Chapter 753: High Expectations Aren't Necessarily a Good Thing

With a comprehensive promotional campaign, an outstanding distribution strategy, the inherent box-office appeal of its director and cast, and the solid quality of the film itself, Inception undeniably possessed almost every element needed to become a massive blockbuster.

In fact, following the North American premiere and the advance screenings held simultaneously across nearly 3,000 theaters, the movie truly blew audiences away.

In this day and age, smart devices were already widespread across North America. Even Apple's iPhone 4 was slated for release next month, and the number of mobile users on certain social networks had long since surpassed PC users.

Just as Duke had told Jamie Jensen, portable smart devices further accelerated the speed of information exchange. Almost the exact moment the film ended, a surge of exhilarated reactions flooded Instant Sharing—which had cemented its place as the world's largest social network after being acquired by Google—as well as the other major social app, Twitter.

"When Inception ended and the theater lights came on, you were left sitting there in a daze, staring at the screen and trying to process exactly what just happened. There is no existing metric to evaluate the complex world Duke has ushered in. This is the greatest intellectual carnival in history."

Norman Hiller posted this on Instant Sharing right as he walked out of the theater. Within half an hour, it had been reposted tens of thousands of times. It wasn't the only viral post about Inception, either.

"Inception has already surpassed many classic sci-fi films. Unlike ninety-nine percent of other movies, the less you know before watching Inception, the better. Duke brilliantly blurred the lines between dream and reality. As a summer season blockbuster, Inception is destined to become a masterpiece."

"Inception is absolutely not one of those bizarre art house films. If you are looking for intelligence combined with popular entertainment, you picked the right movie. Dreams are life's great adventures—whether joyful or terrifying, they are provided by our dreams. This unique dream experience is something no one else could possibly deliver."

However, the massive promotional campaign and sky-high pre-release expectations also drew in a segment of the audience that inherently disliked this genre, practically guaranteeing they would have a miserable viewing experience. Naturally, these people voiced their opinions too.

"I really want to tell you how awful Inception is, but because this movie is such a mess, completely describing its awfulness is just too difficult."

The reason independent films and massive commercial blockbusters often showed such huge discrepancies in their ratings fundamentally came down to marketing and audience reach. Those who went to see indie films were usually audiences who already liked the genre, whereas the widespread promotion and distribution of commercial films inevitably lured many viewers into theaters who didn't actually enjoy that type of movie. The likelihood of these people giving a commercial film a high score was infinitesimally low.

If you checked various movie rating websites, it wasn't hard to spot the massive gap in the number of ratings between independent films and commercial ones.

Assuming the actual quality of the films was roughly similar, having a smaller pool of raters naturally resulted in a higher overall score.

Meanwhile, the subset of the audience who genuinely wanted to see a brilliant suspense thriller and walked into Inception expecting a high-IQ puzzle film were undeniably disappointed. Inception was absolutely not a movie designed to test one's intelligence.

"Everything Duke does in Inception reeks of obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoia. Far from being his ticket into the cinematic pantheon, Inception is a clumsy film that is gold and jade on the outside but lacking substance within. Its supposed ultimate complexity—whether emotional or intellectual—adds up to nothing more than 'double' the boredom."

"It seems Duke Rosenberg either doesn't understand or simply doesn't believe there is a difference between reality and dreams—his hollow movie fails to capture anything meaningful about either."

"This isn't depth; it's a pervasive sense of sickness and chaos on the screen. Inception should be called 'Self-Deception.' It's just a two-and-a-half-hour ride in a broken-down jalopy that countless people have already ridden in."

Although there were plenty of negative voices, they represented only a tiny minority within the vast landscape of the internet. Inception still triggered an overwhelmingly strong response from the vast majority of moviegoers. More importantly, Duke and Warner Brothers had long since prepared a comprehensive word-of-mouth marketing strategy. As long as the film generated sufficiently positive initial buzz from the audience, public opinion online would be guided in the direction they desired.

During Thursday's advance screenings and Friday's midnight screenings, Inception effortlessly raked in 8.6 million dollars at the box office, riding on the excellent reputation Duke had built over the years and the massive draw of its A-list cast.

For an original sci-fi concept like Inception, this was a remarkably impressive result.

Over the course of Friday alone, Inception pulled in 32.55 million dollars, giving Duke and Warner Brothers real hope that the film's opening weekend box office would break the one hundred million dollar mark.

Since the dawn of the North American film market, no original movie—neither a sequel nor an adaptation—had ever surpassed one hundred million dollars in its opening weekend. If Saturday and Sunday's box office numbers held strong, Inception was highly likely to break that historical precedent.

After receiving the statistics for the North American opening day, Duke made a special trip over to Warner Brothers to discuss the numbers with Doug Walter and Jamie Jensen for a solid hour. Following that meeting, Warner Brothers intensified their promotional efforts for the film.

Just as the media and fans were uniformly praising Inception, and nearly everyone had crowned it the must-see masterpiece of the year, a few discordant voices emerged. Several media outlets, most notably New York magazine, published multiple blistering hit pieces against Inception on their official websites, rallying the public to "stop daydreaming and wake up from the dreary reality of Duke Rosenberg's Inception."

Right at the beginning of one article, author David Edelstein directly declared, "Inception should not be overly praised as a great film. Wake up, everyone! Stop indulging in it!"

He further pointed out in the text that the movie was nothing more than a metaphor for the ultimate expression of a delusionary maniac—a metaphor for the ego.

"It lacks the agility of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, and it doesn't have the momentum of Joseph Ruben's Dreamscape. It certainly doesn't possess the crisp, clean dialogue and stylishly dressed villains in black from The Matrix. When it comes to disrupting equilibrium, it doesn't even match the intensity of an independent film like Insomnia."

Other media outlets also quickly published articles of their own, condemning Inception as a "deafeningly chaotic, sadistic mess of a film."

These remarks provoked a frenzied backlash from movie fans. In just half a day, the comment sections beneath these reviews were completely overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of angry netizens.

"The early word-of-mouth marketing was definitely a bit overblown, and Inception absolutely hasn't reached the level of a divine masterpiece, but it is still the best movie of recent years. Duke's unique narrative techniques, visual style, and cinematic language are perfectly executed throughout. There is a distinct brilliance in its character designs, dialogue, cinematography, and special effects."

And that was one of the more polite comments. Some people outright cursed, and even those who didn't swear were filled with righteous indignation.

"If Inception isn't a good movie, I really don't know what counts as a good movie in your eyes. When you see the words 'Produced by Duke Rosenberg,' there's absolutely no need to doubt the quality."

"Inception is the best movie of the year, okay?! Bar none! Duke Rosenberg, you are a dreamer! You are a disruptor! While watching the movie, the entire theater was completely captivated by your design—we laughed, we screamed, we worried, we feared! And every single person walked out with the exact same reaction: 'I'm not dreaming right now, am I?'"

Fans were fiercely defending Inception. The intense debate lured even more people into the fray, and even those who didn't actively participate or weren't originally interested in the movie found their attention caught by the spectacle.

This debate even broke out of the confines of the internet at lightning speed, spilling over into television media and traditional print outlets, drawing the gaze of a much broader audience.

Without a doubt, this was a promotional and marketing strategy orchestrated single-handedly by Duke and Warner Brothers. First, let a currently screening commercial blockbuster spark massive discussions across the internet and the industry, and then let that debate unfold across traditional print media. They even welcomed harshly critical views of the film. Only with controversy and talking points could there be attention and fame. As long as they controlled the scale and subtly guided public opinion, no matter how the process played out, the ultimate winner would always be the studio itself.

Due to the emergence of these negative reviews, the perfect one hundred percent approval rating Inception originally held on Rotten Tomatoes vanished, dropping directly to ninety-six percent.

But among Hollywood directors and film studios, how many people actually cared about something of so little value as the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer?

Moreover, amidst this fierce debate, the stellar word-of-mouth for Inception spread across the globe faster than a plague.

On Twitter, a few related reviews also trended as highly retweeted posts.

"Cinema itself is a dream that allows people to lose themselves in light and shadow, but Inception is a brilliant dream within a dream. It is a wildly successful foray into the realm of dreams by Duke. The plot is tightly interwoven, logically rigorous, and brimming with tension. Its runtime of over 130 minutes never once feels bloated or pretentious. As the leading man, Leonardo delivers the most spectacular performance of his career. The best director, the best actor, and the best story have combined to create the best dream!"

"A movie like Inception is so incredibly good that even when you know it's being deliberately mystifying, you still give it five stars without a second thought."

Explosive word-of-mouth was a good thing for the film, but everything has two sides. High praise inevitably brought high expectations, and if those expectations climbed too high, it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for a movie like Inception.