Customer Reviews

Inception: The Shooting Script

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this book goes above and beyond. it features the amazing, multi-layered and completely readable script by christopher nolan. however, it also has storyboards, full credits for the film, an excellent preface and a PASIV device instruction manual. The PASIV device (better known as the dream machine) "instruction manual" is amazing and fun to look at. it's also very intricate and detailed. this book is really an essential purchase for anyone who wants to look deeper into the masterpiece that INCEPTION is. i think its one of the best published scripts i've ever bought.

I bought this hoping it would help me wrap my brain around the movie. I was expecting just a straight screenplay, but the book also includes an interview with Nolan, storyboards, concept art and schematics of the "PASIV" device they use to enter dreams. Very cool.

Since I watched Inception for the third time two weeks ago, I've been waiting for this, because really there's some dialogue I did not capture in the theatre

This is the book I wanted, reading this just like reading a novel without getting bored. It is probably the best script I've read since Batman Begins, also by Nolan

Some original concept arts are included along with a interesting dream machine manual

Some of the scenes in the movie are not included in this script (one example is in the final kick back scenes where in the movie, there are lots of cuts from different levels, but in this script, it is much simpler), and some of the dialogues are slightly different, actually I think Nolan added some additional scenes in the movie just in order that the audience are more easily to catch up the plot.

Highly recommended
4.8/5

Cobb is a dream thief, hired by powerful bigwigs as a kind of corporate spy to ferret out trade secrets, not by sneaking into offices and tapping phones; rather, his job is to infiltrate the mind while the victim sleeps, and find a way to tap into his or her subconscious. He used to be the best, but now it turns out his deep-seated guilt at a past misdeed is coming back to haunt him in his dreams even as the real life consequences of his past are catching up with him while awake.

The movie's intense, and keeps your mind racing while you're sitting on the edge of your seats. The screenplay reads extremely well, and has much of the same page-turning intensity - but gives you time to reflect on the precise plot and dialogue lines. There are a few scenes in here that were cut out of the movie - and I can see why, because they are always dialogue heavy scenes, explaining the mechanisms of extraction and inception or showing early stages of the planning that went into the heist into Fischer's mind. While they might have slowed down the story on screen, they do clarify things quite a bit, especially a couple of scenes in which Eames and Cobb and Arthur are discussing how and why they need to implant the idea of breaking up his father's company in 3 different stages.

There's an intriguing interview between Chris Nolan and his brother Jonathan about the initial inception of Inception, and there are several storyboarded scenes. There's also what looks like a professional instruction manual for the intravenous dream device (that they carry around in a shiny suitcase). Highly recommended for lovers of the movie - it's always illuminating to read the screenplay of a film you've seen and enjoyed, and this screenplay is extremely readable. I've read several, but I found this one to be not only intriguing but fun. (The last time I couldn't put down a screenplay once I'd started was when I read Tarantino's initial script for Inglourious Basterds.)

This book is the perfect takeaway if you loved the film like I did. It contains the complete shooting script (there is no novelization), a chapter of concept art, an extensive interview with Nolan about the creative development and themes in the film, storyboards, and a mock operating manual for the PASIV dream device. All in all this is an amazing find for less than $20, and you end up appreciating the film even more. Nolan deserves the Oscar for best screenplay.

I thought perhaps I'd mostly jump around to key scenes of the movie, but after about a half hour I ended up just reading it like a novel, start to finish. Nolan provides some interesting pre-production sketches and other diagrams that give it more texture, but it's really the flow of the writing I appreciated. Having seen the movie about four times now (two in Imax and two at home) the script is extremely close to what you see on screen, but what was an exciting revelation to me was how by reading the dialog revealed some key plot and structural elements by it's rhythm and repetition throughout the story. By the end, it was like getting to watch it again, but from an internal view.

If I had any criticism it would be I would have liked a few more cinematographic notations, and the diagrams could have used better contrast. More a case of wanting more I guess than anything wrong with the book itself.

I don't own this full size version but I own the digest size version that comes with the Best Buy exclusive Blu-Ray/DVD. I don't usually bother buying shooting scripts which tend to have little else other then the actual script, but this particular book is interesting. Besides the script itself, there's an interesting interview with Nolan, storyboard sketches, some pages of Nolan's timeline notes as he mapped out the dream sequences, and color section of concept art paintings. Definitely worth the extra 5 dollars to pick this up over the regular Blu-Ray/DVD and, if you can't find the Best Buy exclusive version, I think Amazon's price for the book by itself is reasonable for the amount of material included.

I watched this movie in theatres half a dozen times and came to love its insights into human nature. As I read the actual script I am discovering yet more things that I missed in the movie. It is in agreement with the Buddhist understanding of the illusory quality of life, yet the necessity of living without regret. Highly recommended!

This is a brilliant book with lines from every second of the movie. It even has things which weren't in the final screening. There is an interview with Jonathon and Christopher Nolan at the front and plenty of concept art and storyboards. I don't hesitate to give it 5 stars and recommend it to anyone who wants to find out more about the film or (like me) didn't follow it entirely in the cinemas. It is almost a steal at this price too ;)

It would help a lot to understand the movie. An excellent interview as an introduction to the script.