The Prestige: Difference between revisions

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'''This film is built almost entirely out of unexpected twists. You will learn them if you read any further.'''

* [[Adult Fear]]: A particularly painful one forms [[The Reveal]] towards the end of the film.

* [[A Real Man Is a Killer]]: Angier is told that he needs to be willing to "get his hands dirty" if he wants to be a truly great magician, which in context meant being willing to kill doves to maintain an illusion. Borden actually does just that in an earlier trick.

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* [[Anachronic Order]]: A Nolan trademark.

* [[Alternative Foreign Theme Song]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amXKQ351QBw&feature=related "Returner"] by Gackt was used as the theme song in the Japanese version.

* {{spoiler|[[Always Identical Twins]]}}: Part of the twist.

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* [[Anachronic Order]]: A Nolan trademark.

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: {{spoiler|"Lord Caldlow"}}. It's hard to decide if the character was always this way or slowly grew into it as the years passed.

* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: Nikolai Tesla invented a {{spoiler|duplication machine}}.

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* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Borden's {{spoiler|wife, Sarah.}}

* [[Dueling Stars Movie]]: Unlike some films which use this trope, the chemistry between them is excellent.

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* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Oustanding performances aside, it doesn't hurt that the two leads are played by the not entirely unattractive Jackman and Bale, with Bowie on hand too.

* [[Evil Will Fail]]: The more absorbed the dueling magicians become in their vengeance-fueled-rivalry, the more their lives fall apart, until finally {{spoiler|Angier's ingénieur abandons and betrays him when he crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]].}}

* [[Face Heel Double Turn]]: Angier starts out with the audience's sympathy after his wife dies and Borden just seems to be a Jerkass. But as the film goes on we start to see Borden become more sympathetic as Angier slips even further into revenge.

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** In the movie, the words are {{spoiler|"You should go to him. You two deserve each other."}}

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Both major twists at the end of the film are foreshadowed pretty subtly.

** {{spoiler|Starting with Borden immediately grokking the fishbowl trick.}}

** {{spoiler|And the pairs of birds of whom one is killed every time the trick is performed. "Today you've been the lucky one."}}

* [[Go Seduce My Arch-Nemesis]]: Angier to Olivia. One of the first obvious signs that the two are willing to go to extreme lengths to try and defeat each other.

* [[Historical Villain Upgrade]]: Edison is hinted to be a ruthless, violent man who crushes his foes by sending [[Faceless Goons]] to their labs to destroy everything and run them out of town. Even way up in the mountains, Tesla couldn't escape his wrath.

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* [[Misapplied Phlebotinum]]: Apparently neither Tesla nor Angier stopped to consider that {{spoiler|a perfect matter replicator [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|could be put to more benevolent and/or lucrative uses]] than a stage performance}}.

** Perhaps, though {{spoiler|Tesla didn't get a chance to replicate gold because it was technically Angier's machine after financing its completion, and Angier only cared about the show}}.

** {{spoiler|Plus, Edison's hired thugs destroyed everything at Tesla's lab, and would've destroyed the prototype if it hadn't already been shipped. Even if Tesla hadn't decided the device was evil, he might not have been able to re-create it; the film even demonstrates how hard it was to create, with Angier's tophats being replicated way off in the forest instead of in the lab as planned which was only discovered after Alley's cat was copied.}}

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* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Oustanding performances aside, it doesn't hurt that the two leads are played by the not entirely unattractive Jackman and Bale, with Bowie on hand too.

* [[Nested Story]]: Borden reading Angier's journal, about Angier deciphering Borden's journal.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: In the book, {{spoiler|Borden shuts off the power to Angier's machine while the latter is in the midst of the In A Flash act. This effectively creates a ghostly version of Angier who is seemingly immortal and more vengeful than before.}}

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* [[People Jars]]: {{spoiler|Angier's many drowned copies of himself, stored in a warehouse.}}

* [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]]: Tesla knows how twisted his {{spoiler|teleporter}} is, and even tries to warn {{spoiler|Angier}} by letter after it is delivered to him.

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* [[A Real Man Is a Killer]]: Angier is told that he needs to be willing to "get his hands dirty" if he wants to be a truly great magician, which in context meant being willing to kill doves to maintain an illusion. Borden actually does just that in an earlier trick.

* [[Red Herring]]: {{spoiler|Angier spends a great deal of time deciphering his way through Borden's journal for his secrets, only to find a message from Borden near the end, which explains how he just got him to waste months deciphering nothing.}}

* [[The Reveal]]: The secrets to both Borden's and Angier's Transported Man tricks.

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* [[Twin Switch]]: Angier and his double, Root. {{spoiler|And the Bordens, identical twins who swap roles, and the Fallon disguise, without anyone knowing.}}

* [[What Have We Ear?]]: Borden likes doing this.

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* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: Angier at the end.

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** {{spoiler|[[Final Speech]]}}

* [[White Dwarf Starlet]]: The actor Angier hires to be his double is a drunken, arrogant, washed-up Shakespearean.

* [[A Wizard Did It]]: It's never described how [[Nikola Tesla]] built {{spoiler|teleporter}}. He's just a genius.

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* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: Angier at the end.

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** {{spoiler|[[Final Speech]]}}

* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Angier killed himself ''dozens'' of times so that when Borden inevitably made it backstage, he could be framed for murder on circumstantial evidence. Whether he's the man in the box or the man outside, Borden goes down.}} However, {{spoiler|Angier didn't know Borden had a twin who could avenge him, then take back his daughter. Incidentally, this turns his Xanatos Gambit into a [[Batman Gambit]] which was, adequately enough, pulled off by Batman himself, [[Christian Bale]].}}

** Also qualifies as a {{spoiler|[[Thanatos Gambit]] for the Angier clones that end up as the "man in the box."}}