Why did they sometimes have to wear oxygen masks in the past but sometimes not? Sometimes they seemed to be experiencing the 'wrong' time backwards, but sometimes they seemed to be the same direction as everyone else. Kat on the yacht for example, the protagonist at the end.

Why did they sometimes have to wear oxygen masks in the past but sometimes not? Sometimes they seemed to be experiencing the 'wrong' time backwards, but sometimes they seemed to be the same direction as everyone else. Kat on the yacht for example, the protagonist at the end.

I think they use the machine at the airport to return to forward time.

I think they use the machine at the airport to return to forward time.

they use the machines to inverse and also re-inverse themselves. turn out the tenet organization actually/somehow also have the technology. after they re-inverse themselves in the machine at the airport, somewhere they inverse themselves back.
before the final act kat and the protagonist re-inverse themselves, as they arrived around the timeline at the beginning of the movie.
(implied, offscreen).

the masks used because their inverted lungs (as they were inverted) didn't work with normal air. sometimes they can take off/didn't need the mask because they were inside some isolated rooms.

*edit: the protagonist (and the rest of the red team) also wearing the full mask like the blue team was a tactical reason.

they use the machines to inverse and also re-inverse themselves. turn out the tenet organization actually/somehow also have the technology. after they re-inverse themselves in the machine at the airport, somewhere they inverse themselves back.
before the final act kat and the protagonist re-inverse themselves, as they arrived around the timeline at the beginning of the movie.
(implied, offscreen).

the masks used because their inverted lungs (as they were inverted) didn't work with normal air. sometimes they can take off/didn't need the mask because they were inside some isolated rooms.

*edit: the protagonist (and the rest of the red team) also wearing the full mask like the blue team was a tactical reason.

I might already see some possible solution in Reddit.
#1 Neil was the corpse inside the hypocenter, as he inverted himself way back again to open the locked door and get shot for protecting TP, that makes there two Neil during that last mission. but the problem that I see that when the splinter team (TP and Ives) got inside the tunnel, the entrance collapsed because of the booby trap explosion.
so how he, this 2nd Neil on the battlefield, enters the hypocenter in the first place?
as he moves back from the "later" point of time where the entrance was sealed off, I try to think some other offscreen solution like there other entrances; but also unlikely as my impression for now there only that one-way tunnel. can't be sure.
it also feels unlikely that he blows up the sealed entrance to pave his way inside.

#2 ---

I might already see some possible solution in Reddit.
#1 Neil was the corpse inside the hypocenter, as he inverted himself way back again to open the locked door and get shot for protecting TP, that makes there two Neil during that last mission. but the problem that I see that when the splinter team (TP and Ives) got inside the tunnel, the entrance collapsed because of the booby trap explosion.
so how he, this 2nd Neil on the battlefield, enters the hypocenter in the first place?
as he moves back from the "later" point of time where the entrance was sealed off, I try to think some other offscreen solution like there other entrances; but also unlikely as my impression for now there only that one-way tunnel. can't be sure.
it also feels unlikely that he blows up the sealed entrance to pave his way inside.

#2 ---

dead mean's switch, inoperable cancer

dead mean's switch, inoperable cancer

I'm no longer that freshman.

As someone else already commented, I had to remove myself from this film several times to regroup, calculate, and confirm the math of reversals, time sequences, or to replay garbled dialogue in my head to try to decipher what might have been said (that fire hose the second time around the airplane crash was deafening!). That didn't frustrate me, which I found odd. What did frustrate me was the realization that this movie likely took a few years of drafting logic maps to make sure everything fit just so working in two time progressions (multiple progressions in the last half hour or so of the film), but presents its intricate network of entry and exit points for the run of several different characters within a 2-hour window to an audience completely unaware and without context to the intricate maps that were clearly necessary to create the movie. I think it is a lot to ask your audience to be introduced to a concept, follow the logic of the concept, reasonably track multiple instances playing out of that concept, and still make sense of much of anything after a point, all while trying to do so under the guise of a spy action drama complete with your trope red herring distractions needed to continue the core plot moving forward. To me, that is damn arrogant to throw your audience into such a convoluted mess without time to really digest what's been learned (as minimally as it was presented) before being thrown into an exponentially building sequence of timelines, reverse timelines both being experienced by two teams with some individuals' sub-reverse-REVERSE timelines to hit necessary plot points. Granted, this is a marvelous sequence of events, but damn the ego necessary to create it and just toss it out without a user's manual!

The script plays well enough straddling between watered down versions of David Mamet and the Craig-era Bond writing staff. Action sequences were excellent in the first half of the film but too dense in the second. The "Teams" attack at the end became comical for me very quickly with agents running around (forward and reverse). For a moment I was reminded of my recent viewing of Starship Troopers when landing on planet P. Hey, but that's my baggage bringing with me what I took in so maybe it's OK. To a point. In the organized chaos playing out on screen I had to take a beat to get my bearings enough to finally ask, "who is shooting back?" Aside from a few rocket launchers hiding in two of the emptied buildings, I guess I missed them. That triggered a sequence of micro-second mental leaps noticing just how many "grunts" are aware and totally cool with time inversion that my mind nearly shattered at the reality that each one of these soldiers (both good and bad) have the awareness and power to manipulate time potentially destroying all of existence. Really? I understand that the pretense is temporal warfare, however, with all of the cloak and dagger secrecy provided when Protagonist (I love the character naming btw!) is brought onboard and first introduced to inverted matter, it seems a bit silly to see so many enlisted during walkthroughs of the training and battle grounds presented in the second half of the movie.

Hey. It's a mostly tight movie. I'm not sure it plays as well as on screen as it must have been planned on paper, but I'm sure all the details are there and fit together. I'm just not sure I'm interested enough to bother tracking it all to verify any of it. I'll have to take them on face value that there was adequate quality assurance when sequencing these timeline interactions. Most of it looked cool though. So for you puzzle nuts out there, is that enough to make a good movie? To make something just because one can? I'd be more enthusiastic if that question played more of a meta role between the film and the viewer somewhere, what with all of the mind bending concepts at play. I'm not sure Sator reached out on that level though. I mean to speak directly to motivation of creating (or in Sator's case, destroying) something just because. He had reasonable (a madman's reasoning, but still reasonable in that context) motivation. That may be a sadly missed bridge between what happens on screen to what the viewer experiences in watching it. Walls are being shattered. What's one more to reach the audience? But, no. Unless I'm missing it? Someone show me please, if so.

I don't know. I really don't know. I do know that I don't know not because the concept is too high, but because so much of it is just imbalanced to itself. That is ironic, in a way, considering the title's sake palindrome of TENET and the several reverse/mirrored actions of the character and events throughout. We're thrown in the deep end on beat one. The Protagonist knows his mission but, after that, he knows as much as we do as he experiences following events. The guy takes everything in a well enough stride. I'm not sure it's necessary to know the "why" about his psychology before hand as we can deduce such things (assumption? deduction!. There were nice plays on words scattered about that I was reminded of as typing that word!). While not necessary to know this about our character, I believe the audience's attention is just spread too thin with so much information, minimal insight, and a shotgun scatter of everything else compounding seemingly infinitely as the movie progresses. Even with all this, the core spy drama had predictable beats some 20-30 minutes before playing out. How do you spend so much effort master-working a concept only to lose credibility with clunky plot points? Granted, that may be more of a primed expectation of the viewer given how movies rely so much on twists and attempts at subterfuge of the true plot line. I don' know. But that's my point! I do not know and I feel like I should have more confidence on any point after this movie. I'm OK with not getting it, if it's on me for not getting it. I don't think that's the case here. And that nags at me. Sadly, it's not a positive nag that gives me pause to consider, reflect, or revisit (other than for what I've done enough to write this). Hm. I'm writing something within 24 hours of watching a movie. I guess there's something to be said for that? Meh. I'm pretty sure I'm going to disconnect from this one after hitting the submit button so even that isn't really all that much of a victory.

Inception did it better. Even with Ellen Page.

I'm no longer that freshman.

As someone else already commented, I had to remove myself from this film several times to regroup, calculate, and confirm the math of reversals, time sequences, or to replay garbled dialogue in my head to try to decipher what might have been said (that fire hose the second time around the airplane crash was deafening!). That didn't frustrate me, which I found odd. What did frustrate me was the realization that this movie likely took a few years of drafting logic maps to make sure everything fit just so working in two time progressions (multiple progressions in the last half hour or so of the film), but presents its intricate network of entry and exit points for the run of several different characters within a 2-hour window to an audience completely unaware and without context to the intricate maps that were clearly necessary to create the movie. I think it is a lot to ask your audience to be introduced to a concept, follow the logic of the concept, reasonably track multiple instances playing out of that concept, and still make sense of much of anything after a point, all while trying to do so under the guise of a spy action drama complete with your trope red herring distractions needed to continue the core plot moving forward. To me, that is damn arrogant to throw your audience into such a convoluted mess without time to really digest what's been learned (as minimally as it was presented) before being thrown into an exponentially building sequence of timelines, reverse timelines both being experienced by two teams with some individuals' sub-reverse-REVERSE timelines to hit necessary plot points. Granted, this is a marvelous sequence of events, but damn the ego necessary to create it and just toss it out without a user's manual!

The script plays well enough straddling between watered down versions of David Mamet and the Craig-era Bond writing staff. Action sequences were excellent in the first half of the film but too dense in the second. The "Teams" attack at the end became comical for me very quickly with agents running around (forward and reverse). For a moment I was reminded of my recent viewing of Starship Troopers when landing on planet P. Hey, but that's my baggage bringing with me what I took in so maybe it's OK. To a point. In the organized chaos playing out on screen I had to take a beat to get my bearings enough to finally ask, "who is shooting back?" Aside from a few rocket launchers hiding in two of the emptied buildings, I guess I missed them. That triggered a sequence of micro-second mental leaps noticing just how many "grunts" are aware and totally cool with time inversion that my mind nearly shattered at the reality that each one of these soldiers (both good and bad) have the awareness and power to manipulate time potentially destroying all of existence. Really? I understand that the pretense is temporal warfare, however, with all of the cloak and dagger secrecy provided when Protagonist (I love the character naming btw!) is brought onboard and first introduced to inverted matter, it seems a bit silly to see so many enlisted during walkthroughs of the training and battle grounds presented in the second half of the movie.

Hey. It's a mostly tight movie. I'm not sure it plays as well as on screen as it must have been planned on paper, but I'm sure all the details are there and fit together. I'm just not sure I'm interested enough to bother tracking it all to verify any of it. I'll have to take them on face value that there was adequate quality assurance when sequencing these timeline interactions. Most of it looked cool though. So for you puzzle nuts out there, is that enough to make a good movie? To make something just because one can? I'd be more enthusiastic if that question played more of a meta role between the film and the viewer somewhere, what with all of the mind bending concepts at play. I'm not sure Sator reached out on that level though. I mean to speak directly to motivation of creating (or in Sator's case, destroying) something just because. He had reasonable (a madman's reasoning, but still reasonable in that context) motivation. That may be a sadly missed bridge between what happens on screen to what the viewer experiences in watching it. Walls are being shattered. What's one more to reach the audience? But, no. Unless I'm missing it? Someone show me please, if so.

I don't know. I really don't know. I do know that I don't know not because the concept is too high, but because so much of it is just imbalanced to itself. That is ironic, in a way, considering the title's sake palindrome of TENET and the several reverse/mirrored actions of the character and events throughout. We're thrown in the deep end on beat one. The Protagonist knows his mission but, after that, he knows as much as we do as he experiences following events. The guy takes everything in a well enough stride. I'm not sure it's necessary to know the "why" about his psychology before hand as we can deduce such things (assumption? deduction!. There were nice plays on words scattered about that I was reminded of as typing that word!). While not necessary to know this about our character, I believe the audience's attention is just spread too thin with so much information, minimal insight, and a shotgun scatter of everything else compounding seemingly infinitely as the movie progresses. Even with all this, the core spy drama had predictable beats some 20-30 minutes before playing out. How do you spend so much effort master-working a concept only to lose credibility with clunky plot points? Granted, that may be more of a primed expectation of the viewer given how movies rely so much on twists and attempts at subterfuge of the true plot line. I don' know. But that's my point! I do not know and I feel like I should have more confidence on any point after this movie. I'm OK with not getting it, if it's on me for not getting it. I don't think that's the case here. And that nags at me. Sadly, it's not a positive nag that gives me pause to consider, reflect, or revisit (other than for what I've done enough to write this). Hm. I'm writing something within 24 hours of watching a movie. I guess there's something to be said for that? Meh. I'm pretty sure I'm going to disconnect from this one after hitting the submit button so even that isn't really all that much of a victory.

Inception did it better. Even with Ellen Page.

he’s seen the orange tag

he’s seen the orange tag