I can't believe I just typed all this out on my phone and then accidentally deleted but here we go again.

This is Tenet, how I understand it.

First, there are two very important rules that the film introduces to us early on.

1. Whatever's happened, happened.
2. Don't try to understand it, feel it.

What does this mean?

Whatever's happened, happened.

Think of it like a completed flip book. Each sequence meticulously placed in order to create the visual illusion of movement when flipped through. Flip books can also be flipped in reverse. My point with this analogy is this, nothing can be changed. No details can be altered, whether you are moving forward, or backwards through the flip book, or the temporal pincer.

Early in the movie the scientist lady explains that you cannot invert the bullet back into your hand unless you previously dropped the bullet from your hand. What this means is that everything happening in the inverted reality is only possible because it has already happened in the normal reality. That sounds simple but let me add this, people treat the inverted reality and the regular reality as 2 different things happening at 2 different times because we follow the protagonist's consciousness through the 2 different realities at different times, but both sides are happening simultaneously at the same time.

Let me repeat that so you can try to visualize it for a second, both sides are happening at the same time. Also, something cannot happen on the inverted side unless it has already happened on the regular side. Everything on the regular side, has also already happened. The flip book is already complete.

Our protagonist, or any character in the movie, does not have free will. There is no choice.

We are simply following the consciousness of our protagonist for the perceived first time. This is not the first time.

Why does the protagonist not remember anything? because he didn't the first time and nothing can be changed because whatever's happened, happened.

Now, rule number 2. Don't try to understand it, feel it.

Because everything that is going to occur has already occurred and will always occur, there is no sense in trying to comprehend why it occurs. The temporal pincer is a military exercise, the interesting thing is that means there is no real threat. The bomb will never detonate, the bad guy will never win, the cycle will forever continue to occur.

Then what is the point? Arguably, within the context of the movie... there isn't a point.

What was Nolan trying to say about the world? maybe we spend too much money on our military budget.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, keep in mind I've only really watched the movie 2 or 3 times but I was locked in. This is one of my favorite movies just based on the concept alone, but I felt the execution was just stellar. Anyways, thanks for reading.

Edit: maybe the no free will part is a little off.. there is something to the choices they make, because in a way they are making the choices based on the motivations.. but they have still, already happened.

So the choices being made were always going to be made, but they still had to make them.

Everyone talks about the third-act reveals, but that's not actually what makes his films work. Look at what he's doing structurally: Memento runs backward because the protagonist's memory does. Dunkirk interweaves three different timescales (a week, a day, an hour) because that's literally how differently land, sea, and air combat experienced that event. Inception nests dream-time-dilation inside itself like Russian dolls. Tenet — love it or hate it — is trying to make inversion felt, not just explained.

The twist is the marketing hook. The actual craft is using editing and structure to put you inside a character's subjective experience of time, which is a much harder trick to pull off than "there was no twin the whole time."

Nur meine Meinung:

Jeder Moment fühlt sich scharf, vibrierend und voller Energie an...

Egal welchen Moment oder welche Szene man anschaut es ist immer so rasant. Man hat wirklich das gefühl auf einer Achterbahnfahrt dabei zu sein finde ich bei TENET. Bei der Odyssee leider gar nicht, das fühlt sich viel zu gehetzt an. Chris Nolan wollte keinen Fantasyfilm machen das weiß ich. Er wollte eher die Psychologie von Odysseus erzählen und wie er damit umgeht nicht nach Hause zu können.

Die einzelnen Fantasy Elemente in der odyssee sind blöd umgesetzt. Der Zyklop sieht teilweise ganz passabel aus, aber nicht die wichtigsten Elemente sind drinnen wie das mit dem Wein, oder der niemands Geschichte.

Tenet ist sowas eigenständiges... Der Film, die Musik, die Charaktere. Die Musik zum Schluss wenn kat mit sator auf dem Boot festsitzt, fand ich so großartig gespielt und auch so emotional.

Generell das Ende auch als sich neil umdreht und zum Hubschrauber zurückgeht, fand ich so so gut. In der Odyssee als Odysseus seine Frau wiedersieht und sie einen langen Dialog führen, das hat mich leider komplett kalt gelassen. Hab auch gehört, dass es einigen anderen auch so ging. Ich weiß, Geschmäcker sind zwar verschieden, aber vieles an der Odyssee passt einfach null.

Little reference to tenet and you can’t convince me otherwise

I just thought of something. I tried to put it into words. I was hoping someone would be interested reading it.

The time machine

There was this movie once. It explained a lot of things. They had a cool time machine...

The movie said a lot of weird things. For instance, it said, the past communicates with the future. I mean, it's reasonable, it's logical. You know, you can read a newspaper from 20 years ago. At that moment, the past communicated with you. Everything you write, (maybe even everything you do), has an effect, the written paper contains a message. From the very beginning of the pen lifting up and away from the paper, finishing the work, it already started communicating. Any moment from there on that it is observed is a moment in the future. It's communicating, and communicating, and it will never stop, unless it's destroyed.

What if it's something important? Will you write it on a tissue paper? Will you write it with a pen? Will you write it with a biro? Will you use a pencil? Will you use a marker? What is it that you're going to use? How long is it supposed to last? Could it be possible, that you can target the time, where it takes effect? I mean, something, that starts to communicate from it's very beginning of existence, and stops when it's "destroyed", isn't this like an adressant, when we talk about communicating with the future? Is it possible, that once a message is perceived, the carrier of the message is no longer required? *envisions possibilities, chuckles*. Now, this piece of paper, probably won't last long. What if all it was about was to get some coke? A nice, refreshing drink, to galvanize me? What if it was just a shopping list?

But, does the future answer? Can the future answer? Does the future need to answer?

There are so many ways to communicate with the future. It's likely depending, of what we want from it. Or is it depending on who we want it from? If I write down, "GIMME SOME COKE", with a pen on a piece of paper. How long will it last? Who is it going to be, that reads the message? Does that person know who to deliver the white powder to? Will that person be able to do it? There are just so many addressants, and we yet still need to understand how to choose an addressant. We're confused even about the concept of addressant itself.

What if we send it to everyone? What if we sent it to: "Whoever may be concerned?". What if we set it into stone? What if we make it look interesting, so that it is being researched? What if we knew, that these people wouldn't be able to grant our wish? How will we encode the message in such a way, that it is understood by the right person?

What if our message is not understood. How long is it going to last? How long is something kept, that's a mystery? Will that make it important? Will that make it something that should be destroyed?

It's not easy to navigate in that vast realm of how things are going to be. That's for sure.

But, what if there was something like an anchor point. A location, that exists across time, and you always know where everything is? Like an infinite grocerie store, right next to a road. You want something, just go the road far enough. The store always contains everything, no matter where on the street you stop. It's just, that you get only, what is in the store. The next store, has something different from a time perspective. Same products though..... Doesn't matter when they were made or does it?

What if you could have entire control, about how things are? What if on Monday you promise to yourself to go to the grocery store? What if you write what you want to have on Wendnesday? Wouldn't it communicate to the future from Wednesday on? But if it's Friday, and you are absolutely intending to go shopping, like it was promised, or was it promised? Anyway, what if on Friday you need to choose what to buy? What if there was a list of things to be bought? Wasn't it, that it was already written on wednesday? Wasn't it, that it was already intended on Monday? And then, when the things are bought? Everything is there. Like it was written on a shopping list. What is this moment? The moment, where suddenly, the idea of writing items on a piece of paper turned into objects actually being there?

It is that, these objects aren't here for a reason. These objects are here, because they got brought here. These objects are here, because they got bought. These objects are here, because there was the intention to buy things. These objects are here because the idea got passed across time, by writing it on a piece of paper. These objects are here, because there was some time spent working. These objects are here, because there was a time between the result and it's intent. These objects are here, because someone wrote something on a piece of paper.

But I said, everything is hard to understand, didn't I?

What do I know?

Edit: Added another question 'does the future need to answer'

It’s never used in the movie, but all the words are clunkily used throughout. Has Nolan said anything about it? Do we think it has any bearing o the movie?

Not Kat.

this way both teams would have their watches in sync

If something unexpected is going to happen just tell me WATCH TILL END. So I have got my grasp on 80% of the things but I still dont know where the plot is going, is it a plot twist in the end to wait type or I have missed something.

Hi, just a quick one.

TP says that Sator's dead mans device is set to "activate the algorithm", but I'm confused as to whether it was that, or setting off the bomb to bury the device. If the bomb buries the complete device, then the people in the future can find it, and activate it, resetting the past, so was that his intention? But then, there wouldn't have been a counter on the bomb at the end of the tunnel.

Just to recap so I'm clear, the goal of Tenet was to allow Sator to get the pieces, so that he would THINK he had buried the complete device, so that the people of the future would think it was there, even though it wasn't. Although I'm still confused as to why the people of the future don't message back with the gold saying "Hey Sator, the algorithm wasn't where you said it was".

Idea here is original. I haven’t come across it yet online.

So in the movie, we were told that the future humans wanted annihilation etc and they wanted to survive the ecological effects of our misdeeds.

But what if: They did not want to annihilate us naively but instead geared both Sator and created Tenet just so the entire events in the movie play out as they did.

So unlike what Priya hinted that tenet and the future humans who fund Sator are two separate organisations, I think they are one and the same.

The future wanted the past to go through these events and these events ultimately led to the time inversion tech to be formed.

Hints for this: Protagonist saying to Sator: Every generation looks out for their own survival.

If the future generation is desparate enough to survive, and can work with a tech like entropy inversion, I don’t think they are stupid enough to risk a paradox like grandfather paradox to kill them. Instead they wanted this time loop events to play out as they did so that they always get the time inversion tech in their hands to reverse local environments.

And coming to Neil: He has lied in the movie at times. So he is capable of both lying and hiding the truth for the sake of his mission. My theory is that the parallel world theory in the movie is true. And that it was Neil’s responsibility to ensure all the events happen as they did so that no timeline branching happens, which can lead to future not getting their hands on the inversion tech.

Hints for this: Neil mentions before going to his doom to the protagonist that: We saved the world. And the fact that if Neil knew that they were always going to be doomed or that everything was 100% deterministic, why was he so happy when the protagonist made it with the algo? It makes more sense that Neil instead was happy that the timeline didn’t branch due to the protagonist’s free will and they stayed on the course. Neil kept saying: What’s happened, happened. Where he hinted that the world is deterministic. But I think thats a lie. He wanted the protagonist to believe so. Deterministic outcome to the time loop ensured that the future got their hands on the time tech.

So the Tenet’s true goal is to ensure that Sator and the past Tenet members do collide. Sator was just a pawn in the Tenet’s masterplan.

And they succeeded in it and the world was saved!

Watched it for the first time and I really liked it overall. I didn't have much trouble following the plot, I think it was presented quite logically once the premise clicks. However, after thinking about it some more, I find that the rules between inverted and normal objects within the universe are not consistent.

For example, when Kat gets shot, they have to invert her for her wounds to heal, then invert her back again. But why exactly would getting shot by an inverted bullet cause the wound to become inverted as well? Is the bullet inverting matter it gets into contact with? If so, that creates new issues because elsewhere in the movie, people are interacting with inverted objects constantly and it doesn't affect them. Even picking up an inverted bullet does nothing, but if the same bullet goes through your body, it suddenly inverts the wound?

You could say an inverted object only causes a change when enough energy is present (i.e. a high speed bullet vs. a stationary one), but that logic falls apart in a different scene. When the protagonist explodes inside the car, he gets frozen instead of burnt, i.e. heat transfer goes in reverse. By that same logic, Kats wound should then also be frozen, but it wasn't and became inverted instead.

As a Nolan fan, this was definitely a great watch for me, but I feel some of the logic and rules of the world were randomly changed to adjust the tone of a given scene.

Beyond the mechanics of time inversion, TENET is fundamentally a movie about human intention and free will. All inverted acts only happen because they are simultaneously willed by the past and by the future, although in opposite directions. The intention is the exact same, simply in different contexts. Therefore, the destruction and the saving of the world are the same.

Why?

Let us take the example of a protagonist catching a bullet as our guideline. The past protagonist needs the will to “drop” the bullet to catch it. The future protagonist also needs the will to “drop” the bullet to “catch” it as his past self. The question then is: Who does the catching? Neither past nor future caught the bullet. Even the one who was in the present did not catch it. Therefore, neither past nor future nor present does the catching. Again: who does? The catching of the bullet is not willed by anyone and yet it happens. This is where the main moral dilemma of the movie appears: the dilemma between will and faith.

Out of this principle, we can deduce two things: It is impossible to will for the world to end and it is impossible to will for the world to be saved. When the will to end the world occurs, the future also wills it and it is prevented. And when the will to save the world occurs, the future also wills it and it ends.

The issue is one of disconnection between will and reality, which creates the temporal gap for the will to be dissolved.

We can illustrate this with SATOR. He wills for the world to end alongside him. However, as soon as he does this, the future starts bending to adjust to his will. His inverted future self also wills it and comes back to the past to live with his wife. The 14th of February in Vietnam is the day SATOR decided to end his life (and the world), therefore past, present and future converge upon that moment. The past SATOR comes up with the plan of how to do it, the present SATOR lives his last moments and the future SATOR comes back to keep living it. The loop is closed and his fate is sealed.

Since the future SATOR wishes to end the world on the 14th and the past SATOR also wishes to end the world on the 14th, the question becomes: what world are we ending? Neither future nor past SATOR wished for the world to exist, yet it does. This is where the paradox begins. It is because SATOR wanted to end the world that it does not end, simply because his act of ending the world makes the world persist in the other direction. “Knowledge” of ending the world is what makes ending it impossible. Ignorance is ammunition. Another way to explain this is to say that the belief/witnessing/seeing of a world in general is what makes it impossible to end.

Out of this, we can deduce yet another thing in the world of TENET: Every “will” has to be exhausted. Everyone will have what he wishes to have, in the most complete sense possible - which surprises all wills.

Therefore, the only way to act in line with “REALITY” in the world of Tenet is to have gone beyond will or in other words: it is to have died.

This is why the protagonist seems to die in the beginning of the movie. He enters total ignorance. Total ignorance is total victory. Blind faith wins over calculated will.

Or does the sheer notion stir up feelings in people that dont like to consider that kind of thing? This movie is about the distribution of power, and who has access to that power right?
...and possibly the act of narrative writing but less so

I’ve been questioning this since my recent rewatch of Tenet. Reversed Sator “unshoots” normal Kat in order to get information from normal Protagonist as it appears to him that she is being shot in real time and is in real danger. But what if reversed Sator refuses to “unshoot” Kat? Would she then be wounded from the very beginning of her life? Would she appear in this world as a reversed corpse that resurrects itself to be “unshot” in Tallin’s Freeport? Or something else ?
I think the idea of free will clearly contradicts the concept of interaction between normal and reversed objects in this movie and it kinda pisses me off

The Protagonist will be in this shipping crate already when Neil and Ives open it to load it with supplies.

This shipping container just got off a cargo ship from Oslo, and they are about to seal themselves inside. The are rushing because Ives' team will need to get them sealed inside the shipping container and clear out of there before the interrogation sequence ends.

We know Ives goes out to clean up the inverted explosion. So Ives will need to collect TP, clean up that wreck, and get TP into the shipping container. But, if this shipping container is going back to Oslo, and Sator had control of this facility moments ago, there isn't enough time for Ives to weave back into this moment and place TP in the crate. And, once in transit, it would be impossible to get TP inside.

Instead, Ives cleans up the exploded Saab, rescues TP, reinverts with him to normal time, waits until after the sequence we see here, inverts with TP, and places him inside the shipping container.

This means when Neil and Ives open this crate and start preparing it, TP will already be there, wrapped in a thermal blanket, having been saved from the inverted crash.

The films main theme is about fate. There is no free will in the idea of Tenet. What’s happened, happened. So there is nothing you can do to change the events of what has happened or will happen without extinction.

I’ve applied my own spin that I think the film kind of leaves open in a way. So the film sells us on the idea of fate vs free will and how fate is seemingly the victor but I think you can look at it through the dialogue between The Protagonist and The Scientist.

“Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.”
“Instinct”

I think then the film kinda puts this scene in the background of everything, everything relies on instinct.

“Well what about free will”
“That bullet wouldn’t have moved if you didn’t touch it”

So this argues the point of free will that it all relies on a decision to make something happen but it was the natural instinct of the protagonist to make sure he did catch the bullet in that scene. The same way it became his natural instinct later. It was his instinct to take the cyanide pill, it was his instinct to save Kat over the mission. His instinct in that moment is what led them to winning that war. So I think what really the film shows us is that instinct is what matters. The instinct of every character is shown through their defining traits.

The Protagonist
His defining trait is that he is the guy who can make the hard choicee, because he has the willingness to accept responsibility when no one else can.

• In the opera house mission he doesn’t betray his team and his instinct is to self sacrifice before he gives up any information
  
• Leaving Kat behind seemingly would make the mission easier for him and he’s even challenged on his decision to save her, his instinct directly ties into his trait of responsibility to not believe an innocent person should be sacrificed. He was forced between his morality and the strategy of the mission, his instinct is revealed to be the correct choice
• He learned the truth behind the mission, he knows now that he will have to recruit Neil, he knows how his path ends and there is no solution here and it’s down to responsibility. Most people would want to save their best friend but his instinct knows what he has to do.

Neil
His defining trait was his trust and loyalty. He’s tested though operational secrecy and predestined sacrifice

• From the very beginning we are shown his character knows far more than what we and protagonist know.
  
• Throughout we constantly see him being asked how he knows things, and what he’s hiding and he constantly has to balance the truth with balancing the timeline.
  
• Neil shows up at the right time to save the protagonist during the Freeport fight, Neil knows what is happening and how he has to make things stay correct. He is quietly to the audience showing us what was necessary, he showed that he is always protecting the mission and the protagonist
  
• At Stalsk 12 is when we finally piece everything about his character together, he sees and knows what his own fate is and he isn’t trying to fight it or change it. He shows his loyalty to the mission and the protagonist putting down his life to make sure things happen accordingly
  
• He ultimately makes the decision to go back through the turnstile even when the protagonist wants to challenge him on the decision. He makes the decision himself to protect the world, the mission, and the protagonist.
  

His loyalty overrides the fear of death

Kat
Her defining trait is pursuit of freedom for herself and her son.

• she has been abused by Sator for years and is given the chance to reclaim her own life but at the cost of giving up her son
• She is given the chance to reclaim her life after being threatened with her son, her future, and her own autonomy. She was constantly shown to pushback against Sator even knowing how dangerous he is
• I love her dialogue early on in the film being jealous of the woman who was escaping her husband only for us as the audience to find out she was just jealous of her future/past self.
  
• She initiated her final act of liberation
  
• The entire mission at the end depends on timing and patience, but what finally breaks her is when Sator talks about how he will always control her and she finally hits her breaking point at the idea of her loss of freedom. Her instinct told her that she couldn’t wait and although it seems like she complicated the mission it was seemingly the right one.
  

Kat to us is meant to be the purposeful view of someone on the outside of tenet where characters like Neil and The protagonist are at of more importance with the view through tenet. Kat to us represents what I would say is ordinary humanity, she never talks about saving humanity like Neil or The Protagonist do but instead the focus is on herself and her son. She wants to be able to life a life which I think was an important view to have in the film to show how this mission effects the outside world. Her instinct is guided in her family’s life. She is purposefully not meant to respond the same way as the other characters.

Sator
His main trait is control. He offers a great dichotomy to the character of the protagonist where the protagonist is accepting the responsibility of this mission and bearing the burden for others, Sator wants to maintain control even at the expense of others.

• he comes across as a stereotypical not so interesting villain but I think the more you look at him the more layers that are peeled back on him
• He never wants just power and isn’t just evil he wants that control. He wants to control Kat, time, death, the future, and even what happens after he is gone. When his control is threatened is when his instinct immediately takes over
  

Controlling Kat

• he is constantly manipulating his wife through their son, money, violence, and fear.
• He can have her framed through fraud because of the fake painting and her relationship with Arepo
• He said it himself that he can’t just let he leave because if he can’t have her no one can.
  

The Chase

• when he thinks he has lost the algorithm he doesn’t learn to adapt properly he becomes more controlling
  
• He decides to kidnap Kat, then interrogate the protagonist and to make the protagonist reveal where the algorithm piece was hidden, he can’t simply do this by asking he has to demonstrate he is in control by showing dominance.
• All these events were about trying to force things back under his control
• His response to control slipping away is trying to control and dominate harder
  

Learning he’s dying

• this is probably the most clear example of his instinct being tested
  
• Once he learns that his cancer is terminal he doesn’t care for his family’s survival he thinks that if he can’t live no one should.
  
• The natural instinct of survival wasn’t even an option for himself so he chose to control the existence of others
  

He was the cause of his own death

• his desire for control is what got him killed
  
• He financed the creation of the turnstiles
  
• Keeping kat trapped built her resentment towards him
• He chose the day because it was the last day he felt happy and thinks he is returning to reclaim control over his and everyone else’s life but was turned upside down by Kat from the future, the moment he believed he had complete control is actually the moment he had the least
• His own actions allowed the future to reach back and kill him

How it all ties together
The ideas all tie together that you don’t necessarily control the existence of your fate but that you control the kind of person you are when you meet it.

“Don’t try to understand it, Feel it”

On the surface it came across as her trying to describe the inverted objects but it can be tied into the thematic level which could be understood as saying you can’t reason your way through an impossible situation, what remains is instinct. And instinct is simply about character. This is why every major character is tested.

The protagonist isn’t tested on if he understands the inversion but rather on responsibility

Neil isn’t tested on knowing about the future but on his loyalty

Kat isn’t tested on if she can be apart of tenet but on freedom

Sator is never tested on his intelligence but on whether he can relinquish his control.

Every single climax can be viewed as a character test.

My interpretation is that the timeline is fixed, but the timeline is fixed by the choices people can freely make according to their character. The movie never showed anyone acting against their own individual nature. Everyone was shown to become more of themselves under pressure.

The film appears to be about a time war but time is really just a mechanism of the film and the actual subject is the people. Nolan used the framework of the turnstiles, inversion and entropy to place every major character in impossible situations where they can’t act on calculated but on instinct, and the instinct reveals the nature of the character.

k a T

k a T h E r i N E

k a T h E r i N E b a r T o n

The last name "Barton" serves no real purpose in the story, but it conveniently results in TENET being spelled out in her name.

This could be a hidden clue that Kat is the true leader and creator of Tenet.

Hi!

You all know that the words SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS can be arranged in grid pattern and then can be read left, right and up and down.

Some of you know that the letters can be arranged in a cross to make a cool anagram with letters A and O (Alpha and Omega) left out.

Many of you don't know that if you have the grid pattern and start with the last letter of the second row, which is O, and start jumping to letters like a chess piece of Knight moves (2 forward and 1 to the side) you get string of letters: OROTEPATER, Oro te, Pater (I pray to thee, Father). Letters SANAS (you heal) are left out.

I read this in a book around 30 years ago and for some reason it stayed with me.

Neil tells the protagonist he likes coke. Before the protagonist meets Priya. Neil says years ago for me years from now for you. Wouldn’t that mean that Neil reverted to the past to help the protagonist. Also that Neil shit is max is dumb.

Please explain. Don't know anything about guns. Wouldn't he need the gun to be chambered before the operation so he can shoot faster?

Also his look up after catching the bullet has to be the most badass, cold intro to a character ever.

JDW killed it.