MovieChat Forums > Tenet (2020) Discussion > Time Inversion Entropy (spoils)

Time Inversion Entropy (spoils)


The way they tackle time in this movie is interesting in the sense that instead of the typical slowing things down to speed yourself up or dodge bullets or limited time reversals or time jumps, we're reversing actions, an inverse if you will. Every action has already happened and what's playing out is just the past. All one needs to do is step in the time inversion chamber to see your doppelganger play out actions that have just previously occurred before stepping into one. It's a bit awkward seeing everything rewinding walking backwards, driving backwards, talking backwards and the likes. The cool part of inversion explosives is when exploding, instead of spreading fire and shrapnel, it collapses in on itself and freezes the victim exposed to it instead.

The part that confused me is the final battle where both normal team and inversion teams were sent in but both needing masks when only the inverse needed a mask to not suffer the distortion effects of inversion. I'm not sure how they're countering something that has already happened like one team shoots a rocket at building blowing the top part while the other shoots a rocket at the bottom toppling it just as it inversed. I'm guessing they're shooting just those who are already masked up which can create one confusing fubar battle. One selves shooting past selves and vice versa. One messed up grandfather paradox.


Grandfather Paradox:
A potential logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to a past time. If a person travels to a time before their grandfather had children, and kills him, it would make their own birth impossible. So, if time travel is possible, it somehow must avoid such a contradiction.

Bootstrap Paradox:
A theoretical paradox of time travel that occurs when an object or piece of information sent back in time becomes trapped within an infinite cause-effect loop in which the item no longer has a discernible point of origin, and is said to be “uncaused” or “self-created”. It is also known as an Ontological Paradox, in reference to ontology, a branch of metaphysics dealing with the study of being and existence.

Closed loops in time in which ’cause and effect’ repeat in a circular pattern, resulting in a self-created entity with no point of origin. Despite being an oddity and apparently conspiring against our understanding of causality, this ‘self-caused’ event, like the Big Bang, does not appear to be an impossibility. Nor does it imply any inconsistency with the timeline’s history. In fact, all the events in the time loop are “fixed” and take place on a single unchangeable timeline.

ie:
A time traveler went back in time and taught Einstein the theory of relativity, before returning to his own time. Einstein claims it’s his own work, and over the following decades the theory is published countless times until a copy of it eventually ends up in the hands of the original time traveler who then takes it back to Einstein, begging the question “where did the theory originate”. We cannot say that it came from the time traveler as he learned it from Einstein, but we also cannot say that it is from Einstein, since he was taught it by the time traveler. Who, then, discovered the theory of relativity?

Predestination (2014) is a decent movie watch about bootstrap paradox.

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Nice to see that Nolan mystified yet another casual viewer. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of explanations in the years to come.

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and since you've seen it, your interpretation and explanation was..... ...... ??

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That it's an overly long, contrived story and a simple, implausible and unfortunately quite predictable plot with disassociated acting by Washington. The inversion implications are handwaved away with a passing reference to parallel realities. Overall a sloppy and boring Nolan and easily his worst. Visually the gimmicks are sometimes interesting but even the cinematography is not on par with Hoytema's earlier work. This was rushed. Watched it with one family member in an almost empty theater with adequate ventilation. I do wish cinemagoing well, I just don't see it making a comeback.

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HYPOCRITE went to see it after telling everyone to stay home.
Or illegally stole a copy?
Or never saw it and commenting on it?
And not answering the question.

Credibility gone. We're done here.

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Saw it in a well ventilated and almost empty theater (I'm a Nolan fan usually). Still advice people not to go. Especially now Tenet turned out to be far from great. Lol for the suggestion of your relevance. Stay safe. You stay in your basement, gjb2074

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There are two types of paradoxes involved in this film, the grandfather paradox which was the main focus of the entire film and the bootstrap paradox (causal loop) which are the effects to the origin that was never shown in the film eg. the beginning or start of the causal loop (who, what, where, why, and when the algorithm was sent from the future, and the starting point of the protagonist planning that included recruiting Neil).

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Causal loop, not casual loop

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Don't forget the Time Cop crap warning about touching your earlier self. A rushed mess if I ever saw one.

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Thx for the insight. The recruiting of Neil was only revealed after the conclusion of assembling the algorithm so it's interesting how other ways it could play out knowing what the protagonist's knows now after and could possibly change the outcome of Neil's death perhaps? Since Neil himself who was back in inversion was able to go forward and tried to warn the protagonist about the explosives by the entrance.

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The suits and masks seemed to be S.O.P. for anyone who was inverted or could possiblly come in contact with their doppelganger. Presumably most members of the red team were part of the original siege.

I think this whole segment would have been more successful from a film making standpoint without the armies. Keep the infiltration team small and stick with stealth. In theory, the only reason there is a large resistance amry is Sator is reacting to the blue teams attept to stop the events of the past.

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I was also trying to figure out why they had to blow that building up twice- and why synchronize it?

I get that for the red team, it started as blown up until they progressed to the point where blue team blew it up- and after that it reconstructed itself- so they blew it up again. And from blue team's perspective, it started as blown up until they regressed to the point that red team blew it up, so they blew it up again. But why? And what would have happened if the building got to be up for 1 minute inbetween? It was a focal point in an otherwise loud cacophony of explosions and reverse explosions, but I couldn't figure out why I should care or what it meant to the characters/story.

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It was literally for the LULZ. A cinatographer's smorgasbord.

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The only thing I can tell ya is that Nolan hired time travelers as his consultants and everything that you saw was correct as far as science is concerned.

Interstellar 101 ;)

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I think it was inverse-shot by a inversed missile, which repaired the building from a real-time perspective. because the explosion occurs in reverse. then it was hit by a regular missile. The grandfather paradox. Someone built that in time (presumably past), and an inverted rocket launcher destroyed it in the future, so It will stay destroyed in the past. My issue is, all these explosions in inverse would be FREEZING EVERYTHING, not exploding them.

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Oh, I see the paradox. It's forever destroyed both ways in time... so when was it made?

As far as the freezing- I don't think so. If a reversed (blue) rocket detonates- it explodes and creates a big reverted (blue) fireball- which from the blue perspective expands quickly and pushes things out of the way. From the blue perspective, it pushed both blue and red matter out of the way. From the red perspective, it pulls both blue and red matter in.
The heat from the fireball- from the blue perspective adds heat to the matter around it. From the red perspective removes heat from the matter around it. But the pushing/pulling is not affected due to the freezing.

As long as the entire rocket was reverted, it should explode normally, just backwards in time.

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I watched it a second time and I think I figured it out. You can't shoot the same place twice. Normal time shooting the bottom blows it up. Inverse time will show it restructuring/healing up therefore they needed to shoot the top instead to create the distraction they needed since you shoot at something that's already destroyed. They needed to match it at the 5:00 mark as well when they were looking at their watches.

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