Ok so if you followed the channel in 2020 then you’ll know that we talked about Tenet pretty
much every other week and though we thought that we’d picked the film completely dry of
all it’s easter eggs, having gone back to it I’ve now found some brand new amazing details in it.
Throughout this video we’re gonna be breaking it all down so come with us Protagonist
viewer as we go over everything we unearthed on our latest viewing.
Now the colours blue and red are laced throughout the entire film and these help to let us know
whether the characters are moving forwards and backwards through time. The colours are used
heavily in the interrogation room and they’re also present on the Tenet teams watches and armour.
Beyond that though these colours are present throughout the film and they show up in the
first few seconds with the Warner Brothers logo being red and the syncopy logo being blue.
Cat also wears a Blue dress when the Protagonist meets her
and later on in the movie she wears Red when she starts to turn more and more against her husband.
During the heist sequence we watch as The Protagonist tries to steal part of the Algorithm
and he moves in on a Red Fire Engine whilst the device itself is placed onto a blue Armounred
Truck. He also rides a blue boat with Sator and Kat later and he turns this against the path
hinting towards the changes in direction that people later take against the flow of time.
When The Protagonist arrives waits in the van with the SWAT team at the start
we see other vans pull up and you can see their sirens flashing Blue and Red on the top. That’s
probably coincidental but the badge on the truck is actually Red with Blue in the middle of it.
This badge is what the Protagonist uses when he ends up infiltrating the Opera House and
there’s quite another subtle detail here. When we first see the lineup of SWAT Team
members all of their visors are steamed up due to their breaths whereas the Protagonists isn’t.
This is also likely because he’d only put his mask and helmet a couple of minutes before
whereas the actual SWAT Team had likely had theirs on whilst riding out to the location.
When Neil saves his life in this opening the seat with the reversing bullet is also blue
and when the Protagonist runs out the Opera we can see that there is a big red sign beside them.
Now the train station also has a lot of imagery here including a big red train that appears
in the scene. There are also some moving forwards on the line whilst others move back
and this of course foreshadows how time will be moving in two opposite directions in the film.
It’s at this point that The Protagonist takes a cyanide pill but we later learn
it’s actually a dud that works less than I do watching movies all day.
Come the climax of the movie we discover that Sator has one of these
and that he plans to take it which will inturn destroy the world.
Look it’s complicated. Kat kills him before this can happen which should
potentially mess up the timeline however there’s an important line that Sator drops.
He says that he got the pill from the CIA and as we know from the Protagonist,
these don’t actually work.
Therefore even if he did take it it wouldn’t kill him and this is why Kat shooting him doesn’t
change anything. She was always the person who was supposed to kill Sator and therefore the pill is
just something put in place by the CIA or possibly Tenet, to make him feel like he’s in control.
Tenet very much run the entire show and they even allow the bomb to go off at the end of the movie
so that a past version of Sator will think that he won and therefore he’ll continue with his plan.
Thus I do think that the pill was also a trick by TENET to make Sator think that he actually had
a choice when all in all it was just something supplied by the CIA and the future protagonist.
There’s also a great line when The Protagonist visits Sir Michael Crosby
played by Sir Michael Caine. I’m not sure if that’s a play on his name but he apologises
to the Protagonist for starting dinner without him. The protagonist says that he’ll catch up
and this somewhat is a comment on his character in which he has to catch up with the operation
Tenet is carrying out that started without him. Now if you’re enjoying the video we’d massively
appreciate the thumbs up and also don’t forget to subscribe as we do videos like
this every week in which we talk about all the best hidden details in movies and tv.
If this your first time here then welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show, I’m your host Paul
aka the guy who’s never backwards about coming forward, now let’s get into the rest of the video.
Now things going backwards and forwards of course is also shown in the dialogue as a
lot of the characters end up talking backwards when they’re inverted.
During the highway chase there’s actually a scene in which we hear Sators men oveer the
radio and because it’s in reverse we can’t understand what they’re saying.
However huge shoutouts to reddit user plotdavis for reversing it so we could see what Sator is
saying
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Sator says that it’s in the back of the Saab and this is actually the make of car that
The Protagonist ends up driving after he inverts. The Algorithm gets thrown into it
and I love the attention to detail that Nolan put into the movie here.
There are several moments in which we see small glimpses of the characters coming across
versions of other characters inverted. When Neil approaches the turnstile at the end of
the movie you can actually catch a small loan soldier running in the distance.
After looking at this closely and following that path that he goes on I actually think that this
is Neil after he’s inverted at the turnstile. This area is somewhere that he’d have to travel
through later and it’s so cool seeing this lone soldier that he would later become.
One thing that’s difficult to get your head around is that Neil actually never
unlocks the gate at the end, he is the one who locks it.
Now with Christopher Nolan creating one of the biggest head f**ks of all time
it is a bit tough to grasp this concept but we can actually catch him holding the door open
during this scene and it’s only when things have played out enough that he closes it,
locks it and then runs back up the tunnel.
Really good scene and his goodbye at the end of the movie also brings a lot with it. The
Protagonist asks why Neil isn’t with his team and he says he’ll get them on the next pass,
meaning that there’s also another version of Neil
running around in the final action scene that we don’t know about.
Neil asks The Protagonist if he’s gonna go to London to check on Kat
to which the Protagonist says no it’s far too dangerous.
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This is actually a lie and come the closing scene of the film we see The Protagonist watching Kat
from afar which allows him to catch Priyah and tie up the loose ends.
However The Protagonist always knew that he was going back to London to check in on Kat
and he lied to Neil which Neil actually seems to get.
Throughout the film we’re told that ignorance is the strongest weapon that Tenet have.
In writing nothing down, not knowing anyone’s name and also
not keeping any records there’s no way that people from the future can gain any information
and therefore they can’t warn their forces in the past.
The Protagonist finally learns to lie here and it makes Neil smirk because he knows that The
Protagonist will return to London and start to see Kat for the next chapter of his life.
How he knows this, well that could tie into the theory that Neil is actually Kat’s son
which we’ve covered in depth before.
That’ll be linked at the end of the video but in the mean time I wanna
here what you found in the movie and if there’s any major hidden details that
haven’t been uncovered yet then make sure you leave them below.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of an MCU Boxset of your choice on
the 30th of January. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video,
make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on
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the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect
scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing
so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video,
I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace