That ScriptShadow guy has reviewed the script. It deals with a scientist that finds out that the universe and the human mind are linked in some way. He's able to "travel" within his mind to all kinds of places, only to find out that others have come up with the same formula and have been there before. Suddently he finds himself hunted.

According to the review the idea behind the pic is great and the script very impressive. I'm hooked, to say the least.

The Inception review on Scriptshadow was an April Fool's joke:

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/04/april-fools-heh-heh-heh.html

Oh, ok. I didn't notice that, sorry. Well, too bad, because the story was pretty great. From there it can only go down. ;)

Tasty little teaser.

For some reason, it feels like an anime film from a few years back called Paprika by Satoshi Kon.

(SHAMELESS PLUG: if you haven't seen Kon's work, esp. Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue, best get on 'em. Brilliance of the highest order...)

Most interesting thing about Inception from a writer's POV is that it will technically be the first time we get an "original" screenplay from Nolan... Since Memento was based on a story. And Prestige and the Batman movies were based on other materials and shared credit with other writers as well.

And No -- Doodlebug and Following don't count cuz they weren't theatrical releases. I mean they count cuz he wrote 'em -- but nobody paid him to.

Hmmm... Nolan's comments and the little I've heard from friends at Warners as well as the trailers themselves make this movie Dreamscape, Matrix, Dark City, Total Recall, Star Trek's The Menagerie, and Doctor Who's Silence in the Library and the Forest of the Dead... and countless other TV and literary influences all in one... just with better cinematography, and a more somber tone. I would venture to guess the protagonist is stuck in a dream, although he doesn't realize it... thinking he's meant to assemble a team to pull off a job... in the midst of it he has an existential awakening and begins to suspect some of his closest allies might be there to keep him in check... eventually he comes up with a plan to subvert those who are watching him... or at least to do what they want him to do in the hopes that he will be released... however that leaves the typical solution either he's let out to find that he's in another level of reality, or his memory is erased, or they are trying to extract information from him... or there are aliens who control the rest of reality. At that point like Quaid in Recall or DiCaprio in Shutter Island he will have to choose his own reality. The water of course is a typical reference to the subconscious as both Freud and Jung... and countless other media use water to symbolize a dream state. Think of most of Polanski's movies which have their most terrifying moments over bodies of water... sometimes water or its presence is not meant to signify a dream state but a state in which the subconscious is extremely active and is telling you to interpret the facts in a much more primal, emotional way. Either way, I'm not sure why Nolan would want to plumb ideas which have been done before, but once again audience memory is relatively short...