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

DEADLINE: While you were waiting for that solution, were there movies that came along that convinced you the technology was there to translate your visuals to the screen?
NOLAN: On The Dark Knight we really tried to push ourselves to achieve a lot of large-scale effects in camera, to really create a world by shooting on location, all around the world, and by doing very large in-camera gags like flipping an 18-wheeler truck on a busy downtown street, for real. Coming out the other side of that experience and having enjoyed it as much as I did left me feeling like we had a great team of people who could devise and photograph these kinds of visuals. I came away feeling well equipped to take on the world of Inception and the kind of outlandish imagery it would require. Most of the technology employed for the imagery of Inception is fairly old-fashioned. There is some newer technology that the guys at Double Negative brought to the table. The most daunting aspect of the visuals, for me, had always been things that had been based on in-camera technologies, like achieving zero gravity by building sets with different orientations and doing tricks with wires. Those techniques were based on seeing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 when I was a kid, falling in love with deception and the magical tricks he did to convince an audience there was zero gravity. The thing that really gave me confidence to take on my film had more to do with my own experience, rather than technology in other people’s films. It was more about having had the opportunity to do some really large-scale filmmaking and getting comfortable with the big machine that’s involved in that to really get a handle on pushing the envelope with what we’d be able to do on set and in-camera.

DEADLINE: Inception was lauded in Hollywood as a dose of originality in a summer largely devoid of it. Studios rely on tentpoles, but are they concerned enough about originality?
NOLAN: I’m not sure I’d put that down to studio reliance on tent poles. Maybe it’s just particularly working with Warners Bros, but in my experience with the studio system, they have always understood the need for freshness and not just something the audience has seen before. I’m not sure I’d pin it down necessarily to studio reliance on tent poles, because I think it’s as possible to make over-familiar small movies as it is to make over-familiar tent poles. In fact, the honest truth is that when you look at some of the more original successes over time, conceptually a lot of them are tent poles, from Star Wars to Avatar.

Let us begin with the primary claim—Inception stole the idea of a dream machine from Paprika. It is nearly impossible to deny the similarities between the two films on this account. The dream machine is meant to provide access into ones subconscious; it is the tool that allows both plots to flourish, but once that tool has been used, it takes the plots in different directions.

why did satoshi kon have to die?? Now we're stuck with Chrisopher Nolan and his overrated body of work.

...The basic premise of entering someone's dream world was superbly handled in the Japanese anime "Paprika," which served up a bizarre and surreal world with less explicit plot exposition. But both films use the dream worlds to create tense thrillers. In "Paprika," the main character was like a detective who entered a person's dream to try and resolve emotional traumas. In "Inception," it's something of a crime thriller as the character enter a man's dreams to plant an idea that will alter his business strategy....

...ACCOMANDO: But you could do the same thing without constantly bogging it down in exposition like that. I mean, there’s an animated film “Paprika” that is a similar sort of concept where it’s…

MARKS: Very good, yeah…

ACCOMANDO: …a dream.

MARKS: No, you’re right. I like that movie.

ACCOMANDO: It’s a woman who goes into dreams. She’s like a dream therapist…

MARKS: Umm-hmm.

ACCOMANDO: …where she goes into dreams to try and help people solve their, you know, emotional and mental issues. But from what I – I mean, I haven’t seen the film recently but I don’t remember there being so much discussion of what’s going on. You get thrown into it and you don’t know what’s happening and you don’t know why kind of the parameters of the real world aren’t functioning for you but you find out as you continue on in the story. And I would’ve preferred to let some of this stuff happen and be more confused or misled or whatever without having everything just kind of grind to a halt for discussion.

WRIGHT: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t have a problem with it. I really – Honestly, I like the way they set up these very specific rules for how things are supposed to work and then they go ahead and break them sometimes, and sometimes they all sort of tie together. I mean, it’s – to me, it’s – I also love the fact that it is complex but it’s not complicated. You can follow along. You can…

CAVANAUGH: I – That’s what I was going to ask. Scott, is this the type of a movie that when you leave you’re pretty clear on what happened? Or do you still have questions?

MARKS: Absolutely not. I don’t know – I don’t – When you say that this film is not complicated, you talk about a guy who is purposely trying to convolute meaning and to obscure meaning, it’s Christopher Nolan....