If you've only seen Inception once, you've probably still got some questions about how
it all went down. Even if you've seen it a hundred times, you still may be puzzling over
a thing or two. Here are some of the biggest unanswered questions in Inception.
When Cobb and his crew first recruit Ariadne to be the architect for the Fischer inception
job, they have to begin to let her in on all the various rules and procedures that come
with the field of dream sharing. Along the way, they mention the history of the dream
sharing process.
"That's why the military developed dream sharing as a training program for soldiers to shoot,
stab, and strangle each other, and then wake up."
From there, the technology eventually made its way to the private sector in some form,
where it's now used for criminal enterprises like extraction and inception.
But given what we know about dream sharing, it's worth asking, how widespread is the use
of this technology? If high-end criminals are able to obtain and use it, and if CEOs
around the world know about it as a criminal practice, then what else is dream sharing
being used for?
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."
The Inception prequel comic sheds a little more light on the idea of dream sharing being
used for entertainment purposes, but the film does not, and the possibilities, it would
seem, are endless.
The Saito job at the beginning of the film is a "dream within a dream" extraction, and
it's implied that doubling up on dream worlds like that is both difficult and at least somewhat
rare within the world of dream sharing.
"Dream within a dream. Huh. I'm impressed."
For the later Fischer job, Cobb decides the crew needs to go even deeper, and he asks
for three dream levels. To achieve this, the crew turns to Yusuf, who uses powerful drugs
to keep the dreamers under for the duration of the job. There's a catch, though. When
you're under that deep, you don't wake up when you die. You descend into limbo.
Cobb and his crew spend the rest of the film navigating the difficulties of this triple
dream world, and it proves challenging for all of them. But it also raises an interesting
question. How many layers could you conceivably build into a dream? The way the film is structured
suggests the idea of limbo as a kind of bottom for the characters, but how much dream space
could exist between it and a third level? If three layers isn't enough to coax inception
with a strong subconscious, could you go further? Cobb's not going to try anytime soon, but
it's interesting to think about.
In the Fischer inception job, the first level of the dream is a relatively simple rainy
cityscape.
"Couldn't have peed before you went under?"
"Sorry."
Within that dream world, Cobb and his crew have to abduct Fischer as he's catching a
taxi, then take him to a warehouse and begin the process of inception. They're interrupted
in this endeavor by armed men, who are projections of Fischer's subconscious trying to fight
them off. Of course, Cobb and company are counting on that. What they didn't count on
was a train suddenly crashing through traffic and disrupting their efforts.
So, why does the train pop up? Well, it's the same train that Mal and Cobb used to kill
themselves while in limbo, to take themselves up and out of their dream state. And in the
cityscape, it basically leaps out of Cobb's subconscious and into the dream because his
guilt is so invasive that it can get in the way even when he's not the dreamer or the
subject.
But why is it the train and not Mal? Possibly because he knew Mal was the more prominent
subconscious threat and was doing his best to fight her. The train, the symbol of the
moment he pulled Mal out of limbo and thus doomed her, was something he wasn't necessarily
counting on.
In the beginning, Cobb is working overseas, and we slowly learn that it's not by choice.
He's a wanted man in the United States, where he's been blamed for his wife's death. He
sometimes calls his children on the phone, and he even chances a trip to Paris to pass
along gifts for them via his father, but he can't go back home until he finds a way to
"buy" his way back. He takes the inception job because Saito offers him freedom after
nothing but a phone call.
What the film doesn't really elaborate on is exactly how long Cobb has been living this
version of his life. It ultimately doesn't matter much to the story because the main
thrust of the plot is in the inception job, but his past is particularly important in
the context of the ending. In the final scene, Cobb finally sees his kids again, and they
appear to be virtually unchanged from his last memory of them. So, has he only been
gone for a few months, or has he simply lost his grip on reality?
If there's a reigning king of unanswered questions hanging over the mystery-laden Inception,
it's this: What exactly is going on in the final scene?
At the end of the film, Saito makes good on his promise and puts in a call on Cobb's behalf.
Cobb goes through customs in Los Angeles and goes home to see his kids, setting his totem
to spin on the kitchen table. He leaves before he can see if it falls or not, and the film
cuts to black before the viewer can get a definitive answer.
So, was Cobb still dreaming? There are some fans who would argue that he was, as evidenced
by the lack of aging in his children and the possibility that he and Mal didn't wake up
from limbo into reality but instead into another layer of a dream that he hasn't escaped from.
"I've come back for you...to remind you. Of something."
The more optimistic idea here, though, is not that Cobb ignores the top because he no
longer cares if he's dreaming but rather because he no longer needs it to know what's real.
The love he feels for his kids in that moment is so permeating that he can't help but understand
that he's not dreaming. The evidence for this? Well, the top does appear to be on the verge
of falling in those final frames.
Plenty of different interpretations of the final scene exist online, many with compelling
evidence to back up their claims, and that's exactly how Christopher Nolan would have it.
The writer/director refuses to explain the ending himself, for a very good reason.
Speaking at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015, Nolan explained that he'd once given a very
thorough explanation of the ending to his previous film Memento, with the caveat that
it was only his interpretation and not the definitive answer. Later, his brother and
fellow screenwriter, Jonathan Nolan, explained to him:
"Nobody hears that first bit where you say it's really up to the viewers if you then
give your interpretation."
Nolan realized his brother was right, saying:
"It's the last time I ever opened my mouth."
So there you have it. There's no definitive answer to the ending of Inception because
Christopher Nolan really would, in this case, like you to make up your own mind.
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