Inception Ending Explained (contain spoilers)

Alone

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2006
7,490
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Still not explained. Was it real or not? There's no answer to that question. The only thing that could come close is that it doesn't matter (which the article gets to at a point).

Still hardly an explanation.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
that was pretty much my take.

it was probably real but cutting at the end before confirmation was just one last mind f*ck
 

IceBergSLiM

Lifer
Jul 11, 2000
29,932
3
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Its quite simple I think, It was real.

Nobody would have the skill to recreate his children, He didn't even have the skill to recreate Mal as Cobb said good bye to her, stating she was just a shadow of the real mal, grossly failing to capture all her perfections and imperfections.

Then there was also the lecture he gave the other girl about recreated places you have been. Only Cobb knew the details of his home to recreate them, the girl, who was the architect could not have recreated it.
 
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mysticdream

Member
Dec 14, 2010
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this is what Nolan said about inception ending “There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”
 

TheNinja

Lifer
Jan 22, 2003
12,207
1
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this is what Nolan said about inception ending “There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”

That makes sense. It seems that he doesn't care (and it doesn't matter to him) anymore what is real and what's dreaming. As long as he's happy and with his kids, he's done trying to figure it out....and so am I :)
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,703
12
81
The article is almost a year old...

Nolan apparently likes that interpretation. You don't know if it is real or not, but you do know that Cobb doesn't give a shit anymore.
 

Numenorean

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2008
4,442
1
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There wasn't anything to explain in that movie at all. The entire thing was very straight forward.
 

Born2bwire

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2005
9,840
6
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I don't know why it is confusing for so many people. :\

Me either, I haven't read the article in the OP yet though but I did not feel that the movie lent itself to the ambiguity that some people seem to have taken away. For me, the biggest and main thing was that the ending sequence involved a myriad of other characters. For the entire movie, DiCaprio's character only had a single person from his past in his dreams, his dead wife. We never see him reconstruct his children or teammates. When we see the movie go to the deep down sequences, the dreamer is either alone or seems to be surrounded by generic people. It just never made sense in the context of the rules given in the movie that the dreamer would suddenly recreate a range of people from their life and start interacting with them.
 

SSSnail

Lifer
Nov 29, 2006
17,458
83
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You guys missed the point; doesn't matter it's real or not, it's what he wanted.
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,420
1,600
126
Sorry, just stumbled upon this and wanted to put a nail in this coffin:

Nolan explains that to blatantly state whether or not Cobb was dreaming would not only be a disservice to the film (and its audience), but that people obsessed with finding the answer are missing the point entirely:

“There can’t be anything in the film that tells you one way or another because then the ambiguity at the end of the film would just be a mistake … It would represent a failure of the film to communicate something. But it’s not a mistake. I put that cut there at the end, imposing an ambiguity from outside the film. That always felt the right ending to me — it always felt like the appropriate ‘kick’ to me….The real point of the scene — and this is what I tell people — is that Cobb isn’t looking at the top. He’s looking at his kids. He’s left it behind. That’s the emotional significance of the thing.”
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,901
4,927
136
So if the end was "reality" are we to believe someone randomly decided to start spinning his top on a whim before exiting for no reason? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe if the top was just laying on it's side, motionless. That to me would say it was just left behind.
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,420
1,600
126
So if the end was "reality" are we to believe someone randomly decided to start spinning his top on a whim before exiting for no reason? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe if the top was just laying on it's side, motionless. That to me would say it was just left behind.

Per Nolan, you cannot definitively say one way or another whether the end was reality or not

Cobb spins the top and leaves, which is a significant change from his behavior during the rest of the movie.