Personally was not a big fan (hard to say that without sounding snooty) - the movie was mostly entertaining but was kind of pop-corn sci fi masquerading as deep sci fi. Too many plot holes filled with arbitrary mechanics. Edit: it may have been over my head, but I think it is perhaps in a movie's favor to be very clear in its purpose (without necessarily bludgeoning you with it)?
The idea of Cobb's wedding ring as his totem has been discussed publicly as early as July 2010 [1], the month of the film's release.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Inception/comments/cvk2i/is_cobbs_ring_his_actual_totem/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/Inception/comments/cvk2i/is_cobbs_ri...</a>
The whole point of the ending is that Cobb does not care about whether he is in reality or not, as long as he is with his children.<p>To search for clues as to whether it's one or the other is to miss the point.
This explanation is not totally convincing. The main issue is the OP actually just referred to very few scenes, while there is no proof that throughout <i>all</i> scenes this difference remained consistent. A more plausible explanation would be Nolan <i>initially</i> intended to use such a mechanism, but later decided to leave it out. However, since some of the scenes of the movie were already filmed, the ring could not be changed. It's obvious that Nolan put the spinning scene because he <i>deliberately</i> wanted to leave an equivocate ending. It's possible that in the beginning that wasn't his idea, and he changed it halfway through the movie. But what's clear is the ending was <i>intended</i> to be equivocate. He would not let such a vague "ring" mechanism co-exist with the spinning scene. That's far too strenuous.
The ring is still ambiguous. It is never characterized properly as a totem (Cobb never uses it awake, that we see). If you interpret it as a symbolic representation of his mental affiliation with Mal, then:<p>a) At the end of the movie he is awake, and he really meets his children. The lack of the ring is consistent with all available evidence prior to this point because he only has the ring on when he is asleep.<p>b) At the end of the movie he has successfully escaped Limbo twice. Cobb has mastered his own psyche; he has achieved closure on Mal's death; he has finally embraced in his own mind that the Mal in the dream is just a ghost, and can be in the dream without the ring. He can dream again without Mal invading from his subconscious.
Here's a google talk by Kyle Johnson that discusses different interpretations of the film:<p>'Inception and Philosophy'
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginQNMiRu2w" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginQNMiRu2w</a>
A kind of Stone-Age version of Inception is "La Vida Es Sueño" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca written in 1635.
<a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_vida_es_sue%C3%B1o" rel="nofollow">http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_vida_es_sue%C3%B1o</a><p>It is a 3-act play where the Prince of Poland, Segismundo was imprisoned since birth due to a bad prediction by astrologers that he would be evil. However, Rosaura and Clarín arrange for his release.<p><pre><code> Nace el ave, y con las galas
que le dan belleza suma,
apenas es flor de pluma
o ramillete con alas,
cuando las etéreas salas
corta con velocidad,
negándose a la piedad
del nido que deja en calma;
¿y teniendo yo más alma,
tengo menos libertad?
</code></pre>
Essentially that birds are free to fly around in the sky and naturally look beautiful. So why do I with more "soul" have less freedom ?<p>In Act 2, Segismundo contemplates his freedom and his relief turns into outrage. Indeed he rapes a women, throws a man over a cliff and murders another one.<p>In the 3rd act he is captured and thrown back in chains - the astrologers' prediction has been fulfilled.<p>--------------------------<p>Inception certainly takes this several iterations further putting dream inside dream inside dream. Yet, metaphysical questions of whather you are awake or dreaming have been around...
I was beginning to wonder if it was just Hans Zimmer's score that masterfully carried my emotions at the end. But too jarring was the theme of exploring the depths of a shared psyche with your wife in an absolute, limitless world, then losing everything in yourself from a single mistake. The dream mechanism was a wonderful way of taking you from the sublime to the very feeling of hell.<p>Very glad to have read this subtle message from the director! A masterpiece in my mind.
That was a real common theory around the time of the movies release, something I noticed on my second (or third) run through it. The bigger tell is that it's not his totem to start with, it belongs to Mal and as is pointed out you have to have something unique to <i>you</i>, something only <i>you</i> could know. I don't think it ever actually reveals what Cobb uses for his.
Did anyone else find Inception to be basically straightforward (though interesting and enjoyable) with an insignificant binary question at the end?<p>There certainly may be more depth than I'm seeing, but there wasn't anything that made me need to wonder why anything happened the way it happened. As mentioned in the thread already, Momento's the one that isn't straightforward.<p>I'm not intentionally trolling---I suppose I probably am missing something. There just wasn't anything obviously confusing on the movie's surface for me.
If the ring indeed indicates dream/reality, why does Cobb bother to spin the top .. since he already knows whether he's wearing the ring or not? .. or did he take off his ring even in his dream by that point?
I read somewhere that his totem itself was flawed. For example, others totems had something different; a loaded dice. In dream, the dice would act normally, in reality it won't, that's the way to differentiate reality. Cobb's totem would topple in dream as well as in reality.<p>That's something I read and wondered.