I've never seen anything quite like that before in a film, not even in The Matrix.

And yes, Inception wasn't the most completely original thing ever ... to be honest, I don't know if I could pick out one single movie that is "truly original," as you've said later in this thread. But Inception definitely stands out to me among what usually comes out of Hollywood as an exciting, interesting, and thought-provoking film. Yeah, we've seen some of the concepts before, but I think the end product was something entirely its own.

Hell, the fact that it wasn't a remake or adaptation from some other media makes it relatively original.