[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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hotsauce32 wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 8:09 pm
I have a very important question.
Do the future antagonists still open up the dead drop, expecting the algorithm, but instead get a Volkov skeleton?

Image
Yes, that’s exactly what will happen.

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LelekPL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:57 pm
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.
From the screenplay:
PROTAGONIST It always counts. You’re not there to kill him – you’re the backstop. If we haven’t lifted that algorithm and he kills himself, he takes us all with him, instantly.

I guess theocratically, the effect shouldn’t be instant, but according to the movies rules, it would be.

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It's only instant from the present's point of view, since if it's buried any time between the present and the future, it will "instantly" show up for the future to dig up since "it would have been there all along."

Additionally, remember, The Protagonist creates Tenet because of the experiences in the film, but he couldn't have had those experiences if the first place if Tenet didn't exist to push him into them. It's more-or-less Nolan's attempt at a bootstrap paradox, although it isn't quite a bootstrap.

-Vader

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Finally saw it yesterday, loved it! One nagging question that came to mind after digesting it...
If the algorithm was used to invert the entire world, wouldn't inverted life be indistinguishable from the regular flow of time? If everything is moving in reverse, nothing is moving in reverse. There's no dueling time flow to notice which way you're going. Which is the goal of the people in the future, as Sator says something along the lines of the world being so damaged that the only "future" for life is to switch directions. The "bad guys" in the future are really just trying to save humanity...? But the Tenet organization believes that would destroy the world instantly. I'm guessing the theory being that if the future's past inverts to become the future's future... the past that they're in would cease to exist? :think: It's fun to think about, I didn't even have these last thoughts until I started typing this, ha.

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LelekPL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:57 pm
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.
one thing I have realised which none of us did I guess is that no one knew about algorithm except Ives, Neil, Protagonist, Priya. Because they want to kill or happily suicide everyone who knew.
Priya didn't know where algorithm was as Protagonist doesn't tell her (conversation in Oslo)
Ives and Protagonist would have died by being buried (Here's a big problem as Protagonist is the one who sets up TENET, his death would literally wipe out whole movie)
now only one remaining is Neil which should go in reverse and die but one may argue he can do digging up and then go die ,something that involves another people again they might be trustworthy or not so it would be mess
I personally believe things happen as they were intended to or as they have happened.
and also because slight change can result in massive differences as per butterfly effect.
at last we won't know about transmission because it isn't clearly specified and also time inversion hasn't been done yet :D

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MMatt wrote:
September 10th, 2020, 3:32 am
Finally saw it yesterday, loved it! One nagging question that came to mind after digesting it...
If the algorithm was used to invert the entire world, wouldn't inverted life be indistinguishable from the regular flow of time? If everything is moving in reverse, nothing is moving in reverse. There's no dueling time flow to notice which way you're going. Which is the goal of the people in the future, as Sator says something along the lines of the world being so damaged that the only "future" for life is to switch directions. The "bad guys" in the future are really just trying to save humanity...? But the Tenet organization believes that would destroy the world instantly. I'm guessing the theory being that if the future's past inverts to become the future's future... the past that they're in would cease to exist? :think: It's fun to think about, I didn't even have these last thoughts until I started typing this, ha.
no, it will make copy of every single thing in the universe and it would be done instantaneously so every single thing is inverted at the same place which it was uninverted causing the two to come in contact and result in Annihilation

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Jayp wrote:
September 10th, 2020, 10:12 am
no, it will make copy of every single thing in the universe and it would be done instantaneously so every single thing is inverted at the same place which it was uninverted causing the two to come in contact and result in Annihilation
hmmm...
But we only see "copies" in the film because there's dueling time flows. Inverted and non-inverted existing at the same time. That presumably wouldn't be the case with the algorithm, since there's no actual turnstile machine involved that's inverting only certain things.

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Nicewatch wrote:
September 10th, 2020, 2:04 am
LelekPL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:57 pm
Nicewatch wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:44 pm


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.
From the screenplay:
PROTAGONIST It always counts. You’re not there to kill him – you’re the backstop. If we haven’t lifted that algorithm and he kills himself, he takes us all with him, instantly.

I guess theocratically, the effect shouldn’t be instant, but according to the movies rules, it would be.
Including my son?

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Location: Elk Grove, CA
ninenin wrote:
September 10th, 2020, 3:29 pm
Nicewatch wrote:
September 10th, 2020, 2:04 am
LelekPL wrote:
September 9th, 2020, 4:57 pm


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.
From the screenplay:
PROTAGONIST It always counts. You’re not there to kill him – you’re the backstop. If we haven’t lifted that algorithm and he kills himself, he takes us all with him, instantly.

I guess theocratically, the effect shouldn’t be instant, but according to the movies rules, it would be.
Including my son?
You win post of the day, sir. :clap: :lol:

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Location: Elk Grove, CA
So I guess I'll have to check next time I see the film, but...

I'm trying to picture Neil opening up the gate for Protag and Ives while inverted, because he's not opening it from his perspective but rather he's closing it. Now I don't remember if the gate is one that automatically swings shut or if it's even shut after they go through it so that he can open it for them to back into (so that way it's "opening" whether inverted or normal), but I guess when they go into it, he's gotta shut it on them so that it's locked in the first place.

Wouldn't it make more sense for him to want to leave it open? Or does he have to close it on them so that it's the same as it was when it happened, so they don't break anything else in the time realm? It seems that Neil was keen on ensuring that they don't attempt to deviate from what fate has brought them towards, so I didn't know what kind of free will he could've chosen to exercise there.

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