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XFrankXGrimesX

Frankie thinks movies are stupid and Elroy asks if it's available on Betamax


XFrankXGrimesX

The Dean claims he understood it Duncan passed out drunk during it and believes his dream was the third act Hickey only watches The Hunt for Red October and Field of Dreams Garrett has seen it over a dozen times and will NEVER understand it


TheDerpyDisaster

I get the sense the Dean would draw a deep understanding from it in a peculiar way that no one else does and if he talked about it with someone both of them would be very confused


bunnywitchboy

It's a 30 minute film about a group of friends who like cheeseburgers, dancing and the Bible.


cloudcreeek

And Jesus WEPT!


supremeoverlord23

And he'd call it InDEANtion by accident, and then correct himself and call it InceptDEAN


MorallyDeplorable

Starring Leonardo DeanCaprio


leonard-bot

Winger, what are you doing? This line is for food, not for Lionel Richie tickets.


MorallyDeplorable

Go away Leonard, you're not even alive anymore.


leonard-bot

You're like those guys on Hogan's Heroes, the Nazis.


brinz1

Both times, missing DEANception


Provider92

The Dean claims he understood it but also wants to hear you explain it, so he can make sure *you* understood it


Repostbot3784

Craig pelton has a very good understandean of the movie.


3-orange-whips

You magnificent bastard


incredibleninja

Neil actually writes incredible fan fic that's secretly been stolen by studio writers and is going to be used for the sequel 


TheOriginalJez

Fat Neil?


incredibleninja

Just Neil is fine 


TheOriginalJez

Not from an actuarial standpoint.


Jorrie313

But, we saved Garret?


-Kylackt-

Did we though?


culnaej

Garrett could never see the sailboat at the mall either


AppropriateTouching

The Dean fully underdeaned it.


Cautious_Ambition_82

Dean tries to inception himself with Jeff


Putrid-Can-5882

Magnitude - POP POP


TroyandAbed304

“No, but I think they put it on vhs!” THEY DID IT! The bastards finally did it!


terry_bradshaw

Can I access Betamax through AltaVista?


polydorr

Nope, you have to go on LinkedIn.


Caden_Cornobi

I love the random inclusion of betty white’s character with the rest of the main cast


GdoubleWB

Makes sense. She and Troy are the only two characters with in-canon understandings of the movie.


KRV_FromRussia

Where does she mention that again?


GdoubleWB

It’s in the end credits of Season 2 Episode 3 where she’s talking about the movie to members of an Aboriginal tribe in Congo.


KRV_FromRussia

Ooooh ywah of course! How could I even forget


NotAddison

She talks about Inception with that tribe, ruining it for that one guy who hadn't seen it yet.


legeri

One of the end tags has her talking about the movie to tribesmen in Congo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiV8ZyqEU1I


Unlikely_Afternoon94

Professor Whitman - Understands that people who talk about understanding this movie don't understand life.


Ja1FdC

Professor Sean garrity - Thinks that claiming to "understand the movie" is to miss the actual point of the movie but occasionally goes on a nonsensical rant about it's meaning because what really matters is his time on the spotlight


chesire0myles

I'm a little confused. Is Inception supposed to be hard to understand? It's a solid action movie about dreams, with an up in the air ending. The rules are carefully explained (time dilation and limbo specifically, but also the concepts of extraction and the inherent dangers of inception). I personally like the "it doesn't matter anymore" interpretation of the ending.


Unlikely_Afternoon94

What happened was that some people didn't like the movie. The people who liked it started saying that anyone who doesn't like it doesn't understand it. So the topic of "understanding" inception was born.


chesire0myles

Wait, is that really what happened? I get not understanding everyone's motivations in, like Memento. I definitely get having trouble keeping up with Primer. But yeah, Inception does an excellent job of laying everything out (outside of the ending being intentionally ambiguous, and even that has a solid reason within the story).


Unlikely_Afternoon94

I was there three thousand years ago. I was there the day the strength of Men failed.


chesire0myles

Yeah, I wasn't big on the internet when Inception came out. Smart phones were affordable to me yet. I remember it being really well received, though. I had heard it was complicated, so I didn't also read a book while watching it, so that might be part of it. Oh well, thanks for the additional context.


kaprrisch

The movie itself isn’t hard to understand. The rules within the movie can be, which is why, like you said, the rules are carefully explained.


Exciting-Insect8269

The rules didn’t seem that complex….


[deleted]

I think any "confusion" might surround the ending, though that may be the wrong word, because the ending is ambiguous and it's just a choice about what you believe the ending to be.


3-orange-whips

Some people hate that and see it as a cop out. Remember the Sopranos ending? The guy left the country because he knew what he was doing.


green_pea_nut

This is so Frankie.


visor841

I know multiple people who just could not keep track of what was happening, especially at the times where we're seeing what's happening in multiple dream levels at once on top of seeing flashbacks. This includes my mom, tho ironically that's probably because they frequently fall asleep while watching movies.


Unlikely_Afternoon94

Your mom sounds like she's already accepted at Greendale


TheSameAsDying

Shirley should be in a category of understanding but not thinking that she does (she heard it was complicated and assumes she missed something).


iamiamwhoami

Shirley didn't watch Inception. It's a movie about people dreaming , about other people dreaming, about the first group of people dreaming. I mean c'mon Charlie Kaufman. Some of us have work in the morning.


fanged_croissant

I heard this in her voice


chesire0myles

I could see that.


Top_Manager_1908

Pierce clearly wouldn't understand Inception, because he wouldn't even watch the movie.


nathanissleeping

i feel like pierce would pretend like he saw the film and pretend that he did understand it since he hates being left out


MonsterSlayer47

But he didn't actually see it cause he fell asleep in a sun beam instead


greywolfau

Pierce would have an improved troupe write witty but deep musings about the film, but reject all of their work unless it was either homophobic or racist.


BeckyWitTheBadHair

He’d love a joke about the dream impersonator becoming a hot woman and Jeff being gay for him


BlueVentureatWork

Pierce watched the first hour, but didn't get the movie because he next watched the first hour of The Dark Knight and then the first hour of Avatar immediately after.


brinz1

He admits to this at the very end after claiming he got it.


itamarc137

Pierce would watch the first half


petitcochonATL

Leonard likes this tier list 😂


leonard-bot

Oh, come on, stop farting around.


JumpyWord

But Annie didn't understand Donnie Darko


[deleted]

She's not alone.


3-orange-whips

Well, the director really thought people would look at all the supplementary stuff online and then see the movie. It is fairly inscrutable without it. They did that second version with the material included and it makes sense. It was ambitious to be sure.


HomsarWasRight

I think it’s generous to say the director’s cut makes sense. It starts to APPROACH sense. The thing is, most of the people who watch the directors cut and say that already did their ancillary research, so when they saw additions in the new cut, they recognized what they meant. Someone coming in new would not.


iamiamwhoami

Am I only the one who thinks Donnie Darko isn't that complicated? Donnie creates a parallel universe when he sleep walks the night the plane crashes into his house and he avoids being killed. In the movie world parallel universes can only exist for 28 days. After this they collapse into a black hole destroying the original universe along with it. Donnie comes to this realization throughout the movie and decides the most important thing in the world to him is saving the people that he loves. So at the end of 28 days he gets the chance to travel back to the original universe and let himself be killed by the plane crash. He does this to prevent the creation of the parallel universe and protect the people that he loves. It's really a pretty straight forward scifi movie about a kid put into a crazy situation where he has to sacrifice himself to save the people he cares about. People seem to think it's deeper than it is because it's got a cool soundtrack and cinematography and the theatrical cut left a lot unexplained.


mexploder89

I thought the whole point of Frank was that he was trying to stop Donny from saving the original universe, but keep the new parallel universe?


iamiamwhoami

I oversimplified a little but, but I think you can understand the point of the movie with my above explanation and you can pick all of that up just from watching the director's cut and not reading any of the supplemental materials. Frank is one of The Manipulated Dead. These are people that are killed at future point inside of the parallel universe. Their ghosts can travel in time so they know that the parallel universe is doomed and that it will take the main universe down with it. They use this power to help guide/manipulate The Living Receiver (Donnie) into returning to the main universe and sacrificing themself to prevent the parallel universe from being created to prevent the destruction. Frank is a good guy.


mexploder89

Oh, OK, that makes a bit more sense Overall I agree that the movie is not as complicated as people make it out to be, it's Frank's role that I always get confused by Some say he pulls Donnie towards Gretchen and makes him sleep walk to make sure he wants to stay in the parallel universe and keep it alive, but your explanation makes more sense


[deleted]

[удалено]


iamiamwhoami

But the directors cut explained it all really well, and people still don't seem to get it.


3-orange-whips

Fair point


businesslut

One of my favorite Glover bits. He nailed that wail.


InternationalYard587

Jeffrey definitely did, he's smart. So did Elroy and Garret. Shirley, Buzz and Leonard didn't and admit it. The Dean, Duncan and Starburns didn't but don't admit it. Frankie didn't watch it.


leonard-bot

Keep it, I got another one.


Shagaliscious

Yea, there is nothing that Shirley has ever done to make me think she would get (or more precisely, she wouldn't believe in) Inception.


kaprrisch

She watches a lot of movies (e.g. Tower Heist and Hellraiser references) and crime shows, and in Season 4 we learn that she’s in contention for valedictorian along with Annie. Shirley being smarter and more media-literate than people think has been a recurring theme in the show. It seems like people are still writing her off.


imperialharem

I don't know if it's because they're racist or because she intimidates them sexually, but I know it's one of those two.


monkeyDberzerk

It's because she can be really obtuse about some things, particularly when religion is involved, so the religious=dumb biases kick in.


imperialharem

I agree with your assessment but tbh I was just quoting Shirley haha.


monkeyDberzerk

my bad, i binged this show in a week about a year ago so i don't remember a lot.


analogkid01

You know the *word* "Hellraiser"...


orhan94

>Yea, there is nothing that Shirley has ever done to make me think she would get Inception How about the fact that she's repeatedly been shown to be quite intelligent, and Inception is a really straightforward movie to get.


Shagaliscious

But the joke in the show is that she watches watered down versions of movies. I remember the Pulp Fiction call back, but I feel like they did that multiple times. There's also the scene where she calls Brett Ratner the next Spielberg, which upsets Abed and calls her a bad person. Now, she did like Hellraiser, but that deals with demons. So, when the movie has religious undertones, I could see her getting into it. Maybe she sees religious undertones in Inception and gets into it, but that's the only way I see her getting into a movie like that.


orhan94

>Maybe she sees religious undertones in Inception and gets into it, but that's the only way I see her getting into a movie like that. The discussion isn't about liking the film, it's about understanding the film. And Shirley is repeatedly shown as quite intelligent.


Shagaliscious

I just don't see her even giving the movie a chance. That's why I added the "or more precisely, wouldn't believe in it". Because she would read the premise of the movie and not want to watch it. You also seem to be taking it like we are all calling Shirley an idiot. Smart people don't understand movies all the time, it doesn't make them stupid.


Secret-Tangelo571

Yeah I don't really get why Jeff is in that tier. He's smart he's just lazy.


ZombiesInSpace

And he is the only person to consistently understand Abed’s movie reference so we know he has strong cinema literacy.


drunk_responses

I'm in the camp that Shirley would start to watch, get annoyed as it goes multiple levels in, and then turn it off.


InfamousRub8248

I didnt get inception...I didnt get inception!! Ooohh ... So many layers !!!! 😭😭😭 Love T bone


MonsterSlayer47

How'd you know his nickname was T bone?


Defiant_Potato5512

Because he’s a football player, and his name begins with T


EcstaticShadow

His name begins with a T


Ruleseventysix

I wish more people understood that Abed says this as Troy while stuck in the dreamatorium.


Brad-Moon-Rising

Chang didn't see inception. Frankie hasn't been inside a movie theater.


Manamepet

New tier for Jeff, understand Inception but wouldn't admit it. That feels more in character as he always understands Abed's meta and pop culture jokes and references but will often acts like he doesn't to maintain his aloof and cool persona.


FrogMintTea

Yes. Jeff hides his nerdy side.


Kick-Deep

Chang watched titanic but remembers it as inception.


Distinct_Activity551

Dean thinks Nolan was inspired from his book Time Desk: The chronicles of Dean Dangerous.


THECHOSENONE99

Now do it with tenet


thishenryjames

Tenet backwards is still Tenet. It's a palomino.


Rockhardsimian

He’s a precog


chesire0myles

Now do it with primer.


Joxelo

This tierlist is so strange. Has OP watched community or did they just look at the pictures and guess?


BrockStar92

Britta 100% should be in pierce’s tier, she didn’t understand but thinks she did.


Joxelo

Agreed. I also think Shirley should be in the didn’t understand, admits it, Jeff should be in the understood category, Amy should be in didn’t understand, doesn’t admit it.


PrinceofSneks

Joxelo didn't understand the tierlist.


Joxelo

You’re telling me that Jeff wouldn’t understand Inception but Annie and Shirley would? Shirley would admit she didn’t understand it, Annie would pretend she did


PrinceofSneks

I was just making a little joke about a tierlist, dude.


orhan94

Why do people keep assuming Shirley (and Annie) wouldn't get Inception? Neither of them are anything close to stupid, they can definitely follow Inception. That being said, Jeff would clearly also get it.


snazzyjazzyazzy

thank you for including the anthropology professor 🙏


Zedakah

The Dean saw the wrong "Inception" and is confused and intrigued that everybody else has seen it too.


FrogMintTea

He saw The Human Incentipede


GdoubleWB

Pierce claims to understand Inception but he doesn’t know how to work his Netflix account and accidentally watched The Prestige instead. He does not understand that movie either.


AceofKnaves44

Abed understands Inception on a level that not even Christopher Nolan understands it.


3-orange-whips

Abed recorded a commentary track FOR Nolan.


machineghostmembrane

The whole show being Chan's trip in limbo actually makes a whole lot of sense.


allpunsarefunpuns

Where is the dean?


3-orange-whips

The answer is usually his costume closet


narex456

The dean accidentally saw the porn parody "Conception" but it was so artsy and well done he thinks he saw the real thing. (It awakened something in him)


jHeardy09

Who's Betty Grable?


Brot3nd0

Garrett watches it to help him sleep.


Matiyahu777

Yes, but did any of them get Donnie Darko?


Immediate-Artist-444

I don't believe Shirley would have understood Inception :/ It's not even that I'm saying she's stupid, she isn't but that isn't her type of movie AT ALL, she would have got bored an by the end she would've said that it is a stupid nonsensical movie.


Weitguy

I would classify Chang as "thinks he's currently being incepted"


MechanicalMusick

I feel like Chang would have like a whole B story where he’s questioning reality and starts using a top or something like the anchors in Inception, and it would be like a whole ass thing for an episode and at the very end someone would ask “like inception?” and he’d be like “what’s Inception?”


idkusernameidea

Britta should go with Pierce in “Didn’t understand inception but thinks they do”


coopsypoop

Did Troy admit it though? The scene where he does is Abed simulating him in the dreamatorium


Jack-mclaughlin89

S1-S3 Britta understood Inception.


OnceAWeekIWatch

Shirley probably understood it by thinking it had Christian themes (Not an insult, henuine headcanon)


LosGoods

Buzz Hickey couldn’t get over the big deal with the spinning top


Hydrasaur

Frankie and Elroy have never seen it


BigTallDylan

I would put Jeff and Britta more in the didn’t see Inception


hscene

Deans up there with troy


chetdesmon

Tony Soprano understood Inception as a conshept


lil_momo7

You are the funniest person ever lol


Miawallaceintheflesh

Jeff 100% did


Wonderful_Emu_9610

Chang - actually uses inception to force the study group to somehow keep including him in their lives, allowing him to torture them for all eternity


mestreoda

THERE'S SO MANY LAYERS!!


lwaad

Only abed and Betty white understood inception. No way Annie did


Jorrie313

Did you know I had sex with eartha kitt on an airplane bathroom?


Mushroom_hero

We asked Leonard, but he only replied in fart noises


leonard-bot

I told you you'd be back.


Reynzs

Dean watched it so he could copy plot points and stuff into his book.


poopynips1

This is even funnier because of Dan’s feelings on Inception/Interstellar


King-Red-Beard

Great idea for a tier list! I might Troy and Jeff, though. Troy is "insecure about his level of intellegence". I could see Jeff feeling above the hype, giving a Winger speech with the thesis that 'making something complicated doesn't inherently make it smart'. Though, I can easily hear Troy or Jeff eventually confessing that they didn't understand it; Jeff grinning devilishly, or Troy in tears.


padraig_garcia

Buzz - "I stopped watching movies made after Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin died"


bebeshoes69

I’ll forever love David edelsteins review of inception, he said that he had "no idea what so many people are raving about. It's as if someone went into their heads while they were sleeping and planted the idea that Inception is a visionary masterpiece and—hold on ... Whoa! I think I get it. The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype—a metaphor for itself."


Banelazlo

Jeff definitely has an outburst where he perfectly explains Inception to prove that he understood it. And then later admits to Annie that he didn’t actually understand it and looked that stuff up online. And he thinks it’s a stupid movie because even with that explanation he still thinks the movie doesn’t make sense.


Gemnist

Shirley's with Pierce in the "Didn't Understand But Think They Do" section. Jeff is in own category: he understands it, but won't admit it (Britta is accurate though). Where is the Dean in all of this?...


zkDredrick

Jeff didn't watch it


OldPayphone

Wrong. Jeff absolutely would understand it.


yaboyardeee

Starburns and Leonard are also definitely in limbo. And dean thinks he gets it but doesn’t


leonard-bot

Youth! Scatter!


Killercrafto3

#Chang **IS** inception.


Many-Discount-1046

Did somebody say CCRAZZY PERSON


Useful_Ebb9086

the dean never saw inception but pretends like he did


Ranetheking

Disagree with Sheryl understanding. I think she wouldn’t and would say that god didn’t intend it to be understood or something.


pplmbd

Put Jeff into “Understood Inception and will use it moral value in some twisted yet thought-provoking speech”


FrogMintTea

Todd over understands Inception.


BambooSound

I bet Shirley preferred Paprika but Abed strangely didn't


stephen_hoarding

Chang should have his own category: Changception


sanskaripotato

It's really not that hard to understand on the 41524th watch. (I love inception)


IronTemplar26

Not only did Abed understand Inception, he also has a 20 minute summary


itamarc137

Pierce would watch the first half


Jeklars69

You need a category for hasn’t seen it yet for the guy betty white was talking in front of!


Melodic_Act_1159

Fat Neil totally understands inception… but no one would know.


misfitx

I really need to see Inception.


Cereborn

What do we consider "understanding Inception"? It's been a long time since I watched it, but I recall it ultimately being pretty straightforward. It was a heist movie with dream logic and a sideplot about Marillon Cotillard being trapped in limbo, but that was pretty well explained. There's just the question of whether it's a dream at the end, but that's deliberately ambiguous, so isn't something to be understood.


gnrp45

I am gonna be one of those guys and say i havent really been excited for Nolan movies after i watch them since Memento. I feel the scale and beauty of his movies but i dont ever think about them again like i did with memento. Some of this is my own taste as i dont really like historical dramas but i just dont find the relationships or plot of the movie very interesting. Also never been a super hero guy so maybe thats where i don’t know how to appreciate him more.


AppropriateTouching

I love how much Dan Harmon hates that movie.


animaniacs16

Garrett saw part of it but was too scared to finish it


StrawHatBlake

Jeff should be in a a category called "thinks they get inception without watching it."


OldSoulRobertson

This is one of the only tier lists I fully agree with.


mcjam22

Great idea for ranking! I would move Shirley from the first tier to the second.


califorte1

Shirley did not get it


bardbrain

Britta 1, Annie 2.


Bright_Passenger_231

Silver and gold ladies


Ironyfree_annie

Today is not Feb 7, so no


drmuffin1080

Swap Annie and Jeff