Tenet

 

I finally got to see Tenet. It was released on 9/3, and yesterday was 10/12 -- more than a month later. Yeah, I had to wait for our theaters to open, and then I had to plan a good night where I could watch in IMAX with a minimal number of other watchers. I'll explore more of this next week when I do a quick report on movies during the pandemic.

But for now ... it was really worth watching it in the theaters. In fact, I hope it gets rereleased after the pandemic so more people can enjoy it. It's one of those movies where you could watch it over and over and still catch new things, and it's very difficult to spoil. It's also one of those movies where if you stop thinking, you'll have no idea what's going on. In fact, I think several have complained: "What did I just watch?"

And you know what? I'm glad the writers pulled no punches. Christopher Nolan is pretty good at that. None of this bringing it down to the level of 100 IQ ... but rather, putting 100% into the plot and letting people come up to that level and figure it out themselves at their own speed. I think overall it makes for a better product. (I, myself find it very difficult to write simple music ... there's enough of that going around. Let other people write at the 100 IQ level.)

10 years ago, I don't think this movie would succeed, but Christopher Nolan had been preparing us with Inception, and then Interstellar, plus a little playing around with time in the story telling of Momento and Dunkirk.

However, this movie isn't without issues. You may notice that I haven't given any quick non-spoiler plot synopses -- because I'm not sure what to latch on to. It has time travel? Some Protagonist is recruited to a special project to save the world? That's because this is more of a movie built around an idea more than your typical Hollywood formula.

After having seen the movie, I know absolutely nothing about the Protagonist. He doesn't even have a name (except for perhaps a fake name when he does some spy work). I don't even know how he got to where he was at the beginning of the movie. He's like a nondescript placeholder that's intended for each of us to insert ourselves into the movie ... kind of like Indiana Jones. The only interesting characters are the husband/wife duo of Sator and Kat. Everybody else is just a pawn in Nolan's big game of time chess.

It really does mess with your mind, though. I'll say this much. After we got home, I got out of the van and watched my wife backing it up into the garage, and I was really freaking out.

Is the plot scientifically possible? I don't want to spoil too much here, but I can say how impressed I was about how much they got right. There are some things they got wrong, but the main idea is basically correct. I may do a spoiler-filled discussion in a separate blog entry about the whole mechanics.

In fact, almost a decade ago, I wrote my own short story that uses the same exact ideas: When Time Flows West (which won Honorable Mention three years ago in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest). Maybe that's one reason I like this movie so much ... because as I watched, I thought, "This is my story! Just a different setting." I also know that they didn't steal my idea, because as a mathematician, I know that if you incorporate physics into a time-travel idea like I (and Christopher) did, you're going to get the same plot. So, I'll publish the story here on my blog as soon as I get enough energy to pull in the text and format it all.

Nolan did consult Kip Thorne again, but not to the degree that he did with Interstellar.

And finally -- I loved the music, but come on Nolan! You don't need to make the music louder than the talking. Since I saw it in IMAX, I swear they installed the subwoofers right under our seats. I mean, I now know what "drop that bass" means because I've lived it and survived so I can tell the tale. I do think the movie would be significantly improved if the music weren't so loud, and if the talking editing was done a little more clearly.

For my final recommendation, I'm torn, because I want to say, "You need to see this in the theater," but I also want to say, "Don't go! It's too dangerous." I really hope they rerelease it later. It's only made just over $300 million worldwide over six weeks, but it could make so much more. I have friends who don't have a theater anywhere close to them that's open, and lots of people who have resolved not to go until the virus is under control. How about I put it this way: If you have a theater showing it, and you have the risk tolerance, then this movie is worth seeing.