I just saw the movie "Inception", which is about an adventure that takes place in the "dreamworld". It's very much like the old Doctor Strange comics from the 1960's, which had a similar premise: two opposing forces fight it out in dreams. With Doctor Strange (at least in the beginning), troubled people would visit him in his office...but instead of offering psychological counseling or psychoanalysis, he would offer to enter the dream world of his patients by going into a trance, and then visiting his patients demons on their own turf: the world of the dream.
Since Doctor Strange was a Marvel Superhero, he operated within a moral Universe: there was a force of cosmic Good, and a force of cosmic Bad. A superhero battle in the dreamworld of Doctor Strange thus represented a battle between Good Character (or Good Conscience) vs Bad Character (or Bad Conscience). This made Doctor Strange in interesting and compassionate character. Not only that, but Steve Ditko's artwork, which was a mash up of various schools of modern art (e.g. the surrealism of Salvidor Dali, the angular and geometric look of Russian Constructivism, and the graphic sharpness of Pop Art) So how disappointing that "Inception" has no moral core: it's has no heart. The plot involves some thieves who want to enter someones mind not to heal them, but to rip them off. The main character's motivation is to enter someones mind so he can get hold of a combination to a safe. How disappointing. (His secondary motivation is to convince his wife, who thinks that she's living in a bad dream, that she's not in a dream)
Compare the dreaming in "Inception" to incidents of dreaming of Joseph in the Torah. Joseph has several dreams, each which suggests that Joseph has a future of greatness, whereas his brothers do not. This so enrages Joseph's brothers, that they throw him in a pit, with the intent that he die. As it turns out, Joseph IS destined for greatness. He lives to meet his brothers again, this time as a ruler, and to have the chance to take the high road and reconcile with his brothers, who don't recognize him.
In "Inception", as in "Doctor Strange", the dream world is where the action takes place. Most of the movie is spent navigating the layers of the subconscious. It's got the logic of a video game: hit all your targets on one level before moving to the next level (of dreaming). But in the Joseph story, the dreams are incidental: they provide a motivation for his brothers to get jealous and angry, and thus set the story in motion. Although Joseph did have visions of greatness for himself, it didn't involve him achieving it by ripping off someone else.
Did anyone achieve any "wisdom" in Inception? No...it's all about accomplishing a mission. It's a very aggressive movie. In the Torah, when people dream, it's a sign from God; it's a forecast of the future; it's a sort of esoteric wisdom. What about the dreams in Inception? Were they holy?. No, in this movie dreams are induced, forcibly entered, and then exploited.
"Inception" would be far more interesting if it was a movie about sibling rivalry in the dream world. What would "Inception" be like if it used as its source Joseph's dreams of greatness? Suppose that Joseph had his dreams, and then his brothers plotted to enter those dreams in order to extract their revenge,(rather than extracting the ideas out of someone's head) instead of throwing him in a pit? Perhaps Joseph would morph into Doctor Strange, so that he could confront brothers in his dreams. That would be interesting.
In "Inception", as in "Doctor Strange", the dream world is where the action takes place. Most of the movie is spent navigating the layers of the subconscious. It's got the logic of a video game: hit all your targets on one level before moving to the next level (of dreaming). But in the Joseph story, the dreams are incidental: they provide a motivation for his brothers to get jealous and angry, and thus set the story in motion. Although Joseph did have visions of greatness for himself, it didn't involve him achieving it by ripping off someone else.
Did anyone achieve any "wisdom" in Inception? No...it's all about accomplishing a mission. It's a very aggressive movie. In the Torah, when people dream, it's a sign from God; it's a forecast of the future; it's a sort of esoteric wisdom. What about the dreams in Inception? Were they holy?. No, in this movie dreams are induced, forcibly entered, and then exploited.
"Inception" would be far more interesting if it was a movie about sibling rivalry in the dream world. What would "Inception" be like if it used as its source Joseph's dreams of greatness? Suppose that Joseph had his dreams, and then his brothers plotted to enter those dreams in order to extract their revenge,(rather than extracting the ideas out of someone's head) instead of throwing him in a pit? Perhaps Joseph would morph into Doctor Strange, so that he could confront brothers in his dreams. That would be interesting.
