Over a decade since the movie’s theatrical release, many still wonder why Saito is old at the end of Inception. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film begins with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb waking up on a beach and being taken to an elderly man named Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe). Over the next two and a half hours, the storyline builds to a revelatory sequence that bookends the opening minutes. Notably, there’s a huge age difference between Cobb and Saito when they meet in Limbo, a subconscious realm.
Unlike the endless debate over Cobb’s spinning top totem, the reason why Saito is older than Cobb in the finale actually has a straightforward answer. However, while it’s not as ambiguous an Inception mystery some others, it does require an understanding how time, space, and reality work inside Christoper Nolan’s Limbo. While anything is possible in dreams, even Limbo is bound by rules that determine the respective fates of those that end up in the deepest recesses of the human subconscious.
What Happens To Saito At The End Of Inception
The rules of Limbo, which are central to why Saito is old at the end of Inception, are explained throughout the movie. Nolan’s film begins with an extended sequence that explains Cobb’s line of work and how his team extracts information by exploring dreams within dreams. Saito, a wealthy businessman, enlists DiCaprio’s character to shut down a rival company. Cobb targets Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the son of a dying business mogul, and assembles a team from Inception‘s symbolic cast. Cobb needs a chemist (Dileep Rao as Yusuf) to create a potent chemical compound, an architect (Ellen Page as Ariadne) to construct various dreamworlds, a forger/impersonator (Tom Hardy as Eames) to imitate different dream figures, and a researcher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur) to make sure everything goes as planned.
Meanwhile, Saito buys an actual airline which allows the dream team to execute their plan during a 10-hour flight. From there, the various subplots of Inception become more complicated. Saito accompanies Cobb’s team during the 10-hour flight, but doesn’t have any dream skills to offer – only there to ensure that Cobb immediately receives his reward after executing the plan. Cobb wants to reunite with his two children, but he can’t legally enter the United States after being identified as a suspect in his wife’s death. In the first of Inception‘s dream levels, Saito is shot and wounded, which is the result of Arthur not identifying that Fischer had militarized his subconscious to prevent any type of extraction.
Cobb then reveals that the high potency of their mechanical compound means that Saito, or any of them for that matter, can’t wake up after a dream state death. Instead, they drop into Limbo—- an unconstructed dream space that only Cobb is familiar with (related to why Saito is older than Cobb in Limbo). In the second dream level, Saito plays a minor role while his first-level self remains in a vehicle. In the third Inception dream level, Saito assists the group but ultimately dies, along with Fischer, who is subsequently sent to Limbo but saved by Cobb and Ariadne. As the team collectively reunites within the first dream level for the “kick” (a vehicle dropping into water), Cobb and Mal’s (Marion Cotillard) Inception story comes to a close. Cobb then stays in Limbo to find Saito, and discovers that the businessman has been stuck in his “infinite subconscious” for decades upon decades.
Time Compression Trapped Saito In Limbo For Decades
Yusuf’s compound is the main reason why Saito is old at the end of Inception. Prior to the 10-hour flight, the chemist explains that the dream sharers collective brain functionality will multiply 20 times over. For a dream within a dream, “the effect is compounded.” Cobb then makes sure that everyone is clear about the effect during a 10-hour trip: one week in the first dream level, six months in the second level, and 10 years in the third level. What the team doesn’t realize, however, is that Cobb’s long past in the depths of Limbo will negatively affect their plan, as evidenced by the continued presence of Cobb’s deceased wife Mal, who appears as an angry projection of Cobb’s guilt.
When Saito dies in the third level and sinks to Limbo, he’s already begun to age in ways that not even Cobb can fully understand. In Inception, one of the final twists is that Saito has accepted Limbo as reality. He’s lived there for decades, just as Cobb knowingly spent decades in Limbo with his wife Mal. The big difference, however, is that while this is Saito’s first time in Limbo, Cobb and Mal already spent decades together in the dream world, shaping it with sheer will. This is why Saito is older than Cobb – Saito ages in Limbo to reflect his inexperience and highlight Cobb’s deep familiarity with the subconscious realm.
Indeed, Cobb knows that he must find Saito in Limbo, even though the businessman likely won’t remember their arrangement. After all, Saito is just a tourist in Cobb’s Inception team, whose primary role is to fund the endeavor. In fact, they even discuss this idea after Saito is shot in the first dream level. As it turns out, though, their shared words (“You’re going to become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone”) and a spinning totem were enough to remind Cobb that the shores of his subconscious are not real, ultimately giving Saito a more meaningful role in the mission.
The old friends return to the real world, and Saito immediately honors his agreement by making the phone call that he promised all along. Finally, this allows Cobb to return to his family after they land in the U.S. Both men are clearly dazed upon waking up in Inception because they’ve been trapped within their subconscious much longer than the rest of the team. The twists and turns involving Limbo and the different levels of the subconscious are central to how Inception forever changed sci-fi. Meanwhile, why Saito is old at the end of Inception is just one of the many mysteries and questions that the movie has incepted into audiences’ minds throughout the years.
How Does Saito Escape Limbo?
Saito escaped Limbo by shooting himself, thus dying in the dream and waking up. Inception shows old man Saito picking up the pistol on the table, confirming that Saito shot Cobb and then himself in Limbo, allowing both to wake up on the airplane in the real world. It’s also notable how Cobb gets his bearings faster than Saito when they awake, underscoring Saito’s lesser experience in the dream world and why Saito is old at the end of Inception. Moreover, through sheer determination and luck, Saito and Cobb escaped Limbo intact and executed their plan in full — but only after spending decades lost on the shores of the subconscious, which ironicly mirrors how director Christopher Nolan spent 9 long years developing Inception. Indeed, Saito and Cobb’s escape from Limbo and Cobb’s happy ending even mirror how Inception became a box office success, and how it remains a keystone movie in contemporary sci-fi.
