Inception (film)

Inception is a 2010 science fiction action about a man skilled in the art of invading the dreams of others to steal their secrets, a process known as Extraction. To redeem himself, Dom Cobb must complete a very difficult and dangerous mission in which he plants an idea in another person's mind: Inception.
 * Written and directed by Christopher Nolan.

The dream is real. Taglines

Cobb

 * Downward is the only way forward.


 * An idea is like a virus. Resilient. Highly contagious. And even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you.


 * Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.

Mal

 * You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter, because we'll be together.

Eames

 * [In a firefight; Arthur is defending with an assault rifle] You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. [hefts a huge grenade launcher]


 * Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur.

Robert Fischer

 * [after narrowly escaping an avalanche] Couldn't someone have dreamt up a goddamn beach?!

Dialogue

 * [Mal holds her gun to Arthur's head]
 * Cobb: Ah, no use threatening him in a dream, right, Mal?
 * Mal: That depends on what you're threatening. Killing him will just wake him up. But pain – [suddenly shoots Arthur in the knee] Pain is in the mind. And judging by the decor, we're in your mind, aren't we, Arthur?


 * Cobb: You don't seem to understand, Mr. Saito. The corporation that hired us, they won't accept failure. We won't last two days.
 * Arthur: [nervous] Cobb.
 * Cobb: Looks like I'm going to have to do this a little more simply. [throws Saito onto the floor] Tell us what you know! Tell us what you know now!
 * Saito: [touching the carpet and laughing] I've always hated this carpet — stained and frayed in such distinctive ways, but very definitely made of wool. Right now I'm lying on polyester, which means I'm not lying on my carpet in my apartment. You have lived up to your reputation, Mr. Cobb. I'm still dreaming.


 * Arthur: What the hell was all that?
 * Cobb: I have it under control.
 * Arthur: I'd hate to see you out of control.


 * Saito: Inception. Is it possible?
 * Arthur: Of course not.
 * Saito: If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one there instead?
 * Arthur: Okay, here's me planting an idea in your head: I say to you, "Don't think about elephants." What are you thinking about?
 * Saito: Elephants.
 * Arthur: Right, but it's not your idea because you know I gave it to you. The subject's mind can always trace the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.
 * Cobb: That's not true.


 * Cobb: Before I describe the job, I have to know you can do it
 * Ariadne: Why?
 * Cobb: It's not, strictly speaking, legal.


 * Cobb: Let me ask you a question. You never really remember the beginning of a dream, do you? You always wind up right in the middle of what's going on.
 * Ariadne: I guess, yeah.
 * Cobb: So how did we end up here?
 * Ariadne: Well, we just came from the... [trails off]
 * Cobb: Think about it, Ariadne, how did you get here? Where are you right now?
 * Ariadne: We're dreaming?
 * Cobb: You're actually in the middle of the workshop right now, sleeping. This is your first lesson in shared dreaming


 * Cobb: Never re-create places from your memory. Always imagine new places.
 * Ariadne: You gotta draw from stuff you know, right?
 * Cobb: Only use details. A streetlamp or a phone booth, Never entire areas.
 * Ariadne: Why not?
 * Cobb: Building a dream from your memory is the easiest way to lose your grasp on what's real and what is a dream.


 * Cobb: Mr. Saito, this isn't your typical corporate espionage. You asked me for inception. I do hope you understand the gravity of that request. Now, the seed that we plant in this man's mind will grow into an idea. This idea will define him. It may come to change — well, it may come to change everything about him.
 * Saito: We're the last company standing between them and total energy dominance, and we can no longer compete. Soon, they'll control the energy supply of half the world. In effect, they become a new superpower. The world needs Robert Fischer to change his mind.


 * [The team are standing in the first constructed dream level, an empty city]
 * Eames: On the top level, we open up his relationship with his father. Say, "I will not follow in my father's footsteps". Then, the next level down, we feed him "I will create something for myself". Then, by the time we hit the bottom level, we bring out the big guns:
 * Cobb: My father doesn't want me to be him.
 * Eames: Exactly.


 * Arthur: So, once we've made the plant, how do we get out? I'm hoping you have something more elegant in mind than shooting me in the head?
 * Cobb: A kick.
 * Ariadne: What's a kick?
 * Eames: This, Ariadne, would be a kick. [kicks Arthur's chair; Arthur flails but manages to right himself]
 * Cobb: It's that feeling of falling you get that jolts you awake. It snaps you out of the dream.


 * Saito: Sydney to Los Angeles. One of the longest flights in the world. He makes it every two weeks.
 * Cobb: He must be flying privately.
 * Saito: Not if there were unexpected maintenance with his plane.
 * Arthur: It would have to be a 747.
 * Cobb: Why is that?
 * Arthur: Cause on a 747 the pilots up top, and the first class cabin is in the nose, so no one would walk through. But you'd have to buy out the entire cabin. And the first class flight attendant.
 * Saito: I bought the airline. [others look stunned at him] It seemed neater.


 * [Everyone has just entered Yusuf's dream, a city in a heavy downpour]
 * Arthur: You couldn't have peed before you went under?
 * Yusuf: Sorry.
 * Eames: A bit too much free champagne before takeoff, eh, Yusuf?
 * Yusuf: [deadpan] Ha ha bloody-ha.
 * Cobb: Well, we know he's going to be looking for a taxi in this weather.


 * Ariadne: Who or what is "Mr. Charles"?
 * Arthur: It's a gambit designed to turn Fischer against his own subconscious.
 * Ariadne: And why don't you approve?
 * Arthur: Because it involves telling the mark that he's dreaming. Which involves attracting a lot of attention to us.
 * Ariadne: Didn't Cobb say never to do that?
 * Arthur: So now you've noticed how much time Cobb spends doing things he says never to do.


 * Ariadne: What's happening?
 * Arthur: Cobb's drawing Fischer's attention to the strangeness of the dream. Which is making his subconscious look for the dreamer. For me. [the projections begin staring at them] Quick, give me a kiss. [Arthur and Ariadne kiss]
 * Ariadne: [confused] They're still looking at us.
 * Arthur: Yeah, it was worth a shot. We should probably get out of here.


 * Maurice Fischer: [in Robert Fischer's dream; on his deathbed] Dis... disa... disap...
 * Fischer: I know, Dad. I know you were disappointed that I couldn't be you.
 * Maurice Fischer: No. No, no. I was disappointed... that you tried.


 * [The last scene in limbo, Saito's dining room]
 * Saito: Are you here to kill me? [examines Cobb's totem top] I know what this is. I've seen one before, many many years ago. It belonged to a man I met in a half-remembered dream — a man possessed of some radical notions. I'm waiting for someone.
 * Cobb: Someone from a half-remembered dream.
 * Saito: Cobb? Impossible. We were young men together. I'm an old man—
 * Cobb: —filled with regret—
 * Saito: —waiting to die alone.
 * Cobb: I've come back for you, to remind you of something, something you once knew: that this world is not real.
 * Saito: To convince me to honor our arrangement?
 * Cobb: To take a leap of faith, yes. Come back. So we can be young men together again. Come back with me. Come back.

About Inception

 * Mr. Nolan doesn’t cater to the executives at some big company, he really does what he wants to with a film. He manages to do it within the current big system because he’s that good and he can, but ‘Inception’ and his films aren’t developed by committee. And it wasn’t him saying, ‘How am I going to make a big summer hit?’ ‘Inception’ was about him following his own fascinations.
 * Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hollywood takes too many shortcuts Hero.Complex.latimes.com, 8 December 2010


 * The clash of objective reality with our subjective view of the world, that’s pretty interesting stuff. This is something I thought about doing for a very long time. I’ve been thinking about it off and on since I was about 16. It was the approach I wanted to take to an almost alternate reality — approaching the dream life as another state of reality. And one that in certain circumstances can be manipulated.
 * Christopher Nolan, Hollywood takes too many shortcuts Hero.Complex.latimes.com, 8 December 2010

Taglines

 * Your mind is the scene of the crime.
 * The dream is real.