Inception: Analysis of the plot through the basic concepts

In my last article, I analyzed the nine basic concepts of “Inception”. Today, I'll talk specifically about the plot through these nine concepts:

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In chronological order, Cobb and his wife were the pioneers of the dream world, and they promised to grow old together. Their shared pursuit of the dream world led them to experiment on themselves. They entered the fourth layer of dream, in which the wife was the dreamer.

There was almost nothing in this layer. Since there were only two people, and no one was left in the first few layers, so no one could help them “kick”. Due to the effect of time delay, a day's sleep in reality was fifty years in the fourth layer.

So they grew old together in the fourth layer of dream, and, fifty years later, they also died of old age in the dream. They both entered Limbo because they had taken enhanced medicine. There, Cobb’s wife was greedy for living together endless, thinking that this was the reality, and she didn't want to return to reality, while Cobb thought about their children and wanted to go back. He finally persuaded his wife to commit suicide by lying on the rails with him. He was not sure if they would be able to escape from Limbo, so he instilled the idea of doubting and trying everything on his wife before committing suicide. This was his first attempt of inception.

After committing suicide in Limbo, they returned to reality, but the side effect of inception occurred: Cobb’s wife began to suspect that reality was actually a dream, thinking that only death could get her out of it. Then, she committed suicide and made it look like Cobb had killed her. Her ultimate goal was to let Cobb to be executed, so that they could get out of the dream together.

Poor Cobb could only abandon their children and flee abroad, and his subconscious was full of the shadow of his wife's appearance. As long as he worked on designing a dream again, that shadow would come out and destroy it, which represented his subconscious remorse and resentment over the dream-design job that killed his wife.

Here, Cobb and his wife had experienced the worlds of the fourth layer of dream and Limbo. The most obvious evidence was that, when they committed suicide in Limbo and returned to reality, they were both young, and, in the fourth layer of dream, they got old.

Cobb got a job abroad to steal information from a Japanese tycoon. That was the shooting scene at the beginning, and it was also a simple dream in a dream, so there was only ordinary medicine there. If the person died in the dream, they would wake up immediately. As a result, the team's designer first made mistakes in a dream and then betrayed them in reality.

The Japanese valued Cobb’s ability very much, and in turn hired him for the inception: let the young leader of a rival company split the company left by his father. Cobb was promised he could return to look after his children. Cobb got a new designer, a little girl, and a new team. The plan for the inception was to spread a good impression of his father in the mind of the young leader. Cobb mentioned in the discussion that negative things would have positive impacts. If the young leader hated his father, he would do a good job at the company to prove that he was better than his father.

This time, the place of the inception was a ten-hour flight from Sydney to the United States. It must be successful for Cobb, because he was wanted in the United States for the murder of his wife. The Japanese promised that as long as Cobb completed the task, they would call on the plane to solve the problem.

But they had a problem just after entering the first layer of dream: this person had been trained by another dream expert. Although this dream was created by the little girl, the consciousness of the target character would incarnate as an armed person and attack the characters in the abnormal dream. The most important part was that this inception would be implemented in the third layer of dream. Cobb hadn't told others about the side effect of the enhanced medicine.

Then there was only one way to go. The Indian guy stayed in the first layer to take charge of the “kick”, so they entered the hotel in the second layer. The handsome guy stayed there, and the rest entered the fortress in the third layer of dream. The purpose was to let the young leader see his father designed by them and accept their ideas.

Just when they were about to succeed, the shadow of Cobb's wife appeared again to disrupt them. She shot the young leader, who fell into a coma. In a hurry, the little girl proposed to graft the young leader into Cobb's fourth layer of dream, in which they could wake him up with a “kick” and the electric shock of the third layer.

Then the little girl and Cobb entered Cobb's fourth layer of dream, in which she brought the young leader back to the third layer of dream with a “kick”. At the same time, someone gave his body an electric shock in the third layer. In the depths of the fortress, the young leader heard the last words of his designed father, to the effect that he should be himself and leave the company alone.

After opening the safe, he noticed the fake will. Out of guilt for his father, he decided to split the company by the will. So far, the mission of "inception" had been successfully completed. The explosion “kick” in the third layer of dream, the elevator “kick” in the second layer of dream, and the falling “kick” in the first layer of dream were carried out at the same time. The little girl, the handsome guy, the Indian guy and the others had managed to escape to the first layer. Only the Japanese died in the third layer, so he skipped the fourth layer and entered Limbo directly.

At the same time, Cobb finally made up his mind in the fourth layer of dream to kill his wife's shadow, while he was also assassinated by the shadow in the fight. Then he also came to Limbo, in which he met the Japanese and persuaded them to kill him with a gun and then commit suicide, so as to bring both back to reality.

When entering Limbo, Cobb had poor memory, so he said that he had forgotten about getting old with his wife in the fourth layer before he entered Limbo for the first time. The second time he entered Limbo and met the Japanese, it took him a long time to remember the purpose of going there. But the Japanese couldn't return to reality, so they couldn't fulfill the promise of letting him go home.

At this point, Cobb's heart knot was unraveled, and his remorse for his wife's death was also diluted when he recalled the happiness of growing old together in the fourth layer of dream. After the Japanese woke up on the plane, they also fulfilled their promise and called to release Cobb.

The ending of the film was inconclusive. We don't know if the spinning top stops or not, but it doesn't matter much. If the reference to the reality is indeed a dream, it's just turning the six-layer world into a seven-layer world. The multi layers of the world in the film are just the Moebius Strip with added dimensions, 1 to 2 to 3 to 0 to 1 to 2 to 3 to 0, reciprocating cycle...

Do you have any questions about "Inception"? Leave it in the comments!