Sci-fi. Inception science fiction film - Essay Example

?Klite Jackson Humanities 424 2/10 Sci-fi Inception is a science fiction film written and directed by acclaimed director Christopher Nolan. The film was released into the global arena on July 16, 2010. On its release, it instantaneously ranked as one of the top earning movies of all time. Subsequently, Inception went on to win several significant awards, but most notably the Academy Awards. The film projects three principal themes; dreams, recursion and, suicide. Inception questions the wisdom of accessing too much information from a person’s subconscious. The movie revolves around a thief, Cobb, who steals precious information from the minds of his targets. He does this by projecting into their respective subconscious and sourcing the essential information. It is during one such projection, Saito’s mind, that he is defeated in retrieving the required information, but ends up being hired for a job whose gains will see him able to return, safely, to his family. The picture expounds on the strain that was faced in the new task, Fischer’s subconscious. Amidst all this, Cobb has to battle his emotions pertaining to his wife’s suicide, which disturbs and delays waylays him, within the target’s subconscious. Ultimately, Ariadne shoots Mal, thus, saving Cobb. The mission is successful, and the protagonist’s return to his family is made plausible. Very few movies have explored this unique theme of projecting into people’s dreams. The movie illustrates this process in a manner previously rarely seen. The main audience of this film happens to be adults. This arises from the fact that its themes and intricate details can only be fully grasped by adults. Science can best be defined as a realistic speculation of future scientific and social advancements. This is realized via deep understanding of the scientific world. It requires a considerable amount of imagination and existence of the element of plausibility. It is imperative for Science fiction movies to be characterized by conflict, believability and excellent visual effects. Inception is characterized by all these three elements. The Dreams are a core theme throughout the entirety of the movie. It entails an intricate web of interconnected dreams. A dreamer is the individual in whose dream the action exists. Subsequently, each level of dreaming must have its own dreamer. Each dream must have its subject, who is the individual whose subconscious is the source of information. Unless something bizarre happens, the dreamer is usually unaware that he is dreaming. However, in the event the subject realizes he is dreaming, his projections are often violent towards the dreamer. To avoid such eventualities, the work of the architect is to make the world as real as humanly possible. In the dream world, when an individual committed suicide, it meant a safe passage to reality. This was often the avenue of choice for a majority of characters in the film when at wits end. However, in the Fischer mission, this avenue is unsafe as no guarantee exits on its safety and certainty. The team realizes that death, in that particular dream state, will usher them into limbo where one is prone to insanity. Throughout the entirety of the film, the protagonist is haunted by the first suicide in the films beginning. His wife, Mal committed suicide while attempting to return to her children in real life. She had believed that she was still in her dream while in fact she was in the actual world. The third prominent theme is that of recursion. This is evident in both conceptual and visual features. This is exemplified by a dreamer is dreaming a dream. This creates the concept of levels associated to levels. A dreamer first dream in the first level, then another dreamer inside the first dream initiates another dream. Thus, two dreams now exist, and events are now taking place in the second level: often, the inner stories inside the dream in a dream overwhelm the real world framing. These interconnected dreams are the core concept of the film. Recursion enables the individuals in the dream not to distinguish the different levels characterizing the dreams. As such, the audience is left to rely on the actions and drama in a particular dream so as to identify the respective dream level. Inception explores beliefs via futuristic technology that fire up the imagination of the viewers. However, acclaimed science fiction films do not hinge their worth on futuristic technology; rather it focuses on firing the imagination and connects with the audience on a deep human level. Though the director has included the concept of futuristic technology; he forms his thesis away from this aspect. The film instigates question of one’s reality, is it perceived or the real reality? The audience is left pondering whether or not the things they witness are a projection of their own subconscious. The reality of dreams is depicted in the scene whereby the van rolls and, Yusuf exclaims to the rest of the passengers. To his dismay they are all asleep inside his dream. The theme dreams are developed as the main theme of the film. The audience is shown how to project into dreams and the consequent levels entailed in the dreams. When Mal commits suicide, the negative impact of diving deep into the psychological aspect of the brain comes to life. Dreams are depicted as the sole avenue to safely source vital information from targets. However, the dangers inside dream are all but real. The characters are aware that death in the third level ill usher them into limbo, the most dangerous level in the dream world. In the film scene of the film, the viewers are left without knowing whether or not the final scene was a dream or reality. This theme is developed simultaneously with the theme of recursion. Dreams inside dreams form the aspect of recursion. Aside from this, recursion is evident in the beach scene inside Cobb’s subconscious. At the start of the film, the audience is made aware of suicide is the only avenue to exit a level of a dream. Each character commits suicide differently: Arthur committed suicide by bombing the elevator while Ariadne jumped off a balcony. The only level that this is not applicable is in limbo. When a character dies in limbo, they wake up in the real life, in a vegetative state. Upon further analysis, the theme of extrapolation may be unearthed. The movie, Inception, extrapolates the aspect corporate espionage. The primary motivation for the protagonist is to source data that is highly valuable in the open market. As such, though his instructor had good intentions for teaching him this art, he misuses it for selfish needs. Furthermore, the theme of dreams is extrapolated into the recursion theme. This is because, recursion is mainly perpetuated via dreams. As such, it would be non-existent in the film in the absence of dreams. Inception provides a glimpse into the detrimental effects that scientific advancement will have on the human population. It illustrates that this futuristic technology will provide an enabling environment for criminal activities. It is disheartening to think that private information will no longer be safe at the confines of the subconscious. Scientific advancement will open up the human race to increased threats that are non-existent at the current time. It can be predicted that, the future health of the human minds is at risk of being easily transformed into a vegetative state, if one is left to die in the so called limbo. It is, however, doubtful if such actions will be plausible in the future. The only mechanism to employ, in an endeavor to safeguard one’s reality, entails becoming significantly aware of the happenings of the adopted reality. The film propagates the notion that once the target becomes aware that he exists in another person’s dream, havoc reigns inside the dream. This havoc leads to the death of the dreamer and consequently the end of the dream. As such, projecting into the subconscious is neither safe for the perpetrators nor the victim. References Nolan, C. (Producer/Director). (2010). Inception. [DVD] Read More