EP Review: The Prestige

Comments (60)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

1. KAY says:

   January 16, 2008 at 2:03 pm

   ALL i WANT TO KNOW IS WHO GOT HANGED BORDEN OR FALLON
2. odogg says:

   January 22, 2008 at 4:52 pm

   The sad part is that the child seems to be Borden’s because he is the one who shows more emotion and most people will tell you that Borden was hanged.
3. Ermes says:

   January 27, 2008 at 11:56 am

   I’ve got the proves that will demonstrate the tow Borden are copies.

   Sorry for the English, I’m from Italy and in the following text there are few complicated phrases.

   Presuppose: the Tesla machine creates an exact copy of the people with the same memories, emotion and intention.

   1. We don’t know anything about Borden’s past. We just know he’s working for Cutter as tricks finder.
   2. Since the beginning of the movie, Borden can get the Chinese fishball trick because he’s sharing already half of his life with his copy. Angier while speaking with Julia said he wont ever do something like that.
   3. Still in the beginning Borden assert he has a new and unique trick, he is the only person who could perform his trick. Infact many other people could have a twin brother, but only Borden has an exact copy. Moreover they (the two Borden) don’t are ready jet to perform the trick, they still have to practice life sharing. For this reason one of the two Borden involuntary kills Julia and the other can’t remember what knot has he made.
   4. Starting the relationship with Sarah the twins theory appears to be obviously impossible since the difference between two brothers should be too big to not be seen by a wife, because of the different personality and memories.
   5. Borden appeared to be not worry or scared by the Tesla machine at the demonstration like if he previously saw the machine in function.
   6. It can’t be just a coincidence that Borden sends Angier to the only man in the world able to duplicate things. Remember Borden says “keyword is the method” and writes Tesla on the piece of paper. At the end of the notebook Angier is reading all movie long, we find out Tesla is only the key because the real trick is the sacrifice, the life sharing to satisfy jealousy. Anyway the Tesla machine makes necessarily part of the trick because twins are not sufficient equals on the psychological field.
   7. How could Borden use the machine if Tesla started building it for Angier, and could he find the money to pay it? In the lunch scene at the Tesla house, Tesla explain he had been exiled by the scientific field and retired in Colorado, before that he worked in Europe there he could have met Borden that, without buying the entire machine, propose himself like human body for the experiment and made the copy without let Tesla know anything about the result. For this same reason, Tesla, leaving the table, says to Angier that he already begun the machine. He actually needs only money to keep going with his experiments (he don’t know the machine works).
   8. Borden is surprised and frustrated by the Angier Final trick because he cant think of such a cruelty and because the trick took much more time than two year to Borden to be structured and prepared by sharing life.
   9. In the end Angier is the only one who mention the word brother or twin he’s confused he was looking for a trick more complicated than the simple double person he didn’t get the real trick, the sacrifice, the glory sharing, the entire life and family sharing.
4. Ermes says:

   January 28, 2008 at 1:58 pm

   For KAY

   They were the same person. There was no difference, not anymore since Borden shared his life with his copy. if you want to separate them the hanged one was the Olivia lover.
5. odogg says:

   February 4, 2008 at 3:27 am

   Not only that, the hanged one was Borden and not the twin.
6. bc195 says:

   February 4, 2008 at 2:07 pm

   KAY
   Fallon was hung.In his summing up the remaining Borden said “I loved Sarah and Fallon loved Olivia”.Therefore Fallon was hung.This means the little girls guardian at the end was her real father.Sarah also always sensed the difference between the two,she always knew when her real husband said he loved her he meant it, but not when Fallon was playing the part of husband.I dont go with the 100 lookalikes theory,I know we all supposedly have a double in this world but 100??The problem is we venture from a believable film into Sci-fi.And unbelievable Sci-fi at that.The Illusionist was maybe not as clever,but more believable as we just see illusions and tricks(like David Blane).no silly cloning.Also much more cinematically shot with beautiful short focus camera work.Better made by far.
7. bw123 says:

   February 8, 2008 at 10:44 am

   In addition to bc195′s comments, Fallon apologizes to Borden at the prison for essentially causing Sarah to kill herself. Since we are told that Borden loved Sarah, we can imply that it was, indeed, Borden who lived and returned to his daughter.
8. odogg says:

   February 14, 2008 at 3:43 pm

   I’m not sure but was it said any time in the movie that Borden was the biological father? I don’t think so.
9. JoeRu says:

   February 22, 2008 at 4:38 am

   Everyone here seems to have forgotten that Tesla eventually admitted to Angier that he indeed NEVER MADE A MACHINE for Borden. But he had allowed Angier to think so b/c he (Tesla) found the idea so intriguing that he wanted to try to build a machine (ie to figure the problem for the first time, not merely recreate what he did for Borden) for Angier.

   Of course Borden’s double was his brother. Cowardess’s logic seems best here – Borden clearly has no idea how Angier’s version was done -he clearly is unfamiliar with Tesla’s machine.

   And I think the “clone” that got created by the machine is indeed an identical copy, down to thoughts, emotions, etc, to the point where it does not matter which got killed each night. Angier’s words in his dying speech were along the lines of “I never knew which one I would be after the trick was activated: the man in the tank or the man on the balcony.”
10. odogg says:

    February 23, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    Very good logic. I never really thought about the fact that it wouldn’t matter who died since it was essentially the same person who was cloned.