Re: Inception vs. Paprika controversy , 開始対パプリカ論争

I posted earlier about the late Satoshi Kon, whose animated film Paprika bears a marked resemblance to Inception. Since then, others have noticed the same thing. The big difference is that Paprika has the real world in danger of being overrun by the dream world. If you’re interested in something similar, check this Japanese film out on DVD and remember a director taken from us too soon.

...EXPOSITION, EXPOSITION! RUSH IT OUT A-S-A-P!

For a movie acting like it's intelligent, it sure talks down to the audience. As stated before, nothing is left to the imagination. Much superior dream-related films like Total Recall (1990) and Paprika (2006) establish their own rules about dreams and create dreamworlds that require one or two little bits of exposition and after that, you fully understand their workings and can enjoy the rest of the films without further explanation. However, the dreamworld in Inception was way over-developed since there's too much to the structure as to where it requires constant explanation. This is a clear case of too much complexity killing a potentially good idea. Some might defend the heavy dialogue, stating that the explanations give people a full understanding of the universe Nolan created. However, it doesn't work with me because when I watch a movie, I care about character development and exploration of certain ideas, I could care less about every tiny detail in a certain universe since I only want enough information as to where I can follow it.

LACK OF ORIGINALITY

Lots of people are hailing this as very creative and original. I can't disagree more with this notion because this feels like a stale copy of Paprika. Paprika focused on psychotherapists diving into the dreams of their patients to understand the subconscious better and to get information important to them (such as the theft of their technological breakthrough, the DC Mini). Inception focuses on people diving into peoples' dreams so they can steal or plant ideas. While Paprika had better visuals and characters to go with its dreamworlds, Inception opts for very conventional imagery and bland characters, thinking that the "amazing" multi-layered dreamworld is enough to hold the movie together....

...PRETENDING TO BE "SMART"

It looks like Nolan made some quick searches on Wikipedia to shoe-horn in some "smart" ideas into the film. The best example of this would be when Arthur explains to Ariadne the concept of the Penrose Stairs and explains how it's an infinite loop, and how it's that concept that's used to confuse inception victims, then the camera moves down to show that it's a regular staircase. Wow, wasn't that genius?!! The other part that pretends to be "smart" is the plotting. Again, Total Recall and Paprika successfully merged fantasy and reality and really twisted the audience's minds questioning what's happening is real or not. With Inception, however, it's quite easy to follow the dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams because they're neatly separated from each other, you just have to keep track of them (I guess Nolan thinks we're too stupid to do that). The last quarter or so of the movie gets extra convoluted with quick cuts between the multi-layered dreams and Cobb facing Mal in others. I guess this was supposed to make the movie puzzle-like and give the audience something to solve....

...FINAL WORD

At the end of the day, Inception is just another "style over substance" over-priced summer cash-in (much like Nolan's previous movie, The Dark Knight), but unlike most others of its ilk, it really hurts itself by pretending to look like a thinking-man's film. At least the recent Transformers movies are honest with being loud special effects vehicles and the fans will agree with that notion. I'll give Inception some more points than that blue abomination Avatar since it felt a little more ambitious than that blue liberal propaganda piece, but it's still quite a wretched picture. If you want some great and truly thought-provoking sci-fi, go read the Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick and go watch Paprika (2006), Total Recall (1990), Solaris (1972), and Stalker (1979). or the matrix. so if you are into these kind of films than i guess you really had a great time watching it. i truly feel that nolans early work was so much better than what he is making now. memento, batman begins, following and insomnia are classic movies that i am think nolan should of won oscars but never got the chance.