic dreams, but these dreams were more along the lines of what I expect James Bond or Jason Bourne dream about.
Without getting too deep into the plot of the movie, which I feel would spoil it for you, I did want to talk about the concept of being able to share dreams, or, as the movie suggests being able to trick someone into subconsciously giving away a secret. The next step further is the act of planting an idea in someone’s head, which is where the movie gets its name. I will say that most of the coolest imagery you see in the trailer is in the first half of the movie, but all in all, I enjoyed the picture immensely. There was an excellent story, decent acting, lots of questions, almost as many answers, and a feeling when I left the theater that I had things to talk about. Imagine a world where people actually paid “Extractors” to train them how to defend against dream theft; a world where sharing dreams became so desirable that people abandoned their own reality to live in their shared dreams. It sounds nice until the scene where you see what can only be described as a “Dream Den”, a place where people connect together to share dreams for significant portions (like 18 hours or more) of their days. That’s when you find out that one of the side effects is that you can no longer dream without using the device (which is why I’m perturbed about not being told how it really works). You also learn about the totems the main characters use to help identify when they are dreaming and when they aren’t, since the dreams become so real it becomes impossible to distinguish dream from reality.
All in all, I enjoyed Inception a great deal, and I am recommending it to anyone who enjoys Action movies or Thrillers. For us Sci-Fi geeks, there’s just enough to draw us in, but in real Science Fiction, those aspects of the plot that MAKE it Sci-Fi are just as important as the characters and the plot. In this movie, the whole concept of the dream state, and the device that they use, is secondary to what actually happens in the dreams themselves. I felt like they could have used any number of different plot devices to get where they were going in the story, and that the “dream machine” just happened to be the one they chose. That’s not to say that some of the more intricate sub-plots weren’t dependent on the technology, but the overall story wasn’t. At least not from where I sat.
Go see the movie and let me know what you think. Or maybe you can just dream about it. Maybe you already have. Maybe this is a dream…
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I think that’s why I liked the early (middle?) parts of the movie better: the messing around with dream architecture/physics was more interesting to me than the realism of most of the other stuff we saw. I was also iffy on the extreme detail of everything. I know that was supposed to be part of what was so impressive about what they were doing but I always figured details faded the farther you got from the source.
I read a book once that had some scenes taking place in a dream. One of the characters explained to another about how your brain will “fill in the blanks” with what it remembers. You’re dreaming of a cafe you went to in Paris, but the tablecloth is the one from Granny’s house and the people sitting around you are people from your daily life or the same couple of people repeated over and over; details are blurry until/unless you concentrate on them. And my own dreams can be frustratingly vague about some things even when I’m concentrating on them. Or ESPECIALLY when I’m concentrating on them. LOL!
Good movie, but more surrealism and confusing would have been more fun.
Nicely framed. I wasn’t as into Dreamscape as I was Brainstorm, (Idk why.) I’ve always been interested in both the psychology and process of dreams. Given that scientists are talking about memory erasure, (a la Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, although probably not as cool,) dream manipulation is probably not out of the realm of possibility. I’m not sure how I feel about the potential for tampering with our minds, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually, anyway.
btw, I know how you feel about DiCaprio. Truthfully, he’s gotten to a point and age, where he is pretty believable. Oh, and the accent, in Shutter Island – Boston, not New York. And, you would like the movie, a lot.
Great read, PD! We went to see it opening night, and I also had “a feeling when I left the theater that I had things to talk about.”
That’s EXACTLY what we said! We talked excitedly about it all the way home, and randomly thoughts would come to us long afterwards, and we’d start whole discussions all over again trying to put pieces together and questioning what we thought we’d figured out. It became obvious that we just HAD to see the move a second time. Not when it came out on DvD, but… now.
We went to see it a second time, a week later, and I’m SO glad we did. While I felt like by the end of the first viewing that I had “gotten it” and understood the process and what was real and what wasn’t (which is always still fun to question), the second time around was so much more amazing. I really felt the emotional connections between characters that time around. Because I already understood some things about inception and whatnot, I could really focus more on characters, and I found myself getting even close to tears in some emotional parts that I didn’t feel the first time around – probably because I was spending too much time trying to sort things out during the first viewing instead of having a relationship with the characters.
I definitely recommend seeing it a second time. When we left the theatre the second time, we were just as much exited to talk about it, if not more so!
Well done all around – the movie and this article
I wouldn’t classify this movie as sci-fi at all… more like psychological thriller. But I agree with your assessment completely. I think the movie did well enough at the box office and left so many questions unanswered that there could be a sequel (which I would like to see). I’m NOT a big Leo fan either but I really liked him and feel like he’s finally maturing a bit as an actor.
I also wanted to know more how the dream devices and states worked… but I LOVE movies that make you think as opposed to most of the drivel that comes out – this was a welcome change.