23 Oct 06
The Prestige: the spoilers post">The Prestige: the spoilers post
Posted by MaryAnn Johanson under Current Cinema
So as not to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, I’ll ask two spoiler-laden questions in the first comment. Join me there to talk freely about this movie full of secrets.
57 Responses to “The Prestige: the spoilers post”
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MaryAnn Johanson wrote:
1) Does Nolan give too much away early in the film by having the obviously disguised man suspiciously hanging around Borden? It made me suspect there was a twin/double thing going on… though, on the other hand, it is acknowledged by Angier and his crew that Borden must be using a double to pull off the transported-man trick. Is there a better way Nolan could have pulled off the Borden twins that neither gave too much away nor felt like, well, a rabbit pulled out of a hat?
2) Was I the only one guessed what Angier was doing with the Tesla device? It was obvious to me that he was drowning himself, so to speak, every time he performed the “illusion,” long before that was revealed. I guess if I could have made one change to the film, I might have made that less a surprise, revealed it earlier, and had Angier deal with the horror of it somehow, just a little bit, explore the idea that he is trying to atone for his wife’s death in the same way, or is punishing himself out of remorse.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:03 pm -
Kevin Laforest wrote:
1) Maybe I’m just dumb, but I totally didn’t see this coming, only wised up to the twin thing near the end when the “disguised” man visits Borden in jail. Until then, I thought the angle Nolan was going was that Borden really, truly was capable of magic, as Angier wondered, and not just using a twin like Michael Caine’s character assumed.
2) That one I guessed. Once you see the multiple hats, I think it’s pretty obvious, but the implications of creating countless clones and killing them is disturbing enough that it stuck with me until the end. Plus there was the matter of whether Borden would be hung, followed by the twin reveal and his revenge. Good stuff!
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:12 pm -
JC wrote:
I agree on both counts. I loved the film, but it didn’t take me long before I was wondering, “Who is under that disguise?” And as soon as Borden started performing ‘The Transported Man’, I knew it had to be his twin. But I do think Nolan considered this. I believe that’s why he had Johanson’s character tell Algier that she saw fake beards and makeup laying about Borden’s workshop, with Algier responding that was just a ruse, a ploy by Borden to lead her in the wrong direction. Here I think Nolan was hoping to address the audience’s suspicions about a twin. That’s an old Robert Mckee trick — if you have a hole in your story, make sure to address it and explain it away to throw the audience off the scent.
As for Algier’s ‘Real Transported Man’, I thought it was clear what he was doing because by that time we had seen the opening — Algier being drowned and Borden appearing to be completely shocked and innocent. The entire movie was about them one-upping each other, so it was clear Algier was behind his own “death”. What else could it possibly be? that’s why I was surprised that Nolan semed to use a “reveal” at the end, as if the audience was supposed to be shocked at this realization. Like you, that was the only crack I could pick apart in a great, great film. Or, in other words, just what I’ve come to expect from Nolan.
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:28 pm -
jeffmcm wrote:
I totally recognized Bale-as-Fallon as soon as he was introduced, but I didn’t get the ‘every night a drowning’ thing until the end of the movie.
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:58 pm -
LVJeff wrote:
I don’t really believe Nolan was trying too danged hard to hide his reveals — if he did, the endings would feel more like a cheat. And even then, just the same, I watched the movie without suspecting a thing — and maybe it was because I didn’t try. I was part of the audience Angier was describing — the kind that wanted to be fooled. As a result, the reveals at the end were still surprising enough, and none of it felt like cheating because when you thought back on it, so much of it was subtly shown to you.
Not only that, I don’t think the movie relies on the surprises to have its effect on the audience. So whether or not I would’ve seen anything coming would not have affected how riveted I felt during the whole competition between the two, nor, as Kevin says, how disturbing it was to understand what horrific sacrifices were being made in the name of coming out on top.
Loved the movie. Just loved it.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:13 pm -
Nathaniel R wrote:
i got the every night drowning early on but NOT the twin thing so too each their own I guess as to what they process and what they don’t.
I do think the film could’ve been tighter to make the twists feel more twisty i.e. less jumping around timewise and a more straightforward narrative so that we’re not always ahead of them so to speak. and I particularly don’t understand why he started with the end… though I did love the “they want to be fooled” at the end.
because, well, we do.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm -
MaryAnn Johanson wrote:
I don’t really believe Nolan was trying too danged hard to hide his reveals — if he did, the endings would feel more like a cheat.
Yeah, that’s it exactly: you can’t hide everything, because then it feels like the story cheats when it reveals its secrets, but if you hint too much, you risk giving away the whole shebang.
I think Nolan did a brilliant job of finding that perfect middle ground.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:45 pm -
goatdog wrote:
1. I didn’t see through the twin thing. I figured he had really managed to teleport himself or something, and the “how” is what Angier was visiting Tesla trying to find out.
2. I didn’t see through the drowning thing either. There’s a line of dialog (paging Robert McKee) after they figure out that the machine is making doubles where Tesla says Angier can have it after he makes a few more adjustments, which I, perhaps stupidly, thought was to make it so there weren’t any doubles anymore. However, I like to, and really want to, be surprised, and if I see something coming, I usually fault the filmmaker for making it too obvious.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:10 pm -
ProfessorFix wrote:
I knew the twin was coming from the time the little boy asked what happened to the bird’s brother, but I didn’t realize I had been looking at the twin throughout the movie until Michael Caine made the comment “Fallon doesn’t talk at all”.
As soon as I believed the Tesla machine worked (I was skeptical that the multiple top hats was part of Tesla’s con), I realized the significance of the drowning scene we’d seen in the beginning.
Early on, I thought the brother would have to give up his fingers, but then when they constantly wore gloves on stage, I began to doubt. In one shot, where the family-man brother was looking at a new house with his wife and daughter, I even thought I caught a glimpse of his intact fingers on the left hand. So that was the one surprise left for me at the end of the movie.
This movie has a high rewatchability quotient because, even though I could see most of the twists coming, I enjoyed watching how it was all put together.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:51 pm -
JC wrote:
Quote from Nolan interview in Entertainment Weekly:
“It’s easy to put a twist in a film that nobody will see coming. What’s harder — and much more important — is to have a twist that almost isn’t a twist. That is to say, if you see the film a second time, you spend the whole time going, ‘Of course! They were trying to tell me this all along!’”
I think that sums it all up very nicely.
October 24th, 2006 at 6:01 pm -
Shawn wrote:
I figured out Bale was probably playing two parts fairly early (the wife’s repeated comments regarding the fluctuating state of his love for her provided the tip off that something was up).
However, the more obvious twist (Angier’s nightly duplication) went right over my head, even though the “cat scene” made it clear what would happen if the Tesla device was used.
The only real problem I had was the dual roles Jackman took on. They’re no way those two guys weren’t identical twins, and Rupert would definitely have been more curious concerning his counterpoint’s family tree.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:43 pm -
jeffmcm wrote:
Did you see the nose on Angier’s double? No twin of his would have that nose, clearly.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:54 am -
loftus wrote:
i thought Borden had convinced tesla to clone him while Tesla was in London for the science fair and that was the birth of fallon. I thought about Fallon and Borden being twins but that would mean a couple of things. a. they would have had to decide pretty early on to live this life b. why not use the ideas earlier (ehy wait for the teleported man)? anybody else thing fallon was a clone
October 28th, 2006 at 9:54 pm -
Amanda wrote:
HELP! I’m confused as to which twin died Fallon or Borden? Please explain… =D THANKS!
October 28th, 2006 at 10:23 pm -
sophie wrote:
Wait, so now I am confused, I saw nothing coming the whole time…but if Borden killed the real Angier, the clone in the tank is dead too, right? It was so quick i could not figured it out, if the one in the tank was alive or dead, and if it would have been the clone or the real Angier ?!
October 29th, 2006 at 12:36 am -
Ian wrote:
Amanda, I’m not sure, but I don’t think it matters, as they were pretty much interchangeable throughout the story (their lives?). I think Borden made that clear when he told Angier that they took turns doing the Prestige of the Transported man, and obviously they took turns as “Family Guy”
Sophie, there is no “real” Angier, after the first time he did that trick. The “original” Angier drowned in the tank and the clone appeared at the back of the theatre. The next night, clone #1 would drown in the tank and clone #2 would appear at the back of the theatre. And so on.
But if it makes you feel better, I was confused about a lot of the plot points until I found this website!
October 29th, 2006 at 9:31 am -
David wrote:
If Borden had a twin the whole time, why did he give Angier the peice of paper with “TESLA” written on it? How did he know about Tesla and his machine?
:
October 29th, 2006 at 11:52 am -
LVJeff wrote:
If I recall, when Borden was exaplining everything to Angier at the very end, he said he was the one who loved his wife, and the other one (the one who died) was the one who loved the Scarlett Johnasson character. Presumably, that might mean the “real” Borden lives, while “Fallon” died.
October 29th, 2006 at 1:42 pm -
Kza wrote:
The “TESLA” was the code breaker for Angier to read the journal, which is what Borden wanted. Borden led Angier to believe that Tesla the man was the key to his secrets (both of them saw Tesla at the same time, at the dangerous-looking demonstration), but it was supposed to be a wild goose chase for Angier — it just didn’t turn out that way.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:36 pm -
ave17612 wrote:
Loftus,
thinking along the same lines. Until this forum, I did believe that Fallon is a clone. Having a “twin” would just be too ‘convenient’ both for Borden and Nolan. Being a clone WOULD explain why the Prestige and the Family Guy has to be equally shared to both of them.
October 30th, 2006 at 3:47 am -
Eric Y. wrote:
I was disappointed by this film. The ending was ridiculous. I appreciate Nolan’s storytelling skills, but this one didn’t do it for me.
October 30th, 2006 at 4:07 am -
lylee wrote:
Loved this movie. I think it just may be my favorite movie of the year so far.
I had the Angier twist partly figured out, but on Borden I was totally in the dark. I had some vague idea that he’d somehow managed to split his identity into two different people…I guess in a way that’s not so far from the truth!
One thing I’m wondering about Borden, or rather about his wife: did she figure out his secret? She says something to one of the Bordens that indicates she knows, and she was going to tell Olivia whatever she knew. But then her suicide suggests she *didn’t* know or understand the complete truth - unless it was just that she was tired of having to live half her life with someone who didn’t love her. Maybe that was reason enough, but still…
October 30th, 2006 at 5:35 pm -
Shay Casey wrote:
I’m still trying to decide if I liked this or The Illusionist more. Both, I think, are good but not great films, well-crafted stories with relatively thin thematic content. The difference is in focus: The Illusionist looks through the eyes of an audience member (Paul Giamatti’s detective), marveling and delighting in the pleasure of being fooled; it’s lighter and more playful. The Prestige is about the magicians themselves, focusing on the kind of person it takes to live a life of deception; as such, it’s much darker and harsher.
I was interested to see a consistent theme emerge in Christopher Nolan’s work: the obsessive, self-deceiving male mind. I hadn’t noticed this before, but it seems like something he hits on time and again. It’s the through-line from Leonard Shelby to Batman to these magicians.
October 31st, 2006 at 2:19 pm -
Julia wrote:
Saw “The prestige” this weekend..great movie. Kind of figured out that Fallon was Borden (Borden was Fallon)…my question is…Did Michael Caine’s character, Cutter, know about the switch? He knew that Angiers was framing Borden. Did Cutter lead Borden to Angiers at the end?? He passed him in the street right before Borden killed him, then he had Borden’s daughter with him and did not look surprised when Borden picked her up? So was Cutter in cahoots with Borden the whole time???
October 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm -
Shay Casey wrote:
The “duplicate” secrets were not terribly well concealed, I thought (though I agree with LVJeff that Nolan didn’t seem to be trying all that hard to hide them). I figured Fallon was Borden’s double and that they had been switching off with the wife (she kept saying that she knew when he meant it and when he didn’t). The idea that Angiers’ double died every night in the tank also made sense (remember the dead birds).
I hadn’t considered that Angiers actually killed himself the first time he did the trick, but logically, I suppose he would have had to. That is an interesting twist.
October 31st, 2006 at 4:43 pm -
Kate wrote:
I have questions after watching the movie:-
1. Did Sarah commited suicide or was she murdered by Borden since Borden was the one who loved the assistant and Sarah was getting in his way by fussing too much?
2. If Fallon was the the twin brother, was Fallon the one who tied the knot that lead to Angiers’ wife death since Borden always insisted that he didn’t know why he tied that knot?
Does anyone have an answer to the questions?
November 1st, 2006 at 2:23 am -
Kate wrote:
Gosh, the more I think about the show, the more questions I have. How did Angiers know that Borden was on the stage on that fateful day of the last prestige act? Angiers must have known so that he would not re-appear at the other end of the theatre for the audidence to make the murder act complete. But how would he know?
And why would Caine come running of all days to the back stage on that fateful day?
November 1st, 2006 at 8:34 am -
brad wrote:
The Bale twin concept was a misdirect, as any good magic trick should have. Nolan wanted the audience to start focusing on the Bale storyline to throw us off the scent of Jackman’s ultimate obsessive tragedy.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:19 am -
Bill wrote:
Would someone be willing to sum the whole plot up? Or would that take up way too much time?
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:50 am -
PR wrote:
I belive Fallon did tie the knot. That is why Borden could truthfully say he did not know which knot was tied.
Regardless, why didn’t Angier simply look at the knot on his dead wife’s wrists?
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:55 am -
Kate wrote:
Hi Bill, here’s a link to the summary:-
themoviespoiler.com/...oilers/prestige.html
Total spoiler.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:57 am -
Aaron wrote:
So, finally, was it Bolden or Fallen who loved his wife? Which one survived?
When was Bolden cloned for the first time?
November 5th, 2006 at 6:04 pm -
arla wrote:
ave17612, i agree that fallon was a clone of borden, not his actual twin. this would also explain why borden gave angier the slip of paper that said “tesla”. borden explained that the codeword was also the secret to his trick. the tesla machine cloned himself then making it possible for him to perform his trick.
im still sort of confused about all that happens, because i have a feeling that there are still more hidden tricks.
there is also one flaw that i noticed. when angier’s wife dies in the beginning it is explained that the way she would get out is by putting her hand in a hole to unlock the top. it is said that there is also a spot on the outside of the box to unlock it. if this is so, why didnt cutter just unlock it there instead of breaking the glass with an axe?
November 5th, 2006 at 9:07 pm -
vietnam wrote:
The director did gave us so many clues to every scene that we just failed to pick it up. Did anyone get the corelation between the dying bird in the cage and what HJ is doing when he drown himself? The two tricks seem similar…Zap and the bird or HJ die in a box then reappear but the question still remains, is it the same bird or the same HJ?
I already watched it twice but I’m still missing a few more key points to this movie….I think the director to this movie wants us to watch it over and over again until we fully understand it but if we do that, wouldn’t that make us “OBSESSED” like one of Bale’s or HJ’s character?
November 6th, 2006 at 7:04 am -
vietcong wrote:
So the mystery behind which HJ is the real deal is revealed. I make a duplicate and I kill it. I then ask Cutter what it is like to drown and he brought up the story of a sailor about drowning is like coming home but then he said he lied, it is more like agony. So you see, HJ is preparing for his death by drowning. Another clue to this is he try to see what it is like to die by drowning by dunking his face in that sink and see his drowning wife. The first stage show, the orginal fell in and die and now everything else is a clone that makes another clone..
Regarding the death by hanging of Bale, it was his twin that gets hang. An eye for an eye perhaps? If you kill someone like tying a knot and drowning someone, it is only right for you to be the one that die.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:15 am -
tao la nguoi vietnam wrote:
When you watch it for the second time, do listen to what Bale said when he traded the secret password for his twin who was buried alive. He said..”where’s my ingeneur?” HJ looks down and nodded..Bale said, “alive?” HJ said..”how fast can you dig” …
The dictionary shows what an ingenue as:
1. the part of an artless, innocent, unworldly girl or young woman, esp. as represented on the stage.
2. an actress who plays such a part or specializes in playing such parts.so we see that Bale gave us and to HJ another clue that the guy buried is his stunt double.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:22 am -
Rob wrote:
I think one of the points people are having trouble with is..there Was no Fallon OR Borden..there was simply the Borden twins taking turns playing both parts. “today you love me”.. the wife was fond of saying because only one of the men playing her husband loved her. The brothers simply shared a life..
and kate: Angier’s didnt need to know that Borden was going to be back stage that night (although he probably recognized him in the crowd..after all the trouble these two caused ach other i would think that recognizing the other disguised would be a requirement). what he really needed to know or believe is that Borden would show up ONE night…because since the tank was always used, the reaction would eventually be the same.
November 6th, 2006 at 2:48 pm -
Summerview wrote:
Yeah, Borden and Fallon weren’t their real names.
Their names were Castor Leiden and Paul Leidin. And “Borden” and “Fallon” were just roles they were playing.
They’d alternate at the acts where they were apprentices, and if one learned one trick, he’d teach it to his twin. Indeed, that’s why the one who tied the knot on Angier’s wife on one night wasn’t the one who tied it on the night she drowned.
Castor was the one who loved Sarah, while Paul later loved Olivia. The one who died was Paul.
I don’t get why some people think that they were CLONES!
Also, think of it this way for Angier…
Let A(1) = The original Angier
A(2) = The Angier clone that was immediately shot when he appeared.
A(x) = The current Angier (the onstage one)
A(x+1) = The Angier clone who will appear at the “teleport” site.A(2) was immediately shot by A(1) when A(1) was testing the machine.
A(1) died when he gave a demonstration to the show promoter
From then on, A(3) became the A(x) {”let A(x) = A(3) at that time who then performed on the first night and drowned underneath the stage, to be replaced by A(x+1) who would then become the new A(X)… “let A(x) = A(x+1)” and show himself to the Theater Audience as the “new A(x)”
The last A(x) who drowned was the one seen by Paul Leiden (pretending to be “Borden”), while the A(x+1) who appeared at the back of the audience hid himself as soon as he heard Paul’s screaming from under the stage. This A(x+1) who then became the new A(X) reassumed his original identity as Lord Coldlaw. (Or is it Cauldlough?)
Terrible, though, since each of the A(1..X-1)’s would have had to die terrible deaths. Only A(2) died a quick and relatively not-so-agonizing death, having been shot immediately after appearing at the “X” site.
Why drowning??
‘Coz that would have been the only way of eliminating the Angier that had to be done away with without any suspicious sounds. No gunshot, and shouting underwater would have been silent.
Also, it would give the grieving “current Angier” the chance to die the way his wife died.
November 7th, 2006 at 9:42 am -
sarie wrote:
but still, it doesn’t make sense for bordon and fallon to have shared lives the whole time, unless they knew that somewhere down the road they would do the transported man trick. However, to echo the question before, why would they wait so long? Why not
just do the transported man trick right away? or did they wait because they knew they would not be able to top it?
November 11th, 2006 at 8:34 am -
arnie wrote:
when did cutter figure out the twins? he wasn’t surprised at all at the end when fallon came to the theatre or when borden came to pick up his daughter.
this question was posted once before but didn’t see anyone answer it?
November 11th, 2006 at 8:19 pm -
Donn wrote:
Bale’s character was never cloned. Why? Because if there was a clone of Bales character he would have been cloned wit two missing fingers.
November 13th, 2006 at 8:32 am -
Jen wrote:
I agree that “Fallon” being “Borden’s” clone is more plausible (and the clone would have had all of his fingers if he was cloned before the gunshot wound).
I think I have a handle on all of the “big” questions, but I feel like I may have missed something. Whatever happened to the drunken actor who played Angier’s double? I don’t recall a resolution to that character. Does anyone else find it odd that he would just bow out gracefully? Or are we to assume that “Borden” kills him in order to take his place in Angier’s act that night? Maybe I was just too caught up in figuring out who were clones and who weren’t.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:19 pm -
Rosa wrote:
saw the movie yesterday, thought it was a great film, if a little confusing. i think michael caine’s character knew along that borden was simply using a twin or a double, and he tried to tell angier this, however angier simply didn’t believe this as he expected bigger and better things fron borden. he became obsessed with the fact that borden was a better magician, but in fact, he wasn’t, he just wasn’t riddled with obsession. a few things to clear up for us ignorant ones
: why was angier drowning himself every night? was the box of water also the tesla machine? do you think sarah knew about borden/fallon? was fallon simply a twin or double of borden or was he really a clone made before the incident with the bullet catch? was michael caine on borden’s side all along? was angier a good guy before the death of his wife? WHICH KNOT DID BORDEN TIE!! did he really simply not know??? SOO MANY QUESTIONS, i’m relying on you clever people to work out the answers! bye! p.s. great film despite confusion??
November 13th, 2006 at 1:59 pm -
Dan Jardine wrote:
All of this conjecture is making my head hurt.
It’s an enjoyable enough film, and the actors certainly seemed to be enjoying all the sleight of hand. What interested me even more the the one-upsmanship and plot twists were the meta-concepts at play, particularly in how the three act structure of the magic trick mirrored the conventional three act play of theatre, and by extension, cinema. Nolan’s the magician at the helm of the film, providing us with, in turn, his version of the pledge, the turn, and the prestige.
November 13th, 2006 at 10:28 pm -
Ned Depew wrote:
What everyone seems to be losing sight of here is that the lynchpin of the whole plot is the Tesla machine - a hokey science fiction fabrication.
In my opinion this is akin to making up a word in order to create a crossword puzzle. It’s a “cheat,” plain and simple. It takes the film out of the realm of “puzzle” or “suspense” film, and into the realm of sci-fi.
Listen carefully: in the real world (as opposed to the movie world) there are no such things as electrically created clones of human beings. In the real world, such a thing is simply not possible - even now - let alone in the late 19th-early 20th Century period of the film.
And the whole “plot” of the film is built around this creaky, imaginary, sci-fi device.
I enjoyed the look of the film, its spookiness and period detail. I thought the performances were acceptable, but on the weak side - the Bale “doubles” and the Jackman “doubles” looked more like the special effects they were, than separate indivduals. Michael Keaton did this far better in “Multiplicity,” and so did Nic Cage in “Adaptation,” but they had better, more character-focused material with which to work.
I enjoyed the “puzzle” aspect of the film until I realized that the solution was based on a “cheat.” I thought both Bale’s and Jackman’s performances were only fair.
I’ve seen what Bale is capable of - and it’s far more powerful than his best moments here. I believe Jackman is a good actor. Although most of what he’s chosen to do on film has been pretty thin, there have been times when he’s shown interesing glimmers of real ability to transform into a character. But he doesn’t show anything of high caliber here.
Poor Scarlett Johansson either really can’t act or keeps making really bad choices of material, especially her last few outings. Michael Caine does his usual workmanlike job - not exactly phoning it in, but certainly not breaking any new ground either.
I have to say I preferred The Illusionist, which, while also a bit hokey in its use of inexplicable illusions that could probably only be performed by virtue of Movie Magic™, was at least straightforward about its whole “fairy tale” aspect.
This film is good “movie-making” applied to a rather meidocre movie. In a year that was less laden with disappointments and just plain crap, it would probably sink silently, but compared to this year’s mainstream offerings it is far enough above the very low average to look respectable - and the “craft” is of a very high level, that also makes it “look” better than it “is.” (As Mark Twain remarked, “My German friends assure me that Mr. Wagner’s music is much better than it sounds”).
November 14th, 2006 at 10:19 am -
LVJeff wrote:
I don’t think anyone who’s seen it and enjoyed it was unaware of the sci-fi element; that is, no one’s lost sight of it. Actually, when that became clear to me, that was the point I knew it was going to be the dividing line — that the viewer would or would not accept that. It was the caveat I was giving to my friends — that they’d have to accept a certain sci-fi-ish event in order to enjoy the movie (and so far all of my friend’s who’ve seen it have enjoyed the movie).
I also find that those who have embraced it are the kind of fans who would be into comic book conventions, which are full of unbelievable sci-fi, and that makes perfect sense to me. I always had the feeling that The Prestige was a better comic book movie than many of the ones that have come out recently, and I had the thought that it would’ve made a great summer movie.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:52 am -
jeff_v wrote:
I thought the ending was making it clear that it’s only sci-fi until we can explain it, and to explain it at this time would be an unpardonable sin.
November 14th, 2006 at 6:42 pm -
marko wrote:
The fact of the matter is that Fallon was a clone because how on earth would borden know that Tesla was in any way connected to cloning and therefore what is the relevance of writing his name. He was revealing his secret as he thought he had lost the most important part of his act and was desperate.
When the cloning took place he may have still had his fingers but was in the process of devising the trick with his clone. To say that they were twins is missing the whole point of the film.Ned, of course everyone understands the sci fi element. Do you think people say a similar thing about raining frogs when they see Magnolia???
November 14th, 2006 at 7:10 pm -
Donn wrote:
if the Telsa machine had cloned Borden, then why was he so amazed when he saw Angier use the machine in the theatre? He obviously had no idea that the machine was clonong Angier and thats what led him back stage to discover what was happening. Also he couldnt believe his eyes when Angier visited him in prison. The fact is that Bales character was’nt cloned because if he was he would have pieced together for himself what Angier was up to
November 15th, 2006 at 6:37 am -
Rosa wrote:
all of these theorise are perfectly acceptable and believable, however which one is correct? donn made the point that borden’s amazement at angier’s trick must mean that he didn’t know about the effects of the tesla machine, however how can this be possible when the keyword to his diary is in fact tesla..? he must know that tesla is related to human cloning… can someone please explain the theory and reasons behind angier drowning himself every night?
November 15th, 2006 at 12:37 pm -
marko wrote:
And also, how did Angier not get that Borden had cloned himself when he was doing the same thing???? Why was he so suprised thar Falon was his clone. Although i loved this film it seems these things are just plot flaws - Falon was a clone and that is what the audience are suppopsed to understand. I think that we are being over analytical - afterall if you analyse lots of fims in this way, you can find plot holes.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:58 pm -
Rosa wrote:
found the following info on a site about the movie, it cleared some stuff up for me, hope it helps, feel free to comment on whether it is accurate:
Alfred Borden has a twin, a fact he keeps hidden from everyone. He and the twin switch places often, with one portraying the other’s assistant Fallon. This also explains why he seems to be two different people around his wife, who kills herself. Robert Angier designed and bought the a cloning machine from Tesla, and he clones himself every night he does the transporter trick, drowning the extra copy of himself every time.