Is this where it all began? Did Disney really implant this idea in Christopher Nolan's subconscious, the way it implants things in everybody's? Read the full comic here, or download as a .pdf. Don't stop reading in the middle or you'll get stuck in limbo.
(via I Watch Stuff)
"I don't think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away." -- Tom Noonan
"Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out." -- Martin Scorsese
“An idea does not exist apart from the words that express it. Style is not an envelope enclosing a message; the envelope is the message.” -- Dwight Macdonald
"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear." -- Daniel Dennett
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Maybe he was inspired by the animation Rarg. I know that's the first thing I thought about when I heard of Inception. (And I still think the cartoon's better.)
The episode "Perchance To Dream" from the Batman animated series is another not unlikely possible inspiration.
For my money, that episode of Batman: the Animated Series has more philosophical merit than Inception and The Matrix put together.
SCROOOGED!
According to The A.V. Club, "the comic was published in 2002 and Nolan reportedly submitted the treatment for Inception in 2001."
Actually, "Inception" reminded me more than anything of the 1984 movie "Dreamscape" (starring Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer and David Patrick Kelly). Except that one was about people infiltrating other people's dreams for therapeutic reasons (well, that was the pretext, but it leads others to scheme to enter people's dreams in order to assassinate them).
There was a good Spongebob episode in which Mrs Puff, the driving teacher, dreamt she was in prison for her pupil Spongebob crashing a car into a cranberry juice truck and it later turned out to be true and then she came back and saw someone from her dream, and came back again to one of the first scenes and said "Oh forget it"
There was also a first season episode in which Spongebob's dream persona went into people's dreams. The funniest part of the episode, and much more likely in dreams then big action sequences, Patrick, Spongebob's stupid friend, was on a mechanical horse but ran out of quarters so couldn't operate the horse. I can understand that because even if I suspect I am in a dream and try to do some dream stuff, it doesn't succeed so it would make sense Patrick couldn't operate the horse without the quarter.
Victory! I connected Scanners to Spongebob!
This isn't really connected to Scrooge McDuck, but...
Nolan's script for Inception was certainly written like a comic book. A typical comic book is much more reliant on expository dialog to convey information and theme (comics as rich and well developed as Watchmen are very rare exceptions). As a lifelong comic book reader, I'm used to this and it probably helps explain why the Dark Knight being so heavy on spoken ideas didn't bother me (except for the Gordon's overly-literal closing speech). However, I was bored out of my mind during Inception because of the never-ending exposition (which was made even more drab by almost always being handled in a static, medium shot of a talking head).
Comics are often spoken of as a sort of extension of film. This is a bone of contention for me because, if you have extensive experience with both mediums, their differences are very apparent especially when you dissect the great works in either medium. Friends who see "comic book films" often tell me that they thought the film, or a specific shot, "looked like a comic book." I have yet to understand what this means. Truth is, I don't think they really know what it means either because they don't actually have much experience with the narrative structures of comics. My best guess is that they are trying hard to connect with me because they know I have a passion for both mediums. I guess my point is, comics are not movies and movies are not comics. Seeing Inception, with it's very comic-booky script, just further shows how what works (or, should I say is somewhat of a necessity) in one medium doesn't work very well in the other. That goes for The Dark Knight too, even if the familiarity of a film about a comic book character being scripted like a typical comic book allowed me to see it in a more forgiving light.
FYI, the duck stories (Scrooge, DuckTales, etc.) by Carl Barks and Don Rosa are absolutely fantastic adventure comics.
Well, filmmakers steal ideas for films all the time. Why criticize Nolan for doing the same? And at least he's taking ideas from good material. Besides, he admitted to doing it himself: http://joblo.com/index.php?id=33369
I think Kristin Bordwell summarizes this case of supposed inspiration perfectly, in what is quite possibly the definitive criticism of Inception, and the fairest quantification/qualification of its worth:
She says:
"if Nolan ever saw “Dream of a Lifetime!” it could only have given him a few ideas out of the many that went into Inception."
The essay, as always, is a brilliant, brilliant read.
How I love, love, love Scrooge McDuck comics. Was weaned on Carl Barks from childhood. Don DeRosa did a good job taking him over. He must've loved Barks' stories as much as I did.
And I still use McDuck stories as a guide for this my weary way.
Worked for the Recycler in Los Angeles, years ago. The distribution guy (probably retired by now) had a Barks original painting of McDuck on his office wall.
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