Oooh. Fonebone may have nailed it. I like it.

I still love the fact that the movie is ambiguous enough for it be an arguable point.

I agree with DH. My thing is, if you accept that Inception is an analogy for movies as shared dreaming, then at the end when the top is left spinning, we are the dreamers who wake up. Ha! Just had the thought that it would be supercool when the credits come up if you were in a theater where the seats were equipped to give a little jolt .

Also, here's a little nugget for you that I don't think I've shared. When Fischer is in the hospital room in the fortress, and he opens the final safe to reveal the will and the pinwheel, on the outside face of the safe, in the bottom right-hand corner, is a tiny outline of a lightbulb. I love the attention to detail.

Inception prologue comic. [link]

Inception question: What was the expanded thing Fischer's father said. Was it "I'm disappointed you never tried"? I guess that's an improvement on just "I'm disappointed", but it doesn't seem to me by much. I suppose it's all in how Fischer will interpret "tried".

I'm not sure of the precise quote, Frank, but the sentiment was that he was disappointed that he ever tried. So the upshot of the inception was that Fisher wouldn't go on in his father's footsteps, and would break up the company.

Hmm, OK. I was reading it as he was disappointed Robert had never tried anything on his own, but yours sounds right as well.

But you can't just take the quote on its own. It has to be in the context of Fischer opening the safe and finding the pinwheel there.

Fischer pere tries to speak, and Fischer fils says, "I know, you're disappointed that I failed to be like you." Fischer pere then says, "No, I'm disappointed you tried." Thus "confirming" that pere wants fils to break up the company and go his own way.

To bring that back around to chess, Cillian Murphy's character is named Robert Fischer, Jr. Making Maurice Robert Fischer, Sr., aka Bobby Fischer. From the wiki entry on "Searching for Bobby Fischer" - "The main conflict in the film arises when Josh refuses to adopt Fischer's misanthropic frame of reference. Josh then goes on to win on his own terms with the kind of gracious sportsmanship that Fischer rejects."

Maybe coincidence, maybe not.

Did it occur to anyone on the team that "Don't be like your Dad" != "Break up the company"? There are a million ways he could decide to be his own man while still keeping the company intact...

I think that's why they introduced via Browning the idea of the alternate will.

Yeah, they hinged the idea of his father's wishes being all about whether the company stayed together or not.