It's All Just a Little Bit of History Repeating

He probably wasn't the first or the last to put it in writing, but it was The Movie Snob who I first remember writing that just maybe Inception would save the movies, at least a whole month before it was revealed to the world. The idea/hope was that Inception, a big summer film, made from an original idea that was both exciting and challenging, would became a huge hit, ala The Dark Knight for it's director Christopher Nolan before it, and that would somehow open Hollywood's eyes to the fact that audiences are hungry for original films and not remakes of reboots of revisions or whatever the "it" word is. The argument was flawed (if anything had set this realization in Hollywood it should have been Avatar to have done so).

What the success if Inception, if it was to be a big hit, would ensure would be that Christopher Nolan would more or less have free reign to make just about whatever the hell he wanted (maybe he already did, explaining Inception being the black sheep of the summer '10 crowd). However, would it really teach studios anything? See Hollywood has a funny way of looking at things. In the wake of Paranormal Activity came a studio branch dedicated to films only under a certain dollar amount as if what made Paranormal Activity was how much it cost. So what would occur in the wake of Inception? Would we be showered with a slew of big movies with channeling ideas that made us think, didn't spoon feed us and left us hanging at the end with something to take home and mull over for weeks? Nah. What we will get is a slew of movies based on original ideas, original, of course, when compared to anything but Inception.

I first noticed it when the script for Rian Johnson's Loopers came through my inbox for coverage. The film, in pre-production now, is set to star Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Mr. Inception himself, Joseph-Gordon Levitt. To be sure, it is based on an original concept: criminals in the future send their enemies back in time where assassins in the past (present) are waiting to pick them off, therein eliminate all trace of them and completely disassociating themselves from the murder in the future. This is all fine and dandy until Levitt is sent to kill himself (Willis), thus closing his loop (giving him about 30 more years of life before kicking the bucket). I won't go into what happens.

Johnson's presence will indeed ensure that the movie is at least interesting, but like his Brothers Bloom, the film bites off more than it can chew and essentially writes itself into a corner that it has no logical or satisfying way that it can work itself out of. Maybe it will play better on film. However, while reading the entire thing, all I could think of was "Inception lite."

Then, not two weeks later, I was sent a script to cover called Tomorrow. The story begins mysteriously until revealing that it is about a man who must travel randomly back and forth through time to save his wife and child before they are murdered. Most times he fails but keeps on trying. Again, images of Inception danced through my mind. Again, the script wrote itself into a situation it couldn't possibly get out of logically or with any sense of satisfaction. Again a concept is killed in it's need to be "Inceptionalized"

I won't say anymore about these projects, but it's interesting to see this trend emerge. Seems Inception won't be saving the movies, it will just ensure that we get a truckload of other projects that try to reach Inception's level. Big suprise.