Christopher Nolan is no stranger to crashing planes for the sake of film.
Previous features from Nolan such as Dunkirk and The Dark Knight Rises have seen planes crashed practically and Tenet is no exception. However, unlike his previous films, Nolan’s choice to crash a real plane in Tenet wasn’t strictly due to his love of practical effects.
Nolan stated in a recent interview that his first course of action was to create miniature sets and/or use CGI to get the effect he desired for the film sequence. It was only when they ran the numbers, that a fellow crew member suggested just buying an actual 747 plane and crashing it into a real hangar – because you’re Christopher Nolan and you can and actually… it’s cheaper? After set builds, CGI and post-production costs were calculated they realised, yeah just buy the plane and crash it.
So, we may not be talking practical effects for the sake of film this time round, unlike the Inception corridor or the plane hijacking in The Dark Knight Rises but hey, we’re still getting the real thing.
The trailer for Tenet also suggests that we’re going to see another Nolan masterclass in the manipulation of time. We’re thinking Memento, Inception, even Dunkirk altered the timespans and when you got to see them. Most reports we have seen are saying No, no it’s not time travel – its inversion… Take from that what you will, either way Nolan’s going to be bending time once again causing roars of awe, cries for help and headaches all round that result in a second viewing.
Regardless of motivations for crashing planes and headaches caused by the inversion of time, Christopher Nolan will go down in film history as a master of practical effects and manipulating time and we’re sure as anything excited for this next Nolan instalment.
You can check out the recent trailer for the film here.