Ok, I guess that makes more sense. I agree with some of the above posts that as soon as it was known what "the machine" was doing, it really ruined the epic nature of the movie. If they could have kept this out of the sci-fi realm (obviously would be a different last third of the film) I think it could have been a classic. I thought it was very good, but it was like the air was let out of the movie as soon as you saw all the cloned hats and cats.

He tried that with a drunken idiot, the clone would be himself! I don't know, the fact that he didn't even consider it seems really odd. There's no reason to believe the clone wouldn't want the trick to work just as badly as the original. After all, he didn't even know which was the original and which was the clone.

I think the problem was that Jackman (in any cloned form) wanted to be the one to hear the applause at the end. I don't think they could have pulled off what the Bale brothers were doing, because they weren't doing it for the fame. I think that Jackman knew that if there were two of him, even if they were identical, it would be impossible to control them. Going back to all of the conversations about obsession, part of the obsession was the adulation from the audience, which is why (IMHO) Jackman never even gave the clone a chance. He killed it immediately from the beginning, I think knowing that they would both never be satisfied.

I suppose that's why he asked Bale at the end "who was the one that came out of the box?" and was so suprised when he said they took turns.

I like how Angier willingly killed himself over and over, and his reason was to finally top Borden for revenge, but in reality I believe it had more to do with him feeling guilty and depressed over his wife being killed in the same sort of tank that in his mind he deserved to die over and over again himself.

I also like how in the end you finally understood why Borden only loved her on certain days, and on other days he didn't.

M. Night Shyamalan wishes that he could produce the sort of quality work that Christopher Nolan continues to pump out, time after time.

Borden loved her one day and not the next. Why on earth did Bordens 1 and 2 trade off marital duties when it could only lead to trouble? That made no sense at all and it only happened that way because the plot required it for the Shocking Twist. The same with "Angier" affecting an American accent most of the time: there was no reason for it other than to throw us off the scent of Lord Whatshisname.

They were trying to convey the strict requirements, I didn't buy that either but let it slide.

Clone isn't necessarily the correct term to describe the duplicates. The duplicates were without error, in other words identical.

Remember when Angier asked which hat was his after they had discovered the duplicates? Tesla replied "they're all yours", implying that every one of them was the real hat, none were clones.

With that in mind, who is to say that the "original" Angier is the one to have grabbed the gun? If you recall, in his last words Angier said he wasn't sure whether or not he would be the one ending up in the tank or the one 50 yards away. Look at it this way, if the duplicate is to retain all memories and knowledge of the original, the very first time the two of them look at each other, they both have the memory of stepping into the machine and putting the gun there. Is there anyway to really tell which is which? The one standing on the platform would believe that the duplicate is the one that is teleported and the duplicate would believe that the original is who was teleported.

Which brings up the debate as to who is killing who each show. If the original is the one that stays in the machine, then yes the original Angier killed the first duplicate with the gun. But that would also mean that the original would have died during the first show and each of the following duplicates would have a lifetime of one show. EX: duplicate #2 transports in show 1 but ends up drowning in show #2 while duplicate 3 is transported but drowns in show 3 etc etc.

Otherwise you could say that the original is the one that is transported all while the duplicate is the one left on the platform. But this would mean that the original Angier was killed by the first duplicate during the initial test and that duplicate #1 is the one that has been killing all the rest of the duplicates each of the 100 shows.

But if we go back to what I was originally saying, it doesn't necessarily matter if all of them are the "real" Angier.

I was really surprised at the "cloning" choice. In the book, the body in the machine is dead after transportation. Having Angier kill his other self in the movie was interesting though as it showed his guilt over his wife's death. (his wife that did not actually die in the book)

I felt they foreshadowed some of the twists too much - the showing of all the hats in the first scene, the way they always showed Borden#2 in make-up off to the side in a mysterious way, the time when the little boy asked about the bird's brother, Borden's wife always saying shit about him being sincere only part of the time, etc... The whole time I was thinking, "wow, everyone in the audience is going to figure this movie out too easily". Not sure if that's true though.

I was looking forward to seeing how they would handle certain scenes from the book, but they didn't fit in the way things were modified. I was hoping to see the spiritism confrontation and the ghost Angier in particular.

I thought it was interesting that the "original" Angier shot the "copy" the first time. After that it was always the original to die. That's kinda messed up because from his perspective, that means original Angier decided it would be ok for him to be the one that died in the first performance and the copy should live. (By the way, I agree that both Angier's are the same. I'm just using original and copy as a way to easily describe them.)

I think all of you were missing the point. What he needed the clones for on the last trick was to frame bale's character for murder. Thats why he didnt just make one. Thats why at the very end there were a bunch of dantons drowned in boxes. And why michael cane said, it was agony. He didn't know when bale would come and look so he drowned himself every night. The trick wasn't the telportation, it was the framming. But yeah I saw everything coming from a mile away. The brothers, the cloning, still enjoyed most of it though. 7/10

Bale's character used the duplication machine at all?
Is it possible that he had an identical twin, and moved to the city and became a magician's apprentice, all the time faking like they were one person?

If he used the machine, when did he exactly use it?
We'd have to assume it was when Tesla travelled to England - but IIRC Bale's wife mentioned that sometimes he didn't mean it when he said he loved her, way back when she told him about the baby. IIRC, Tesla was in England AFTER Bale was married and had the baby, and lost his fingers. So why did his twin have to get his fingers cut off?

what the hell are you talking about? Bale never used the machine, he had a twin brother. The sidekick with the beard. They would rotate and "switch roles", which is why somedays he loved her, somedays he didn't, also the reason why he had to cut off his brothers fingers. Michael Caines character knew it all along. Did you fall asleep at the end? How could you miss that much?

I contend that the two Bordens were taking turns even at the time Angier's wife is drown. Wouldn't that explain why the one Borden asnweres "I don't know" to the question "What knot was tied?". My fiancee doesn't think they were switching until he was a bigger act.