The Prestige/Headscratchers


 * So when Borden wrote
 * Remember the discussion of the rotating cipher, though - every page required long, tiresome interpreting. No sense going to all that effort for just a few words per page.
 * So. Matter duplicator. Potential source of untold wonders and wealth. Its first use? Expendable Clone
 * Well in anyone else's hands it probably could have been used for something else, Angier was so obsessed with the magic and he never bothered to consider other uses.
 * Well he does seem remarkably wealthy at the end despite blowing all his money on research for the Matter Duplicator
 * This troper does wonder why he continually duplicates  himself, rather than duplicating himself once or twice, and using that for the act
 * The reason he stops using the body double is because he became too hard to manage; Imagine how hard it would have been to manage a copy of himself.
 * Much, much easier than managing a different person? You already know your duplicate wants to work with you as much as you do with him! Simply resolve "I will work with my duplicate" and then press the button. When you meet him, you're guaranteed to have no problems, because guess what, that guy already resolved to work with his duplicate too! That said, Angier panicked and killed his first duplicate, which would make it nigh-impossible to truly resolve at a gut level that he could trust a counterpart.
 * It's definitely easier than I guess it just goes to show that he really is the worse magician.
 * "Angier, we need to find somebody who looks exactly like you! The whole plot hinges on it!" *looks through a few pubs for an evening, finds a man who looks more like him than any two non-twin people have ever looked like each other* "All right, no big deal. Moving on...."
 * looks through a few pubs for an evening
 * We don't know how many days or weeks it took.
 * Not really. And even after Cutter makes him up, he's not a dead ringer for Angier. Borden, and even we in the audience, can tell them apart fairly easily.
 * Why did Angier keep a whole collection of ?
 * Eh, he doesn't really have anywhere else to put them. Best to hide 'em someplace.
 * But that would mean ! Wouldn't it be a lot less trouble to take them out and store them someplace else?
 * We're not talking about mere objects, we're talking about  here. Considering they
 * I'm not able to keep straight the characters' names, so I'm using the actors' here. When Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale were working for Ricky Jay
 * I love this movie, but Angier says regarding his Transported Man act something to the effect of,
 * I had the impression that he was punishing himself for
 * How could you tell  Which I guess doesn't make things any better.
 * You are correct that
 * While that makes Angier seem mega-emo, I'll concede that it's the best explanation. Now that's devotion!
 * Where in the movie do they say that the machine creates soulless copies? I know that's how it sort of worked in the book, but the movie doesn't bring it up.
 * I never suggested that the machine truly makes soulless copies, I was just using that point as a hypothetical to illuminate my argument.
 * Regardless of which
 * Who said he just test one time before making the drowning plan?
 * Why didn't they just unlock the tank ? Compared to the axe, it's faster, more reliable, and still doesn't spoil the trick's secret.
 * Would it be faster than the axe? Fulbing around with a key, especially when you're panicking, can take a surprisingly long time.
 * Yeah, but it was a trick lock anyway. You could always pull out any old key (or, since these are skilled magicians we're talking about, mime it with your empty hands) and pop the lock without the audience noticing the difference.
 * The tank was 10 feet tall, and . How would unlocking the tank have helped?, and they would have needed to drag over a ladder for anyone else to do anything about it, assuming anyone was physically fit enough to even with a ladder.
 * Why did Jackman  He could have just done the trick with a normal Tesla coil with the same effect.
 * How many people would be willing to live with the knowledge of the existence
 * Some people would, some people would not. It may depend on how much you enjoy science fiction :) Remember, the duplicate is exactly like you initially, so if you want to work with your duplicate, he'll want to work with you! But if you go in with an attitude of trying to "control" your duplicate or be the "real you", well, he'll want to control you too and take over "your" life.
 * Angier's mistake was twofold: First, he didn't think through his plan before creating his duplicate, which means that he could never be sure that the duplicate would believe in that plan since it'd be developed after the point of divergence; he didn't resolve (as Borden did) that the two would work together as equals, which would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Second, his reaction to the duplicate was shooting him in panic. A calmer person might have reacted a different way, but perhaps Angier is a fearful, violent man. After that, there's very little he could've done - he knows in his heart that he has killed his double and could do it again, and any double would know this too, so they would never be able to trust each other.
 * When the water tank trick went wrong, why didn't Cutter stop the trick in time to He seemed to be timing it to gauge whether he should intervene, so why didn't he intervene before ? If his timing wasn't based on how long, what WAS it based on?
 * My guess is that it was how long it normally took her to get out of there. If she took too long, then that means something had gone wrong.
 * An even better solution: Why didn't the curtain merely hide the audience from seeing her use her escape trick and let Cutter (from backstage) watch her for some kind of sign that she can't get free?
 * Because then the trick would have been ruined. In order for Cutter to see her, the tank would have to not be entirely enclosed, which would make the audience doubt her ability to escape on her own.
 * Several sequences in the film depend on either Angier or Borden picking the other out of the audience as a volunteer. What are the odds that even the most enthusiastic volunteer will get picked?
 * Pretty good, when the volunteer is a magician and knows how to force a choice. Besides, we don't see every show they do, just the ones where one or the other gets picked; those are the only ones that matter to the story. The one with Borden messing up Angier's bird trick does seem to be on the night Angier's new show debuts. But other than that, the shows could be anywhere in the relevant magician's run, and there's no need for us to see every time the other one tries to get picked and fails.
 * In the bullet-catching trick, Angier essentially volunteered himself (the rest of the audience was too busy laughing at Borden). For the transported man trick, remember that . Only the bird trick relied on pure coincidence.
 * Actually if you watch the volunteer selection during the bird trick, Angier says that he'll need two volunteers. Olivia points to two people, but three people stand up - the woman and two men. Borden wasn't chosen as a volunteer but he stood up anyway and started up on stage, figuring the other audience member would just back off.
 * Once Tesla had
 * Tesla probably realized that
 * Several sequences in the film depend on either Angier or Borden picking the other out of the audience as a volunteer. What are the odds that even the most enthusiastic volunteer will get picked?
 * Pretty good, when the volunteer is a magician and knows how to force a choice. Besides, we don't see every show they do, just the ones where one or the other gets picked; those are the only ones that matter to the story. The one with Borden messing up Angier's bird trick does seem to be on the night Angier's new show debuts. But other than that, the shows could be anywhere in the relevant magician's run, and there's no need for us to see every time the other one tries to get picked and fails.
 * In the bullet-catching trick, Angier essentially volunteered himself (the rest of the audience was too busy laughing at Borden). For the transported man trick, remember that . Only the bird trick relied on pure coincidence.
 * Actually if you watch the volunteer selection during the bird trick, Angier says that he'll need two volunteers. Olivia points to two people, but three people stand up - the woman and two men. Borden wasn't chosen as a volunteer but he stood up anyway and started up on stage, figuring the other audience member would just back off.
 * Once Tesla had
 * Tesla probably realized that