deception

I had always wanted to believe that in the ending of Inception, the totem was able to topple, and Cobbs actually made it out of limbo and was able to come back to reality to be with his children. One persistent argument people kept using against that interpretation was that the children were wearing the same clothes in the end as they were in the dream.

Well, now that we have the dvd, we can freeze-frame all we want. And guess what? The children are NOT wearing the same clothes.

These two pics are of the children in the beginning and middle of the movie, where Cobbs is "dreaming" of them:



And here are two pics of the children at the very end of the movie when they reunite with Cobbs:




The check pattern on the boy's shirt is different, and the trim at the bottom of the girl's dress is also different. In the theatre, you cannot possibly catch that. Verrry interesting that Christopher Nolan decided to use similar clothes to deceive the audience.

Also now that we can study this further, I also notice the boy's hair is longer and straighter in the end, and that the children have actually aged.

It's not a slam-dunk argument that the ending is the real world, but at least I can do away with the same-clothes argument that people kept using.

By the way, I did just rewatch Inception, and it clearly IS the best movie of the year. Let the Academy go give it to The Social Network, my mind is made up.