An alternate ending to Inception

General review of Inception

Warning: Don’t read this post if you haven’t watched Inception or Shutter Island and plan to, and don’t want the movie spoiled for you beforehand. There’s spoilers.

I saw the movie, Inception, this weekend past. I liked it. I don’t know if it’s one of those movies I’d watch again and again, but I’m glad I saw it.

First off, I thought that the special effects were very visually appealing, but not over-done, by which I mean that I didn’t feel like the film was driven by the special effects. The fight scene with Tommy from 3rd Rock from the Sun in zero-gravity was Matrix-esque, but for some reason, it didn’t look completely ridiculous like most of the reality-defying scenes in the Matrix. Not only that, but the zero-gravity scenes weren’t “gratuitous.” By this, I mean that often fancy special effects are added just because they look cool in the movie trailer, and not because they are needed to advance the plot. In this case, the zero-gravity scene, for example, was a part of the story.

The premiss of the film—people entering other people’s dreams—was interesting, although not entirely original, which is okay. I was engaged by it, and able to suspend disbelief throughout. I have to say, though, about halfway, I remarked that there would have to be some sort of unexpected dream-within-a-dream at some point. I felt really vindicated at the end.

I kind of think of this movie as a combination of a number of other ones. It’s 1/2 Paprika (2006) + 1/8 The Matrix  (1999) + 1/4 Shutter Island (2010) + 1/8 Ocean’s Eleven (2001). I was reminded of Ocean’s Eleven because of the way it started—the protagonist putting together this team of super-criminals so that he could pull of a really daring heist.

And of course I’m sure that I’m not the first to notice certain parallels to Shutter Island. Probably because it shared a few relevant details:

  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Looks really grungy the whole time
  • Kills his wife
  • Wife, children haunt him from beyond the grave
  • Plot twist at the end

Alternate ending to Inception

So here is the alternate ending to the film that I propose: Just push the “stop” button about 30 seconds before the film actually ends. Et voilà. Totally new movie.

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The Grey Literature

This is the personal blog of Benjamin Gregory Carlisle PhD. Queer; Academic; Queer academic. "I'm the research fairy, here to make your academic problems disappear!"

4 thoughts on “An alternate ending to Inception”

  1. I can’t believe I never realized that guy was Tommy on 3rd Rock from the Sun!

    Would you recommend Shutter Island? Would Tandy like it? That is, is it jumpy or creepy?

  2. I’m trying to remember how jumpy it was. As I recall, it was very suspenseful. I think Tandy might like it for the mystery-aspect, but then she’d probably guess the plot twist before the end and not enjoy some of the jumpier bits.

  3. This is completely unrelated to the post, but I totally dreamed about you last night. I was going to make you a bacon sandwich in fond rememberence of Loop, and said you would eat it, but only on the condition that it consisted of bread, bacon, ketchup, and nothing else. Dream you is weird.

  4. No, I think that’s very related to this post. In fact, lately I’ve also been having weird dreams myself. I think it’s time to make a weighted object whose exact balance is known only to me, and keep it on me at all times.

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