The Prestige (Spoliers)

opr

Ok i just seen this and would like some clarification on one point.

Was his intention to frame Bale for his death all along and because he can never be sure when Bale will finally go below the stage to see how he did the trick. Therefore, he must kill himself night after night in anticipation.

So he was setting up Borden. That was the point. He knew Borden would work his way basckstage to find the secret (like they'd been doing to each other most of the film), and get caught with a dead body and what looks like sabotage ?

I find it a bit mad that he expects Borden to stumbled across the drowning tank at precisely the right time and not one of the stagehands or reporters or any one of the thousands of curious audience members who would've been dying to get a peek backstage!

So was Angiers' plan to just keep killing himself over and over again while hoping that whenever he was inevitably discovered, it would be by Borden and result in what happens ?

Opr

aurel

Yeah, pretty much. Remember though that It was a finite run of performances so Angier knew that Bale would be forced to try and get below stage.

Also, he had to kill his doubles every night regardless.

Lothaar

aurel wrote:

Also, he had to kill his doubles every night regardless.

No... Angier killed himself every night, after producing a double using the teleportation-technology-thing. The double went about his business and then died the next night after producing a further double. Rinse and repeat until Bale bursts in and is framed for murder.

OP - he hired blind stagehands, so they wouldn't see what was going on. And he banned anybody else from going backstage.

opr

Lothaar wrote:

OP - he hired blind stagehands, so they wouldn't see what was going on. And he banned anybody else from going backstage.

Thanks for the replies guys i know the film was a while ago now.

So how does he expect Borden to get back stage ? How does he know on that given night not to reappear ?

As i said it seems very far fetched to me that expects Borden to stumbled across the drowning tank at precisely the right time and not a reporter or any one of the thousands of curious audience members who would've been dying to get a peek backstage. (Sorry shouldn't have included the stage hands)

Opr

Vokes

Lothaar wrote:

No... Angier killed himself every night, after producing a double using the teleportation-technology-thing.

Lothaar, but how do you know for certain it was the new Angier-double that survived each night? I don't think it was ever conclusive which Angier was which and who died.

It may be that original-Angier was always transported, and a double was left in his place (and subsequently drowned). It may not be.

opr

I found this on another forum in regards to the Double/Clone things which i think is a good explanation.

Small clarification on the clones...they're not clones. They are the same. A clone is like a twin...completely seperate lives. At the moment of the teleportation, there is no original. Tesla's comment that sometimes science doesn't do what you except is because he designed a machine to teleport something...and the reason it worked (but not like he expected) is because of theory he was unaware of, harkening back (or forward) to Schroedinger's cat and Uncertainty Theory.

An object can exist as a wave representation in two locations until observed, collapsing the wave into a set reality. But in Tesla's machine, the wave form doesn't collapse, and both versions are real, with the same history up until that point. Neither is a copy, neither is an original.
This concept bugs the **** out of alot of people.

Watch Angier's reaction just before he's shot the first time...he claims he's the original (which is why some people think the original teleports, leaving a copy). Other people wonder why the machine "clones" people for a teleport...again, it doesn't. It collapses the the translocation wave in a solid form, something that was outside of Tesla's field, that he would have stumbled across if he had built this machine. I have a sneaking suspicion Priest dreamed up this gizmo simply by crossing Telsa's experiments with quantum theory.

The reason this minor distinction is important is because Angier never understood that he's not murdering his "clone," he's not risking being the man in the box...he's always the man in the box, and the Prestige. He's stuck with a different hell, a different take on the duality Borden deals with, and both men did it to themselves.

Opr

Lothaar

Opr, that's exactly what I took from the movie. The double is not a copy or a clone, it's another manifestation of Angier.

To answer SofaKing, it's immaterial whether Angier was transported, leaving a double behind, or he created a double at a different location... both amount to the same. One man became two. He produced a double and killed himself every night.

That's not too far off what aurel said, but it's important to note that he was killing himself and not some clone.

Petey2006

Angier states as he dies (I'm paraphrasing as I dont know the exact quote)- 'You don't know how hard it was stepping into the machine every night. Not knowing if I'd be the man in the cabinet or the man who appeared.'

Vokes

That's a great explanation, opr. Nice find.

oleras

opr wrote:

As i said it seems very far fetched to me that expects Borden to stumbled across the drowning tank at precisely the right time .....

Opr

the fact he can create a double isnt far fetched anough ?

lostexpectation

Petey2006 wrote:

Angier states as he dies (I'm paraphrasing as I dont know the exact quote)- 'You don't know how hard it was stepping into the machine every night. Not knowing if I'd be the man in the cabinet or the man who appeared.'

to the op, it wasn't just about setting u borden it was about the trick

BlitzKrieg

As i said it seems very far fetched to me that expects Borden to stumbled across the drowning tank at precisely the right time .....

But isnt it the only time?

To see how the trick works one has to view it at the moment it is being performed.

Also the film stressess that this act is repeated nightly for months waiting for borden to come. The whole thing is not very precise, but plays to what has already been established in the film (and later confirmed) that borden can be a impulsive git.

SirLemonhead

There's a whole bunch of people who believe the machine doesn't even work..