re: The Prestige [SPOILERS]

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uhhhh....the machine 100 percent worked. how is this even a question?

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Yeah. The machine didn't work as intended but it definitely worked insofar as the expected result occurred each time.

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Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

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The whole movie is a trick; that's exactly the point. The movie is structured like a magic trick. The Prestige of the trick is the final reveal. So this line is Nolan calling to the attention of the audience the fact that Angier never could figure it out because he didn't want to believe it was so simple. In fact, Cutter has it figured out from the very beginning, but Angier refuses, and you, the audience, don't want it to be that easy either, so you go on believing there is some otherworldly reason why Borden can teleport. You go along with Angier through his discoveries, which are indeed otherworldly, and build up your wonder even more. "If Angier does it through science, how does Borden do it? Is it really magic?" And you believe that because you want to believe that. Then the Prestige happens.

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I'm just wondering if there are any thoughts out there, that the movie is a trick in itself. I just asked if the book went into anymore detail on that.

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Just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia (I had no idea there even was a book), the book is wildly different in the most important parts. Indeed, the endings are totally different.


As for my thoughts on the movie, it is absolutely incredible. Everything about it is well done. The story itself is something to be admired. The struggle between science and magic (and whether there is really a difference), the struggle of ambitious men, revenge, love, heartache, sacrifice, family, all are explored in this story to wonderful affect.

Unfortunately, it was released the same year as The Departed, Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, Letters from Iwo Jima, and the Queen. I would argue the Prestige is better than all of those except the Departed, but it is not nearly the Oscar bait of those films and, I am sure, was not campaigned for to nearly the extent required to even be nominated, which is a shame. It is one of the better films made in the last decade.