Question: Couldn't Angier have kept the one clone alive and simply dropped him below stage each time he did the trick. Did he really have to keep killing them?
Tailkinker
13th Sep 2007
The Prestige (2006)
28th Jul 2007
The Prestige (2006)
Question: At the very end of the movie, Michael Caine states that the audience wants to be fooled as a dead Angier is shown in a water tank. What does this mean?
Answer: It means exactly what he says - the reason that illusion shows are successful is that the audience, whether they admit it or not, want to be fooled by the illusions that they see. They don't want to see what lies behind it.
14th Jun 2007
The Prestige (2006)
Question: Was Christopher Bale's character a twin or a "clone" made by Telsa's machine? (Because Bale's keyword for his diary is "TESLA" and when Hugh Jackman's character actually goes to see Tesla, he states that he knows he made a similar machine for his competitor. Bale?)
Answer: They were twins. Tesla didn't make a matching machine for Borden - all he made for the twins was a machine that made some light and noise to enhance their trick. The Borden brothers sent Angier off to see Tesla on what they thought would be a wild goose chase, just to get him out of the way for a while - they would never actually give away the real secret to their trick. They never anticipated that Tesla could actually have built the machine in question.
14th Jun 2007
The Prestige (2006)
Question: In the very last shot before the credits, the camera has pulled back to reveal a row of tanks containing dead Jackmans. Does this imply that not only did the Tesla machine replicate Angier, but also the tank? One assumes then that Angier has had the forethought to place a floor between where he materializes and the newly replicated tanks appear.
Answer: As we see when Borden goes down under the stage to try to learn how the trick is performed, the tank is already in place before the machine is activated. Angier is using a large number of identical tanks, which is probably one of the deciding factors in only performing the trick a limited number of times.
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Answer: Yep. He's tried working with a double before, and it backfired on him badly. Plus there's the obvious danger of the secret of the trick being revealed if there are multiple copies of him running around - every time the trick is performed, another Angier is made, which becomes a delicate situation after the 4th or 5th performance. Besides, Angier himself would have to be the one dropping below the stage, leaving the clone, up on the balcony, to receive the adulation of the crowd - he hated that before and would be unlikely to want to repeat the experience. Plus the trick would be too easy - he believes firmly that Borden doesn't use a double and wants to have a trick that beats him; to simply work with a double wouldn't give him that satisfaction.
Tailkinker ★