﻿Ok so Tenet is now out in the UK and the film makes the script for Memento look like the
Script for the Power Rangers movie...the 90s one. There's a lot to talk about and throughout this,
we're gonna be breaking down everything that you need to know about its plot,
the order of the events, and the way that the time inversion in the film works.
I just wanna get into it as there’s a lot to unpack but obviously there will be heavy spoilers
here so if you haven’t seen it then I suggest you watch this when you’ve had the time...
Anyway enough of the bad jokes, let’s get into our breakdown of TENET.
TENET Time Inversion Explained ________________
Ok so before discussing the plot we actually have to go over the premise of the movie,
namely the time inversion that's used in it. Though the film tries to dabble with
the idea of the multi worlds theory which was coined by David Deutsch,
in the end it actually subscribes to the Grandfather Paradox way of thinking.
This theory states that if one were to travel back in time and kill their grandfather
before they had given birth to their mother or father, they would find this impossible because
one would not be born in order to travel back and kill their grandfather in the first place.
Even though the movie makes it seem like it could be possible to change the past,
the characters in it are actually on predetermined paths to make sure that everything happens the
way that it's supposed to, whether intentional or not. This has massive implications for the ending
and makes things operate on a closed loop. Now as for the time inversion technology,
we learn that in the future there exists an Oppenheimer like Scientist.
Incase you don't know Robert Oppenheimer was the Atomic Bomb designer and similar to the
real life figure, this scientist develops world ending technology through the use of radiation.
Within phsyics there exists things known Tachyon particles which hypothetically
can travel faster than light. Because of this being inconsistent with the laws of physics,
these particular particles are able to potentially move backwards and forwards through time.
The future Scientist developed a way to invert an objects entropy so instead of
moving forward through time, like how we experience it, it actually moves backwards.
However, because the future relies on the past, these particles cannot change things in the past
and they must follow the motion in which they were put into the future which is their past.
This entropy has several negative effects on the human body and bullets which are inverted
deal catastrophic damage as it's impossible to treat wounds caused by them due to the object
moving backwards through time. When humans are subjected to it too they also struggle as instead
of breathing in oxygen they're breathing in carbon dioxide and therefore have to don gasmasks.
I hope this makes sense but yeah, lots of stuff to get your head around. This is basically how
our protagonist is able to fight himself from the future moving backwards and so on and so forth.
The most simplistic way of describing it that I can think of is that if you watch this video
from the beginning to end you will have the film explained to you. However if you were to rip the
video and then play it backwards, though the same information would be conveyed to you it
would be reversed. However if you had your entropy inverted it would play out the same and you would
once more see it how it was meant to be played only you and the video would be moving backwards.
The scientist realised that this would be a weapon of immense power
that could cause the universe to fold in on itself if enough items were inverted
and thus she splits up an object known as the Algorithm into nine parts
and inverts them, sending them back through time. However, there are those in the future that do not
believe that the past actually has any bearing on their present and that they would create an
alternate timeline for themselves to live in in destroying it. Because of Climate Change and the
way that the world is in the future, they are facing extinction and in a last ditch attempt
to save themselves they believe that wiping out the cause of their misery, namely us,
would mean that their present is no longer victim to the things that we wrought onto the world.
Basically imagine Skynet but with less rebooted timelines and you get the idea.
Though it's not said I believe that the reverse entropy studies stemmed
from trying to reverse the effects on the world itself but they hit a brick wall and
thus assumed that they could remove us in one fell swoop to completely mitigate the problem.
These people in the future communicate with an arms dealer known as Sator
who we learn has inoperable pancreotic cancer. Sator is an extremely possessive and selfish man
and because of this he believes that if he has to die then the
rest of the world should go with him. When Sator was younger he discovered a large
metal drum in the ruins of a destroyed city. This was filled with several gold bricks and
also instructions which were directed at him on what he should do going forward. This pretty much
outlined his plot and it becomes the basis of the Protagonists mission.
Now we could sit here debating time travel all day and Tenet is smart to not dwell on it for too long
but I will be putting together a more indepth breakdown of it later in the week.
TENET Plot Breakdown However you do need to understand the basics of it
to understand how it moves forward. To explain it better I'll be using our Protagonist abtly named
The Progaonist to explain how everything works. At the beginning he is moving forwards through
time and we join him as he is about embark on a operation to stop a siege at an opera in Kiev.
Here he encounters the first part of the algorithm but the mission goes awry and it's taken
by the Russian Forces. The Protagonist is almost killed during the op, however he is saved by a man
who seems to be moving backwards. This man has a backpack with a piece of red string hanging
out of it which becomes important later on The Protagonist who I'm just gonna be calling
John from now on because hey, if they don't use his name I might as well use the actors,
John is captured and tortured however he bites down on a suicide pill,
showing that he is willing to sacrifice himself. John wakes up and it's revealed that this was
actually a test to see if he was willing to put his life on the line no matter what
and he is drafted into a secret organisation and told the word Tenet.
Tenet is of course a pallandrome which means that it's the same forwards as it is backwards and it's
provides a way of thinking that really needs to be on your Radar...get it...because radar is the same
forwards as it is backwar...nevermind. In this organisation John learns of the
time inverted objects, namely bullets which he tracks to an arms dealer named Priyah
who eventually leads him to Sator. Sator is a closely guarded man and John believes that he
can use the villains estranged wife in order to get closer to him and find out what's going on.
We discover that Sator's wife Kat absolutely hates her husband but she can't leave him because of her
son whom she loves dearly. Sator has complete control over her life and only allows her to
meet her son for a couple of moments at the end of school before he's picked up by his men. Sator
once bought a forged painting and should Kat try to do anything, he would incriminate her for the
piece and thus she would end up in jail. There was a time when the pair were happy
and they spent some time together on Sator's boat. It looked like things were going to change however
when Kat was travelling back to the boat one day she noticed a woman diving off it into the see,
thus she assumed that Sator was having an affair and the two drifted apart.
Kat explains that she will give John a dinner with her husband in exchange for destroying the
painting and during this mission, John comes face to face with a swat team member who is
moving backwards through time. Inside Sator's vault they discover a time inversion machine
which the assailant and another version of himself springs from but
he manages to escape before they can kill him. This pretty much ruins the mission and John lies
to Kat in order to gain access to her husband. Now I'm gonna kinda jump over the plot points
here as there's so many that we could end up in a video longer than the movie itself but
I absolutely adored the way that Nolan put the building blocks in place early on before knocking
the entire house down around you. In the first hour I was a bit unsure of what was going on
but by the end it really came together after going completely bonkers. John meets a contact
known as Neil played by Robert Pattinson who seems to know more than he should and slowly he gets in
deeper with the character and the mission. Sator tasks John with stealing plutonium
however this too is revealed to be a part of the Algorithm and using time inversion
upon himself Sator is able to capture John and his wife after things go badly due to
several mysterious time inversions happening. It's revealed that Sator and his men carried out
a temporal pincer movement in which one team moved forwards whilst the other team moved backwards.
Sator shoots his wife with an inverted bullet and in order to treat her,
John and Neil travel through a time inversion device. This will give them the time to save
Kat and they remember that at Sator's vault had a machine which could invert them back to normal.
The only time this will be accessible is when the pairs past selves are carrying out
their mission to steal the painting and thus they wait in the wings for it to go ahead.
During it John comes face to face with himself and we realise that he
was actually the assailant that was moving backwards through time at the art galley.
Like this video if you called it early because I did, I got Nolan!
So at this point John is moving alongside himself in regular time,
hiding in the shadows and observing things. It's here that he realises he can't change
the events that happen due to a woman named Priyah who refuses to help him.
During this Sator himself is moving backwards through time to the day on
the Yacht that he shared with his wife in which they were both actually happy.
At this time he will set off a deadmans switch that detonates the algorithm and
takes the past with him. Unbeknownst to him though John and co are aware of this
and with Kat they invert themselves and go back to the day that he was happiest.
Kat boards the boat whilst her past version goes to the shore and Sator too waits for his
past self to exit it. Thus he believes that he is spending time with his past wife when
it's really the future one that is aware of his plans. Kat kills her husband kicks him overboard
and then dives off the boat which her past self catches. The real Sator likely returned however
this set in motion the pair become estranged again and led to the events of the movie.
Elsewhere Sators team go to set off the Algorithm which I'm so glad they called it that because
Youtube demonetise the B word...anyway you don't care...they go to set off the Algorithm
and with Neil on one side and John on the other they create temporal pincer
that stops the team from setting it off. Neil eventually ends up reverting back to normal
and he does this in order to try and stop John entering a bunker which is booby trapped.
John makes it through though and he comes face to face with a Russian who has been ordered to
set off the Algorithm. He's locked out and has no way of getting in, however he spots a downed man
with the same tag in his backpack from the start. The Russian team members is ordered to kill John
but at the last second this dead character springs back to life through time inversion,
takes the bullet and then unlocks the gate before running backwards through the tunnel.
This allows John to retrieve the Algorithm and he and another soldier are saved by Neil
who pulls them up through the bunker. The trio decide to split up the Algorithm
and take it with them, agreeing to never meet the other again.
It's here that we get our first big twist when we learn that Neil is actually the character
that has had the tag in his backpack. Neil states that John actually recruited him in the past and
that they had a long friendship together. We learn that John actually inverted himself once more
and travelled back through time, setting up things in place that not only included his recruitment
but also Neil's position. This is how the character knew so much and though it's a
tada moment, it also comes with a bitter sweet reveal as Neil says he will invert himself once
more and hang around the area for a bit. This of course means that he will go back to save John,
unlock the door and take the bullet for him which will of course lead to the character's death.
So the last meeting of the pair actually sparks off the encounter that will lead to John making
the pair meet for the first time in the past. John continues on, tying up the loose ends
including Priyah so that Kat will be safe and she gets to walk her
son home from school which ends the film. Though John will not go down in the history books,
he will go down through history, setting things in motion to make sure that armageddon is averted
and the things we saw in the film continue the way they were supposed to.
That ends the film and I hope I did a good job of explaining it.
Now as for the film itself I have to say I really enjoyed it. It takes a while to get
onboard with but by the time the true time inversion kicks off you see how
it all fits together really really well. Tenet is an excellent film that I can see
people discussing for years and year. The characters such as the protagonist do feel
a bit underdevloped but the complexities of the plot are what's really special here.
This is a must see movie and definitely worth going to the cinema for...well
in the UK...I'm not sure about the rest of the world.
However it is excellent and though I wanted to give it a Tenet of Ten...just to do that
crap pun...I think I'll settle on an 8... not a Tenet of Ten...just an 8...does that work?
I dunno...look shutup. Your thoughts
Now obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film and if there’s anything you took
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