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This shouldn't be so complicated...
Inception was the biggest film release in a long time, and audiences and critics alike gushed over how original it was. It pioneered such innovative story mechanics as dream sharing, thought theft, psychological limbo and escaping the subconscious through specific triggers, or "kicks." Those are, no doubt brilliant devices. Devices that, to a one, can be traced back to Scrooge McDuck.
In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys. The Boys were trying out new careers as dream-thieves and went into Scrooge's mind to steal the secret combination of his vault. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because that's exactly how Inception opens up, except you have to replace DiCaprio with talking dogs. Which, incidentally, would probably improve every single one of his movies.
After they're inside Scrooge's mind, the Beagle Boys have trouble differentiating dreams from reality -- again, exactly like the characters from Inception, who need special items, or "totems" in order to tell dream from reality.
When Donald Duck enters Scrooge's dream to help, he has to figure out a way to pry the Beagle Boys out of there. In Inception they use "kicks" to make controlled exits, like how the feeling of falling usually snaps you out of the dream. In McDuck's head, they do, well, the exact same thing.
In order to escape danger, Scrooge starts jumping from dream to dream, but like Cillian Murphy's character, he can't remember the last dream once he's in the new one. Donald, however, is the invader (like DiCaprio) so he alone is able to remember the progression.
But Inception was a sci-fi thriller, and that was key to its appeal: It took metaphysical concepts, like Lucid Dreaming, and used them to fuel the action. The characters can't break the rules, but they can "imagine a bigger gun," and that's hardly something you'd see in some Disney duck carto-
Anyone who's really bad at pattern recognition might at this point be saying, but wait, there's Limbo! That, at least, is definitely the exclusive work of our favorite dark genius ... Gyro Gearloose.
These are all from the same issue of one 24-page comic book, by the way -- not some collection of random panels throughout the years that we've strung together to make a point. Then there's Mal, DiCaprio's wife who's being kept alive solely in his dreams. And yes, even that sad, emotionally complex motivation is echoed in this comic about pantsless waterfowl.
This is Goldie, Scrooge's old girlfriend. She may or may not be dead, but he certainly hasn't seen her in about 50 years. See, she's in the dreamworld because Scrooge carries a lot of guilt from the way he treated her when they were together (i.e., he kidnapped and tormented her. Yeah, Ducktales skipped over Scrooge's violent criminal phase.). Kind of like the guilt DiCaprio feels, believing that he killed his wife, whom he constantly visits in his dreams.
Nolan has never commented on the similarities between the two properties, probably because there isn't much he would be able to say besides, "Well ... fuck." He has mentioned that he isn't sure where the inspiration for the movie came from though, probably because "I owe it all to Donald Duck!" is kind of an embarrassing Oscar speech. Nolan "may not know" where he got his ideas from, but some directors sure do. Like ...
!!!! Probably tomorrow'll be the day that I fully recover!!! Yay!!!
