Sort of like the spinning top at the end of Inception. An ambiguity that he forces the audience to question. But if it was Nolan's intent for the theory to be out there, I don't think the seeds of "Wait, is N=M?" were really planted well enough.
Who knows, maybe it's just Nolan deciding to do things differently, and wanting this to be way more vague than he would've done in the past.
Personally, I think directors are given too much credit when it's obvious and in plain sight. Sometimes people eat it up (like in Jordan Peele's films), and then sometimes people scoff at it (like "Mann is evil" in Interstellar, which IMO is unfair).
I think it's about time Nolan injected something worth picking at and having a conversation over. Like, I personally really think Nolan wanted people to have a philosophical debate on whether Cobb is actually really old or not ("Old souls thrown back into youth," I believe the line was), and whether our age is the only thing that should decide upon said factor. He doesn't hammer it hard on a nail, but it's there.
By the way, the first fourteen seconds of this clip are pretty funny, in that this is how I feel some directors think, and then it's cracked on Day 1:
Unrelated random thought after watching the movie again last night. In Interstellar, future mankind is trying to save past mankind. In Tenet, future mankind is trying to destroy past mankind.
Yep, I kind of pretend like Interstellar is the late and long future sequel to Tenet sometimes haha. The Algorithm is Plan C!
his recruitment by JDW, "You have a future in the past."
There's no sensible way that sentence with that syntax can be interpreted as to support anything other than a contradiction of this theory. Without that line it might have been ambiguous but with it it's clear that while it's a nice idea, it's false.
his recruitment by JDW, "You have a future in the past."
There's no sensible way that sentence with that syntax can be interpreted as to support anything other than a contradiction of this theory. Without that line it might have been ambiguous but with it it's clear that while it's a nice idea, it's false.
Let's look at the entire line: "You have a future in the past. Years ago for me, years from now for you."
To me, this means that their past selves are influenced by something that Protag will do in that future, which is forming Tenet. I don't know what this has to do with Neil being or not being Max.
MuffinMcFluffin lists some good points above, but I still view a lot of those as either coincidences, or mashing together jigsaw puzzle pieces that don't exactly fit.
He speaks Estonian! Why would Neil speak Estonian?
If he's not Max, then some of these could be chalked up as coincidence; but if he is Max, these are just other bits of evidence that lead to that conclusion. And some of these seem much more obvious than others to me.
his recruitment by JDW, "You have a future in the past."
There's no sensible way that sentence with that syntax can be interpreted as to support anything other than a contradiction of this theory. Without that line it might have been ambiguous but with it it's clear that while it's a nice idea, it's false.
Let's look at the entire line: "You have a future in the past. Years ago for me, years from now for you."
To me, this means that their past selves are influenced by something that Protag will do in that future, which is forming Tenet. I don't know what this has to do with Neil being or not being Max.
I think Neil is just speaking from his own timeline's perspective here. Protag's future is in Neil's past, since Neil is from sometime in the future.
My only hangup on the Max=Neil theory is how tight that timeline would have to be. At the time of filming (2019), the actor that played Max was 9, and Pattinson was 33. So Max/Neil would have to start inverting at the age of 21(2031), in order to make it back to 2019 at the age of 33. That's staying inverted in some Tenet safehouse for 12 years, yikes.
on the happy sad confused podcast nolan addresses that max/neil theory and he basically laughs and says if he intends something then it would be in the text
seems obvious that max and neil is NOT a thing. you have to reach for it
Last edited by Sky007 on December 23rd, 2020, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
his recruitment by JDW, "You have a future in the past."
There's no sensible way that sentence with that syntax can be interpreted as to support anything other than a contradiction of this theory. Without that line it might have been ambiguous but with it it's clear that while it's a nice idea, it's false.
Let's look at the entire line: "You have a future in the past. Years ago for me, years from now for you."
To me, this means that their past selves are influenced by something that Protag will do in that future, which is forming Tenet. I don't know what this has to do with Neil being or not being Max.
I think Neil is just speaking from his own timeline's perspective here. Protag's future is in Neil's past, since Neil is from sometime in the future.
My only hangup on the Max=Neil theory is how tight that timeline would have to be. At the time of filming (2019), the actor that played Max was 9, and Pattinson was 33. So Max/Neil would have to start inverting at the age of 21(2031), in order to make it back to 2019 at the age of 33. That's staying inverted in some Tenet safehouse for 12 years, yikes.
You're stating something that's inconceivable, not impossible. Neil has been the one talking about "What's happened, happened" being the reality that they have to face and endure, which is something Max would have to do in order to save the world.
I think Neil sleeping in the inverted shipping container is a clue to how he probably spends a lot of his inverted time. He probably also had access to a turnstile so he could go forward whenever he wants as well.
on the happy sad confused podcast nolan dresses that max/neil theory and he basically laughs and says if he intends something then it would be in the text
seems obvious that max and neil is NOT a thing. you have to reach for it
That's what I was referring to when I said that I believe it is true.
Look, did the movie ever once say that it was Neil who saved Protag in the opening scene? Nope. The screenplay never says it either. But we put two-and-two together.
If everything I said about Neil "could be coincidence," then it could be coincidence that two different people have a talisman on their backpacks.
You're stating something that's inconceivable, not impossible. Neil has been the one talking about "What's happened, happened" being the reality that they have to face and endure, which is something Max would have to do in order to save the world.
I think Neil sleeping in the inverted shipping container is a clue to how he probably spends a lot of his inverted time. He probably also had access to a turnstile so he could go forward whenever he wants as well.
If he un-inverted whenever he wanted, that time would have to still add up to being 33 years old at the end of it. Lets say he spends 1 month uninverted each year, that adds up to 1 year over the course of 12 years, meaning he would've had to start inverting 2 years earlier in life, at 19 (since he has to live that extra year, and re-live it inverted, adding 2 years to the whole thing).
It's not impossible that he gets his master in physics and Tenet training by that time, it's just very tight and kind of depressing, ha.
You're stating something that's inconceivable, not impossible. Neil has been the one talking about "What's happened, happened" being the reality that they have to face and endure, which is something Max would have to do in order to save the world.
I think Neil sleeping in the inverted shipping container is a clue to how he probably spends a lot of his inverted time. He probably also had access to a turnstile so he could go forward whenever he wants as well.
If he un-inverted whenever he wanted, that time would have to still add up to being 33 years old at the end of it. Lets say he spends 1 month uninverted each year, that adds up to 1 year over the course of 12 years, meaning he would've had to start inverting 2 years earlier in life, at 19 (since he has to live that extra year, and re-live it inverted, adding 2 years to the whole thing).
It's not impossible that he gets his master in physics and Tenet training by that time, it's just very tight and kind of depressing, ha.
Correct. I'm just stating that some people believe he'd have to invert for ten straight years or something like that. I'd contend that he spends 10-12 hours inverted, sleeping most of it, and then would be out and about besides that (maybe at a university or what have you). Then when he needs to gain back the right time, he spends that last long bit training.
I'm sure as a lad he worked with Protag a lot, as Protag probably eventually got close to him and Kat.
