Is it possible someone who is inverted to kill his past version? or since he is inverted, that means he is alive in the future and he don't die in the past, so there is no way to kill himself in the past? I don't know if this makes any sense. I really want to knew what will happened if someone killed his past self.
what you're asking is "the grandfather paradox" and it's just as Neil talks about. future protagonist couldn't just give up and let his past self win, he knows he has to fight bc his previous self is trying to kill him. it's a way of expressing fate.
yep and this is essentially why all the questionable plot turns in the film "make sense" in the context of what you're describing.
IE, future protagonist already knows these events have already happened. For example, the "test" Tenet sends the protagonist on in the opening is rubbish. A million things have to happen just the right way to create the specific circumstances for the protagonist to be able to take the fake suicide pill. But since the protagonist already knows it'll all unfold that way, he can create the test he knows he already made.
I wish Tenet had a lot more clarity on these points and that the characters in the movie recognized and expressed this to the audience, since it's more than a bit muddled.
-Vader
It's basically Doctor Strange's "one out of million futures" thing, but done in a way that makes sense, instead of being something that they added to try to make their movie "Honest Trailer proof" (which is I believe what they called it) but really makes no sense when you start to think about it.
Like, even on my second Tenet viewing, I was still dissatisfied and asking questions like
why is the Protag seemingly entrusted with world-critical tasks when he's just been recruited, where the hell is the organization that he's just joined when it's just him running around, why is he trusting Neil with so much when he's just seemingly recruited him, why does he shoot four bullets at himself,
etc. etc.
But once
"what's happened, happened" and the knowledge that everything has been orchestrated by future Protag genuinely sunk in
...yeah, it's a pretty clever way of patching up any and all "but why did they...?" questions that inevitably arise in a movie like this.
I just love that Nolan toned down the exposition and told the story in a very kinetic way. I mean sure, those short dialogue scenes where they talk about what inverted is and how it reacts with its surroundings is imo enough. Would I have loved to see a lengthy discussion between characters about all its intricacies or even more dialogue about it? Sure, but I think it works just as well if not better for Nolan to show us how it works and tell his story than explaining everything in detail. I just really love the concept and I think the film has got some incredible set pieces. And yes, the second time I saw it the film was better because you look at it from two other characters POVs and I think as Nolan basically has been doing since the start of his career, that his films have multiple layers which not necessarily warrant another view but they enrich the film that way.
Tenet is Nolan's talkiest movie since Insomnia so I'm not sure that's true. Most of the movie is endless dialogue to set up set pieces ...then more endless dialogue to explain why the set pieces didn't go as expected. Take into consideration most set pieces only last a few minutes too.
The only major digression from Inception or Interstellar is that Nolan doesn't repeat himself. You don't get Ariadne in the third act re-explaining the rules for the 5th time. Part of the "ride" of the movie is that he constantly throws a ton at you and expects you to keep up, but it's still a movie with endless nets of exposition.
-Vader
It's not just the lack of repetition, but also the complexity of the exposition.
Exposition in Inception and Interstellar is like, "This is two." -> "And this is three." -> "Together, they multiply to make..." -> "Six." -> "Exactly, six. You got it."
Whereas in Tenet, exposition goes like: "This is six." -> "So I need to divide that by two and then..." -> "And then you take that answer and multiply it by 1/2, then take that and add it to the first number that you got." -> "Got it, bye."
It's still exposition, but you're so busy trying to work it all out that you can't keep up or make sense of shit.
That's how I felt during that first dinner scene with the Protag and Kat; I had a vague sense that they were talking about a painting or something, but I had absolutely not a single clue beyond that.
Inception is easy to understand once you've had time to really think about it, but on first viewing, you're constantly trying to solve the puzzle. Also, in Interstellar, while you get the essence of it, some scientific stuff is still quite complex, here and there.
The thing with Tenet is that everything is hard to understand, I mean the scene with Caine, they don't talk about inversion at all, yet it's very fast, and there's a lot of information that are very important to invest in the dynamic between Debicki and Branagh. So the "spy plot" is very complex, the inversion is very complex...
In Inception, the Mal plot is also a puzzle of which you only get the key in the climax, but the puzzle isn't intellectual so much as emotional, easy to follow and to invest oneself in. In Tenet, everything is complex, and even the emotional sides of the film have to do with the way character perceive time.
Inception is easy to understand once you've had time to really think about it, but on first viewing, you're constantly trying to solve the puzzle. Also, in Interstellar, while you get the essence of it, some scientific stuff is still quite complex, here and there.
The thing with Tenet is that everything is hard to understand, I mean the scene with Caine, they don't talk about inversion at all, yet it's very fast, and there's a lot of information that are very important to invest in the dynamic between Debicki and Branagh. So the "spy plot" is very complex, the inversion is very complex...
In Inception, the Mal plot is also a puzzle of which you only get the key in the climax, but the puzzle isn't intellectual so much as emotional, easy to follow and to invest oneself in. In Tenet, everything is complex, and even the emotional sides of the film have to do with the way character perceive time.
I think part of the problem is that the core plot to Tenet is actually fairly simple but Nolan over-complicates it to the point the viewer thinks it's a lot more complex than it really is. For example, the basic plot is fairly spy-101 level stuff that borrows elements from The Night Manager (Le Carre) and multiple Mission: Impossible movies. The time stuff is complicated and doesn't make sense really, but the basic plot elements are. But the way Nolan chooses to tell this story obfuscates the inherent simplicity and I think really hurts the experience for a lot of viewers.
The constant talking would be okay if it was exploring thematic ideas like dialogue in TDK, Inception or The Prestige, but instead it's mostly plot-plot-plot. I think Nolan works best when he has a co-writer to balance out his bad impulses. Jonah on BB/TDK/TDKR, DiCaprio on Inception and so on.
Inception is easy to understand once you've had time to really think about it, but on first viewing, you're constantly trying to solve the puzzle. Also, in Interstellar, while you get the essence of it, some scientific stuff is still quite complex, here and there.
The thing with Tenet is that everything is hard to understand, I mean the scene with Caine, they don't talk about inversion at all, yet it's very fast, and there's a lot of information that are very important to invest in the dynamic between Debicki and Branagh. So the "spy plot" is very complex, the inversion is very complex...
In Inception, the Mal plot is also a puzzle of which you only get the key in the climax, but the puzzle isn't intellectual so much as emotional, easy to follow and to invest oneself in. In Tenet, everything is complex, and even the emotional sides of the film have to do with the way character perceive time.
I think part of the problem is that the core plot to Tenet is actually fairly simple but Nolan over-complicates it to the point the viewer thinks it's a lot more complex than it really is. For example, the basic plot is fairly spy-101 level stuff that borrows elements from The Night Manager (Le Carre) and multiple Mission: Impossible movies. The time stuff is complicated and doesn't make sense really, but the basic plot elements are. But the way Nolan chooses to tell this story obfuscates the inherent simplicity and I think really hurts the experience for a lot of viewers.
The constant talking would be okay if it was exploring thematic ideas like dialogue in TDK, Inception or The Prestige, but instead it's mostly plot-plot-plot. I think Nolan works best when he has a co-writer to balance out his bad impulses. Jonah on BB/TDK/TDKR, DiCaprio on Inception and so on.
-Vader
We probably shouldn't start calling DiCaprio "co-writer", the last thing I need is David Fincher to make a movie in 20 years about how DiCaprio was the actual writer-director of Inception, and that Nolan just took the credit...
Sure sure, but DiCaprio has been clearly credited by Nolan for the emotional throughline and emotional arc of the film and pushing Nolan to do months of rewrites.
I've said it before, but Tenet is probably close to what Inception would've been if Nolan didn't have DiCaprio to make the more more inviting. Tenet is a movie uniquely difficult for an audience to invest in.
“So completely absorbed in its own problems – its use of colour and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail – that it’s somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.”
“Three unreconciled plot lines are simply left there.
“So completely absorbed in its own problems – its use of colour and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail – that it’s somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.”
“Three unreconciled plot lines are simply left there.
Neil's corpse should have been in the cavern from the beginning of time. How is that possible? The ones that built the infrastructure should have removed the body years ago, and yet another question emerges: what was the body like, years ago? What is the reverse of decomposition?
that are in the script but not in the movie. Hope they haven’t been pointed out before. Also calling out to @MuffinMcFluffin bc you seem to be the only one here on the same wavelength as me when it comes to this I wanted to tag to alert you but I don't know how to lol.
1. Neil “nods gravely” in sympathy to Kat’s “including my son” line. Then proceeds to comfort and take care of her like a good boy. All while maintaining a certain degree of emotional distance, of course.
2. A deleted exchange of Sator asking the Protag if God will forgive him for killing his own son, then saying “he should understand, he killed his own”. Later on, Sator commands Volkov to shoot TP, only to have Neil killed instead. Also may I remind you that effectively Neil sacrificed himself for all of mankind’s undoing.
3.
Framed is the deleted exchange, which might or might be relevant to Neil=Max. Nonetheless what I find significant is the screenplay has to draw attention to the fact he has a child by having Kat say “he has a child, for God’s sake” only to have Neil immediately jumping in the convo to ask her what day and where he chose to end the entire world. This coupled with the fact Neil afterwards is quickly able to give an answer to the day he vanished makes me think he asked only to confirm pre existing suspicions (as opposed to purely being inquisitive). Also notice that he asked for “where he chose to end the world” but answered with “where he vanished to” instead-- it’s as if he’s been suspecting the two events (him choosing to die + end the world & him vanishing to Ukraine) happened on the same day. Think of little Max wondering why his dad mysteriously disappeared and where to, then after he got older he had access to the info that Sator was in Ukraine stealing an algorithm piece on the 14th (Neil himself was also deployed there so whoever put him there must have had official recorded info of the date), and putting two to two together that those two events happened on the same day i.e Sator left the yacht to go to Ukraine.
4. Unrelated to Neil=Max but relevant to Kat and Max’s relationship, here’s a nuance in the script that wasn’t translated well to screen:
What I’ve never got from the movie itself but is conveyed in the screenplay is Max is rather estranged from Kat and is more fond of his nanny, as seen when he takes his nanny’s hand instead of his mother’s when she reaches out to him. And that she’s lonely. All of this gives more context to Kat’s line “Every day my son spends with that monster (Sator), he thinks a little less of me” that Sator might have been actively trying to turn their son against her. But overall, I think it deepens Kat’s motivation: not only does she want to reunite with her son (which was already conveyed in the movie), she also doesn’t want Max to have the impression that his mom doesn’t care for him/is a bad mom. I mean, Sator’s “I explained to [Max] that you were busy with your friend” already shows that he absolutely can lie to their son in order to paint Kat in a bad light, but it’s never seemed like a reoccurring thing between them until I read the script.
And if you accept Neil=Max, this implies a nice character development that Max went from not being fond of her to valuing her so much that Neil was willing to perform an indebted sacrifice for TP (who also has gone out of his way numerous time to save Kat, which Neil has witnessed firsthand and is also probably something that Kat’s told Max about when he was younger.)
“So completely absorbed in its own problems – its use of colour and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail – that it’s somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.”
“Three unreconciled plot lines are simply left there.
“Some extra scripts seem required.”
Who are you quoting?
Critics quotes about 2001 in 68... Time changes everything. With TENET will be the same thing (but of course I'm not saying that TENET is 2001).
I wanted to tag to alert you but I don't know how to lol.
