Listen...you drive carefully, alright?

December 6, 2010 8:34 PM

The heist from Inception in Real-Time

previously

posted by mysterpigg (63 comments total)

"Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la vie en rose."
posted by leotrotsky at 8:40 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Shouldn't the stuff at the Boring Goldeneye Action Movie Mountain be going, like, incredibly fast?
posted by shakespeherian at 8:44 PM on December 6, 2010 [14 favorites]

that whole sequence was such an film-editor injoke handjob. I adored ir.
posted by The Whelk at 8:51 PM on December 6, 2010

Yep, and the 4 level should flash by in the blink of an eye.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:51 PM on December 6, 2010

it.
posted by The Whelk at 8:51 PM on December 6, 2010

The title's a little deceptive, it's more "somewhat synced" than "real time." I'm guessing there wasn't enough footage for it to line up. The parts where it does match up are pretty cool! Brings me back to how fantastic that was to see live.

My friends and I went to see it at midnight, expecting lots of other people to do the same... which wasn't the case. I couldn't wait to talk about it, but since it was kind of a word-of-mouth thing it took forever to get everyone to see it!

also the piaf song was "non, je ne regrette rien", not "la vie en rose", right? /pedantic edith piaf fan
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:54 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

That's true, leotrotsky, but you see BRRRRRMMMMMMMM as well BRRRRRMMMMMMMM combine to BRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMM and there you have it.
posted by adipocere at 8:56 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

I N C E P T I O N

<sub>but you see BRRRRRMMMMMMMM as well BRRRRRMMMMMMMM combine to BRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMM and there you have it.

(see above)</sub>
posted by delmoi at 9:00 PM on December 6, 2010 [26 favorites]

That was fun. I saw it twice and it was still cool to see the latter portion of it again in slow mo. It wasn't the "GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!" but it was a damn good movie (even some of the plot stuff that I still haven't figured out).
posted by Defenestrator at 9:02 PM on December 6, 2010

slow mo and fast mo, that is...
posted by Defenestrator at 9:02 PM on December 6, 2010

I enjoyed it. Made me appreciate the Indian actor's role more than I did in the theater. Likely because that's all my brain could process on this tube. What stuck with me more than the action sequence though when I watched the film proper was the ripples of uncertainty caused by Mal. She was the star of the movie. I'd love to see a youtube tribute to her.
posted by greasy_skillet at 9:03 PM on December 6, 2010

They should have BRAAAAHMMMMM used Johannes BRAAAAAHHMMMM Brahms^* for the score.




* BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMs
posted by zippy at 9:03 PM on December 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

My inner dork demands a properly synced version with a timer at the side for reference, but the rest of me has exams to study for and so he requests the Interweb make/find one for him.
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 9:04 PM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Everyone has seen the video explaining where the BRRMMMM comes from, right? If you haven't you need to do so now.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:06 PM on December 6, 2010 [23 favorites]

thanks, solon, that was all going past me. Though I'm still not clear why it's really relevant.
posted by wilful at 9:16 PM on December 6, 2010

Thanks Solon - I missed that. A nice touch.

Wilful - the film is all about different perceptions of time. Time moves faster the futher into the dream levels that you go. A little musical joke about time seems to fit really well to me.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:27 PM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I saw it and don't get why everyone in snowland wasn't weightless when the van went over. I've only seen it once though so maybe that was explained away and I missed it.
posted by Tacodog at 9:29 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

As SLYT goes, this is pretty nice.

I think Inception will probably age well as a heist movie -- there are a lot of comparisons with The Matrix and other recent brain-benders, but it really works well when it's allowed to be what it's best at. There are some nice touches like the musical echo Solon pointed out that aren't terribly obvious, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again.
posted by verb at 9:30 PM on December 6, 2010

This is better than that video ;)
posted by gen at 9:48 PM on December 6, 2010 [29 favorites]

Well when you put it THAT way, it looks kind of silly.
posted by empath at 9:52 PM on December 6, 2010

In the movie time was supposed to pass 20 times slower at each dream level. So the footage at the third level should be synched up to run 400 times faster than the first, which it clearly is not. I know I'm being a huge nerd here but it seems like this video is supposed to be the kind of thing that appeals to huge nerds, so there you have it.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 9:56 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Gen, that to me is one of the clearest evidences that the inception thingy is being done to the Leonardo DiCaprio character to get him to stop obsessing about his wife. The whole heist thing is a ruse.
posted by Omon Ra at 9:56 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Michael Kane is a lie.
posted by cmoj at 10:01 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Inception in 5 seconds
posted by empath at 10:09 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

I enjoyed it. Made me appreciate the Indian actor's role more than I did in the theater.

One problem I had with the film is that they didn't make the characters names particularly memorable. When discussing, for example, The Matrix I can refer to Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, Agent Smith; for Aliens I can refer to Ripley, Hudson, Hicks, Bishop, Newt, Vasquez, guy from Mad About You.

But when discussing Inception I can only name Mal, the rest of the cast ends up being Dicaprio, Michael Caine, Juno, Third Rock guy, Scarecrow, Indian Guy, British Guy, unintelligible asian guy, and that guy that was in Brick with Third Rock guy.
posted by bobo123 at 10:19 PM on December 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

bobo, I think that's one of the things that turns it into a classic heist movie for me. Ocean's 11 didn't exactly brim with memorable individuals -- they were all quirky and had their voices, but they were ingredients for the essential Team that sites at the center of most caper movies.
posted by verb at 10:35 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Totally with you on that one. I didn't catch most of the names until the second time around, and even after that I had to check out IMDB afterwards.

Mal, Dom Cobb (awful to say), Ariadne, Arthur, Robert Fischer, Yusuf, Eames, Saito,

... Michael Caine? Damn.

I get that "Mal" and "Ariadne" are symbolic, but surely they could have found less awkard symbolic names. It's like they want us to be impressed that it's the French word for "evil", but in actuality we spend the whole movie trying to figure out if her name is Maul or what.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:37 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I originally thought it was Moll -- short for Molly? It has the key advantage of being a name, rather than an adjective.
posted by lumensimus at 10:44 PM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

And besides, then you get Molly the Minotaur, which is kind of adorable.
posted by lumensimus at 10:45 PM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

I had a dream last night where I was designing an incredibly detailed and complex Arabian palace: I mean, detailed enough to where I could see the weave in the tapestries.

If I was unlucky enough to have the music from Inception on in the background when I woke up, I imagine that would have been the biggest single mindfuck of my life.

BRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
posted by Avenger at 10:55 PM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

I thought it was Moll because, you know, she was his gal.
posted by boo_radley at 11:06 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

That is fun.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:18 PM on December 6, 2010

That was cool; I wonder how long until the studio finds it and has it removed.
posted by Felex at 2:19 AM on December 7, 2010

I get that "Mal" and "Ariadne" are symbolic

Dear writers: Don't do this, please.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:06 AM on December 7, 2010 [9 favorites]

They should have BRAAAAHMMMMM used Johannes BRAAAAAHHMMMM Brahms for the score.

Guten TAAAAAG!
posted by steef at 5:21 AM on December 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

Inception Cat
posted by the painkiller at 5:28 AM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

I just watched it yesterday. I don't understand the hype. It's basically Flatliners with added dreaming within dreams. Oh that's original. Oh and let's bring in a completely new character to this very complex and risky system for no reason other than explaining everything to the audience for the first 20 minutes. Also, these are all dreams so hey anything we can possibly think of we can explain away with it not being real in any way. Then, let's throw some crazy in there so even the fucking movie characters can't figure out if they're dreaming or not so we can float the idea of the thing that we're too fucking lazy to create through logic or, well, writing. THEN lets make the bulk of the main action sequence a weightless visual sight gag that we again can explain away through...wait we don't even need to explain it they'll just go along with it. Yeah. OK then let's almost get to the end and realize we burned most of the running time explaining things to Juno and end it way too quickly and OH FUCK wait...oh yeah we'll make the kid like his Dad. Yeah and DiCaprio sees his kids again sure and let's be bitches and leave them hanging at the end.

I think it sucked royal ass myself.
posted by jimmythefish at 5:28 AM on December 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

My wife and I blame the BBBRRRMMMMMMMMMs from the "buttrumbler" speakers at the IMAX theatre for the early birth of our child.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:39 AM on December 7, 2010

I'm glad this guy made the video - I didn't have any trouble understanding what was going on at the time (it ain't that crazy, you just have to pay attention to the dialogue), but I like seeing it all laid out nicely. I'm the same pedant who wants to watch Memento in the correct order, and enjoyed seeing the Lost plane crash done 24-style so we can see all the angles.
posted by harriet vane at 5:47 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Everyone has seen the video explaining where the BRRMMMM comes from, right?

No that actually doesn't explain the BRAAAAHMMMM. The 'Non, Je ne regrette rien' song is Hans Zimmer's Half Remembered Dream, which is on the Inception soundtrack. The iconic BRAAAAHMMMM song from the trailer, which everyone associates with the movie, is Zack Hemsey's Mind Heist, which, in a move of inexplicable gayness, is not available on the Inception soundtrack, or apparently for sale at all.
posted by dgaicun at 6:02 AM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

which, in a move of inexplicable gayness

Oh nice.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:05 AM on December 7, 2010 [7 favorites]

This is better than that video ;)

Ha! So okay, sort of a fair point, but if you draw a few nerd lines and squint a bit, you can extrapolate that the kids' current guardian (not sure if she was Cobb's mother or Mal's mother?) has a hostile relationship with Cobb, which probably extends to Michael Caine's character. So maybe she wouldn't be on board with having the kids taken to France to see him? I dunno.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:34 AM on December 7, 2010

Inception: with the help of a pretty young coed, a troubled man overcomes his guilt at driving his wife to suicide.
posted by Nelson at 6:35 AM on December 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

1. everybody who's like BRRRRRRRMMMMMM je ne regrette rien ohhh shiiii- look at dgaicun's comment look at it

2. this isn't anything close to what it claims to be. it's just a bunch of footage from the different levels playing at arbitrary speeds so the timescales get somewhere in the general ballpark of how they were portrayed in the movie. as several people have already pointed out, 3rd level should have been going blindingly fast, and limbo should go by in an instant.
posted by tehloki at 6:45 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah I didn't like Inception very much. Let's talk about The Conversation!
posted by shakespeherian at 6:53 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Haters gonna rotate.

Seconding whoever upthread said this made them appreciate Dileep Rao. I don't care if it makes me shallow and lame, this was my favorite movie of the year and I'm glad it's still getting some love, even if the time scales aren't perfect and the plot has holes and I still can't figure out why Cillian Murphy is Robert junior if his dad is Maurice.
posted by immlass at 6:58 AM on December 7, 2010 [4 favorites]

Meh, this isn't in real time or even really synced. It's just playing footage from the various levels on top of each other.
posted by Theta States at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2010

What I can't figure out is whether Cillian Murphy has a contract that obliges him to appear with a sack over his head at least once in every Nolan film.

"OK, Cillian. Here is the sack."

"Has it been washed?"

"No."
posted by fleetmouse at 7:33 AM on December 7, 2010 [37 favorites]

This is better than that video ;)

There's a whole lot of those Inception screenshot cartoons (some NSFW)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:23 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Inception.

That's the movie about needle drugs, right?
posted by keratacon at 8:38 AM on December 7, 2010

inexplicable gayness

Not so much with this sort of thing, please.
posted by cortex at 9:04 AM on December 7, 2010

Beautifully done! It made me appreciate the movie even more. I half wish the actual movie was edited this way.
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:38 AM on December 7, 2010

Meh, this isn't in real time or even really synced. It's just playing footage from the various levels on top of each other.

About that criticism - I think the youtube video is doing the best he could with the source material. The movie gives a couple of cues to sync the timelines - when they fall asleep, when they get the music, when they get the "kick", and when they wake up. If you assume that the scaling factor is constant between levels, and that the camera didn't miss much, then aligning those cues will probably give you something close to what was shown, whether or not it matches the writers' "20x" premise.

(Also the upper sequences had shifted to slo-mo so pergatory wouldn't go by in a blur - a neat directorial choice IMO)
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:01 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I originally thought it was Moll -- short for Molly? It has the key advantage of being a name, rather than an adjective.

I've no idea if this is true, but I think Mal is short for Mallorie. It doesn't explain why


No that actually doesn't explain the BRAAAAHMMMM. The 'Non, Je ne regrette rien' song is Hans Zimmer's Half Remembered Dream yt , which is on the Inception soundtrack. The iconic BRAAAAHMMMM song from the trailer, which everyone associates with the movie, is Zack Hemsey's Mind Heist yt , which, in a move of inexplicable gayness, is not available on the Inception soundtrack, or apparently for sale at all.

It's not direct one-to-one, but since they clearly did get the little BRAM BRAMs in the movie from slow Piaf, I don't think it's illogical to think they just exaggerated it for the big one in the trailer. It's the same noise.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:35 AM on December 7, 2010

I saw it and don't get why everyone in snowland wasn't weightless when the van went over.

I explained this in the original thread. It's a long comment, so here's an excerpt:

"during the third act shouldn't the zero g/falling have translated into every dream level?"

Derivatives. Arthur experiences the first kick of falling off the bridge, and so knows he's falling at 9.8 m/s^2. But within the hotel dreamworld, there's no acceleration; everything is moving at a constant velocity (m/s, no ^2), which, within that internal reference frame, means there's no acceleration at all. Think about being on a moving train or in a plane. There's the initial jerk of acceleration, but once you're at a steady speed, you can move around just like you were on solid ground (which itself is moving at a certain BIGNUM velocity which we ignore every single day). So Fisher, Eames, and Co. don't feel any acceleration. Again: van at x m/s^2 translates to hotel at y m/s (and therfore there is no acceleration; gravity is canceled) leaving z m in the fortress; meaning there is no effect whatsoever (other than a possible displacement for which there is no way to check; unless there was a line I'm forgetting about them starting out farther from the fortress than they intended). Gravity resumes as normal because the dreamer is feeling no acceleration from the level above (for this to happen, g would have to be increasing noticeably; i.e., there'd have to be a rate of acceleration: meters per second per second per second.

tl;dr: You only feel acceleration from the level above. Velocity in the level above has no effect; the same way you can get up and walk on a train or airplane without having to accelerate to the speed of the vehicle.

"About that criticism - I think the youtube video is doing the best he could with the source material. The movie gives a couple of cues to sync the timelines - when they fall asleep, when they get the music, when they get the "kick", and when they wake up."

And the "missing time" should have been filled up with blackouts for this to live up to its description.
posted by Eideteker at 10:46 AM on December 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

It's not direct one-to-one, but since they clearly did get the little BRAM BRAMs in the movie from slow Piaf, I don't think it's illogical to think they just exaggerated it for the big one in the trailer. It's the same noise.

I was wondering what the confusion was, there. Is the theme from the trailer not in the actual movie?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:47 AM on December 7, 2010

Just came in here to say:

The Saragossa Manuscript is just like Inception, only it's completely awesome and actually has a dreamlike plot. And also Arabian warlocks. And it was made forty-five years ago, and based on a book from the nineteenth century by an occult recluse who shot himself in the head with a bullet consecrated by the village priest. You should go watch it now.
posted by koeselitz at 10:50 AM on December 7, 2010 [6 favorites]

I interpret the 'baaahhm' sound very differently from dgaicun.

The 'baahm' sound is a theme taken directly from the Piaf song. Indeed, if you stay till the end of the credits, this is explicitly revealed when 'je ne regrette rien' is played, then slowed down to illustrate the source of that sound sample. This is, of course, important for the plot of the movie, as the song, in its slowed forms, is used as a signal for the people in the various dream states.

These sustained, low notes have been taken from 'rien' and adapted as a leitmotif in to the score of the movie. These versions appear to have been reproduced on orchestral instruments in real-time, but the sound cleverly imitates the slowed Piaf recording which gave rise to the theme. In this sense, the 'baaahhmmm' sounds serve both as a diegetic and extradiegetic theme in the score.
posted by Dreadnought at 11:26 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Dreadnought,

That's a fair enough theory and I don't disagree with it completely. The most important fact here though, I think, is that Mind Heist and its iconic BRAAAAHMMMM was not composed by Hans Zimmer and was not part of the original score for Inception, but rather an independent song composed for the 3rd movie trailer by Zack Hemsey. Hemsey was directly asked about the creative process on his blog, and responded that he was not permitted to discuss it right now. Either way, my opinion is that Hemsey's song is special enough to get most of the credit. 'Mind Heist' is probably inspired by 'Half Remembered Dream', but takes it to a whole different level.

Daniel:
... Mind Heist was mind-blowing. I'm still curious about the foghorn sound. Zimmer has talked a lot about how he draw it from a slowed down version of Piaf. How about you? Did you know he was going to use it, or was he even inspired by you?


Zack:
... Regarding background information on the creative process for working on the 3rd Inception trailer, unfortunately I'm not aloud to discuss that, due to contractual non-disclosure issues. Hopefully in the future such restrictions will be lifted, and I can do my best at trying to sound really important as I discuss the project.

posted by dgaicun at 3:09 PM on December 7, 2010

Yeah I didn't like Inception very much. Let's talk about The Conversation!

Yeah I didn't like The Conversation very much. Let's talk about The Game!

(you lost it)
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:55 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thanks for making sense of that, Eideteker.
posted by Tacodog at 5:55 PM on December 7, 2010

Hopefully in the future such restrictions will be lifted, and I can do my best at trying to sound really important as I discuss the project.


Well played, sir!
posted by Theta States at 5:50 AM on December 8, 2010

I still can't figure out why Cillian Murphy is Robert junior if his dad is Maurice.

I've always wondered that as well, and watched it last night.

The only time Robert is referred to as "Junior" in the movie, as far as I can tell, is by Eames. He says (paraphrased) "Fischer is [something], and Fischer Junior is [something else]".

So it's not "he is a junior", but rather "he is the son".
posted by Lucinda at 10:01 AM on December 9, 2010