If you are not familiar with Christopher Nolan's masterpiece Inception starring Leo DiCaprio and introducing Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy to national stardom, then you aren't gonna get any of this. You should also drop whatever you're carrying, child or not, and go watch it. Also, spoiler alert.
I'm not suggesting a sequel based on whether or not the top stops spinning after the camera cuts at the end of the film. So, you can leave that where it is. Instead, I propose more of a "product of the times" film, which could be incredibly cool.
Lets imagine it opens on aforementioned spinning top, which stops spinning as DiCaprio and his children hug tenderly in the background. Then a montage ensues showing DiCaprio rebuilding his life under an assumed name becoming a math professor and avoiding any mention of even the word "Dream." Page and Gordon-Levitt become a couple and ghost write a book detailing the process of performing Inception. It becomes an international phenomenon and spawns a series of high profile events including a Supreme Court Justice changing his mind midway through a week long nationally televised debate, numerous questionable but extremely publicized business transactions and the possible rigging of the Papal selection. As a result, the world scrambles to establish parameters on this extremely dangerous power. Laws were already on the books protecting the information in someone's mind (In the 1st film DiCaprio's character was constantly in flight partially because he broke these laws on numerous occasions). Now laws are being passed trying to protect the will.
As the dream world is increasingly policed, the intelligence community develops a protocol for dream access and a new spy archetype is born. Tom Hardy could become a mercenary "James Bond" type of dreamer, a cold (dream) war could develop between us and _______ country (Saudi Arabia? China? preferably not Russia but I suppose it would work) and national security expands to not only protecting our borders and our information but also our minds.
How does a government protect the mind? Can it? A possible direction would be a villainous NSA-like agency which infiltrates citizen's dreams and the film could center around the conflict of freedom vs security. Another direction could be the internal conflict of the President as he grapples with protecting the American people from dream infiltration while still preserving the sacred rights of privacy, individuality and the public trust. Another tension would be belief vs suggestion. Do we really believe anything of ourselves or is it all just put there by our surroundings or the suggestions of a stronger mind?
In any of these, and several other possibilities, who would be better served to spear-head a resistance than the man who virtually lost everything to an Inception? DiCaprio could simultaneously educate the masses on prevention while leading a revolution against external control. Hardy and DiCaprio could find themselves on opposite sides of the debate, one working to free the mind while the other strives to lock it up tight. The final moral? In freedom we have the greatest security. A mind devoid of fear, with no secrets, is impossible to twist.
I'd watch it. Too bad I'm not smart enough to write it. More too bad Christopher Nolan doesn't read my blog...
What do you think?
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