Inception

How many minutes of screen time does Colonel Kurtz have, in Apocalypse Now? Not much, proportionately, but Kurtz is an essential part of the A-story and his presence shadows the whole film even before we see him.

Screen time isn't necessarily the arbiter of a character's importance.
 
I guess we just have different opinions on the story. It was VERY clear to me that Cobb/Mal are the whole gist of the story. Even if there was more action scenes that took up a lot of time, I wouldn't call the action part of the story in terms of plot, it was really ancilliary. I mean EVERY thing they deal with ends up being about the manifestation of Mal, or the history of Cob and Mal, or the world they created, or the fact that Cobb hasn't gotten over what he's done.

I mean, how can it get any more A story then Cobb is doing what he is doing for the SOLE purpose of seeing his kids for which he cannot see because of his wife situation and what she did to him? Or that everything he does is tainted by his past. Cobb really is the A story to me.

That said, we all see things differently :)
 
Usually a protagonist has multiple objectives driving the narrative -- one professional (to plant an idea in the mark's mind), one personal (to re-enter the united states and see his kids), and one that's private (to find closure with his dead wife). so, you're all right.
 
grimepoch said:
I guess we just have different opinions on the story. It was VERY clear to me that Cobb/Mal are the whole gist of the story. Even if there was more action scenes that took up a lot of time, I wouldn't call the action part of the story in terms of plot, it was really ancilliary. I mean EVERY thing they deal with ends up being about the manifestation of Mal, or the history of Cob and Mal, or the world they created, or the fact that Cobb hasn't gotten over what he's done.

I mean, how can it get any more A story then Cobb is doing what he is doing for the SOLE purpose of seeing his kids for which he cannot see because of his wife situation and what she did to him? Or that everything he does is tainted by his past. Cobb really is the A story to me.

That said, we all see things differently :)
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I'm not trying to say that the Cobb / Mal was unimportant to the "plot" of the film. Cobb was the main character after all.

What I am trying to say was that 75% or more of what I experienced watching Inception was only vaguely related to Cobb's emotional subplot, much of which was not particularly interesting action scenes (especially the snow battle) and not particularly interesting characters (Arthur, Ariadne, Eames, Yusuf, and Saito are basically just brainless chess pieces who serve to move the story forward).

The only action scene I felt really matched the premise of the film was the zero-g hotel fight. Everything else in the mission could have been snatched from generic action / heist films.
 
Maybe that's the difference, you were focused on his emotional connection, and honestly, I didn't find much to be emotionally connected to AT ALL for this film, so maybe that's why I looked at the story from broader strokes of what was being fed to us, especially during all the exposition.

I agree. Especially Saito's character, I just didn't connect with him at all. I felt very weird about his role from the middle on, and was unsure whether to like him or hate him. How do we know about his motivations.

But at the same time, this is what I like about it, and what supports the idea that maybe all this didn't really happen. Maybe it was all a dream :) One thing I like is this movie left room for interpretation VERY MUCH like Memento did.

I wasn't a fan of the action in this movie, I don't like his in your face style. I prefer action like the beginning of Casino Royale. What I did find brilliant about this story was the fact it has so many different aspects you can think about that really make a difference to the perceived feeling of what happened or why. Not often I want to see a movie twice, but this one I do.

The fact we are discussing this much about it also is what I like. We are talking more about the story and not the technical aspects of the film, and if I were Nolan, I'd be giddy I was provoking these sorts of discussions.
 
Inception may be the most intelligent action film I have ever see. It's visually spectacular, without resorting to 3-D.
 
sorry to switch it up, but I have dumb question.

When Mal was on the ledge and Cobb was trying to talk her out of it, Was that another room she was in directly across from theirs?

I don't know why but that scene felt odd to me in terms of their positions. This was the only thing that bothered me for some reason.
 
Not a dumb question. My take was that Mal set herself up with the room directly across the street from their usual room, so that they could have the conversation face-to-face in a familiar and important setting to them but Cobb wouldn't be in any position to physically prevent her from jumping.

The scene felt odd, but to me that was because of the degree of tension the staging creates, both visually and dramatically.
 
Well, the title of it is INCEPTION, so the planting of an idea is what the movie is basically about.

Remember though that the inciting incident in the first act is Saito telling Cobb he can get him back home (I don't remember the exact words). Cobb tells him that's impossible, but decides to go with him anyway.

This is like two seconds after Saito catches Cobb after a long chase that happens because Cobb apparently tries to rip him off in the beginning. Saito and Cobb start out as enemies.

So, why do they become partners?

I think Cobb is tired of being on the run, and when Saito presents this idea (a form of inception?) to him that he can put him in limbo with his wife and kids (without saying it in so many words, since that would probably make it not work), he takes it. That's basically the Hero's Journey story from start to finish.

Either that, or it's all a dream and that's why people (including Michael Caine and Mal) keeps telling Cobb to wake up and get back to the real world. If they're projections of his subconcious, anyone telling him straight out to do something or not do something, that's Cobb telling himself that.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
This is like two seconds after Saito catches Cobb after a long chase that happens because Cobb apparently tries to rip him off in the beginning. Saito and Cobb start out as enemies.

So, why do they become partners?
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It was pretty clear in the dialogue that Saito used it as a test to see if Cobb was up to the job he had in mind.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
Remember though that the inciting incident in the first act is Saito telling Cobb he can get him back home (I don't remember the exact words). Cobb tells him that's impossible, but decides to go with him anyway.
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Cobb doesn't tell Saito inception is impossible, Arthur does. Cobb tells him that it IS possible.

Jawa Ex Machina said:
This is like two seconds after Saito catches Cobb after a long chase that happens because Cobb apparently tries to rip him off in the beginning. Saito and Cobb start out as enemies.
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There's no real chase scene between Cobb and Saito. Saito just shows up on the roof of the hotel Cobb is staying in. The long chase scene you may be thinking of is between Cobb and the company that hired him to get Saito's secrets (I can't remember the name of it). Not because he tried to rip Saito off, but because he failed to rip him off.

Also, I took it that Mal rented the hotel room across from their usual one, so that she could jump off without Cobb being able to stop her, land right in the middle, and everyone would think that Cobb threw her out their hotel window.
gl
 
Batutta said:
It was pretty clear in the dialogue that Saito used it as a test to see if Cobb was up to the job he had in mind.
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But they also did specifically say that Cobol Engineering hired them to steal the plans from Saito, and that Cobol was going to be coming after them because they failed. They Cobb was later chased by men from Cobol Engineering, who were trying to kill him.
 
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