Today, big budget films have become synonymous with cheesy lines, computer-generated imagery, and too many explosions. Movies have become void of any interesting plot lines, let alone complex character studies. In fact, with summer disasters such as “The Last Airbender” and “Sex and the City 2,” one is simply left wanting a film that doesn’t insult one’s intelligence.

Such was the atmosphere in which Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, “Inception,” was set to come out. Up until the actual release date of the movie, most of what the public knew about the film concerned its extravagant price tag of $130 million. It seemed certain that moviegoers would face another letdown.

Luckily, “Inception” proved to be a diamond in the rough, for not only did it give its audiences a perplexing plot filled with alluring characters, it also incorporated some of the first ideas of modern philosophy into its story line.

The film focuses on a whole new method of crime-fighting in which agents enter a person’s dream in order to steal the secrets in their mind, even within their subconscious. One such top agent is Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is said to the best in the business. But, because of events which occurred in his past, he is also a fugitive.

 The movie begins at a point in Cobb’s life when, amidst thoughts of retirement due to recent failures and the general fatigue of running and hiding, he undertakes one last and ambitious assignment. His mission is to pull off an inception – or enter a dream and plant an idea in the subject’s mind.

While the plot of “Inception” is captivating, and has kept audiences flocking to theaters for weeks now, it is far from original. Not only is the concept of not knowing what is real and what is a dream similar to the one presented in the “Matrix” trilogy, it (like “Matrix”) derives its theme from a man who has been dead for nearly 350 years. Indeed, in 1641, Rene Descartes set out to find absolute truths in the world in his “Meditations on First Philosophy,” and while doing so came up with basis of the plot of “Inception.”

Descartes begins by distrusting everything he ever learned because his senses could often deceive. He proves this by tackling the idea of being awake. He says, “How often does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the fireplace – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed.”

Descartes realizes, as do Cobb and others in the movie, that we cannot be sure whether or not the reality we perceive is the one that actually exists. We derive our knowledge and understanding of the world through our five senses, but just as our eyes sometimes deceive us into the seeing things that aren’t there (such as mirages), it is possible that all our senses deceive us about everything we see, hear, taste and smell.

No one denies that our senses are slightly flawed, but only Descartes, like the writers of “Inception,” challenges us to take this flaw to the most extreme context.
Of course, Descartes then uses these realizations to come up with his revolutionary “I think, therefore I am” thesis, as well as try and prove that God exists. The makers of “Inception,” on the other hand, use the ideas to make millions of dollars at the box office.

However, while the philosophical concept behind “Inception” might already have been taken, the other concepts and plot twists that the movie introduces are not only original, but also, surprisingly, have a philosophical bearing. The filmmaker builds on the dream versus reality theme and takes it a step further, introducing not just one false reality in the form of a dream but multiple ones – a dream within a dream.
 
Confusing, to say the least. But if one considers that it could be true that our senses may be deceiving us into thinking that our reality is not real, why can’t it happen more than once? Why can’t the senses in our dream also cause us to believe in a false reality?

However, the idea that one can escape this confusion between dreams and reality using what is referred to in the movie as a totem (an object known only to the person who possesses it), is, unfortunately, the one main part of the movie that lacks credibility (at least philosophically).

While it is true that someone else could not deceive you about something that is known only to you, how can you be sure that you were in the reality at the time the “totem” first came into your possession?
This flaw is especially true of Cobb’s totem, a spinning top, which he claims does not stop spinning in the dream world. But how is that possible? What is it that only exists in the dream world that makes the top spin endlessly unlike in the real world, yet keeps all other aspects similar in the two worlds?

Despite its unanswered questions, “Inception” has been able to breathe new life into two dying arts – great philosophy and good filmmaking.
 
Karna Adam is a junior at Monte Vista High School in Danville, Calif., and his interest in philosophy is restricted to summer reading.