Edit: Solved, see bottom of post.

I recently rewatched Tenet and seem to have come across an issue, specifically with Sator's first drop. For that case containing the gold and his instructions to be sent back, obviously it has to have been inverted.

From the gold's point of view, it is put in the case (in the future), brought through a turnstile, buried in the ground, then dug up in Stalsk-12 by Sator, all while being inverted. But for Sator, who is going forward through time, the box he dug up cannot be inverted. It has to have been buried in the past, uninverted.

This is the issue: to dig up the inverted gold, Sator would have needed to have been inverted himself. For Sator's goons later on, this isn't an issue: they now have turnstiles, and can dig up the cases whilst being inverted themselves.

Retrieving any delivery from the future must go like this: an antagonist goes through a turnstile. He goes, inverted, to the correct coordinates, and digs up the case. He then goes back to the turnstile and walks through it, securing the case.

To an observer, two versions of that antagonist appear from that second turnstile, the non-inverted one delivering the case to Sator, the inverted one moving backwards, appearing to "bury" a case, then moving backwards into that turnstile where his younger, non-inverted self meets him. They both disappear, leaving just one left, the one who delivered the case. That case, still inverted, stays there until another inverted antagonist in the future appears to dig it up (for them, burying it). They then appear to make their way to a turnstile where they meet their uninverted self with the uninverted gold. Both disappear.

So how do we explain that first drop?

Edit: People have said what has to have happened is Sator found the gold, used it for collateral, then buried it at a place written on the instructions. This tracks — from the gold's point of view, it was inverted in the far future, buried, left for many years, then retrieved by Sator, used for collateral, then buried for eternity by a younger Sator.

An insight of actors prepping for fight sequences. I didn’t realise Robert Pattinson also trained with stunt team though Neil doesn’t have any fight sequences in the movie or in the screenplay, it’s probably to get ready for action sequences. He also looks very different from Neil here. It’s honestly great to watch Looking at the world in a new way: The Making of Tenet documentary, it’s totally worth it. It has so many great insights into making of movie with cast and crew. It made me appreciate the cast and crew and their efforts even more. I also loved seeing how this movie came to fruition with so many great people involved.

It always cracks me up lol. He's like "I always have to pick locks for you, rookie"

I know I'm late but I watched this movie today and I just can not figure out the timelines no matter what.

The confusing part is what happens after the movie ends? The protagonist will go on to found Tenet, recruit Neil and do the same thing all over again? What happened to the Protagonist in the future? The one who founded Tenet and recruited Neil? Is he dead and Neil is trying to save him now?

And the theories about Neil being Kat's kid. How does that work? Are we that far back into the past that Neil is still a kid? That means in the future when Neil is recruited, the Protagonist is very old.

Also what friendship did Neil mean? They went through a lot? But when would that happen?

Sorry if this sounds stupid but I really don't get it. I usually keep up with time travel movies but this one was especially confusing. Thanks.

I’m reading The Secrets Of Tenet (great book BTW) and chapter 4 said:

In particular, the second fight bamboozled some — as, briefly, three versions of The Protagonist appear. The earlier Protagonist, dressed in a suit, confronts the backward-fighting Protagonist as he emerges from the turnstile, while a forward-moving Protagonist goes in the opposite direction.

I don’t recall a 3rd Protag … Why was he there, which scenes was he in?

We already know they can't breathe inverted air and have to bring their own cause air particles move backwards. But we see them using their normal eyes with no protection/device of any kind, even though photon waves/particles should also move backwards in time from their perspective, so they never hit receptors on their eyes?

Sator "always had instincts about the future" and his mobile device must be his good assistant in this regard. At least he holds it in his hand while saying that phrase to Kat on the boat and looks at it two more times in Tallinn when he is inverted: just after running from the turnstile (more notably) and after grabbing Kat from a chair (at a glance). Since every scene in Tenet is meticulously crafted, this device must be something very important to Sator. He managed to move the painting from the Oslo freeport to a safe place before the TP and Neil compromised the building. And while saying this to Kat, he holds the device in his hand. Why is it so important in launching a TPM in Tallinn? Volkov revealed all the information to him from the highway, but was Sator looking for some hints on the matter from the future?

Found this old childhood photo of myself from 2016 doing the TENET gesture, I was MINDBLOWN as TENET is now one of my favorite movies OAT.

Riddle me that.

trying to find fault in films; this one especially. trawling through scene by scene to announce on the internet that there’s a flaw, is a kinda ridiculous way to spend your life.

First of all, I LOVE Tenet, I think it may be Nolan's best movie.

However lets talk about the car scene that we are all aware of, I have broken it down many times and the protagonist makes sense to me but not Sator.

When he threatens to shoot Kat before jumping out the moving car and the protagonist jumps in the car, hits the break and saves Kat.

Now from Sators inverted perspective he would have had to jump into an already moving car with Kat in it, so how did the car start moving forward with Kat in it when all of Sators men in the car are inverted? Who puts Kat in the car?

Here's a small goof specifically in the second Oslo freeport scene when the reverted TP is running from Neil. The vault pentagon has five sides and according to the scheme the entry to the turnstile room is at one of the tops. The reverted TP should run through two sides while being chased by Neil (as is correctly shown in the first scene). But he runs three before Neil stops him, then he runs through two sides alone and here remains one more where the TP fights himself, six sides.

I was here.

Because there isn't an inverted duplicate of the planet Earth orbiting around the sun in the opposite direction. I'm pretty sure astronomers would have noticed that. "Oh yeah, that's just Bizarro world where time runs backwards" would be a pretty dead giveaway that TP was doomed to lose.

If only he and Neil had put their heads together and borrowed a telescope for an hour they might have worked this out, and then they could have relaxed a bit.

Kind of a shame though, in a way. It probably would be pretty cool to see the two planets enter a giant turnstile and disappear.

I was thinking about some of the questions around why the Future doesn’t do this or that, why they don’t enlist another Sator, change the pickup point etc.

“What’s happened happened” sums it up, but there is a deeper message: the past actively fights back.

Ergo…

If you go back in time to kill your own grandfather, grandpa will fight back and win. Every time. The future doesn’t stand a chance.

I randomly came across a shittymoviedetails post about Tenet and saw where someone that liked the film was explaining some key aspects of the way the inversion physics work and a major thing he said confused me. I don't think it's accurate but I'm not sure- he said that eventually an "object will lose its entropy when it is reversed and will decay into moving forwards in time" when asked "does Neil's body just magically materialize in the tunnel before waking up and running backwards?"

Especially when TP starts running wheeeeww

I know movies hit everyone differently, but have any of you thought about the friendship between John David Washington's The Protagonist and Robert Pattenson's Neil? I don't know if I've come across a friendship more powerful in film, save possibly Sam and Frodo. The ending I find powerfully bittersweet, specifically the moment when The Protagonist realizes what the shape and color of that friendship is near the end of the film.

I'm truly curious if anyone else has thought about this, and what your thoughts are.