Inception

[fullygoldy]

Last weekend, I finally saw Inception.  Watched it "On Demand" with DH.  We were hurting for viewing material, and couldn't find anything we both agreed on until this popped up on the menu. 
DH said, "buh? what is it?" 
I did not say, "it's on my list of at least 10 fandoms I'm reading without benefit of canon." 
I did not say, "all the fangirls love the Eames/Arthur." 
I said, "it's supposed to be good, you'll like it.  It's sci-fi, I'll like it." 

So we really enjoyed it.  Lots of action, starts in media res, which was a format I apparently liked even before I found fandom.  It must have come from the mysteries (Nancy Drew, et al).  I used to eat those up as a kid, and there was always the challenge of figuring out something that wasn't being shown directly. Someone once said to me that she couldn't get into the Vorkosigan 'verse because she always felt like she didn't really know the canon.  She was speaking about the actual canon, and the way Bujold tells a story by revealing bits of "known" history randomly, instead of building an orderly backstory from the outset.  /tangent

Anyway, it was a complex, and well-told story.  Lots of layers, just like dreaming.  It's compelling enough to make you keep thinking about it afterward and want to watch it again right away, because you know you'll take away something new on the rewatch.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page gave me a bit of cognitive dissonance too.  In my head, they're both teenagers, and here they are competent young adults.  Ellen looked like she was playing dress up in the suit and hair bun.  Although I thought Ariadne was a bit toooo emotionally intelligent based on her background.  Unless "architect" was actually code for "psych" and I missed it.  I thought "architect" had more to do with world building, structures, and physics than psychology.  Of course, I totally missed that "forger" wasn't about stuff on paper. 

I really liked that the dream-ops concept wasn't a super-secret thing that no one else in the world knew about.  It wasn't totally mainstream, but it wasn't totally foreign either, and outsiders could be exposed to the concept without lots of cloak and dagger or non-disclosure shenanigans.

However, I did not see the Eames/Arthur.  I suspect that the very HET Cobb, while pretty, is just too het to believably (read easily) slash, so the next prettiest get the nod.  To me, the movie is very complete, even with the ambiguous (not-so-ambiguous to me, I've decided which way the top tipped) ending.  I think the knowing for sure would lessen the story.  But look where it opened.  I have to believe the ending points to symmetry.  This being the case, I don't feel the need to "fix" anything or delve deeper.  And if I did, I think I'd be more inclined to think Ariadne got the band back together to go after Cobb.  She's the only one who really got to see what he was going through, and would have more than half a clue about how to find him.

 
I'm enjoying the Eames/Arthur, but it's so removed from my experience of the movie, it's more like I'm reading original smut stories with characters of the same name.

Comments

[loligo]

Heh -- I had sort of the same experience. I enjoyed the movie, but the Arthur/Eames... it was like, that's it?? That's what launched a thousand fics? They said like five sentences to each other. (They were good, snarky sentences, it's true, but still....)

[fullygoldy]

Yes! all of this!

I love me some snark, but seriously? 1000 stories? LOLZ all day long.