As It Turns Out, Second Life Does Inception Better Than Inception Does Inception

So last weekend I watched Inception, which some say reminds them of Second Life. And while the movie transcendentally rocked my brain in so many ways, it's one nagging flaw was the thing that made it most unlike Second Life: Namely, for a story about "inception", which is what they call the implantation of ideas in people's dreams, the dreams in Inception seemed little like actual dreams. Too linear, too logical, too lacking in free association and mental barnacles. By contrast, I often describe Second Life as a shared lucid dream, because at it's best, there's a tangible sense of reality morphing in unpredictable ways by many people as they add to it on the fly. And afterward, you wonder if an incident actually happened in Second Life, or if you dreamed about it the night before. Which is what Cobb would call a successful inception, don't you think?

I mean, that scene where the dude says, "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling," and pulls out a grenade launcher? If he were in Second Life, he'd probably start shooting a hand cannon with exploding pigs.

Comments

[comoro Infinity]

what a gigantic waste of time

[Fogwoman Gray]

Chicken cannons...
BUH BAWK!!

[Bob L]

Like The Matrix movies failure of imagination. The characters are in a world were they can dress how ever they want so they chose the same clothes as everyone else?

[Ghosty Kips]

I have not yet seen the movie, so I have only two comments.

1. That is the funniest image I have seen all week. WIN.

2. People who feel the Matrix was a failure of imagination never took a philosophy class in their entire life.

I can only hope for vampiric robo-tiger lesbian steampunk penises.

[Sinnyo]

In defence of the film, which did still show dreams playing merry havoc with mirrors, folded-in cities and a lack of gravity, I can't say I've ever had a dream in which batallions of Ruth-bots have showered me in miniature airships. I was quite prepared to accept DiCaprio's line, that the subconscious seeks always of make sense of things. It's usually the *circumstances* which feel weird in a dream, such as launching ski-mounted attacks upon Russian fortresses or being inexplicably lost among a city of grey block skyscrapers. It's *imagination* which conjures pig cannons, and that takes a certain degree of conscious thought.

I thought the film much more game-related anyway. It's a group of people creating worlds in which the protagonist is gently led to a conclusion of their device, all by suggestion as subtle as an FPS' street map or the laying of clues about a platformer. Nothing about "Inception" seems to suggest a free-reign world like "Second Life".

[Annyka Bekkers]

My dreams only seem strange after I wake up. They make perfect sense while I'm experiencing them

[Leondra]

I will most definitely have to see, after all the revisiting in your mind, through posts. It is a test of a really good movie (or book, poem, work of art, etc), to keep re-thinking scenes and meanings, looking at various levels.

[LokiLoki]

Ive not seen Wagner comment on Sy Fy's Caprica series yet and how THAT is like Second Life right down to the virtual sex, violence and bots.

[brinda allen]

OMG! The look on the face of the last image is exactly what I would expect to see after the exchange about steampunk dirigibles...vampire lesbians evading robot furry tigers shooting 2.424242xxxxx meter male sex organs! ROFL!

[Vaneeesa Blaylock]

For me, The Matrix (the first one) is one of the greatest films. Lots of sexy action, AND, a ton of powerful ideas.

Inception was visual spectacle but I didn't find it to have nearly the ideas that The Matrix did.

Still, compared to the mess that was Salt, Inception was a masterpiece.

So far for me, the most "real" film this summer - not because it's marginally related to some "real" event, but because of the characters possessing actual human emotions, is Middle Men.

[Adric Antfarm]

Didn't see enough of this on Reddit did we?

[Oz Spade]

The reason the dreams aren't crazy is because they don't want the mark to know he/she is dreaming. The only time I can really see the "it wasn't crazy enough" argument working is when they fall into the subconscious, which I imagine could have been more fanciful. However when you consider the purpose to which the subconscious was being used it makes a certain sense. Also I think Nolan was trying to make a specific kind of movie and having a green troll running around shooting flamingos out of a pie that must be reloaded by radio stations, while perfectly dream-like, doesn't really fit in with a dramatic action heist flick.

[Hamlet Au]

I agree with you, Oz, I just thought they could have added a few more dream-like elements. For example, why do Fischer's subconscious defense projections look like everyday action movie mercenaries susceptible to bullets, rather than weird indestructible demonic things or whatever the fuck?

Brinda, that Leo DiCaprio squint makes me giggle every time. I might just make *all* my posts include it!

[Rodion Resistance]

Forgive me for this rant but why is there such a seeming need for this certain "haughtiness" when it comes to describing that Inception doesn't come close to Second Life? (i.e. "Ugh, these people don't know what 'dreamlike means', I should know because I've been in SL").

I mean seriously, over half the people I know who watched it (and who aren't into SL) didn't like it because they had difficulty in following the plot as it is. And how do you suppose, it would help them if there were "hand cannons with exploding pigs" all mixed into the fray? To me therefore, this need for something to be as wildly flamboyant as "vampire lesbians evading robot furry tigers shooting male sex organs" in order to be "more dreamlike" and "more like SL" is no different from that yearning of some that to be "cool" in a dream scene you have to be wearing black trenchcoats and dark glasses with black slick hairdos.

The movie was "dumbed down" so that the rest of humanity (who do not use SL) can actually still understand it and appreciate it as a movie that has "dreamlike" scenes but does not stray from the obvious fact that, for a movie to be enjoyable (and profitable) it still does have to make sense.

[L. Knoller]

"can you say Brrhh?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrYPJ4Yc31g

[Nat Merit]

There is absolutely no plot hole at all around the dream worlds being mostly 'mundane' and realistic.

The architect's job is the keep the world acting like a consistent real world place (where fantastical elements like loops and limitations are hidden) so the dreamer doesn't realise they're dreaming.

The whole premise is based around a misuse of army training tech that uses dreams to produce realistic shared scenarios. Penis torpedo would make no sense within the story's carefully established context.

[WakingLife]

Comparing Matrix and Inception, it is clear that Matrix is by far the less sophisticated one regarding the underlying idea.
Where Matrix questions the nature of our perception of reality, it does so in an easy, straightforward manner: We are never confused as to what is "real" and what is the "dreamworld". Inception poses the same question of "Life As Illusion", but goes one step further. Many things in the movie deliberately contradict the diegetic reality, (like the scene where Cobb is chased, and the walls close in)giving far more food for thought about what is the dream, but also about the relationship between the experience of watching a movie, and the experience of dreaming, and by implication the relationship between filmmaker and audience.