[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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MuffinMcFluffin
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Pr0creation wrote: ↑
October 26th, 2020, 9:30 am
Why didn't Nolan write Neil dying in the opera scene instead of the eagle mountain scene?

This could have actually fit in and would have been a interesting arc for the protagonist wondering why someone would save his life.
Well that is a version Neil that is "younger" than the Neil that eventually meets Protag in Mumbai (I say "younger" instead of "earlier" because Stalsk-12 is also earlier as well), so he still has to meet him and do all that jazz as well.

Nolan needed to shoot in a different location for the final battle, because that's after The Algorithm has been assembled, it makes sense that Sator would find Plutonium 241 there and Protag would understand that's where he would try and bury The Algorithm, and they needed a pincer battle which the opera house siege was not.

I know what you mean though, it would have had nice poetry and symmetry.
Tarssauce wrote: ↑
October 26th, 2020, 8:21 am
MuffinMcFluffin wrote: ↑
October 25th, 2020, 8:31 pm
Just the pill is a test. I'm sure that every agent has been holding a fake pill forever without knwing, and the first to take it before talking will basically be placed into Tenet.
That means they were constantly monitoring every single CIA agent who was given the fake pill. What if they ended up in Sator's hands and they got their balls shoved into their windpipes? They got to him in time and they knew he took the pill. It is implied that someone betrayed the CIA team so maybe someone was working for the Ukrainians and gave them the Plutonium and then Sator found the team killed them off.
Perhaps. All we know for sure is they didn't only give a fake to Protag, s his was discarded and he took the other guy's. We also know they were only put there as a result of an older version of Protag forming Tenet, and perhaps being the one to make the fake occur.

I'd think Tenet would want "dead loyalists" though, so to let some die and not others would kind of be ruuuude!
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Janky Sam
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My understanding of the prologue is that the Ukrainian government wants to abduct a guy (who they’ve discovered to be a spy) by hiring terrorists under the table to stage a hostage situation where the SWAT team is supposed to kill the audience as a cover for the operation - kill them all to make it look like terrorist suicide attack to tie up loose ends.  Sator somehow found out that the spy in the Ukrainian government obtained a piece of the algorithm (thinking it was plutonium) and was discovered, so Sator put together his own team of Russian guys to infiltrate the Ukrainian SWAT team (somehow Sator is aware of the government’s plan to “vanish” the guy at the opera since he's able to infiltrate it).

Meanwhile JDW and his men acting undercover think that these guys they are with are just Ukrainians unaffiliated with the government. JDW says “the Ukrainians are expecting a passenger,” which suggests he doesn’t know that they’re Russian or have anything to do with Sator. But then this begs the question of how JDW came to be involved with Sator’s team of Russian guys without him knowing about Sator himself? My guess is he got intel that this random group of people was planning on stealing “plutonium” that the US government was also after, so JDW was undercover in this rogue group unaffiliated with the Ukrainian government meanwhile the VIP was a spy at a high level in the Ukrainian government who had found “plutonium” that the US government wanted, and that JDW knew the rogue group wanted as well. 
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Bale Fan
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Not sure if this has been pointed out yet but regarding the Neil theory:
Someone on Youtube reversed Neil’s theme (starting at 0:27)
and it sounds a lot like Kat’s theme “Betrayal”
that can be another hint towards Neil being her son.
btw having seen this twice now, I think it’s my 2nd fav Nolan movie (after TDK)? Or at least it definitely belongs to the high tier of his filmography.
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MuffinMcFluffin
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Bale Fan wrote: ↑
November 3rd, 2020, 5:38 am
 Not sure if this has been pointed out yet but regarding the Neil theory:
Someone on Youtube reversed Neil’s theme (starting at 0:27)
and it sounds a lot like Kat’s theme “Betrayal”
that can be another hint towards Neil being her son.
btw having seen this twice now, I think it’s my 2nd fav Nolan movie (after TDK)? Or at least it definitely belongs to the high tier of his filmography.
Yea, sorta.

There is another one I'm trying to bear witness to, but I'm iffy about the connection still:

After they save the world, Neil asks Protag if he's going back to London to check on Kat. Protag says it's too dangerous, even from afar. Then Neil goes to Ives getting ready to invert and open the door, etc. He has a spiel about "reality," leaves, and then the final scene happens in London where Protag ties up loose ends protecting Kat (the voice message is probably a big part of that) and kills Priya.

Why did Neil ask this? Were his actions to do what he did based on Protag not stating he would protect Kat, and somehow "convinced" him otherwise in his little speech? I'm grasping at straws here on this, but I'm trying to think if there's anything related t Neil asking him about Kat, to him leaving to invert and talking to him about reality and such, to Protag ending up in London after saying he wouldn't help her.

Someone help me out on this one, haha.
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MMatt
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MuffinMcFluffin wrote: ↑
November 3rd, 2020, 10:08 am
Yea, sorta.

There is another one I'm trying to bear witness to, but I'm iffy about the connection still:

After they save the world, Neil asks Protag if he's going back to London to check on Kat. Protag says it's too dangerous, even from afar. Then Neil goes to Ives getting ready to invert and open the door, etc. He has a spiel about "reality," leaves, and then the final scene happens in London where Protag ties up loose ends protecting Kat (the voice message is probably a big part of that) and kills Priya.

Why did Neil ask this? Were his actions to do what he did based on Protag not stating he would protect Kat, and somehow "convinced" him otherwise in his little speech? I'm grasping at straws here on this, but I'm trying to think if there's anything related t Neil asking him about Kat, to him leaving to invert and talking to him about reality and such, to Protag ending up in London after saying he wouldn't help her.

Someone help me out on this one, haha.
It certainly feels like another
diet coke moment, where Neil knows Protag ends up with Kat, and he's just having a little fun prodding him about it. I love the Max=Neil theory, combined with Protag+Kat, gives the ending that much more emotion if Protag is basically Neil's father for most of his life. There's a lot going against it though, would Protag really recruit his "son" and send him back, knowing he dies? And Neil would've had to invert for like half his life to get back to that time.
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Bale Fan
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MMatt wrote: ↑
November 3rd, 2020, 11:10 am
MuffinMcFluffin wrote: ↑
November 3rd, 2020, 10:08 am
Yea, sorta.

There is another one I'm trying to bear witness to, but I'm iffy about the connection still:

After they save the world, Neil asks Protag if he's going back to London to check on Kat. Protag says it's too dangerous, even from afar. Then Neil goes to Ives getting ready to invert and open the door, etc. He has a spiel about "reality," leaves, and then the final scene happens in London where Protag ties up loose ends protecting Kat (the voice message is probably a big part of that) and kills Priya.

Why did Neil ask this? Were his actions to do what he did based on Protag not stating he would protect Kat, and somehow "convinced" him otherwise in his little speech? I'm grasping at straws here on this, but I'm trying to think if there's anything related t Neil asking him about Kat, to him leaving to invert and talking to him about reality and such, to Protag ending up in London after saying he wouldn't help her.

Someone help me out on this one, haha.
It certainly feels like another
diet coke moment, where Neil knows Protag ends up with Kat, and he's just having a little fun prodding him about it. I love the Max=Neil theory, combined with Protag+Kat, gives the ending that much more emotion if Protag is basically Neil's father for most of his life. There's a lot going against it though, would Protag really recruit his "son" and send him back, knowing he dies? And Neil would've had to invert for like half his life to get back to that time.
Even though I like the idea of Protag and Kat getting together, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case here. They don’t seem to show any romantic interest to each other throughout the movie for example, at least to me. And like you said it would be kinda awkward for JDW to knowingly send his “son” to his death, assuming Protag+Kat was/is a thing.

Neil = Max without Protag+Kat is still plenty emotional tho, considering the idea that Neil sacrificed himself for Protag out of gratitude for Protag risking his life to save his mom.
ANONIMNIQ
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Why the protagonist tried to shoot his other version? What's the point of this? Why he want to kill his past version?
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Uno
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ANONIMNIQ wrote: ↑
November 29th, 2020, 7:49 pm
Why the protagonist tried to shoot his other version? What's the point of this? Why he want to kill his past version?
He didn't try to kill his past self. He was aiming at the glass and used all of his bullets so the gun couldn't be used again, just in case if his past self steals the gun and starts shooting at him.
ANONIMNIQ
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Uno wrote: ↑
November 29th, 2020, 8:15 pm
ANONIMNIQ wrote: ↑
November 29th, 2020, 7:49 pm
Why the protagonist tried to shoot his other version? What's the point of this? Why he want to kill his past version?
He didn't try to kill his past self. He was aiming at the glass and used all of his bullets so the gun couldn't be used again, just in case if his past self steals the gun and starts shooting at him.
I think this is something too dangerous and risky to do in a fight, I don't know.
I have another question...
Why when they inverted Kat to save her, just can't wait few days in front of inversion machine. Why they choose to go to the airport in Oslo?
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Tarssauce
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ANONIMNIQ wrote: ↑
November 30th, 2020, 5:21 am
I think this is something too dangerous and risky to do in a fight, I don't know.
I have another question...
Why when they inverted Kat to save her, just can't wait few days in front of inversion machine. Why they choose to go to the airport in Oslo?
This is a common question
As Ives explains in the film, the turnstile in Tallinn is owned by Sator and he lost control of it when the Tenet cavalry raided the place. If they go back in time, Sator and his men are in control if the place so it would be very risky and could compromise the whole mission - if Sator knows about Tenet or The Protagonist too soon.

Since they’ll have to be inverted for an entire week, they remembered the airplane crash in Oslo which would give them an opportunity to go in and out unnoticed becsuse of all the chaos. Also, they can just hop on a shipping container that came from Oslo to Tallinn and get back their without any attention.
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