The Prestige Ending did you understand it?

[TheOneAboveAll3]

I heard good things about this movie and never watched till a few days ago and it was very good. I just didnt like how Jackman claims to have made clones of himself and everytime they performed he had to kill his clone in order for his clone to not kill him later on. I just felt the movie was not believable with the cloning. Still a good movie though

 

[Magooglie]

I, too, wasn't expecting the movie to be a sci-fi movie when I first watched it.

 

[LEWIS540]

I heard good things about this movie and never watched till a few days ago and it was very good. I just didnt like how Jackman claims to have made clones of himself and everytime they performed he had to kill his clone in order for his clone to not kill him later on. I just felt the movie was not believable with the cloning. Still a good movie though

He wasn't killing his clone........each time a new Angiers was created, the old one drowned.

 

[General_Speckz]

It's metaphorical.

Each time he didn't know if he would be the man in the box or the teleported guy. But, in a way, he was both.

Quit eating dairy because the male cows born to induce milking are crated up and turned into hotdogs.

Also, quit eating hotdogs.

/Joaquinn Phoenix

 

[I'm Shawn Spencer]

I have a theory that the cloning thing wasn't real.

Everything in the film up till that point was grounded in reality. Magicians were con men. That was a theme of the movie. Even Michael Caine's character said "of course you can't trust him, he's a magician."

And most of the movie was told through unreliable narration. Because it came from both Borden and Angier's diarries. But both of them knew the other would be reading their diarries (they even addressed each other at the end of both their diarries). So you can't trust anything that came from the narration.

I think Angier did go to Tesla. But Tesla's machine didn't really work. Caine's character said something about Tesla being a wizard (magician). And when Tesla left the machine for Angier, he left a note pleading with Angier never to use it. He conned Angier and took off.


Also at the end with all the water tanks, we can only clearly see who is in 1 of them. I think it was Root (Angier's double). We can't clearly see who or what is in any of the other tanks.



Also it's been said that the entire movie is Christopher Nolan's magic trick on his audience. The opening line of the film is narration asking you, the viewer, if you're watching closely? I think Nolan makes the audience thinks the film takes a fantastic sci-fi twist towards the end. But really that's all just another trick, and there were no clones.



But admittedly, that doesn't fit with what Angier told Borden at the end, about it taking courage to step into the machine not knowing if he would be the man in the box or the prestige. But the theory does fit pretty well with everything else in the movie. So idk.

 

[blaseblah]

Why didn't Angier just create a clone and use it to perform the teleportation trick the same way as Borden?

 

[BB in Crazy!!!!]

He wasn't killing his clone........each time a new Angiers was created, the old one drowned.

Actually, it was left ambiguous. Even Angiers didn’t know whether he was drowning or teleporting. Either way the original Angiers was already dead, as the first time he was tele/cloned the one who stayed behind shot the one who was teleported.

 

[OhBam]

I heard good things about this movie and never watched till a few days ago and it was very good. I just didnt like how Jackman claims to have made clones of himself and everytime they performed he had to kill his clone in order for his clone to not kill him later on. I just felt the movie was not believable with the cloning. Still a good movie though

The cloning thing with Tesla does seem to come out of nowhere, but I didn't mind it.

Angier was willing to go to any length to top Borden, including murder.

I also agree with the theory the machine worked as shown, but I always thought Angier worked with Tesla after the hat sequence to get it dialed in to the point the clone would always end up in the tank. Maybe I'm wrong about that, I haven't seen it in a while.

It was a pretty good movie.

 

[BB in Crazy!!!!]

Why didn't Angier just create a clone and use it to perform the teleportation trick the same way as Borden?

I think because then it wasn’t “real magic” His ego would not allow it.

 

[HARRISON_3]

Crazy that it's based on a true story.

 

[LEWIS540]

Actually, it was left ambiguous. Even Angiers didn’t know whether he was drowning or teleporting. Either way the original Angiers was already dead, as the first time he was tele/cloned the one who stayed behind shot the one who was teleported.

Maybe that was from the book then, been a while. The machine transported the original away, and left something of a duplicate behind.

 

[davidlemonparty]

Coincidentally, the latest Rick and Morty episode has a very similar main theme.

 

[BearGrounds]

If you don't understand it, it's because, of course, you're not really looking. You don't want to work it out. You want to be fooled....

 

[MaureenCretis]

It was a bit bloody stupid, wasn’t it.

 

[minute bull]

... as the first time he was tele/cloned the one who stayed behind shot the one who was teleported.

I don't think so; it's this ambiguity that is the reason Angiers no longer knows which one he is, which is that metaphor for his obsession. He's willingly lost everything for this, including himself.

In the movie no one knows whether the machine transports or duplicates, but what it does not do is lie, @I'm Shawn Spencer. The movie is not conning us.

 

[General_Speckz]

I don't think so; it's this ambiguity that is the reason Angiers no longer knows which one he is, which is that metaphor for his obsession. He's willingly lost everything for this, including himself.

In the movie no one knows whether the machine transports or duplicates, but what it does not do is lie, @I'm Shawn Spencer. The movie is not conning us.

The movie is conning some, clearly.

Why have many tanks?

What was with the scene with many hats?

I'm sure there's plenty more examples if I took the time to think about it.

So, this was in order to give Angier the idea to sacrifice his life to ensure his rival was fooled into believing he was the better magician? How unsatisfying.

 

[minute bull]

The movie is conning some, clearly.

Why have many tanks?

What was with the scene with many hats?

I'm sure there's plenty more examples if I took the time to think about it.

In order to give Angier the idea to sacrifice his life to ensure his rival was fooled into believing he was the better magician?

In their defense it IS a jarring left turn. Genre shifts often are, back when we had genres and not just capes vs no capes.

 

[BB in Crazy!!!!]

I don't think so; it's this ambiguity that is the reason Angiers no longer knows which one he is, which is that metaphor for his obsession. He's willingly lost everything for this, including himself.

In the movie no one knows whether the machine transports or duplicates, but what it does not do is lie, @I'm Shawn Spencer. The movie is not conning us.

That literally happened in the movie the first time he used the machine on himself. It still is ambiguous. But either way both the teleported one and the one who stayed had been killed at some point. And he still doesn’t know.

 

[General_Speckz]

In their defense it IS a jarring left turn. Genre shifts often are, back when we had genres and not just capes vs no capes.

It's a twist. It's supposed to be jarring. I love twists, in fact I almost singularly like movies with twists because otherwise I can tell a person exactly what's going to happen. It's a curse.

That literally happened in the movie the first time he used the machine on himself. It still is ambiguous. But either way both the teleported one and the one who stayed had been killed at some point. And he still doesn’t know.

Good point.

 

[ufcfan4]

I love the movie.

My favorite Nolan film- and that’s saying something because I think very highly of the vast majority of his work.