Inception - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Inception or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Inception

[kylie]

In an effort to combat confusion, television broadcasts in Japan include text in the upper-left corner of the screen to remind viewers which level of the dream a specific scene takes place in.

[richard]

Ariadne's hair is in a tight bun in the hotel sequence, so filmmakers didn't have to figure out how her hair should move in zero-gravity.

[ken]

In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan explained that he based roles of the Inception team similar to roles that are used in filmmaking, Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio, and Fischer is the audience. "In trying to write a team-based creative process, I wrote the one I know", said Nolan.

[morris]

In spite of this movie's extensive surreal effects sequences, the majority of visual effects throughout the movie, such as the Penrose stairs, rotating hallway, mountain avalanche, and zero-gravity sequences, were created through practical methods, not through the use of computer graphics imagery. This movie only has around five hundred visual effects shots, as opposed to most other visual effects epics, which can have upwards of two thousand visual effects shots.

[scarlett]

Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan first pitched this movie to Warner Brothers after the completion of his third movie, Insomnia (2002), and was met with approval from the studio. However, it was not yet written at the time, and Nolan determined that rather than writing it as an assignment, it would be more suitable to his working style if he wrote it as a speculation script, and then presented it to the studio whenever it was completed. So he went off to write it, thinking it would take "a couple of months", but it ultimately took nearly eight years.

[kyle]

According to cinematographer Wally Pfister, Warner Brothers executives approached Christopher Nolan about making this movie in 3-D, but he refused the idea, claiming "it will distract the storytelling experience of Inception."

[sylvia]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed all but one of his own stunts during the fight scene in the spinning hallway.

[ray]

If you take the first letters of the main characters' names, Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal and Saito, they spell "Dreams". If you add Peter, Ariadne, and Yusuf, the whole makes "Dreams Pay", which is what they do for a mind thief.

[sylvia]

Leonardo DiCaprio was writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan's and producer Emma Thomas' only choice for the role of Cobb.

[michele]

It took nearly eight years for Christopher Nolan to write the screenplay for this movie.

[brent]

Christopher Nolan has said that the snow-based third-level dream was inspired by his favorite James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

[carl]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt went to his audition after a brief character summary, wearing a full suit "just in case", unknowingly matching his character's wardrobe perfectly.

[javier]

During production, details of this movie's plot were kept secret. Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script, cryptically described it as a contemporary science fiction action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind."

[mathew]

Kate Winslet was approached for the role of Mal, but turned it down, citing that she couldn't see herself as the character.

[jesus]

The name of the character Cobb references Henry N. Cobb, an American architect notable for designing skyscrapers. The world Cobb and Mal made in Limbo consists mostly of skyscrapers.

[cassandra]

The role of Saito was written exclusively for Ken Watanabe, because writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan felt that although he had appeared in Batman Begins (2005), he did not have much screentime, and should therefore be given a more prominent supporting role.

[clayton]

In the city scene on the first level of the dream with Fischer, the state motto on the license plates of the cars reads "The Alternate State".

[ronnie]

The sixth Christopher Nolan movie (out of the nine) to enter the IMDb Top 250, along with Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017).

[addison]

Just like Christopher Nolan's previous movie The Dark Knight (2008), no second unit team was hired for making the movie. All of the shots were filmed by Nolan with Wally Pfister.