Official T E N E T Thread

[daemonova]

It's time inversion where everything flows both forward and backwards simultaneously. Neil was part of the inverted team while the Protagonist was part of the team going forward. The inverted team was supposed to cause a distraction to provide the illusion to Sator that the battle for the final piece was a success and that team TENET failed. The forward team that the Protagonist was on was suppose to get the final piece before it was detonated. While the Protagonist was going in to retrieve it, Neil saw them triggering a booby trap. He goes in to prevent that from occurring. The part that maybe confusing was WHEN he went from being inverted to progressive when doing through the inversion turn-style.

To understand this, you have to go the ending of the movie. At the ending of the movie, a non-inverted NEIL pulled the Protagonist out of the underground cave before it detonated. He told the Protagonist that he's returning back. So the Neil returns with the inverted Team despite him non-inverted. This mean there were TWO NEILS on the INVERTED TEAM: Neil created a cycle of himself in which he sacrificed himself to save humanity. Watch again and see at the same time Neil was shot in reverse, the other Neil was on the HUMVEE driving to where he could pull the Protagonist out.

You get all that @CarltonJunior ?

 

[ultraflexed]

To understand this, you have to go the ending of the movie. At the ending of the movie, a non-inverted NEIL pulled the Protagonist out of the underground cave before it detonated. He told the Protagonist that he's returning back. So the Neil returns with the inverted Team despite him non-inverted. This mean there were TWO NEILS on the INVERTED TEAM: Neil created a cycle of himself in which he sacrificed himself to save humanity. Watch again and see at the same time Neil was shot in reverse, the other Neil was on the HUMVEE driving to where he could pull the Protagonist out.

So at the end the need to go back into the turnstile so Neil could pick the lock, remember the other guy said we dont have anyone better..

That's when john David started to cry cause he knew Neil was going to get kill once he picked that locked, cause he remember the guy who got shot in picking the lock WAS neil, so he was saying his final goodbye

 

[CarltonJunior]

You get all that @CarltonJunior ?

 

[Lootpack]

Im watching this as we speak? One hour in... when does it start to make sense?
Im lost like a babe in the woods.
Am i an idiot?

It starts making sense when the credits roll

 

[FaTaL]

Im watching this as we speak? One hour in... when does it start to make sense?
Im lost like a babe in the woods.
Am i an idiot?

You’ll need another watch

 

[Poetical Poltergeist]

It's time inversion where everything flows both forward and backwards simultaneously. Neil was part of the inverted team while the Protagonist was part of the team going forward. The inverted team was supposed to cause a distraction to provide the illusion to Sator that the battle for the final piece was a success and that team TENET failed. The forward team that the Protagonist was on was suppose to get the final piece before it was detonated. While the Protagonist was going in to retrieve it, Neil saw them triggering a booby trap. He goes in to prevent that from occurring. The part that maybe confusing was WHEN he went from being inverted to progressive when doing through the inversion turn-style.

To understand this, you have to go the ending of the movie. At the ending of the movie, a non-inverted NEIL pulled the Protagonist out of the underground cave before it detonated. He told the Protagonist that he's returning back. So the Neil returns with the inverted Team despite him non-inverted. This mean there were TWO NEILS on the INVERTED TEAM: Neil created a cycle of himself in which he sacrificed himself to save humanity. Watch again and see at the same time Neil was shot in reverse, the other Neil was on the HUMVEE driving to where he could pull the Protagonist out.

 

[FaTaL]

It's time inversion where everything flows both forward and backwards simultaneously. Neil was part of the inverted team while the Protagonist was part of the team going forward. The inverted team was supposed to cause a distraction to provide the illusion to Sator that the battle for the final piece was a success and that team TENET failed. The forward team that the Protagonist was on was suppose to get the final piece before it was detonated. While the Protagonist was going in to retrieve it, Neil saw them triggering a booby trap. He goes in to prevent that from occurring. The part that maybe confusing was WHEN he went from being inverted to progressive when doing through the inversion turn-style.

To understand this, you have to go the ending of the movie. At the ending of the movie, a non-inverted NEIL pulled the Protagonist out of the underground cave before it detonated. He told the Protagonist that he's returning back. So the Neil returns with the inverted Team despite him non-inverted. This mean there were TWO NEILS on the INVERTED TEAM: Neil created a cycle of himself in which he sacrificed himself to save humanity. Watch again and see at the same time Neil was shot in reverse, the other Neil was on the HUMVEE driving to where he could pull the Protagonist out.

regulardude

• FaTaL
• Dec 18, 2015

It’s very clear to me that, I need to watch this sh!t again

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

It's time inversion where everything flows both forward and backwards simultaneously. Neil was part of the inverted team while the Protagonist was part of the team going forward. The inverted team was supposed to cause a distraction to provide the illusion to Sator that the battle for the final piece was a success and that team TENET failed. The forward team that the Protagonist was on was suppose to get the final piece before it was detonated. While the Protagonist was going in to retrieve it, Neil saw them triggering a booby trap. He goes in to prevent that from occurring. The part that maybe confusing was WHEN he went from being inverted to progressive when doing through the inversion turn-style.

To understand this, you have to go the ending of the movie. At the ending of the movie, a non-inverted NEIL pulled the Protagonist out of the underground cave before it detonated. He told the Protagonist that he's returning back. So the Neil returns with the inverted Team despite him non-inverted. This mean there were TWO NEILS on the INVERTED TEAM: Neil created a cycle of himself in which he sacrificed himself to save humanity. Watch again and see at the same time Neil was shot in reverse, the other Neil was on the HUMVEE driving to where he could pull the Protagonist out.

Huh?

 

[Marks]

The title is bait but a good break down in this yt video. Like others have said you I think Nolan expects you to watch at least twice to fully grasp what's going on. That first time is pretty much just for texture and nice visuals. Second time around is when you start understanding whats looping and where.

 

[ultraflexed]

Awesome movie when over year later ppeople are still trying to figure it out

 

[ciubaca]

You’ll need another watch

I couldnt even finish the damn movie...i dont care that the movie is a "technical masterpiece" its a movie not a mercedes engine.
The story is the most important part of the movie.

 

[CHICAGO]

BEST LOOKING 4K MOVIE IVE SEEN



​

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Okay, so I watched this movie for the first time. Only thing I knew before going in is that it would play with the concept of time, that John Washington was the star and that a lot of people found it overly complicated.

Honestly I didn't really like it... But I'm not mad at it. I think I got the overall story but there were many parts that I just didn't understand.

I'd break it down in four parts:

Spoiler

1. scientist in the future who will find a way to invert stuff. She will build a machine capable of it but will think it too dangerous, so she'll break the "recipe" down in parts and send them to the past in a safe place, thanks the to the machine. The safest place would be nuclear weapon sites, so she will revert it so it finds its way there.

2.a But folks in the future will want the recipe to build more machines, so they will use the one that will already exist to send messages and instructions to the past, to the Russian bad guy in the 90s, because he's at the right place at the right time. Russian bad guy has started to collect the parts of the recipe.

2.b Folks in the future will want to kill everybody in the past because we caused and are causing climate change. So they think that by killing us, it will make a better future for them.

3. Whatever the case is, the protagonist gets contacted by an organization to stop the Russian bad guy. He learns on the fly about the time concepts, meets people in the know, and succeeds.

4. He learns that he is the one who, in the future, will create the organization who hired him, probably using the inverting machine to set it up.

So of course, the classic paradox: he can't set up the organization if he didn't go through this whole adventure, which doesn't happen without the organization he set up, which he needs the adventure for, etc. Infinite timeloop. I can bite the bullet on that one.

There is so much stuff that I didn't get though. I just had to shrug and keep it moving. Just a few:

Spoiler

• The whole opening scene at the opera. I still don't know what the fukk he was there to do originally. From what I gathered, one of the agents he'll set up in the future saves his life doing some inverted shenanigans. Okay. But then he gets captured and tries to take his own life just to wake up okay. How the fukk is he alive? I know the pills were fake but why did the Russian not cut him in pieces and throw him in a ditch? Was it all expensive theatrics? Why?
• Why is the protagonist going with a mission he doesn't know about for an organization he doesn't know about?
• Why is getting hit with an inverted bullet any different than getting hit with a normal one?
• How can a gun retrieve an inverted bullet? Wouldn't you have to push the trigger instead of pulling it and invert the whole process of firing for the bullet to go back in it?
• Why is he such a simp for the blonde woman? To the point of compromising the mission in every way? Wtf? I thought he was a ruthless CIA agent.
• What's the point of doing the pincer operations if you can't change the past? Everytime they go through time normally, they see these folks doing reverted stuff, and then, when the situation is over, they invert their ownselves to do the exact same shyt they saw these folks do in the past. For what then? If it's bound to happen, they could just sit down and watch that shyt manifest somehow, no?
• The pincer operation proves that what's happened happened. So why do the folks in the future try to kill everybody thinking it'll do anything for them? If they're there, that means they already lost.
• Why, sometimes, they go inverted and nobody noticed them? But everytime the protagonist does it, he sees the inverted people. I'm thinking about the scene where they go back to the plane crash site and nobody pays them attention.
• Why don't they have to breathe in masks when they're in their little plastic shuttles?

Moreso than these plot points, the movie makes me wonder if it's cool for a movie to not be understood the first time you watched it. Because surely that's what was supposed to happen with this one. So I'd imagine that the deal for the filmmaker is to entertain the audience enough to make them want to watch it again, or at least watch breakdowns on youtube or something.

But in that regard... I can't say the movie did it for me I have no interest in watching breakdowns like that, probably because besides the concepts that did not grab me like that, the rest was so dry to me. I can't say anything interesting about the characters besides that the protagonist was a simp, the blonde wife a coward and an idiot, and Robert Pattinson knew some shyt. Their relationships, emotions, personalities were either non-existent or pushed to the side to make room for concepts and action scenes.

So yeah, this wasn't for me. But I respect the risks taken.

 

[Lord Beasley]

common misconception, the movie is not that complicated.
The action scenes are incredible too.

 

[sjankis630]

MiscievousMonk thanks for taking the time to break it down. This was the only movie I saw in 2020 during that year of Covid and even at the theater with my full attention there was just too much ambiguity/confusion.
I have not watched again since that first theater viewing. I have taken some time to watch a few YouTube videos but it still didn’t help me understand it much better.
Your explanations helped more but not enough to see it again.

Spoiler

Regarding the opera scene. I believe the whole point of that operation was to find the spy in there who could lead them to a piece of the weapon. I may be wrong on this one but he did that silly code exchange with the guy before rappelling down with him.

Regarding the deadliness of inverted bullets, I am pretty sure the inversion process makes inverted bullets slightly radioactive which undoubtedly poison the bloodstream. That is the whole reason they had to take the blonde woman back thru the turnstile to un-invert her condition? Lol I guess I am still confused.

as to why he was wimping for the blonde woman. That one is easy. He is a Coli member PAWGing at his best. Lol.