Inception. Or how to make dumb people feel smart...?

Oh, come on. You can make the deepest of films sound simplistic if you want to, and you can analyze simple films more than is intended. I find the entire "it's just BLANK" type of argument to be really reductive and borderline disingenuous.

Well, he has a point. Technically well made film but there's not much beneath the surface. Not much characterisation, questions of morality or insightful discourse on the nature of dreams. It's all very spoon fed for direct consumption. And that's fine.

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I mean sure you can CHOOSE to see more into it, which is what personal perception is for, but I don't consider myself someone who would blow off an opportunity to discuss let alone ponder on something relatively interesting. If there was more to this movie then I would give credit when due and there would probably be a 50 page thread about "what it all means", but I don't see it, and I'm not choosing not to see it. The title of this thread kinda sums up my feelings; entertainment =/= brain food, nothing's wrong with entertainment, and this is becoming super redundant.

This. The whole discussion is going in circles.

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If I had a dollar for every existential crisis I've ever had, does money really even matter?

Affirmative. People are certainly confusing the two. Nothing really intelligent about it.

People are making this movie out to be as monumental as the moon landing. It's sad really.

I give this film credit. It really has done well financially, appealing to the young crowd.

Excellent point and sums up this movie perfectly.

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"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." - Ernest Hemingway

Huh? No it doesn't. It describes a group of film viewers.

I was placing a lot more emphasis on the first part: the idea that trying to make it sound simple by summarizing it in a simplistic way isn't really an argument against it. You can reduce lots of brilliant, thematically complex films down to a simple plot summary or chief message/moral/whatever and make them sound a good deal less engaging an important than they are.

Questions posed by Inception: how are ideas really formed? Is any idea ever truly original? Is truth inherently valuable, or is deluding yourself into happiness just as good and valid? That last one is a running theme through many of Nolan's films. I've actually had an essay on this very topic 80% done for something like 4 months now. I guess I should get on that, eh?

It's also worth pointing out that great films don't have to provoke this sort of question-asking session in our minds to be great. Some of the reasons I like Inception have to do with it being perceptive and clever. This is clearly a higher form of entertainment than big, shiny things, or special effects, and I'm not entirely sure it's a lesser form of filmmaking than something which asks questions I can't answer (asking profound, unanswerable questions isn't really a very hard thing to do, after all).

Well, there's a 15 page thread about it. And I'm certainly not accusing you of pretending here, I just think you're selling it short. I think everyone does this when they don't like a film, for whatever reason: it's hard not to sort of work backwards from that dislike and give reasons for it that aren't always entirely fair or consistently applied.

Re: going in circles. Dunno about that. We seem to have already established that yes, it's frustrating when people overrate a film, but no, that's not really a knock against the film. And now we've branched off a bit.

I like the way Gunny uses "Young Crowd"..

Ditto. You damn kids with your Zima and your hula hoops and your Inceptions and your e-Pods and your Amazon Kindlings and your Dan Fogelberg! Bah!

Seriously, look at the money this thing's made: it's not because of idiot teenagers, and a lot of very smart, serious, older people like it quite a bit. Not liking it = cool. Extrapolating all kinds of weird demographic assumptions and generalizations in a poor attempt to rationalize not liking it = not cool.

Let's face it. The sole reason this did well, was because the words "From Christopher Nolan... Director of The Dark Knight" appeared in the trailer.

I believe this film would not have received the recognition it did, had mainstream audiences been oblivious to Nolan's existence pre-Batman Begins. I can't say it enough.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

You mean besides a breathtaking trailer, a powerful cast, a really interesting plot summary... Nolan's name is the only thing that sold Inception to millions of viewers?

Shutter Island was similar to a dozen of films that came before it... & the twist was easy to guess almost halfway through the film.
I don't see people saying anything about Shutter Island.

I see a thread saying "Avatar is overrated", not about how it was similar to Pocahontas or Dances with the wolves.. & for Inception which is a far superior Sci-fi film compared to Avatar, we get comments like that it is not clever enough & made for kids?

I wouldn't say the trailer was breathtaking, and the cast certainly wasn't powerful. I'm only saying that Nolan is not a mainstream director, save for Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight.

Let's imagine a world without The Dark Knight fanboys, and their incessant chorus of praises to the one and only Chris Nolan. Do you think that Inception would have got the ticket sales it did, without a bunch of "uneducated" people flocking to see what the "guy that directed that Batman movie" made?

Ask anyone who has seen Inception if they have seen Memento or Following or Insomnia. Chances are, they haven't even heard of them. The man has a talent for original storytelling, or even taking a pre-existing story and turning it around in a way that you've never seen.

I bunched The Prestige with the two Batman films, but I'm not even sure how many people turned out to see it.

All I'm saying is, I think the masses went to see it simply because The Dark Knight was so big. I'm not saying that those were the only people to see it, but I think they were more "MIND BLOWWNNNN" (as PN, stated) than the rest of us would be. I liked it, because it was refreshing to watch a movie that challenged my thinking, and that it wasn't a cookie cutter movie.

Nolan has always been a mainstream director.. Even his low-budget Following was written as a mainstream film.

If he wasn't a mainstream director, he would have never remade Insomnia with Al Pacino.
If they went to see Inception cos of Dark Knight, they did so because they believed in his work. & Dark Knight has lot more fans than just fanboys.. You have various age groups that follow Batman's history.

& since you bunched The Prestige with 2 Batman films, compare the budget of The Prestige & Batman Begins... Keeping that in mind I think it did reasonable well..
That proves the point that fanboys who loved Batman Begins didn't rush to see The Prestige.

The Prestige is a one time watch... I would watch it again probably on DVD... but Dark Knight & Inception are movies you would enjoy watching more than once.. Not because I was too dumb to follow it the first time, but because I enjoyed it that much... & I am happy to be one of those young kids.

If fanboys made movies successful, Brian Singer would have had more success with his later films.

This I wholeheartedly agree with. Films are primarily made to entertain people. If a film wants to pack a message into that entertainment as well, that is fine, but it shouldn't be its primary goal.

Why should a film that is made "just" to entertain its viewers a lesser film or a film that shouldn't be ranked highly in best ever lists or best of the year lists. That would be an elitist point of view. I can appreciate a highly entertaining film, like Heat or Inglourious Basterds, just as much as thought-provovking films.

To each his own of course...

Not every director can pull that off. I LOVE The Usual Suspects. I LOATHE Superman Returns.

When I say that Nolan isn't a mainstream director, I mean that he doesn't go for simple films. He likes mystery, he likes to keep his audience guessing.

I love Usual Suspects as well, even Apt Pupil was good.. everything after that was trash.
I don't care for Valkyrie at all.

Nolan's movies are what mainstream movies should be like... His structuring is quite unique & makes his movies enjoyable.. Unlike most mainstream film which usually repeats the same successful structure for their films.

This is why Inception wins against most Sci-fi mainstream films??...
Was there an actual villain in Inception?.
Was it done in 3D, when it had so much potential to be great in 3D?
Did it try marketing videogames & toys?

It didn't interest me enough to go see it, not even after reading Yoda's review.

Question: Couldn't the same effect be accomplished easier and cheaper through subliminal messages, which have already been proven to work, instead of all the razzle dazzle of entering another person's dreams (which has gotta take a lot of expensive hardware plus access to the sleeping person). Besides people often remember dreams while they're never aware of the hidden messages.

What does 3D really bring to a film, though? It didn't elevate the story of Avatar. It doesn't really help any film. It's simply a way to bring the audience into it more.

Personally, I applaud the directors that refuse to use 3D. It's simply a gimmick that studios want to emply in order to get more money.

Anymore, I refuse to see a movie in 3D, if it wasn't actually SHOT in 3D. The entire process of converting a film to 3D has proven to not be effective.

My point about saying that it could have been done in 3D, was regarding why Nolan is one of the better mainstream directors, because he doesn't follow the routine.

3D is definitely used as a gimmick these days, but movies like Inception, Tron are movies that could really use the 3D technology well..
Tron Legacy didn't seem like it was shot in 3D, it appeared to be one of those late conversions.