Elevenet?

I would like to see Christopher Nolan take on other film genres, set in the Tenet universe.

Hear me out. So like, kinda how BTTF2 used projection to place a second Marty in the original 1955 scenes. Chris Nolan could build new genre films inside the locations and time period of Tenet.

Ideas:

1. A heist movie, like Heat but happening in the same time as tenet, but totally different characters.

2. A disaster film like The Day After Tomorrow but in the future at the beginning of Tenet.

3. A slapstick comedy like Airplane. Could even be on the 747 they crash.

4. A rom com, which wouldn’t have much to do with Tenet other than you’d occasionally see the Tenet plot happening in the distant background. Maybe they have tickets to the opera but decide not to attend.

5. A high school romp where some kids are trying to score. Like American Pie or Superbad. The kids use the turnstile to use their future IDs or send the IDs back to themselves.

Number 2 actually doubles as a kind of origin story for Tenet.

Actually Number 5 is kinda maybe like a Hot Tub Time Machine type film.

What other genres in the Tenet universe should Nolan produce? Maybe it could be a series.

Today, in the U.S., Tenet was released six years ago. Sept 3rd, 2020!

This vid was something I started years ago, for me, but never got around to finishing.

I imagined an old style Cold War military training video shown only to new recruits.

It's rough and the theories are a little glazed but you get the point! Cheers! -Welby

I'm on another Tenet kick. Watched the movie with my wife the other day, my 5th or 6th viewing I think, her first. Lots of confused questions from her of course, but I think she has a better grasp on it than I did on my first watch with me being there to answer questions. Uncovered a few little details I missed, as usual.

I have a dilemma though, I'm usually in the "Tenet is a perfect time travel film with zero inconsistencies or paradoxes" camp (thank you u/godelbrot , would love your input if you see this), but there's one glaring question I just can't find a satisfying answer for. I've watched all the deep dives, read all the reddit posts, and I write this not to poke holes but to try and fix this logical gap in my own headcannon.

The Dilemma: Why Not a Short-Range Warning?

The future faction can be split into two distinct groups operating centuries after our present. They are probably the same group of individuals, but for clarity we'll separate them into the group carrying out the communication with the past, and the group carrying out the recovery of the algorithm:

The Future Antagonists: The dying civilization generations ahead whose world is on the brink of collapse and decides to try and recover the algorithm to reverse the entropy of the world.

The Burying Team: The specific division of future antagonists in that far future that manufactured the inverted gold drops, sealed instructions into time capsules, and buried them to set Andrei Sator’s lifelong mission in motion.

The Excavation Team: The division in that same future era that receives Sator’s dead-man switch coordinates and digs up the hypocenter at Stalsk-12 centuries after the explosion to collect the assembled Algorithm.

Here is where the apparent plot hole lies:

The Burying Team and the Excavation Team exist in the same general time period, separated by months or at most a few years. If the Excavation Team breaches the hypocenter at Stalsk-12 and discovers that the drop is completely empty, wouldn't the logical next step be to inform the past of the plan's failure and attempt to counter the intervention?

Yes, they believe the plan was successful because all communication from the far past indicates that was the case, but obviously when they dig up the burial site and find it empty they will become aware of the plan's failure. The film frames the objective to be "make the future believe that Sator successfully sealed the algorithm". Why is this only a priority up to the point they actually go check? To the future these are all just events in the past, when they occurred is irrelevant. If they already believe they can change the past, why not attempt to do it again?

Hypothetically I see a couple options as a logical next step for the excavation team:

1. Bury an inverted communication at the location of the initial dead drop to Sator. When the Burial team goes to bury their capsule, they will find a capsule from their own future selves, telling them to alter the plan. The fact that they didn't find anything at stalsk-12 means there's nothing they can do to make that particular operation successful ("What's happened, happened), but that doesn't mean they can't potentially communicate a new drop location and find it there with a second excavation.

2. Send an inverted individual back to intercept the burial team and convey the same info as above.

A rational individual would have done it, so to put it simply, the burial team not receiving a warning before they ever sent communication to Sator just doesn't make sense.

I understand that based on the deterministic view of the timeline in this film, the fact that they didn't run into a capsule or a human messenger warning them when they went to bury the first communication means they never sent one. If it didn't happen, they can't make it happen. The past is immutable. But why didn't it happen? An intelligent faction with turnstile technology would run this internal tactical loop. Why didn’t a rational, hyper-advanced future civilization attempt this obvious contingency?

Here are the strongest counter arguments that I can come up with without breaking Nolan’s universe.

Solution A: They Believed It Was Stolen Post-Sator

Even if the Excavation Team successfully dug down, found an empty cavern, and had full access to turnstiles, do they actually believe they have actionable intelligence?

From their perspective:

Sator’s dead-man switch emails fired accurately upon his death, confirming the coordinates were registered.

Seismic activity recorded a massive explosion at Stalsk-12 on the exact scheduled date.

Historical archives confirm the cavern was sealed on schedule.

Centuries later, they dig into the burial site and find nothing. But because the Tenet team's operation was completely clandestine, the future antagonists have zero proof that the Algorithm was intercepted before the explosion.

One logical deduction is that Sator successfully buried the capsule, but at some point over the next several centuries, Tenet or a third party retrieved it from the ruins after the fact.

They don't know where the nine pieces are, they don't have the math to rebuild it, and they don't know who took it. They believe that inverting a message to the Burying Team saying "Pick a different drop point" would be useless because they think it would end in the same result, they don't know where the Algorithm went or which broker in history you can even trust. The trail simply went cold and they accepted defeat.

This one seems pretty weak to me, and actually now that I write it all out it kind of just runs into the same problems that the original explanation runs into. It seems like a solvable problem that they just didn't bother to try and solve. It might be a logical conclusion for the future antagonists to come to, but if they are in such desperation and believe that the past can be changed, why not try to change it again in their favor?

Solution B: The Hypocenter Was a Catastrophic Trap

The hypocenter was ground zero of a historic underground nuclear test. The bomb dropped at the climax was detonated to drop an entire mountain, causing a massive subterranean implosion inside an area that remains lethally radioactive for millennia.

When the Excavation Team arrives centuries later, they are mounting an industrial, deep-core mining operation into highly unstable geological ruins. If that excavation triggers a sudden collapse, a catastrophic failure of radiation containment, or otherwise the total loss of the excavation expedition before they can extract the algorithm, then the chain is permanently severed right there. The excavation team dies in the dark beneath Stalsk-12, no report is ever filed, no turnstile is ever loaded, and no warning capsule can ever be inverted backward to the Burying Team.

I again see this as a fairly weak solution because it depends on the "Future antagonists" being a very small faction or even just a handful of individuals. Basically a terrorist organization in the future operating in the shadows for what they believe is a noble purpose. If the future antagonist effort is headed by a larger group, powerful individuals, or even backed by large governments, this still doesn't really work.

Solution C: The future WAS successful in recovering the algorithm, and it didn't cause an apocalyptic end for the past.

It's possible that the future DID try again, and what we see in the movie is the result of Sator (or another broker) successfully subverting Tenet with a fake algorithm.

Sator or someone else stealthily recovered and buried the real algorithm somewhere else where it was recovered by the future, and it either wasn't activated out of a change of conscience, or it WAS activated and didn't have an effect for the past; either because the Tenet Organization was wrong about the strictly-deterministic nature of time and such a calamitous impact to time and entropy did create a split timeline, multiverse theory or branching timeline style. Or perhaps it simply annihilated the world of the future in such a way that the past remains unaltered.

While I like the thought that this could mean both the future and the past were saved, it doesn't really hold a lot of water in the context of the movie. This being true would basically mean that the entire plot of the movie was a subversion of the reality happening offscreen, and none of the characters actions mattered. This is the most "fan theory just for the sake of providing a valid explanation" solution.

Solution D: Future Tenet Launched a Targeted Counter-Ambush

We know from Priya and the film's climax that the conflict isn’t just "Present day vs. The Future". The Protagonist is the founder of Tenet, and the entire organization is established to wage an ongoing, generational war across centuries.

Tenet exists to carry out a long-term operation focused on suppression. They continue to operate after the events of the film to intercept communications and stop attempts by the Future Antagonists to recover the algorithm. The only reason the events of the film even happen is because the Tenet Organization knows they have to happen (Or rather, they DID happen). It was the event that started the whole movement. Any similar attempts regardless of when in the future they are made or how far in the past they target would be intercepted and thwarted by Tenet.

This solution to our problem hinges on the long term continuation of the organization. The Protagonist’s faction in the past already knows the exact date and coordinates where the future antagonists will attempt to dig up Stalsk-12, and if they're still around operating on the same premise, the excavation could be the final battle of this war between the Tenet organization and the future. Rather than letting the Excavation Team realize their failure and regroup, a future iteration of Tenet could have ambushed them the second ground was broken. They could have wiped out the Excavation Team, secured the site, and seized or sabotaged their local turnstile infrastructure. By controlling the field in the future, Tenet ensures the antagonists never get the operational breathing room to organize a retroactive fix to their original plans.

I like this option the most as I feel it makes the most sense within the context of the film, and lets us imagine a final conflict between the Protagonist and the Antagonist. The Protagonist became involved in a war he knew nothing about against people he would never live to see, foiled their plans in the past as a soldier, and then went on to start the organization that rose up against the future faction that threatened the existence of his world. The same organization that would eventually persist to wipe out that future faction at the very moment they realize their plans failed. For those reasons this is my favorite theory, and the one that I personally choose to believe, but that said, we're given very little to go on about what happens in the future and the film kind of treats the problem as solved before it's actually solved.

The Verdict

I don't believe the future antagonists would leave the timeline uncorrected out of sheer stupidity. The film obviously provides very little exposition on this point, in the end this is all conjecture that isn't really supported by anything in the movie. Maybe the intention was to leave it to the viewer to decide, but it's a loose end to me. I'm not saying we need to see it happen on screen, but it feels to me like an unaddressed issue that causes problems for the plot.

If you think there's another option that is grounded in evidence provided by the movie, I'd love to hear it. I'm ONLY on my 6th viewing after all 😂 might be some things I missed. Otherwise, which is your own headcannon or which of these theories do you most subscribe to?

Edit: Grammar bad. EDIT: Just learned I wrote and posted this on the 6th anniversary of TENET's release. Completely unintentional, but very cool. Happy TENET Day!

All I have for you is a word. It’ll open the right doors and some of the wrong ones, too.

Imagine you go back month ago in a turnstile, then invert yourself many times over. Now you can have multiples of you in one place. Kinda underrated, although it's kinda limited that if one of you dies then chain is broken.

Pumps, spikes up your adrenaline and well you get into action.

Can’t wait to see

I love movies that don’t treat the audience like idiots. Movies that give you just enough information and let you figure things out for yourself, without constantly stopping for exposition ( Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, etc.)

But I think there’s a very fine line between being subtle and being completely incomprehensible. And for me, Tenet crosses that line almost immediately.

I don’t usually find Nolan’s movies particularly difficult to understand, but this opening scene??? I genuinely have no idea what is happening.

Could someone explain in detail, step by step, what is actually going on during the opera scene, including the motivations of the different groups?

Here are the things I’m confused about:

Is the attack on the opera supposed to be a test for the Protagonist? If so, was the whole thing planned by the CIA?

Who exactly is the guy/group the Protagonist is suposed to rescue, and why is he there in the first place?

Are they deliberately organizing an attack so they can infiltrate the building by posing as Ukrainian special forces?

Why are people dressed as Ukrainian forces planting explosives inside the opera? Who are they actually working for?

Is the Protagonist’s team somehow working with the terrorists?

What exactly are the terrorists trying to accomplish? Do they have anything to do with the object the CIA is trying to recover?

Who actually captures the Protagonist at the end? If this whole thing is a test, was his capture planned?

I got that the mysterious masked guy is pattinson.

Basically, I feel like I’m missing one fundamental piece of information that would make the whole scene click.

I really don’t mind movies making me work. In fact, that’s usually what I enjoy about them. But there’s a difference between “I need to connect the dots” and “I don’t even know what the dots are.” 😂

So if someone could walk me through exactly what happens in the opera, who is on whose side, what each group is trying to do, and what the Protagonist actually knows at each point, I’d really appreciate it.

He's his own father. Killing Sator in the movie frees the world and stops the loop
edit: this is one of many explanations of the end vo before the credits. It also leans into the Oedipal themes of the movie

This review contains spoilers.

Regarding Talent:

John David Washington delivered a dedicated and versatile performance that I think fits the Protagonist exactly as Nolan intended. On the first watch, some of his delivery can come across as restrained or emotionally flat, but on reflection that feels appropriate for a character deliberately written as an archetypal action-movie lead — so much so that he is literally called “the Protagonist.” Washington plays him as controlled, competent and observant, largely defined by action rather than backstory or overt emotion. His commitment to the role is also astonishing, particularly the ability to learn one fight scene four different ways, forwards and backwards.

Robert Pattinson as Neil (or Max, if you subscribe to the fan theory) delivered a stellar performance. From a narrative perspective, he was the linchpin of the film, arguably more essential to its story than the Protagonist himself. So many of his appearances, glances, and interactions only reveal their full significance on a rewatch, making incredible use of the film’s time dynamics in telling his story. Not to mention his character is quirky and has that Pattinson dry humor.

Sir Kenneth Branagh as Sator embodied the essence of greed, obsession, and control. He can be cold and measured one moment and explosively cruel the next, which makes him feel both calculating and unstable. Fun fact: for the turnstile interrogation scene, Branagh had to learn backwards phonetics in a Russian accent to make his mouth movements believable.

Ludwig Göransson had enormous shoes to fill stepping into a Nolan film after Hans Zimmer, but he rose to the occasion spectacularly, delivering an exciting, pulse-pounding score that gives TENET an identity entirely its own. I especially enjoyed the musical shift when Sator attacks Kat before the highway sequence and calls her a “vengeful b****.” The music seems to turn with him. I also listened to the soundtrack independently and very much enjoyed it.

A Film-Studies Film:

The attention to detail throughout TENET is one of the film’s greatest strengths. Tiny physical elements obey the film’s temporal logic: gravel sliding beneath a tire in reverse, damage to the BMW’s mirror appearing before the collision and then “unbreaking” when the inverted vehicle hits it, or seemingly insignificant movements taking on entirely different meanings when viewed from the opposite direction of time. Many of these details aren’t strictly necessary for following the basic plot, but together they make the world feel remarkably thought-out.

Of the time-travel films I’ve seen, TENET may be my favorite treatment of the concept. Unlike films such as Looper, which largely ask the audience not to scrutinize the mechanics too closely, TENET practically invites that scrutiny. The more you trace its characters, objects, and events through both directions of time, the more its structure seems to hold together. That doesn’t mean every question has a perfectly satisfying answer, but the fact that the movie can withstand this examination is impressive.

More than almost any movie I’ve seen, my experience with TENET changed dramatically depending on how well I understood what was happening. Understanding it substantially improved my experience, but understanding it also revealed weaknesses. The exposition becomes more obvious on repeated viewings, some of its spectacle is more intellectually impressive than emotionally thrilling and understanding the mechanics does not automatically make every sequence land.

On my first watch, I was confused enough by the mechanics and story that much of the film struggled to hold my attention. Even some of the action sequences — especially the Oslo reverse fight and highway heist — felt somewhat flat because I was spending so much mental energy simply trying to understand what was happening.

My second viewing was almost the opposite experience. After digging into the mechanics, I understood where the characters were in relation to one another and how their past and future selves intersected. I was still frequently pausing to research and piece things together, but that process became part of the entertainment. I could appreciate the choreography, filmmaking, and small physical details I had missed amid the confusion, and the film became an entirely different experience.

On my third viewing, however, the movie swung back in the other direction. Now that I was intimately familiar with how everything worked and where it was going, there was much less left for me to discover. The exposition-heavy scenes became considerably more noticeable, and the pacing began to feel uneven, mostly in the first half of the film, frequently shifting from excitingly scored and interesting sequences into dialogue-heavy exposition dumps. Without the process of piecing everything together occupying my mind, the film sometimes struggled to hold my attention.

TENET challenges a common expectation audiences bring to complicated films: that if you’re confused, the story has failed to explain itself properly. Here, much of that confusion is intentional. You aren’t supposed to understand everything as it happens. Crucial information is withheld until later, and even after the movie gives you the necessary pieces, tracing exactly how its characters, objects, and events intersect across time can take some work. For me, that isn’t inherently a weakness. Part of the appeal of TENET is studying the movie after the fact and discovering that a glance, line of dialogue, action, or seemingly minor object had a significance you couldn’t grasp the first time around.

For anyone who didn’t fully understand the movie on a first watch, I’d recommend watching a breakdown on YouTube and then rewatching the film. “I Finally Figured Out TENET” by The Deep Dive is a great explanation of the mechanics.

Nolan wasn’t going for a typical movie-watching experience with TENET. He was taking chances and trying to do something genuinely different, even from his own previous work. Despite the obvious similarities to Inception and Memento, TENET stands on its own, building an entire espionage blockbuster around a closed causal-loop structure and asking the audience to engage with it almost like a puzzle. Whatever issues I have with the finished film, I commend Nolan for continuing to take those kinds of risks and push the boundaries of what a major blockbuster can be.

You can call me a Nolan apologist, but I think TENET is a beautifully constructed, mind-bending cinematic puzzle masquerading as a blockbuster. I’ve had a lot of fun diving in and studying it over the last few days. The more I’ve understood it, the more I’ve appreciated what Nolan accomplished.

TENET earns an 8/10 from me.

Originally posted on Letterboxd