in the freeport when TP is in the turnstile and reversed TP comes out and gets stabbed by the normal TP then he escapes and whatever but later in the movie when TP and Neil are getting suited up for going back into the freeport when they are inverted TP exclaims about his arm even though it didn't happen yet it will happen later when he comes out of the turnstile so i don't know if i cant see when the stab wound occurred between kat being shot and TP talking about his arm in the shipping container or if its an inconsistency in the movie

They were all hidden in nuclear storages, so would mean, that storage at some point in future is cracked open, and inverted version is carried out of it towards turnstile where it vanish along with normal version.
Now somewhere in 20 or 21 th century there is some nuclear storage built and inverted algorithm box is lying arround there somehow and it is taken out of there. Now who does it and how they are inverted. Obviously those who get the thing need turnstile to wrap in back to normal unless "plutonium241" was still inverted, which cant really be case because inverted "plutonium" is bound to sealed in, it cant just go its merry way forward as normal object, so who did. There has to be moment where inverted and normal "plutonium" emerges from turnstile, and inverted is bound to be sealed, while normal is shipped of to Tallin. Sator obviously not , if he would have then what was reason for him even to hunt for them if he colected them already. Other option is tenet, and obviously it needs to be done after "oldest" turnstile is built, otherwise if object is past oldest turnstile, there is no way to ever recover it, it will just go back to stone age, where realistically you cant build it anymore and recover.

So I was trying to get my head around the pincer movement. I think I finally got the idea. But there is one caveat to all of this if I am not mistaken.

So, if there are two opposing teams (seemingly) in play - just as in the movie - that both understand temporal pincer, how could one's temporal pincer move be successful against the other team? Wouldn't the losing team be motivated to revert once seeing they have lost?

Well, basically yes, right? That's what the TP side is doing after losing the Algorithm in Tallinn. They are making a wrapping pincer move around Sator's successful pincer move. Since what's happened, happend, they knew they are not going to get the Algorithm there. Which is the expression of their faith in the mechanics of the world, right?

Of course this rasies the question - As I recall this is not addressed explicitly in the movies - what makes you initiate a pincer movement? It feels the first party that does, it already makes it win, because if not, it wouldn't have initiated it the first place. So you only want a pincer movement when someone else have pushed you to do that. And of course, as we all felt, there is no choice here. It is fate, it is reality.

You do not choose to do a pincer movement. The pincer movement chooses you. You are experiencing what has happened, you are part of that reality.

And in Stalks 12 Sator's goons are also reverting. It is because Sator has to believe he has succeeded burying the Algorithm. But we know it failed, so was his Tallinn pincer movement eventually a win? Well, yes, because a pincer movement can't fail. It just creates another pincer movement, which can't fail either. Because its sole reason is just to weave another past in the fabric of a bigger mission.

So wraps the pincer move another pincer move, eventually leading to another pincer move and so on, until we clearly understand why the whole movie has to be a big temporal pincer movement. And why the whole fight with the future is a temporal pincer. And in this context, there is no winning or losing a pincer movement, because there are not two opposing teams. They are one big team that dances through the ever wrapping temporal pincers. Who dies, who lives, who takes someone as enemy, who takes someone as friend, is just a formality.

But we can even define what the Algorithm is because of this. Let's see:

Sator dies and the Algorithm scatters. Or does it? We can't be sure TP's whole TENET is not wrapped by someone else's temporal pincer. We could argue that someone is going to wrap TP's plan and eventually recollect the Algorithm pieces.

But we see the world in this back and forth time frames is not destroyed yet. But there is no yet. It is just IS. The future can't do something to change what has already happened. At most they are destroying the world in a way that defines a final wrapping temporal pincer that has created the world the first place (like a revert Big Bang).

I'd risk that there is no fight with the future at all. Just as the TP isn't really fighting against an opposing idea when encountering the reverted TP. The war is just the experience of the encounter itself.

This would mean, in the already experienced time slot, there is no working Algorithm, only reversion, and all the people are just experiencing the cause and effect of the reality.

Then why is there an Algorithm? There isn't. It is a manifestation of the paradox of time travel and causality. The motivation the story exists for. The paradox that has to mean the end of the world to be anyway comprehensible. That's why it is just a piece of - quite possibly useless - junk. It is just a representation.

Look at it like this:

If I'd have a turnstile, I would have won at least one lottery. Or not. Because of course for that I have to decide after filling a lottery ticket that I am going to revert to signal the information. But there is no decision like that. I just get the winning numbers already, that's why I have went to fill the ticket. The pincer move chose me and not the other way around. What's happened, happened.

Who am I to give myself an excuse to do nothing?

If there were no information and I filled my last number by myself, there is no failed temporal pincer movement, because there is no temporal pincer at all.

The motivation behind the winning lottery information is the notion of the Algorithm itself.

Tenet is currently available for free to rent for 48 hours on Amazon (in the United States at least). For those who wanna watch it for cheap/free and with good audio quality and subtitles.

Anyone seen The Prestige? There's a tgeory that the Transporting Machine doesn't clone people, but is just a plain old tesla coil and the 'clones' are just wax models, and the dead Angier is his old double. The movie doesn't explain this central lie.

I think the same is true for Tenet. When Protagonist first fights his inverted self, it appears that his future self is trying to kill him, but from his future selfs view, he's trying to defend himself and disarm himself. Makes sense that going about an action in reverse order makes your intentions appear to be the opposite of what they are.

Just as it nakes no sense to kill your past self, it makes no sense to kill your ancestors. This plot point has been spoken of regarding this movie ans time travel in general. But like the inverted Protagonist fighting to keep both of himselves alive, and it appearing to his past self that he's trying to kill him, perhaps the same thing is happening in the future.

It also clears up some odd dialogue from the guy who bought him in: "To know the nature of this war is to lose." How can you fight someone who isn't trying to fight you. Perhaps the past and futures survival relies on this illusionary war.

Just my theory, add to it or break it apart.

I gave ChatGPT the following prompt:
Some science fiction films rely on ambiguity to conceal logical inconsistencies (option A), while some use ambiguity to avoid spending too much time on exposition of a logically consistent plot (option B). The film Tenet seems to rely heavily on ambiguity, but the mechanics of time reversal don't seem to make any sense. Could you help explain whether the film represents option A or B?

This was the response:
Christopher Nolan's Tenet appears to lean more towards Option A, where ambiguity is used to conceal or gloss over logical inconsistencies. The film introduces a complex concept of "inversion," where entropy is reversed for objects and people, allowing them to move backward in time relative to the forward flow of time for others. While Tenet presents this concept with a veneer of scientific plausibility, it avoids delving deeply into its mechanics, leaving gaps that seem less about avoiding exposition (Option B) and more about sidestepping potential logical contradictions.

Here’s why Tenet fits Option A more closely:

1. The Ambiguity in Science: The movie uses terms like "entropy" and vaguely gestures toward theoretical physics (e.g., thermodynamics and time's arrow), but these are never rigorously explained. For instance, how "inverted" people breathe inverted air but otherwise interact with the normal world is a significant logical stretch.
2. Visual Spectacle Over Logical Clarity: The film prioritizes thrilling set pieces—such as inverted car chases and battle sequences—over fully explaining how the inversion interacts with causality. This gives the audience just enough information to follow the narrative without questioning the underpinning mechanics too much.
3. Dialogue as Handwaving: At one point, a character (Clemence Poésy’s scientist) tells the protagonist, "Don't try to understand it. Feel it." This line serves as an explicit acknowledgment that the movie's logic might not hold up to scrutiny, signaling that viewers shouldn't overanalyze the mechanics.
4. Inconsistencies in Time Reversal: The concept of inversion raises numerous paradoxes (e.g., how effects can precede causes, or why certain rules apply in one instance and not in another). These inconsistencies are left ambiguous rather than resolved, suggesting the ambiguity is covering potential flaws in the system.

While there’s a case for Option B—because the exposition could have been even more elaborate—the film already devotes considerable time to explaining inversion without truly resolving the ambiguities. This suggests the ambiguity is more a defensive mechanism (Option A) than a stylistic choice to streamline the story (Option B).

It just occurred to me that since time is deterministic (“whatever happens, happens”), and we know how Neil dies, future Neil can’t be killed in his training or missions in any Tenet 2 plots.

1. The exact mechanics of the backwards interrogation scene with Sator harming Kat and speaking backwards.

2. The mechanics of the final battle.

Basically in both instances, the presentation is super visual and very complex, so I'm wondering what happens and how it happens. I did manage to grasp the general angle of the Temporal Pincer Movement and the film's in universe backwards structure, but those two scenes really confounded me.

Tenet's Synchronised Time Map

1995, 25 pesetas (former currency) with the Spanish colors

My question is how was the gold and algorithm buried in the past if no turnstiles were present up until sator built them?

If a turnstile reverses the entropy, and the direction of time is shown by entropy, you wouldn’t age right? You’d age backwards?

So Sator is a guy with a terminal illness, going back and forth through turnstiles for years until he gets the death he can plan for

Right?

no way I never realised ROTAS company in Tenet was just SATOR inverted

For those who really like John David Washington and have been looking forward to seeing him in more projects where he’s a starring character other than say Tenet, BlacKKKlansman, & Amsterdam, there’s a new movie on Netflix starring him and featuring Samuel L. called “The Piano Lesson”. Just started it myself. Hopefully it’s good; I really do like JDW as an actor.

Edit: I liked that movie Beckett too.

I just saw this movie a few days ago and I cannot stop thinking about it. It’s obsession-level infatuation. I’ve never seen a movie more thought-provoking. Nolan did the most amazing thing by telling us just enough to get the gist of what was happening without explaining everything to the gnat’s ass and leaving room for thought and contemplation.

Already watched twice in 3 days. Probably again tonight

Sorry if I dont understand the whole inverted thing. Help me out if you think im wrong.

I was thinking about opposite-entropy bullet wounds recently and would just like to check if this is the correct way of looking at it.

Guy A is normal, Guy B is inverted, Guy A's gun is normal with normal ammunition (the gun is very low caliber though so it won't go all the way through someone).

From Normal Perspective;

• At 0sec, Guy B is walking backwards from left to right, uninjured.
• At 1sec, Guy A shoots Guy B in the shoulder and the bullet is lodged in his bone or something.
• 2sec onward, Guy B keeps walking backwards left to right, clearly in pain, with a bullet hole in his shoulder.

Now from Inverted Perspective;

• At some time quite a while before this injury, Guy B begins to notice a huge pain in his shoulder as a bullet forms in there and the hole the bullet will enter through begins to open.
• At 2sec, Guy B is walking forwards from right to left, with a pain in his shoulder that is becoming excruciating.
• At 1sec, a fully formed bullet leaps out of Guy B's shoulder and goes into Guy A's normal gun as Guy A pulls the trigger. As the bullet leaves Guy B's shoulder, the wound closes up and Guy B stops feeling any pain.
• At 0sec, Guy B is walking forwards from right to left, uninjured.

I'm fairly certain this is right, but please correct anything I got wrong.

Ok so I found some scientific paper couple of months ago about physics of time inversion. It’s a simple pdf. I lost it in my computer and right now I can’t find it anywhere on the Internet. I’m not sure if it is real paper because publisher name is Andrei Sator :). Maybe it is a alias thing. If you know anything about it help me guys ?

Is the bullet still in Neil's head?

Like from his perspective a bullet jumped out of his head into Volkov's chamber (makes sense). From Volkov's perspective, he lodges a bullet into Neil's head (makes sense).

Was the bullet already in Neil's head when he said goodbye to John David???

Has it always been in his head???

Is there a bullet in Max's head rn???

Was he born with a bullet-in-brain syndrome??

Tenet is my favourite movie and I've watched it nearly a dozen times but this bullet keeps me up at night after every rewatch.

When watching this movie I remember thinking how I was missing the writers and director's intended message. This movie is explicitly about Longtermism. We are at war with the future. Who else independently came up with this. I remember googling it and nothing came up now it appears there is a medium.com post?

In blue/red room scene, inverted Sator grabs wounded Kat then unshoots her. She’s normally forward. So why did he put an oxygen mask on her before walking out?