The Prestige: Difference between revisions

 

'''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.

* [[Acting for Two]]: {{spoiler|Bale as the Borden twins. See [[Fridge Brilliance]] tab.}}

* [[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.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: "I mean, someone could {{spoiler|stick a button in there! Or, god forbid, a bullet!"}}

* [[Clarke's Third Law]] / [[Magic From Technology]]: {{spoiler|Tesla's machine. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from ''stage'' magic.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Cloning Blues]]: Angier.}}

* [[Creepy Monotone]]: Tesla played by David Bowie.

* [[Mad Artist]]: Angier shows more traits than his rival. In the end he explains that the magic shows's main point (and all that it implied) was to puzzle the audience and be considered the best magician ever. Judging from his popularity it was a complete success, [[Powered By a Forsaken Child|but the price he paid was very high]].

* [[Magical Realism]]

* [[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.}}

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

* [[Obfuscating Disability]]: Chung Ling Soo, the ancient Chinese performer with stiff legs.

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Arguably, Borden's disguises: they start out seeming very transparent and obvious until we find out that {{spoiler|Borden had also been disguising himself as Fallon the entire time.}}

* [[Once More With Clarity]]: The biggest [[The Reveal|reveal]] of all is accompanied by one of these.

* [[Out Gambitted]]: Both Angier and Borden time and time again. {{spoiler|At the end though, Borden comes out on top.}}

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

* [[Serious Business]]: These people are serious about stage magic. '''Dangerously''' serious, in fact.

* [[Shout Out]]: In the Bullet Catch scene, one of the performers on the list is "[[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]".

** Its not perfect though {{spoiler|The women they love can tell some difference. Specifically, the wife can tell that sometimes Borden genuinely means it when he says he loves her, and sometimes he doesn't.}}

* [[Steampunk]]: Tesla is the poster wizard for this kind of genre.

* [[Technician Versus Performer]]: A key thematic element of the rivalry between Borden (the technician) and Angier (the performer). There's also a bit of this between Angier and his double (whose drunken antics have quite the theatric touch) {{spoiler|There are hints that the two Bordens differ on this as well--one is is a technician, the other more or less along for the ride.}}

* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: The rivalry is focused around who can pull off this magic trick most convincingly. {{spoiler|Tesla creates a literal one, except it turns out to actually be a matter replicator.}}

* [[Tomato Surprise]]: {{spoiler|Borden and Fallon.}}

* [[Trick Twist]]: The movie is practically riddled with them.