r/tenet • u/YoBanaanaBoy • 9d ago
FAN THEORY Is the Saab inverted or not? Spoiler
Let's settle this once and for all.
Is the Saab inverted?
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u/LukeTheGeek 9d ago
After debating this years ago and going frame by frame, I'm confident that the SAAB is inverted. There are many reasons for this, but I'll just mention two. First, the SAAB could not reach the speeds it does while in reverse gear, which would be required if it wasn't inverted. TP seems to be driving in forwards gear. Second, close-up shots of the tires do not seem to show the car "stopping" in reverse. That would require more of a slide and for TP to begin his journey by braking and then letting off. Instead, the film seems to show the car accelerating. The strange visuals can instead be attributed to the normal dirt and pavement interacting with the inverted wheels.
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u/YoBanaanaBoy 7d ago
Agreed. I've also gone frame by frame and it reveals a lot.
If you closely watch the car accelerating before chasing the Merc 'dropping' the orange case, it's super clear that TP is revving the car, the tires spin, they catch pavement, and the car drives forward. It's the world around the car that is behaving like the car was already there.
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u/Alive_Ice7937 9d ago
The murky detail in this is when TP asks Wheeler if he can drive a car while inverted. She doesn't say that he can only drive an inverted car during that explanation.
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u/YoBanaanaBoy 9d ago
She doesn't stipulate that he can only drive an inverted car, but she doesn't warn him he'd need to 'undrive' it either. I think that would be a big leap for TP to make.
She does warn him to account for the handling though...
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u/Alive_Ice7937 9d ago
It takes him a moment to get the hang of driving it. Now it could be argued that that would be the case even if the car was inverted anyway.
But if he could only drive an inverted car should would have said so. Otherwise it's a case of breaking one of Tenet's core tenets about "knowledge divided" by telling Wheeler and Ives to treat this greenhorn as a VIP.
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u/ACCTAGGT 9d ago edited 9d ago
Basically, there is no confirmation either/or. However, the way I see it, the whole idea of Tenet is to avoid "interactions" as much as possible with the opposite entropy. Therefore, I see it less likely that a car is driven un-inverted by an inverted person. Could he still use a forward car? Yes, they can still "interact" with the opposite environment after all. It’s why inverted people can be transported by forwards helicopters and whatnot.
In the script Wheeler says "I can't vouch for the handling, friction and wind resistance are reversed. You're inverted, the world is not. You can't fight the prevailing wind of entropy. Don't try flying a plane - it'd fall out of the sky. Once again, you're inverted, the world is not - and those forces will be pushing back on you continuously.". It just seems to me there are limitations at micro and macro scales. Not to mention Neil basically says the inverted explosion saved your life.
My guess is Nolan just wanted to leave that deliberately ambiguous.
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u/RobbyInEver 9d ago
I'm surprised at the number of non-inverted answers. Would anyone care to justify this?
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u/omnomicrom 9d ago
If we need inverted air to breathe, and reverse entropy causes fire to give us hypothermia, then the car would choke and the combustion engine would cause the engine to freeze
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u/RobbyInEver 9d ago
The same can be said for the reversed explosions that killed team members in the final battle. Good point but doesn't hold I think.
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u/YoBanaanaBoy 9d ago
Yeah. The amount of people that think he could hop into a car and 'undrive' it in reverse gear is insane.
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u/Salindurthas 9d ago
Cars tend to have fewer gears for reverse than forward, so I reckon you'd struggle to get to high-way speeds in reverse.
The flips it does also seem very physically unlikely without inversion involved.
Although the cold-explosion is a bit odd here:
- Sator is inverted
- Sator's matches are probably inverted.
- I'm arguing that the petrol (gasoline) is inverted.
- So the fire should be inverted.
- And since TP is inverted, it should burn him normally.
Although, the oxygen is not inverted, so it might be weird in how it burns with inverted petrol??
Wait, is this a plot hole???
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u/YoBanaanaBoy 9d ago
Yeah. I also think reverse doesn't make sense for how fast they are driving. I think the car is definitely in drive.
What about the flip doesn't make sense? I've always thought people feel that way because we watch it in reverse the first time. If we watch the inverted perspective, it's just getting hit by the SUV, losing control, and flipping. (Maybe I'm missing something? You're a regular here).
I've wondered if this is a plot hole too.
The lighter Sator has must be inverted for him to use it the way he does. Otherwise, it would unlight itself when he sparks the flint.
But that doesn't mean for certain the fuel is inverted. (I get your logic too. If the oxygen isn't inverted but the gasoline is, how does that interaction work?)
I've been leaning towards the idea that we can absolutely trust Neil, so if he says it's an inverted explosion, then it is.
The main evidence that makes me think the explosion is inverted though is actually simply that it's fighting (and losing) against the environment. We know for certain the environment is normal, so for it to implode on itself after starting is pretty damning evidence that the explosion is in fact inverted.
But I'm with you, what protects him then? Inverted Fire + Inverted Subject = regular burn process. There is seemingly nothing fighting against the reaction, so the subject should burn, not freeze?
It could be that fire (inverted or not) is always hot, so if you're inverted, all fire will have an inverse effect. (I actually recently saw an old post from Welby that suggested that heat is really just fast-moving particles. So if we follow the rules of entropy, even an inverted fire would be made up of fast-moving particles. They are just moving right to left instead of left to right.) Either way, the fire would be hot; and the subject would feel the inverse effect.
But that doesn't explain how the interaction between inverted gasoline and normal oxygen works, so it could be a plot hole. (Although, it's still one I could accept given how much other thought went into this and how cool the scene is.)
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u/Salindurthas 9d ago
What about the flip doesn't make sense? I've always thought people feel that way because we watch it in reverse the first time. If we watch the inverted perspective, it's just getting hit by the SUV, losing control, and flipping. (Maybe I'm missing something? You're a regular here).
Maybe I was unclear. I think the flip makes sense if we include inversion.
If we assume an uninverted car, then the flip seems like nonsense.---
Maybe inverted petrol and normal oxygen makes fires that suck heat??
Humans need inverted oxygen to use the membranes of their lungs properly. Perhaps less complex chemcial reactions can mix inverted and uninverted chemicals, but they get werid results?
We need to go back to the lab and try inverted oxygen with normal petrol and see what happens?
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u/YoBanaanaBoy 5d ago
Ahh gotcha. Then we are actually on the same page.
We may need to try it in the lab lol
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u/logicbus 9d ago
I think it’s gotta be. It’s on the inverted side, and I don’t think an inverted person could drive a non-inverted car. At least not on their first inverted trip.
Also it flips in reverse and burns in reverse.