14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most burning questions about this summer’s blockbuster, Chris Nolan’s “Inception,” is whether the spinning top drops at the end. Actor Michael Caine knows the answer to that.
As fans must know [*those who haven’t seen the film yet are encouraged not to read any further than this since this article contains major spoilers], the ending of “Inception” is quite a cliffhanger.
After a series of adventures, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) finally gets to see his dream come true, as he returns home to his children. The last scene is with him setting his spinning top on a table as he leaves the room to go and embrace his two kids.
The spinning top is Cobb’s only way of verifying whether he’s still in a dream or if he’s returned to the real world, as fans must already know.
The film closes before the viewer can see whether the top drops (meaning, Cobb is in real life) or if it continues to keep spinning (he’s still in the world of dreams).
In a recent interview with Time magazine, actor Michael Caine, who plays Professor Miles, Cobb’s father-in-law, in the film, offers the key to the mystery.
Asked to resume the entire mind-twisting film in just one sentence, the star says, “If I’m in a scene, it’s real; if I’m not, it’s not.” In other words, Cobb’s not dreaming at the end and the top will drop – we just don’t get to see it.
Caine gave a similar answer a while back as well, when he also explained that, if he’s in a scene it can’t be in a dream because he’s the creator of the dreams, therefore no one can dream him.
“[The spinning top] drops at the end, that’s when I come back on. If I’m there it’s real, because I’m never in the dream. I’m the guy who invented the dream,” Caine was saying in a September interview, as we also informed you at the time.
If this is true, then this means Nolan’s rumored sequel to “Inception” (which is yet to be confirmed) will take place in real life – or will probably not happen at all.
As we were telling you shortly after the release of the film, one of the things that made many believe a sequel would be made (aside from how successful at the box office the film turned out to be) was that the story had not yet been told in full, because Cobb was still trapped in a dream, he’d not gotten to see his kids.