Movies Calling the Mayberry Movie Crew: Help Me Explain TENET (2020)

[Bullitt68]

Hello to the Mayberry movie crew. I have a task that's long overdue and that I need your help with. It might not be possible, but damn it I want to try. I rewatched Tenet last night. For the last few years, every rewatch has me flip-flopping: One viewing, I think it's genius; the next viewing, I think it's idiotic. It's been like that for too long now. I want to settle this once and for all: Is Tenet brilliant or dumb?

As I see it, it works quite well on the level of theme, with its symbols and metaphors. Time has always been one of Nolan's main themes and regret/loss/trauma/growth have always been points to hit on Nolan's character arcs. But the time travel element in the plot here threatens to upend everything and reduce it to rank idiocy (which doesn't happen, for example, in Inception, which is complex but actually quite straightforward and simple to grasp). Maybe it's because I can't stop thinking linearly, but I must admit that I still don't feel like I "get" the film, and I don't mean thematically...I mean I'm not sure I understand WTF I'm watching, what's actually happening on the level of the plot.

My biggest source of confusion: How many "versions" of these characters ("inverted" or regular, moving forwards or backwards) are there running around this story? I feel like there are at least three or four Protagonists running around, at least two or three Sators, and then Neil seems to have a fucking time travel army running around every which way. Not to mention, the temporal pincer movement shit makes me want to find Nolan and punch him in the face. How does THAT work?

Does anybody feel confident that they know what happens in this film? Can any of you Mayberry geniuses who understand math and graphs and timelines and shit like that better than me map the film's chronology beginning to end? What are some lynchpin moments for you and what are some moments where threads seem to unravel?

What say you, Mayberry?

 

[Jack Reacheround]

There isn’t much to understand. Time running backward, and then having to drive a car in revserse or whatever - none of it makes any real logical sense. It’s just kind of a fun movie.

All you need to know is that

Spoiler

the main guy realizes that the organization he has been working for is run by his future self.

Everything else has no real impact. And a lot of it makes no sense. There’s some predestination paradox stuff in there that, on its own and I’m a vacuum, makes some sense. But largely it isn’t going to be, shall we say, scientifically accurate.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

I watched it and lost interest. Usually doesn't happen to a Nolan movie.

 

[Sonny Qc]

Any movies that play with time should be a tv series to be honest.

If they had 8x 1hours episode to explain everything and avoid plot holes,
It could be a lot better.

 

[Bullitt68]

There isn’t much to understand.

Time running backward, and then having to drive a car in revserse or whatever - none of it makes any real logical sense. It’s just kind of a fun movie [...] There’s some predestination paradox stuff in there that, on its own and I’m a vacuum, makes some sense. But largely it isn’t going to be, shall we say, scientifically accurate.

I'm cool with it not being scientifically accurate. The nuclear fission inverted entropy shit is perfect: Smart sounding sciency stuff that's not real but explains the premise. I'm good with that. But the actual mechanics of moving backwards and forwards through time, if THAT doesn't make sense then the stakes aren't as big in the set-pieces like the highway sequence or the gunfight at the bomb site plus the emotional payoffs for the characters don't pay as much.

Like the temporal pincer movement shit. How does everything on the highway breakdown? Sator has his goon tell him what happens on the first run, then he gets the Protagonist to tell him shit for the second run, then he notices something and goes back for a third run. Right? It's not just forwards and backwards there, there are THREE different "movements" to that sequence, even though I think there are only two Protagonists and I don't know how many Sators. And then the end battle. How do the red and blue teams coordinate shit at the end? How much did happen the first time and how much didn't for the second time to work? It's all too kooky and it does need to make sense if the film is going to work both conceptually and emotionally.

All you need to know is that

Spoiler

the main guy realizes that the organization he has been working for is run by his future self.

Well that's the obvious bit, although even THAT doesn't make too much sense because I'd assume he's not just stuck in a loop of forever doing that shit but has actually closed the loop by taking care of the loose ends...right?

 

[Bullitt68]

I watched it and lost interest. Usually doesn't happen to a Nolan movie.

It's a credit to Nolan that I never lose interest - I still love the set-pieces, the dynamic between John David Washington and Elizabeth Debicki, and the friendship between Washington and Robert Pattinson - but I did lose track of WTF he was doing, and that usually doesn't happen in a Nolan movie. No matter what, I always feel that he knew exactly what he was doing, and whether I need two viewings or ten viewings, I'm also always confident that I'll eventually get what he was doing, too. This one, not so much

Any movies that play with time should be a tv series to be honest.

If they had 8x 1hours episode to explain everything and avoid plot holes,
It could be a lot better.

For certain stories, TV is definitely the better format. I think that the current Dune shit should've been a Game of Thrones type series, not interminably long and boring movies in which nothing much happens except setting up the next interminably long and boring movies. Tenet's problem isn't the format I don't think, it's the lack of clear signposts and Nolan's too-eager recourse to "Don't think about it" and "Does your head hurt yet?" jokes and brush-offs instead of EXPLAINING WTF IS HAPPENING!

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Ask @Drunken Meat Fist

 

[Wilmer Digreux]

It's not about what it seems to be about on It's surface.

Tenet isn't about time travel Tenet is about AI and the corruption of information in the future.

 

[Osculater]

There isn’t much to understand. Time running backward, and then having to drive a car in revserse or whatever - none of it makes any real logical sense. It’s just kind of a fun movie.

All you need to know is that

Spoiler

the main guy realizes that the organization he has been working for is run by his future self.

Everything else has no real impact. And a lot of it makes no sense. There’s some predestination paradox stuff in there that, on its own and I’m a vacuum, makes some sense. But largely it isn’t going to be, shall we say, scientifically accurate.

 

[Bullitt68]

Tenet isn't about time travel Tenet is about AI and the corruption of information in the future.

I hope this is a joke, because that's the only way this would make any sense...

 

[Wilmer Digreux]

I hope this is a joke, because that's the only way this would make any sense...

Lol it's about AGI, imo. What are they trying to acquire that's worse than nukes? An algorithm.

 

[Bullitt68]

Lol it's about AGI, imo. What are they trying to acquire that's worse than nukes? An algorithm.

I'm pretty sure they're using that word differently in Tenet. It's not woo-woo tech talk like the matrix in The Matrix nor is it AI like Ultron in the MCU, it's the physical rendering of a formula in a nine-piece device and it's that device that they're trying to acquire and destroy. I'm pretty sure that I at least have that part of the plot right

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Like the temporal pincer movement shit. How does everything on the highway breakdown? Sator has his goon tell him what happens on the first run, then he gets the Protagonist to tell him shit for the second run, then he notices something and goes back for a third run.

Yeah, like I said. It makes no sense. If time is running backward, why aren’t the bullets flying out of people and into their guns? And if that’s happening, what’s the fucking point of going back to that time to change anything?

I haven’t seen it in a while but it really doesn’t make much sense but is still a fun movie.

 

[Bullitt68]

Yeah, like I said. It makes no sense. If time is running backward, why aren’t the bullets flying out of people and into their guns? And if that’s happening, what’s the fucking point of going back to that time to change anything?

That's definitely happening. It happens early in the opera house and it happens throughout that sequence, bullets "unshot" and explosions "unexploded." How it's all coordinated and how it leads to one distinct event...that's where my brain sends me the error message.

I haven’t seen it in a while but it really doesn’t make much sense but is still a fun movie.

(1) Keeping track of which character goes into which turnstyle and how many "versions" of them exist and where/when they exist and (2) getting a handle on temporal pincer movements and how the future and the past can "collaborate" on creating a present in the past that was decided on in the future are the two hurdles...and they're gigantic fucking hurdles. It's a fun movie that "works" very well emotionally, but it lacks the punch and profundity of Inception and Interstellar because even if Inception's dream levels are cool and Interstellar's interdimensional box of love is stupid, I at least understand the main sci-fi elements so that DiCaprio going back home and McConaughey getting back to his daughter are deep and resonant journeys. Tenet is so close and yet it also feels so far away.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

I've never understood why people have issues with this movie. You invert your entropy and now you're moving backwards in time rather than forwards. The end.

 

[Wilmer Digreux]

I'm pretty sure they're using that word differently in Tenet. It's not woo-woo tech talk like the matrix in The Matrix nor is it AI like Ultron in the MCU, it's the physical rendering of a formula in a nine-piece device and it's that device that they're trying to acquire and destroy. I'm pretty sure that I at least have that part of the plot right

maybe, but i still like the theory.

And one thing i recognize in nolans movies is he constructs them so that they make sense in multiple different ways. inception works equally well if you look at it as being about the film making process. Works equally well if he's dreaming at the end or not. memento it works if leonard killed his wife or not. And The Prestige works when you realize the entire film is a magic trick on the audience. it's sleight of hand. how? the twins, yeah. but also that teslas machine never did what they claimed...it all came from an unreliable narrator, knowing his foe would be reading his journal. the movie tricks the audience. right off the bat it asks the audience "are you watching closely?" to let you know. At the end he tells the movie audience "you're looking for the secret but you won't find it. because you're not really trying to figure it out. you don't want to know. you want to be fooled." it's a brilliant multi dimensional puzzle from a director whose company logo is a puzzle.

And with Tenet i think he is again talking to the audience with even the title of the movie being a palindrome, letting you know this movie works in different ways. imo he shows us many times not to trust any characters actual dialogue ...as everyone is wrong, lying or uninformed by the end. he doubles down on that with his choice to make the dialogue very hard to understand or even hear. that's deliberate. he's saying don't pay attention to the words, pay attention to what's happening and use instinct to figure it out, to just feel it.

So idk if it's really about agi or the nature of war or what. but i know there's more to discover with that movie. it's too complex for there not to be.

 

[Bullitt68]

I've never understood why people have issues with this movie. You invert your entropy and now you're moving backwards in time rather than forwards. The end.

Cool. Show me how to jump these hurdles:

(1) Keeping track of which character goes into which turnstyle and how many "versions" of them exist and where/when they exist and (2) getting a handle on temporal pincer movements and how the future and the past can "collaborate" on creating a present in the past that was decided on in the future are the two hurdles...and they're gigantic fucking hurdles.

This is why I made this thread. Splain it to me, Lucy.

one thing i recognize in nolans movies is he constructs them so that they make sense in multiple different ways.

Sure, but the problem with Tenet is that it doesn't make total sense in any way. Memento and Inception are perfect examples of how Nolan makes his puzzle films, and they work completely and sensibly from different interpretive vantage points. But no matter how you approach those films, they're "complete" films, they have clear beginnings, middles, and ends, they make sense and they have a nice bow on them. Leonard or Sammy, murderer or avenging angel, reality or limbo, these are Either/Or positions each of which makes as much sense as the other. Tenet is just...a bunch of stuff happening at different times and it's not clear how it all connects/coheres or even IF it all connects/coheres. That's not ambiguity, that seems more like sloppy/incoherent storytelling. Though I'm here to have it explained to me why it's not sloppy or incoherent.

 

[Rob Battisti]

Either way The Prestige is his best movie.

 

[Bullitt68]

Either way The Prestige is his best movie.

Nah, it's damn good but Memento, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, and Interstellar are all better IMO. I'd also rank Tenet above it if I were confident that I understood the damn movie

 

[William Huggins]

There isn’t much to understand. Time running backward, and then having to drive a car in revserse or whatever - none of it makes any real logical sense. It’s just kind of a fun movie.

All you need to know is that

Spoiler

the main guy realizes that the organization he has been working for is run by his future self.

Everything else has no real impact. And a lot of it makes no sense. There’s some predestination paradox stuff in there that, on its own and I’m a vacuum, makes some sense. But largely it isn’t going to be, shall we say, scientifically accurate.

He's self employed?