The Prestige is about two magicians competing to destroy one another. Or is it?
(Spoiler Alert)
This is Alfred, a talented magician who would risk anything to be better.
And Robert. His wife was killed in a illusion went wrong. It was Alfred’s fault.
That’s how everything begins — turns of revenge to destroy one another’s career.
As they try to outwit one another, the tricks get bigger and bigger.
Alfred pulls off a transported man trick that leave Robert speechless.
Robert tries to find out the trick. When he can’t, he decides to copy it by the obvious way — he hires a double body actor.
Robert shows interest that the actor can be trained to be more identical to him. This will be important later.
Near the end of the movie, Robert goes to Tesla and bought himself a machine that can clone anything.
Every show, Robert operates the machine — it creates a clone of Robert and transfers either himself or the clone to another side of the stage. The one that doesn’t get transported will be dumped into a water tank. Drowning to dead.
The problem is Robert never know if he would be the one on the other side of the stage or leaving behind in the tank. He risks to be killed every ni--
Wait. Hold it right there. A cloning machine?
Seriously?
..
..
We watch a drama movie turn science fiction in a matter of seconds. Wouldn’t it be odd if it happened in other movies?
Spaceship files down in Les Miserables. Game of Thrones gets a special episode cross over with Star Trek.
That wouldn’t make much senses. So what is the meaning of the cloning machine?
Well, It’s all made up.
The real trick to The Prestige is making the audience believe that a machine capable of cloning another human actually exists.[1]
Robert wanted to frame Alfred for murdering. He trained the actor to be identical to him.
He wrote a fake diary story about the cloning machine. The cats. The hats. They are all made up in the diary.
The audience watch the fake story as in Alfred’s point of view.
Robert knows Alfred is among the audiences. He knows Alfred would want to know how the trick work.
And that’s the opportunity — he kills the actor and frame Alfred for murdering.
In the end, the camera pans from Robert’s dead body to a water tanks. There is only one tank that is clear to see inside. This is important.
-- Now you're looking for a secret. But you won't find it because, of course, you're not really looking. You wanted to be... fooled --
For the entire movie we never see more than two Roberts. One on the ground.
And another one in the tank — The actor.
We wanted to be fooled.
We wanted to believe the story that we didn’t realise a cloning machine doesn’t exist.
Like John Cutter said: There is only one way this trick could work — a double body.
What is the most unbelievable plot ever used in movies?
A cloning machine in a realistic movie.
