The Prestige question
 

Okay, another movie question. Forgive me if this is really dumb but... is Borden's double, his twin brother or an original clone from Tesla? The movie appears to hint at both possibilities. Or I could be totally wrong.

Re: The Prestige question
 

I always gathered he was a twin brother. Nothing more than that.

Re: The Prestige question
 

^ That's what I got from it. The ending is much better if you assume that it was Borden's twin. To me it's better because the two worked together and used trickery instead of what Angier did which was just make a clone of himself.

Re: The Prestige question
 

I really feel like I need to watch this again. The one time I did, it didn't do a whole lot for me.

Re: The Prestige question
 

I think it's wonderful. Definitely a movie that rewards multiple viewings.

Re: The Prestige question
 

I think he's just a twin as well. Really love the Prestige, I always thought it was underrated but I can see how the ending gets a little hokey for people.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Twin. Even before Angier gets involved w/ Tesla there are hints to the difference in Borden, as a person. Slight changes that as a viewer one might not notice but by the end it's clear as day.

Fucking loved this movie. The book is fucking cool too. Really really fucked up in a moral and ethical manner. The way they went against each other. I love it. I'd argue this is Nolan's best film. Not my favorite..but his best. Also..it was nice to see Jackman get serious, at that time he didn't have many roles that let him get serious. And THEN he did The Fountain. Which I also love very much.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Yeah, it's a twin. Although what bothers me more is the Angier clone storyline. I keep getting the nagging feeling that it was all bullshit fabricated by Angier and he simply hired (and murdered) another double like Root (or perhaps rehired Root with the intention of murdering him to tie loose ends). The reason I wonder this is because of the very end of the movie. It returns to Borden in the room with the water filled tanks. He's looking around intently, as if searching for an answer to Angier's method, and then we hear Michael Caine's narration: I find this interesting because you don't really see anything in those tanks. They're all dark and you see no shapes of bodies in them. Then just as Michael Caine says "you want to be fooled", you see a single tank with an Angier double. Makes me wonder if there was only ever one double of Angier and no clones whatsoever and all Tesla ever built for him was a lightning rig for his show.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Damn, I'm going to have to watch this again soon.

Re: The Prestige question
 

I thought you saw more as the flames went up?

Re: The Prestige question
 

I seem to recall seeing bodies in the tanks.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Gimme a second. Lemme put in my disc.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Update NOW please...

Re: The Prestige question
 

Okay, I'll go with him being a twin. Which leads to another question, why would Borden tip off Angier to Tesla?

Re: The Prestige question
 

Yeah, there seem to be shapes that might be bodies in the water tanks. Two are obvious. The first is when Borden is walking away. There you see a clothed individual clearly in one of the tanks to the left of the screen. The final individual is the one from the final shot of the movie (coincidentally, also to the left of the screen). Although what I thought was a body in one of the tanks to the right of the screen (seconds before the final body is revealed) turned out to simply be some books stacked right next to the tank that were visible through it. You see they are just piles of books as the camera pans to the left. However, it does seem there are bodies in the other tanks to the right.

Which of course begs the question, what is the point of Michael Caine's final narration, the intense quizzical look on Chirstian Bale's face, and the brief dissolve to the shot of Angier's hats from the beginning? The tanks and the hats can be a way of hammering home one last time that the machine created copies of whatever went in. However, the quizzical look on Christian Bale's face and Michael Caine's final words of "yYou want to be fooled" make me wonder if we're being told we were actually being tricked right to the very end and that the narration, even to that final point, has been completely unreliable.

Sorry. My net connection has been a bitch for the last few days. :p

Re: The Prestige question
 

He sent him on a wild goose chase. Borden never thought anything would come of Angier and Tesla, thought he'd just blow his money trying to figure out how to really do The Transported Man.

Also the first clue to them being twins happens really early in the movie with the knot. One didn't know what type of knot the other one tied.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Haven't seen it in a while, but I thought there HAD to be multiple bodies in the tanks because otherwise the whole plotline of him punishing himself over and over by drowning doesn't make sense. As I recall, each clone felt and remembered everything the previous clone went thru.

Re: The Prestige question
 

Twin brother.

Re: The Prestige question
 

We did see Tesla's invention make duplicates of hats and cats. It was definitely more than a lightning rig.

Re: The Prestige question
 

And something Tesla hinted towards the dangers of.

Goddamn did I love Bowie as Tesla. Weird that we're getting a Tesla movie and it's now going to be played by...Bale.

Re: The Prestige question
 

True, we did see that. However, everything we saw of Tesla and Angier was gleened from Angier's journal. Given that Borden screwed with Angier via a journal, it seems likely that Angier did the same to Borden (beyond the the mere reveal of "and here at the turn I leave you, Borden"). Unreliable narration plays a key role in the film. Which is why I've always wondered about the final narration.

Re: The Prestige question
 

There's an earlier one, actually. When Sarah's nephew inquires about the birds and ask Borden "but where's his brother?" Although the actual conversation is about the dead bird, the subtext is about the two brothers and the sacrifice it takes to maintain the illusion. And that comes to a head when one Borden dies so the other might "come back" to Jess at the end. The whole bird trick is a motif that not only bookends the film but is referenced throughout.

Re: The Prestige question
 

It's all part of Nolan's master plan. Wait til you see what Bowie does next.-wink-

Re: The Prestige question
 

According to the book the movie is based on:

Borden was twins.
Borden sends Angier to Tesla as a wild goose chase.
Tesla's machine does really work (although slightly differently in the book).


The differences between the book and the movie are interesting. Having read the book first, I though the movie did a good job of condensing the plot and themes of the book, with a few alterations.

in the film, Angier doesn't remember the clones drowning. The terror for Angier is that each time he steps into the machine, he knows that there will be two of him, and one of him will drown. Before stepping in, he doesn't know which one "he" will be. It's basically a 50/50 shot that the next thing he experiences will be his own drowning.

Re: The Prestige question
 

If the "clones" are identical copies, then they are both the original. The one on the platform always drowns, and the one that gets transported away lives on to do it again.

It's like this: You step onto the stage, the machine activates. Either the original you is transported away, leaving an exact double, or a copy is made some distance away. If both are identical, then it doesn't matter which of the above scenarios happens. As far as the Angier who walks away knows, he's always been the one who survives.