Description And Reactions To The New Inception Trailer

This evening, I attended a packed advanced screening of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. About 95% of the time at these screenings, they don't show trailers before the film. Tonight, I was surprised to find a brand new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Inception attached. The trailer isn't actually available for public viewing yet, but you can hit the jump for a brief description and some reactions.

[Note that I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of the following; I wasn't expecting to see the trailer so I didn't have a chance to grab my notepad.]

Overall, I have to confess: This trailer was almost completely incomprehensible, a series of images and words that left me in kind of a daze, albeit excited as well. The trailer begins quietly and we get a voiceover by Leonardo DiCaprio. According to one IMDB poster, the voiceover dialogue was as follows:

What's the most resilient form of parasite? An idea. An idea has the power to build a city... to change the world, and re-write all the rules..

In perhaps one of the most spectacular visuals from any trailer I've seen in recent memory, we see a city block folding upwards at a right angle into an L shape, while citizens in the foreground look on (a glimpse of Ellen Page is seen at around this time). The trailer continues to throw random images at you without any context or explanation. Leo is at a cafe when there appears to be an explosion in the background that freezes all of a sudden, Matrix-style. According to the same IMDB poster, "At one point a train is driving down a street, plowing through cars. People are fighting mid-air, someone on a motorcycle drives beside a car holding a huge gun. Ken Watanabe looks like a really scary villain from the one smile he gives." Here's how random and jam-packed this trailer was: I don't actually remember any of that stuff happening!

All this stuff is followed by Leo delivering the capper line, referring to the "idea" from earlier:

...and that's why I need to steal it.

We see Leo in a kitchen holding a gun. Lots of people are apparently in distress, perhaps fighting one another. Lots of extremely slow-motion imagery of water, and water colliding with people. Some material is re-used from the teaser trailer, including this shot:

Overall, it was dizzying and random and kind of amazing. I bought into the whole thing the second I saw "From the director of The Dark Knight" flash onto the screen at the beginning. Others around me were not as convinced. "That looks boring!" I audibly heard people exclaim. "HE looks good in it, though," another one rejoined, referring to DiCaprio. "Ellen Page is in it!" another chimed in. Not a trailer that went over well with the general public, unfortunately.

Despite this, I am actually more excited now than I was before. The film looks original at the very least, and with a summer 2010 film coming out that's directed by Christopher Nolan and NOT another sequel, we have much to look forward to indeed.

Discuss: Did anyone else see the trailer this evening? If so, feel free to leave your description/thoughts below.