How to Improve ‘Inception’: Some Enthusiastic Ideas From CC2K

Lance Carmichael:

You definitely went straight to my biggest disappointment with Inception—the lack of invention in the presentation/feeling of the dreams. This is distinct from what I thought was Inception’s biggest flaw—its inability to cleanly establish the rules of the dreamworlds, and then get out of the way–something that the Wachowski Bros. managed to pull off in the first Matrix movie, by the way; a feat that seems easy because when it works, it looks effortless, but which is in fact exceedingly difficult. Inception never, ever feels effortless; where The Matrix was as light as the air that its characters soared through, Inception puts its feet forward one heavy boot at a time.

But I digress! And actually, though I think this will mostly be a post-mortem about what Inception did wrong and what could be done to fix it, let me just get it out of the way to say that though I thought Inception was flawed and will never transcend beyond being a good summer movie, I have to give a standing O to Nolan for really going for it here (I know that’ll mean a lot to him). Even if it doesn’t quite work, it’s still filled with invention and ambition to burn, and if nothing else it has been a fascinating conversation starter. Even if in the end I don’t think it’s a successful movie, I’ve already talked about it more than probably any other movie this year, which means it must be doing something right.

I love your idea for having the architect create a dream in which the invaders can operate, but only for a limited time before that world starts to degrade and the subject’s subconscious takes over. Puts a great ticking clock on it, and yes, the canary-in-the-coalmine aspects of your proposed new-and-improved totems would suddenly get real important, and most important…it would give Nolan an opportunity to give us what I really thought he was going to deliver in this movie: $160 million spent building never-before-seen dream logic mindblowers. It would give a ticking clock, and something for the audiences to be deathly afraid of.

Unfortunately, I just don’t think Nolan’s skillset lies in that direction. His movies are typically completely sexless—as in no eroticism, lust, hot messiness—and sex and its repression and coded representation is the gasoline on which our dream engines often run. He’s also not a great visual director, as has often been noted before—no really strong images stand out from ANY of his movies, and I’ve seen them all, most of them on multiple occasions (again, I’m not saying he doesn’t do some things very, very well).

But I want to get into another area that I thought Inception fell short in: characterization.

Besides Leonardo DiCaprio, no other characters suggest any kind of human personality besides how they look and what we’ve been told their jobs are. There’s never any feeling that anybody but Leo has an interior life. And we don’t really get to “know” Leo’s character—the only reason we know what’s going on with him is because he’s constantly telling us (usually through obvious audience-surrogate/ exposition magnet Ellen Page). Try the character litmus test: besides “Dom Cobb,” tell us about one of the characters in Inception without talking about their job or how they look. Actually, try that with Dom Cobb as well. He’s…stern….and…tortured?

I don’t think you can. And the reason for this, I submit, is because of the first-draftiness of the Inception script. Getting a script greenlight upon delivery of first draft isn’t necessarily always the best thing for the movie. The number of characters who go on the heist all feel like they’re there to fill out the number/functions Nolan needs to make the story work. Think about it. They have to leave behind a team member in every level of dream. So Dileep Rao is there to be left driving the van, Joseph Gordon Levitt is left in the admittedly super cool hotel, and Tom Hardy is there to man the snow fortress. Meanwhile, even though she has no reason to actually be in the dreams she’s “built” (I would’ve loved to have seen a little sci-fi moment where they show how that’s done, btw), Ellen Page is there through it all for Leo to explain the rules to all the way to the end.

Ellen Page, JGL (I refuse to type his super-long name out fully every time I mention him), and Leo are the main team members. Why do they all look like they work on the same floor at Patrick Bateman’s company? How about some character differentiation? As you know, Tony, but so far haven’t revealed to the readers, Christopher Nolan has personally contacted us, begging us to tell him how he could fix Inception if he wanted to do it all over again. In fact, he’s sitting next to me right now, breathlessly watching me type. Let’s not let him down.

More Ideas on How to Improve Inception (aka My Secret Plan to Get Drive-By Haters to Flame Me on the Message Boards)

First of all, as you and I discussed, I would change the nature of the people who work in the Dream Invading industry a bit. Make it much more disreputable—like hit men. Make going into dreams something you’d have to have a death wish to do—it’s that dangerous. Only the most preternaturally skilled adepts can do it without going brain dead on the first try. So the people who tend to work in it are daredevils, adrenaline junkies.

Side note: I also thought that the way they got into the dreams was completely dumb. Listen: industrial espionage generally involves your competitor NOT KNOWING that you’re engaging in it—otherwise, they’ll know what you’re up to and adapt. So the fact that you have to KIDNAP AND DRUG the high-ranking businessperson you’re after makes concealing it difficult to do. Not only that, but also brazenly illegal and traceable and on the whole probably a lot more logistically difficult than just sending some dudes in late at night and stealing info the old-fashioned way. You can’t always use the old “I just bought the airline” trick (overnight? Doesn’t acquiring airlines take like years of FCC and union litigation? Did Watanabe use the same super-secret credit card Bruce Wayne used to buy the restaurant from a waiter in Batman Begins?). How else do these kidnappings take place without getting detected?

Chris, what about this: Why not jack into dreams wirelessly? Think about it. You don’t have to actually kidnap the person. And the marks would be super paranoid about their dreams getting invaded. Like Tony, I love the idea of the super-rich being forced to “militarize their subconscious.” This would take it up a notch, as you’d never know WHEN you were in danger. They’d have to have security guys monitoring their heartrates and, I don’t know, skin conductivity while they slept, ready to wake them should they detect the signs of a dream invasion. Maybe you’ve got to inject nanobots into your mark’s coffee to be able to jack in. Maybe the nanobots or whatever die after six hours, so you’ve got a firm deadline. Or maybe you’ve got to send a Honeytrap in to seduce your mark and stay close to him through the night, acting as your “antennae.” However you play it, it would add a level of paranoia and chances to get caught to the proceedings, which never hurt.

Okay. Now we’ve established that you can jack in wirelessly, and that going into someone else’s dreams is super-dangerous but also exciting, and the people who do it are kind of disreputable adrenaline junkies —like, Ken Watanabe should basically treat Leo like he’s a child molester, because even though Watanabe says that changing Cillian Murphy’s relationship with his father is all for the good of the planet, going into this guy’s mind and altering fundamental parts of his personality for no really good reason is in fact VERY CREEPY. And for all Ken knows, Leo’s done it to him, too.

So now let’s talk about the characters:

Leo: I have to admit I still don’t really think Leo is all that great in these types of roles, but apparently I’m in the minority, so I’ll let his casting slide by on this one. Chris, I know how it is: you gotta sell tickets, and Leo was in Titanic. Plus, he’s got all that Scorsese-cred dripping off him now. Okay.

I think Leo’s character should have been totally burned out on the dream thing. He got stuck in the 50 year dream, he’s almost died several times, and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. He’s done. He knows how creepy it is. He gets that. Fuck this shit.

But…this last job is something he HAS to do: no choice. It’s how he can fix his life.

Now we can feel Leo having serious conflict about whether to go through with this. And we know how dangerous and creepy this line of work is. A little flavor has been added. And nothing has been taken off the table from what Nolan’s already put there.

Okay? Simple enough?

JGL: Nothing against JGL, but I think it was the wrong call to cast him in this role. He’s basically Leonardo DiCaprio lite. Think about it. They’re both pretty boys in the same non-threatening, feminine-featured kind of way. They’re both generally unconvincing when they act tough. And they both slick back their hair here. Why not cast someone who gives us a little counter-balance to Leo’s energy? Someone with a little “untamed libido” in them—your basic Young Jack Nicholson type. Even Tom Hardy would’ve been a better call here.

Secondly, what is JGL’s job? I can’t remember. He didn’t really do anything except float around in the hotel and drag their zero-G sleeping bodies to an elevator to do…something. How could this character (IMDB reveals his name is “Arthur”—the fact that I had to look it up should tell you something) bring a different energy to the movie?

If Leo is the guy who doesn’t want to do this shit anymore, Arthur is the reckless dream junkie who LOVES getting caught up in weird, sexy, Lynchian dreams. To the point where he often endangers the mission. He’s hooked on it. Jacking into dreams is like going to an orgy where you might get your mind-fried by the logic-defying awesomeness that can break out at any moment.

Leo would want nothing to do with this guy. He’s a live-wire, a loose cannon. HOWEVER, since they have to put this job together on very short notice, and since Leo’s trusted right-hand man got his brain fried in the opening of the movie (I’m adding this element—it shows us how (NOT TELLS US) how dangerous going into dreams is, and since there’s SO FEW skilled dream invaders in the world, Leo HAS to work with this dude, even though he doesn’t in any way shape or form trust him.

Basically, he’s like Sick Boy in Trainspotting. You could even let him dress in a suit, Chris—just make it an ironic hipster’s suit.

Ellen “Ariadne” Page: Maybe the biggest blunder. Why is she the most boring character in the history of the world? Shit, you’ve already GOT Ellen Page. You saw Juno and Hard Candy, right, Chris? I know you’ve got a Netflix account. Page can clearly do edgy bitch. Rather than Michael Caine’s straight-A architecture student—who we only know is brilliant because Michael Caine tells us so, another example of the telling-vs.-showing problems this movie is infected with—let’s make Ariadne a fringe-artist type. Maybe she makes brilliantly textured experimental video games, only she don’t play by the man’s rules, and has been fired by EA and run out of the business. Leo offers her the chance to stretch her skills on the ultimate canvas. She doesn’t really jive with Leo’s slicked back hair and expensive suits—corporate whore!—and she thinks the whole dream-invasion stuff is icky and creepy, but man—building dreams is perfect for her unusual talents, and she can’t turn the opportunity down. Also…man, that Arthur guy is kind of cute in a heroin chic sort of way…I hope he doesn’t tempt me into joining him in the sex dream when it starts to degrade the normal dream I’ve built for the mission…

OK. Now we’ve got some real characters who are distinct from each other. Who can play off each other’s personalities. Who can bring in some conflict, humor, and sexual spark to the proceedings. All that good stuff that you need to make characters come to life on-screen. Chris, I think we’re halfway there.

Whew. I think I’ve overwritten a bit here, so I’ll hand it off to you, Tony. Any more thoughts on how we can make these characters and their jobs pop out more? What about thoughts on cool stuff? You have any opinions on that?

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