The Prestige Forum

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Am I just crazy or will someone on the internet agree with me. Honestly if anyone said that they thought the film was boring and predictable they should just rethink their life. This is why I am so excited for Inception. 

I agree. Magic has always fascinated me, so I guess that helped. But I just don't really like Batman. I thought Batman Begins was quite bad actually. The Dark Knight was good, but I really don't understand how some people are calling it the best movie ever made.

I really dug the movie when it was just to dicks trying to sabotage each other, it kind of lost me when David Bowie showed up and it started to become a sci-fi movie. Still great though.

The movie was good but i felt disappointed at the end, i was hoping for a twist or something that i already didn't see. Maybe this is just me but....
 

You have me there. The prestige is a movie that really engages me to this day, despite knowing the details of the story. I never really got that into the Batman films because I've seen those characters & settings before.

I still like the Batman movies better but I definitely see how people could like The Prestige more than Batman.

It's definitely better than both the Batman movies.

@PirateNeal said:

" The movie was good but i felt disappointed at the end, i was hoping for a twist or something that i already didn't see. Maybe this is just me but....
 

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

the moment i saw the creepy old dude i assumed it was The Professers copy or twin i guess. well yeah now that i think about it i was surprised that he had an actual twin, i thought he used the machine to copy himself. Why did he lead The Great Danton  to Tesla? did i miss something there?

 
Because Borden thought he was sending Angier off on a wild goose chase to America where he'd waste his money and had no idea that  Tesla would actually be able to build a machine that would be able to do what Angier wanted.

I've seen the movie at least twenty times now, and while I know a lot of people won't agree, I think it's shot-for-shot, line-for-line, scene-for-scene one of the best movies made--and certainly within the last twenty years or so. It's definitely something that needs a couple of viewings to really appreciate.

I don't think Batman Begins is nearly as good as the Prestige. Don't get me wrong--it's a great movie, but I watched it a few weeks ago and quite a few parts just don't really hold up well.  
The Prestige is just a well-made movie that really makes you think. It also has a few wonderful moments where it lets the viewer piece together the horrific things about to happen, and leaves them in a feeling of helplessness, much felt by the characters themselves.

@Anonymgeist: I really didn't understand it until my 3rd viewing. 
 
I had seen it once at a friends house and watched it twice with my netflix dvd. I need to go to Best Buy or Amazon and get that sucker sometime...

Ok for the people who say they needed to watch the movie more then once to get it, what were your questions or confusions from your first viewing.

The Prestige is still my favorite Nolan movie, straight up. It's atmospherically his most accomplished work, and Jackman/Bale playing off of one another is incredible throughout.
 
Also, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla is some of the best casting in decades.

@Alex said:

" The Prestige is still my favorite Nolan movie, straight up. It's atmospherically his most accomplished work, and Jackman/Bale playing off of one another is incredible throughout.  Also, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla is some of the best casting in decades. "

Its my ONLY favourite Nolan film, its an amazing line up and just a brilliant movie.

@Mistress_Redhead said:

" @Alex said:

" The Prestige is still my favorite Nolan movie, straight up. It's atmospherically his most accomplished work, and Jackman/Bale playing off of one another is incredible throughout.  Also, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla is some of the best casting in decades. "

Its my ONLY favourite Nolan film, its an amazing line up and just a brilliant movie. "

Wait, you didn't enjoy any of the Batman movies, Memento, or Inception?

@DanGarofalo: The Batman films were saved by the cast not the direction, Memento was overworked and I am yet to make a final decision about Inception.

@Mistress_Redhead said:

" @DanGarofalo: The Batman films were saved by the cast not the direction, Memento was overworked and I am yet to make a final decision about Inception. "

I've found that for me, Nolan's films are like the works of Bach -- I'm totally fine if someone doesn't enjoy it, but I know that if someone doesn't care for it then their musical (or in this case, cinematic) tastes are disconnected enough from my own that their opinion of good and bad movies/music has little meaning to me.

Memento is better ^_^
 
All Nolan's movies are great though.

This is actually sort of a response to something that came up in a thread in the Inception forum, but it always puzzles me a bit when people talk about The Prestige having a "shocking twist ending".   

Spoilers follow.
 
From literally the very first shot of the film, we are being told the machine works. The first thing we see is a pile of top hats scattered on the forest floor, with a black cat walking past them (note that we even hear a second cat off screen), and the first lines of the film, spoken over this, ask us directly "Are you watching closely?" We are being given the answer right there, but still we are told numerous times -- firmly, clearly, and directly -- throughout the film that Tesla's machine work's exactly as it's supposed to; by Cutter, by Tesla, and by Angier. As one example, when Cutter shows the machine to the judge, the judge says "I'm sure beneath its bells and whistles it's got and disappointing trick." to which Cutter replies "The most disappointing of all -- it has no trick. It's real." In fact, if you pay attention, at no point are we given any reason to believe it doesn't work. Likewise, with Borden's trick, the first time we see it, Cutter says that Borden uses a double. Cutter is correct, but Angier assumes it must be something more complicated. 
 
And it's also worth looking at the canary trick which we are shown a number of times throughout the film. The method behind this trick (the first bird is killed, and a duplicate is used in the conclusion) parallels not only Borden and Angier's magic tricks, but also the "disappearing act" that they both pull off during the film -- Angier dying during a performance, only to reappear as Lord Caldlow; and Borden's death by hanging, and subsequent reappearance to extract revenge. 
 
We have the answers. They are told to us early on and repeated throughout the film, but still we ignore them. Consider the final line of the move, which we had heard earlier, but now returns and is directed squarely at the viewer: "Now you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it because you don't really want to know. You want to be fooled."