[SPOILER] Discussion/Speculation Thread

Christopher Nolan's time inverting spy film that follows a protagonist fighting for the survival of the entire world.
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MorenoVL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 5:22 am
Do you guys think the movie would be better received in general if the story was less complex and focused more on the cool concept of Inversion? I just love the idea that if you want to go back in time you have to actually travel through time which is running backwards. The ideas Nolan had could have maybe been simplified a little bit?
Yes.

The mechanics of the concept is complex enough and way cooler than the espionage mechanics layered on top of it.

Now you may make the argument having both makes for more repeat viewings. But then i would say less spy exposition would make room for more character development/depth (Protagonist and Neil friendship, Protagonist Arc, Sator's Philosophy) a trade off i think the film would have benefited from.

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Pr0creation wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 8:04 am
MorenoVL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 5:22 am
Do you guys think the movie would be better received in general if the story was less complex and focused more on the cool concept of Inversion? I just love the idea that if you want to go back in time you have to actually travel through time which is running backwards. The ideas Nolan had could have maybe been simplified a little bit?
Yes.

The mechanics of the concept is complex enough and way cooler than the espionage mechanics layered on top of it.

Now you may make the argument having both makes for more repeat viewings. But then i would say less spy exposition would make room for more character development/depth (Protagonist and Neil friendship, Protagonist Arc, Sator's Philosophy) a trade off i think the film would have benefited from.
Inception has a similar cool concept, the dream sharing, but I cared more because I loved the Cobb story arc. I did kinda miss that with The Protagonist

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Guys after reading few posts I saw some similar questions like
Sator should know his plan failed because world was alive in kiev to carchase
Also why didn’t they just dig up and took out the algorithm
My Fun answer to 2nd will be
It is a movie guys, we needed thrilled climax :D
Now getting serious
There are 2 groups here Protagonist and Sator
Protagonist’s group consists of all good people
Sator’s group consists of bad people also from future
Now P’s group believes “What happened, happens”
S’s group believes they can alter past
Both are correct
There are 2 beliefs among scientists
First says like P’s group what happened,always happens
Second says “When you make any change in past or way things were you simply create an alternate timeline”
Second also does not discard first group because when you make change you just shifted to alternate reality. Original world where things happened as they happened is still intact. So it’s like Schrodinger’s Cat means in both states.
So Our S’s group simply wanted to create alternate reality where past world ended and future is living happily. This answers first question.
Now second question, As events of movie unfolded which were seen by JDW whom we follow along in movie
So when he went on to set next iteration or let’s say suppose very first iteration he specifically would have given out details like don’t dig up, let the blast happen etc etc
And why they were so careful about not making a slight change is that they feared of splitting their reality means creating alternate world.
And this is mentioned twice in film
1.By Neil in ship containers when they were going to FREEPORT. JDW asks “This reversing the flow of time, doesn’t us being here now, mean it never happened?” to which Neil replies that we cannot rule out possibility of multiple worlds and advises JDW to sleep.
2.Priya in Oslo when JDW tries to convince her to not give info. to another JDW in 2 days to which she replies “If a world exists where Sator didn’t get that last piece, we wouldn’t be alive in that world”
So this somehow confirms that film acknowledged possibility of multiple worlds.
Also dialogues may not be exact but bare with me guys I have only seen it twice.
Much of this will be very easy for you if you have seen and understood DARK
I am not a scientist or something, just a physics enthusiast and A NOLAN FAN, so I tried and please tell me how did you find my answer and feel free to correct me.
Thank you :D

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Ruth wrote:
September 5th, 2020, 4:37 pm
Intonestellar wrote:
September 5th, 2020, 3:59 pm
Just can’t work out why
Priya wants to kill Kat at the end
anyone able to help please? It’s prob something v obvious.
I imagine it’s to protect the rest of the world of everything Tenet stands for and what had (or could have) just happened. The mere knowledge of inversion mechanics working could have severe results if ending up, once again, in the wrong hands. So Priya wasn’t necessarily acting as a secondary antagonist, she was more so cleaning up. I’m just wondering if it’s Kat only, or ultimately, everyone involved in the story in any capacity.
Thanks Ruth, and good Q/possible theory at the end.

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Jayp wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 8:34 am
Guys after reading few posts I saw some similar questions like
Sator should know his plan failed because world was alive in kiev to carchase
Also why didn’t they just dig up and took out the algorithm



Let’s say Tenet
as an organization had done nothing, just let the Algorithm be buried, we can dig it up later.
The bald bad guy drops the algorithm in the hole, the bomb goes off and the algorithm is buried under a crap ton of earth.
Sator on his yacht in Vietnam kills himself.
Sator’s Fitbit detects no pulse and triggers the dead man switch.
The GPS location of the buried algorithm is sent to the bad guys in the future.
The future baddies dig up the algorithm and activate it, inverting and destroying the past.
Before Tenet can dig up the algorithm, the world explodes or something.

If the bomb had gone off and the algorithm was buried, and if Sator had died after the explosion, the effect of Armageddon would’ve been instant. Instead what happened was, Protagonist got ahold of the algorithm, Neil yanked him out of the hole just as the bomb explodes. Sator died, and now the future baddies would receive the GPS location of where the algorithm was to be buried. They will dig a hella big hole looking for the algorithm, but they won’t find it, as Protagonist and Ives hid the pieces.
Last edited by Nomis on September 10th, 2020, 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: still have to use spoiler tags for big spoilers

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Nicewatch wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:44 pm
Jayp wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 8:34 am
Guys after reading few posts I saw some similar questions like
Sator should know his plan failed because world was alive in kiev to carchase
Also why didn’t they just dig up and took out the algorithm


Let’s say Tenet as an organization had done nothing, just let the Algorithm be buried, we can dig it up later.
The bald bad guy drops the algorithm in the hole, the bomb goes off and the algorithm is buried under a crap ton of earth.
Sator on his yacht in Vietnam kills himself.
Sator’s Fitbit detects no pulse and triggers the dead man switch.
The GPS location of the buried algorithm is sent to the bad guys in the future.
The future baddies dig up the algorithm and activate it, inverting and destroying the past.
Before Tenet can dig up the algorithm, the world explodes or something.

If the bomb had gone off and the algorithm was buried, and if Sator had died after the explosion, the effect of Armageddon would’ve been instant. Instead what happened was, Protagonist got ahold of the algorithm, Neil yanked him out of the hole just as the bomb explodes. Sator died, and now the future baddies would receive the GPS location of where the algorithm was to be buried. They will dig a hella big hole looking for the algorithm, but they won’t find it, as Protagonist and Ives hid the pieces.
First of all, SPOILERS!

And no, you are mistaking instantaneous transmission with some sort of magic teleportation that has nothing to do with the logic of the film.
As explained earlier, the instant transmission works only if the object being buried is kept in one place untouched for years and its location is known only to the parties involved in the transaction. If Sator left the algorithm in a place that nobody other than the future people knows where it is and is perfectly hidden and preserved then yes, the future people will be able to find it immediately as Sator sends his message because it would have been untouched for hundreds of years for them to find, i.e. noone during the hundreds of years period has interfered with the location or object itself.

However his plan cannot work as Tenet knows exactly where it is buried and would dig it up thus making the instant transmission impossible. What would happen is what you mentioned at the end - the future people get the message, dig a hell of a big hole and find... nothing, because Tenet has dug it up hundreds years earlier. The drop box does not work like a magic teleportation method to the future :P The algorithm would still have to lie there for hundreds of years for the future people to instantly get a hold of it once they are informed of the location.

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I had to drive to another state to see this (and unfortunately no IMAX). I need to read through this thread and see the movie again before I can formulate something more than to say I liked the movie and want to see it again (especially in IMAX, if that ever happens in my stupid state). But I do want to put this out there because it gave me a big chuckle.

At one point in the movie the Protag says,
"You're going to crash a plane?"
and Pattinson's character replies something like,
"Well, not from the air. That would be over-dramatic."
and all I could think about was Bane and the prologue to TDKR. :lol: Wonder if Nolan did that on purpose.

OK, back to your in-depth discussions...

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Tarssauce wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 12:09 am
To be specific
ROTAS is Sator's construction company that built the freeports holding the turnstiles.
Oh ok, bc I saw the symbol
above a door at the airport right before they enter into the entropy machine. So I thought it’s name of the machine.

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Question
So in a temporal pincer, does red team only receive intel from blue team, or are they both receiving intel from each other?

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speedy117 wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 6:55 pm
Question
So in a temporal pincer, does red team only receive intel from blue team, or are they both receiving intel from each other?
red team only gets info from blue team, as blue team inverts to before the mission briefing with Ives takes place to feed intel for the third act.

I wish we saw more back and forth between blue team setting something up and red team paying it off.

-Vader

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