Plot Holes in Tenet 2020 Spoiler Analysis / Breakdown of all Logical Mistakes + Explanation Theories

[MatBaconMC]

Why is Sator telling me the plot holes in his own movie?

[perfectionbox]

Considering the many years Nolan spent writing the script, at some point he simply said "screw it, i can't make it any more plausible so let's just go with what we have."

[DeathRayGraphics]

As far as the logic of "dropping the bullet", the scientist explains that in order to make the effect happen, you " *have to* have dropped it". I interpreted that to mean that it is not simply "pretending" to have dropped it, but orienting your body (and mind) to align with what would happen if a backwards moving object was *already* in your hand and then you released it.

In other words: by consciously working with inverted time, you create the circumstance that allows the bullet to arrive in your hand in order to be dropped. (Working backwards, so to speak.)

[metalore]

Don't eat non-inverted food while inverted. Otherwise you'll catch the poop in the past.

[dookdawg]

If it's an inverted bullet, as long as they don't re-invert it back to normal, it should constantly keep going backward. Which means, after the little demonstration, she can't put them back into the box. They have to keep moving backwards however they did before. This is why the whole inversion idea makes no sense. It's not enough for the entropy of an object to move in reverse -- every person and thing that had an influence on its movement in the past would have to be in place as well for it all to work.

[vectress]

I don't buy that bubble around the protagonist when he is inverted so things in close proxity are inverted too. Because when he first gets into the open when inverted and steps on the puddle, the puddle moves backwards according to him, so the water in the puddle is working normally to real time progression.
Also when he starts the car, the car moves weird according to him, like in real time it just hit the brakes fast and stopped abruptly, so the car isn't reverted there and then, but later it is reverted? Many inconsistencies.

Also, why does that building work inverted and non inverted at the same time when one floor rearranges itself from an explosion and then it explodes in another floor while viewwing from the same timestream? It is working both ways just because they want to. If it had the same logical effect as when he stepped into the puddle, the building would have exploded both times if seen from the same timestream or rearrange itself both times when seen in the other timestream.
When he stepped into the puddle the puddle goes backwards in time according to him, so the people going backwards in time when shooting the building they should also see the building go backwards in time when they shoot it instead of exploding according to their time.

[NegatingSilence]

Hearing this analysis both deadpan and in your accent was immensely entertaining. The movie's mechanics don't really work at all, but I still loved it because he did as good as you can do with a premise that is logically impossible to square, and since it cannot be done correctly, I'd rather have this movie than have no movie.

[Leo]

21:50, You've missed the point here. The universe is deterministic, meaning that what ever is going to happen, is going to happen, and it's unchangeable. So if you knew it was going to work out then you did it. You can't know everything is going to be fine so not bother trying to do it, that just means that it still happened but for some reason not related to you. Like the silver Saab when he tried to change things and instead made it happen like it did. The reason to try is because you want it to happen, and if you don't do it, it won't... But it did, so you will... They also don't tell each other what is going to happen so that they don't interfere with what happened. That's one of the their core operating rules.

[Leo]

Immediately at 2:56, you fundamentally don't understand the deterministic mechanisms that are being explored in the movie. If you don't catch the bullet, then you didn't drop it, so it won't fly up. That's why it doesn't fly up the first time he tries. The bullet "knows" whether to fly up to your hand based upon if you caught/dropped it. This is demonstrated in the car chase with the silver Saab that the Protagonist drives. It already happened, and him trying to interfere effectively made it happen as it did. Any attempt to interfere with established events will only result in those events occurring as established.

Which is why I think the pill scene showing he would give his life for the cause and the final conversation between the Protagonist and Neil could have been far more impactful if the protagonist had warned Neil. He'd know, and do it anyway.

[DeathRayGraphics]

*The Puddle* : This is definitely one of those moments where you have to remember the specific logic the movie is laying out. The Protaganist can choose to step in the puddle or not. But he *is* going to choose *something*, because he is freely moving in the world which (from his POV) is inverted. All that has changed is that the effects that he *is* going to create--no matter what he decides to do--will move backwards in time (from his perspective) to meet him, rather than following from his actions.

In this movie, backwards and forwards entropy is interlaced, so what is "free will" from an inverted person's perspective is perceived as history from the POV of a person in normal time. If you are a person watching the Protaganist's car chase sequence after he is inverted, then no matter what, it will ALWAYS end with his backwards moving car arriving at the Freeport, then the Protaganist reverse-entering the car, and walking backwards into the turnstile that inverted him, and stepping in a puddle while he does so.

From our POV, he will step in a puddle of water as he walks backward from his car and, to us, the effect is a splash in the normal manner, because the puddle is not inverted. From the Protaganist's POV, the reverse-splash that occurs before he steps in the puddle is as inevitable as a regular splash would if he stepped in it while un-inverted. Either way: if it wasn't a CERTAINTY that he would step in the puddle of water then there would be no splash at all.

(PS- Good observation about the contradiction of "reverse hearing"!)

[Leo]

8:30, This is a great point! What would happen if you tried to fire a reverse bullet? Though I suppose the answer to why you can't shoot the inverted bullet is the same as to why you can't decide not to drop the bullet after it starts flying towards your hand: you just didn't decide to before that point, and you can't do, because if you did, then you wouldn't be able to catch it in the gun later...

[DeathRayGraphics]

*Carving a message onto a bullet to tell yourself something in the past* : Seems logical, but wait! The bullet may be moving backwards in time, but the message that you carved into the bullet is not.

if you carve a message into the bullet at 10:00 pm, (normal, non-inverted time), from the inverted bullet's point of view, at 9:59 pm (where the bullet will move to next) the message hasn't been carved yet. At 9:58, 9:57, 9:56, etc., the bullet is even farther from the moment you altered it. Your winning lotto numbers are still moving forward in time from your perspective, but the bullet (as it travels into the past) is moving *away* from the moment that you carved the numbers into it. The message isn't inverted, so you can't talk to your past that way.

[dripdrop]

If entrophy is reversed then how it stays as bullet in first place?

[chatonmignon]

I have an inverted brain. I forget everything.

[maxmax]

18:30 exactly! This is the sole reason this movie doesn't make sense even by its own rules. We have to believe the building was built with bullet holes built in, but that doesn't male any sense. Or you have to save it by making up rules that weren't given in the movie.

[MrPalikucha]

With all these inconsistencies, here is how I explained it to myself, to be able to look past them: Objects are not supposed to travel through time in the opposite direction. And when they do, "bugs" happen, glitches in the matrix, errors. Sometimes wounds appear out of nowhere, sometimes wounds that should disappear don't, rules get bent and broken because the inverted object interacting with non-inverted objects is causing "errors" in the laws of physics.

[williamcolgin]

At one point they were inverted for a week. What happens to all the craps they took during that period and how would they flush? 😂😱😂

[Leo]

14:21, Fire is exothermic, the heat conducts, radiates, and convects out from the fire. Normally things get hot and burn, so I can see how you would arrive at the logic that an inverted person instead loses heat and cools down. I disagree with the film here. I think they would have had to start burnt and the fire "heals" them, like with the wound that disappears when it's inflicted. The thing is though, when does the burn arrive?

In normal inverted events, you would absorb ~100W from the environment as this is the amount you normally need to reject to maintain homeostasis. This involves the requirement of reverse photon's to come to you etc. which I suppose explains all the reverse objects they're finding? They must have existed in order for you to reverse it later...

It doesn't work. Ultimately, this is never going to work, because this isn't how time works, so trying to apply real world logic to non-real world problems, is a waste of time.

[Leo]

With the Opera scene, when he is saved by Neil catching an inverted bullet. How long was the bullet there? Did the architect put that bullet in place along with the debris? Why had no one ever cleaned up the debris or patched it?

[RadicalZack]

Imagine pooping in reverse. That would be painful.