THE PRESTIGE Breakdown | Ending Explained, Every Twist Clue, Easter Eggs & Things You Missed

now in my opinion The Prestige is one of Christopher Nolan's strongest movies it's definitely a film that gets better and better the more you watch it and it's one of the only movies I've seen where I finished watching it first time and immediately started up again bill with insane details amazing foreshadowing and a lot of things you might miss I thought I'd take a trip through the film to discuss everything about it in this video we're gonna be breaking it all down but the first thing I have to ask is are you watching closely so the movie centers around the Victorian magicians Robert Angier and Alfred Borden who watches their rivalry escalates further and further and being someone who exists in the highly competitive landscape that's YouTube I'm ashamed to admit that I've been pulled into vicious things like this too I'm sure lots of people have found rivalries similar to what happens in the movie and the characters in the film have one that develops into an obsession unintentionally this leads to the death of their loved ones and them being truly alone in the world the death of the character's wives actually foreshadow their own and early on they reflect the Fate that's in store for each character Angie's wife Julia drowns in a box and this is of course murdered in the death of the versions of him face if they're trapped in the tank one of the Borden Brothers dies by hanging and this is set up by his wife's death arrow in the film who hangs us up at the midpoint the film is very much about duplicates and mirrors with Angier creating copies of himself in order to pull off an impossible magic trick this is murdered in the bordens who are revealed to be twins at the end showing how there was a hidden double in the movie the entire time both use copies we just don't see it and the two opening shots actually spoil away that the tricks are carried out the film opens with duplicated hats on the ground and we later learned this is how angia carries out his trick immediately after this we see birds in cages with them all being doubles of each other similar how Borden does his now every time Angier steps into the box he's taking the risk that the Consciousness he currently carries is gonna be the one stuck in the tank at the end and deaths like this are foreshadowed early on this happens when we see a magic trick being performed by the magician the great Virgil he smacks down on a crap with a bird making it disappear before he brings it back Nolan tells us the truth of this trick early on by revealing that the first bird was killed and the second one who appears is simply just a double this is very much the case with Angier who kills a version of himself in order to have a duplicate come out the other side making us think he's returned Michael Kane's character John Connor says that we don't really want to know the truth of what goes on in these tricks because knowing that someone or something died would completely horrify the audience instead we're caught up in the Wonder and if people knew and here was really up to they'd all be terrified in the scene following the bird's death we also get the line and this pretty much spoils the entire twist that Borden has a brother this is followed up almost immediately after by boarding showing that he has a double-sided coin probably don't have to tell you but they're being two heads here on one object very much symbolizes are the two Borden brothers are playing the one person Alfred now there's also this idea played upon by the two women who end up falling in love with quote unquote Alfred Sarah calls him Al and Olivia ends up calling him Freddy this is because she was in love with Frederick or as Sarah was in love with Al but both their names together and you get Alfred which is such a smart way to show the two people living this one life this is reflected in the dialogue too during an argument start again I love you not today what well some days it's not true and today you don't mean it is it because she's with the brother who doesn't love her this also explains why Borden genuinely doesn't know what not he tied on Angie's wife [Music] it's not that you type on I don't know even though his wife is gone Angier continues to wear his wedding rings throughout the entire movie whether he removes it just before the trick we see this at roughly the one hour 40 mark with him taking it off and passing it to his assistant he does this while it's getting undressed to make it seem like he's trying to strip himself down before he steps into the machine however he's actually doing this at the Angier who comes out the other side can take it and have the original instead of having a copy the machine does duplicate clothing but I feel like Angier holds this item higher than anything else which is why he simply doesn't want it to be copied now the entire movie itself is also written in paced out like it's its own magic trick cutter says every magic trick consists of three parts this is reflected in the film too and movies are typically broken up into three acts and the pledge is the first part of the trick and this involves the magician showing us an object and allowing people to inspect it to make sure it's all above board this is to show us it's ordinary and it allows the magician to take what we know to be true and then break the rules of it this is reflected in the film with a seeing and you're unborn early on just as normal men that we see the day-to-day lives of the ordinary not really anything special and that takes us into the second act which is called the turn the magician takes the ordinary something extraordinary this is the case in the film too with Borden's trick being something we can't really get our heads around even though Kuda tells us numerous times that he's using a double he uses a double no no no no it's too simple this is a complex illusion you only say that because you don't know the method it's a double that comes out at the end it's the only way lastly Comes The Prestige which is of course what the movie is named after Kara says making something disappear as easy but making a comeback is the difficult part this is the final Act and it's also reflected in the Final Act of the movie now both Andrew and Borden come back with the truth of what really happened to them being revealed at the end this is the final Act of the trick and very much The Prestige he said it he said it I like a lot of Nolan's work we get the timeline playing out in non-chronological order with us having to figure out the pieces of what's going on we start off with a trick carried out by Angie and watches Borden sticks backstage to see how it works yeah he passes blind stage hands who have been hired so they can't tell the truth of what happens this was a common practice carried out by pharaohs in order to keep their secrets and it's also something Kingpin adopted in Daredevil to hide his drug operations cut to a trial to see Borden has been framed for the murder of Angier Julia of course died by drowning in a tank like this and thus I think it was chosen as a way for him to taunt Borden Borden was never punished for Angie's wife drowning and Angie very much uses this to frame him so that he gets his comeuppance in the wings Waits Borden's daughter along with his brother in Disguise as a man named Fallon hate to admit it but when first watching the movie I never paid attention to this guy he appears throughout the film wearing this costume but Nolan very much uses almost camera sleight of hand to make sure our focus is never on him a solicitor named Owens arrives at the prison and he says that he represents Lord cordlow they revealed to be Angier cordlow has promised to look after Borden's daughter in exchange for the secrets of the trick the lawyer hands over Angie's diary and it's through this framing device that we explore the past Kurt to Angier traveling to Colorado and he has Borden's diary which is written using a cipher to keep the secret this very much mirrors the blind stage hands and shows that they'll do anything to hide their knowledge from other people now after seeing that the entire town has electricity angia travels up to meet the real-life figure Nicola Tesla played by David Bowie this genius had his own rivalry with Thomas Edison who was Notorious for trying to steal his work I definitely recommend that you check out the film the current War which goes over this and the pair notorious for their lifelong rivalry Edison's goons pop up throughout the film and shout out to Scott from what culture for pointing out there during the exhibition Tesla holds that there is the man in the audience shutting down how his work's unsafe this leads to people walking out and it casts a shadow of a Tesla's exhibition later on the film we actually see this man at the hotel and we discover that Tesla's lab was destroyed by him shortly after his arrival now Angie gets brushed off by Tesla's helper Ali who's played by Andy Circus this might be a reach well it is a reach but in a nice bit of coincidental filmmaking Reddit user Dr Mann's Planet noticed that Ali asks Andrew what he's holding in his hand as he walks away this is something that mentalists would do in the 1800s and they try and guess what was in someone's pocket the same thing happened in The Hobbit films between Bilbo and Gollum which circus later played out in an Unexpected Journey now from here we jump back to the past to see the magician Melton played by real-life magician Ricky J he's gained some notoriety and has a long-standing show with Andrea's wife working as his assistant to the left and right of the stage you can see two tanks of water with dummies inside once more foreshadowing The Twist that happens at the end end now in the movie you learn that and yeah is more of the showman Raz Borden is far more technical this is shown to us early on with Angel lapping up being on stage and bowing to the audience whilst Borden just strolls up the scene sets up the tying of the knots which ultimately leads to angier's wife's death Borden wants to do more complicated ones even though it's only for his own ego the trick works completely fine without it but he wants to constantly push the limits of magic backstage he talks about how Melton never takes risks and won't even try bullet catch which literally backfires unborn later aborten talks about how he has his own trick and says that he can't sell it because no one other than him can do it no prizes for guessing why and they go and visit a magician named chungling Sue a Borden instantly figures out that the entire magician's public Persona is in fact an act this is of course a secret to his own trick and the total Devotion to his art that Borden also has chungling series spend his entire life pretending to be someone else which angia also brings up I couldn't fathom with my whole life pretending to be someone else at this point his wife coins the name the Great Danton for him which he hates but he ends up adopting his attribute but then pulled out the diary and Angie remarks that Borden doesn't know anything about sacrifice which we know is a lie we then get the bird trick with the brother line and Borden saying this you're the lucky one today this is something and year later Mira is stating that day that he's the lucky one who gets to walk away from the trick Orton hits it up with Sarah and he takes her home which is where the pair say goodbye he then magically appears in her house which in hindsight we know is due to his brother with Karo he watches corla wants to take all of Angie's Hall which we know is actually him trying to take possession of his own stuff now the back story with cordlow is something that shows the hypocrisy of Angie he says that he couldn't live a lie but he in fact is angier's real name is cordlow with Angier being the ACT born to a rich family he longed to become a magician but being a performer would have brought shame upon his family and thus he adopted an alias now I've always wondered if the two characters here are also standings for the Nolan Brothers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan have both had their own success but it is possible that they have a sibling rivalry in case you don't know Jonathan was actually educated in Chicago and he ended up gaining an American accent Christopher doesn't share this he talks like a proper Cockney smoke and Angie has an American accent whilst Borden is British however like Jonathan it is possible that Angier is British due to him being a Lord and having a manner in England Jonathan said that he initially had a British accent like his brother but he realized he was pretty unpopular in Chicago because of it and he ended up dropping it don't know what people have got against British accents but if you think they're all right show your support and hit the thumbs up button and also do it if you liked the video I could have warns that the transported man doesn't actually have a trick to it and that it's real which makes it infinitely more dangerous the funeral plays out and could have talks about how he spoke to someone who drowned once old silence tell me who went over all but it took him five minutes to cough he said it was like going home this is something that he later says was a lie and that it was like Agony which is a line that still gives me goosebumps thinking about it I was lying he said it's agony at the line at the funeral might explain why angia thinks that drowning his copies is actually merciful at this point he thinks it's like going home when in reality it's a horrifying fate for the ones dumped in the Box Sarah reveals she's pregnant and Borden says you're having a baby oh my God we should have told Fallon that is great we're having a baby this is obviously something couples often say but it takes on a new meaning here with there being two of them he talks about how Fallon comes up with the tricks and they'll split their earnings with him 50 50. he's a very Enterprise and soul is uh he's Mr Fallon so the money will come when we get the audience yes don't worry about it I mean I'll show off my food with him or something we go to the bullet trick being performed and see a poster with lots of names in it including Harry Dresden a huge alert to numerous lemon on Reddit for pointing out that this is actually a reference to the Dresden Files Borden shows off a trick and this involves linking two separate rings together which might be a reach or it might be symbolism for the brothers being linked together as one Andrew ends up shooting him which blows off his two fingers and we later learn that the Borden brother had to remove his own in order to keep up the illusion nice little detail in a second watch when Sarah says Island now Angier ends up hiring Qatar due to him not being able to get work because of Julia's death they also hire Olivia played by scojo scojo in the building now they come up with a way to carry out the bird trick without killing the animal Angier doesn't want to get his hands dirty but we see how this mindset changes over the course of the film however Borden later sabotages this trick damaging a woman's fingers which mirrors how his were blown off Angie's Act is ruined and we could to him at the hotel translating Borden's diary in an amazing bit of detail here on his hand you'll see as he tucks his two fingers in mimicking how the bordens would read and write the cipher he States Borden has his mind divided and broken torn between his family life and also his work and here is so close to figuring out what Borden actually does for his trick but he can't quite put his fingers on it now he travels out to Tesla who's played by David Bowie and one of the best bits of casting in the film born then starts to unveil his trick to the public and we learn that it's called the transport man I love the way this is teased almost like it's its own magic trick with us seeing the reactions first before later seeing what happens during it cutter instantly figures it out but Borden can't get his head around him potentially using a double due to his twin being a Secret Borden buys his family a house and we get this line I asked you last week he said he caught me in a wrong move clearly she was with the other brother at this point which is such a good line on a second watch and your high as a double but isn't neat to see the reaction of the people is what pushes them further he hates hearing the chairs beneath the stage and due to him being a showman he craves the spotlight the double end talks about the people he's played in the past and namely Caesar and Faust Reddit user Mr Fahrenheit 120 pointing out that both these figures weren't done by their own ambition and this will Shadow is the Fate that awaits and jier that night he debuts his trick the new transported man and he started up by making a flower appear from his hand if you slow down the film and look at his hand before he brings it to Olivia's face you'll notice that flower slips out of his sleeve before he presents it to the audience Angie sends Olivia and his amole but this backfires and she feels cast out so she sides with Borden he goes to angier's double and does an Inception to plant the idea in his mind that because he's the key to the trick that he has the power he hijacks Angie's act and humiliates him whilst advertising his own and here goes to Borden and Olivia says that she's watched him closely and there is no act andya states that she's wrong and that he leaves props and costumes backstage as a way to fool her because he lives and breeds his act he still can't see the truth though and he burns the bridges with her before we cut to Cutters on the floor we see two birds once more foreshadowing the Twist and watches born becomes more and more famous knowing that Andrea has been watching him he decides to walk home alone in order to draw him out however this is a trick to draw Fallon out and Angie puts him in a box similar how his doubles end up he's buried alive and the Clones are of course dumped into a tank while stefley conscious he gets the cipher word which is Tesla and travels out to America leaving Qatar behind Borden goes to meet his wife and says that he's celebrating because he almost lost something very special to him of course referencing how his brother almost died which would destroy his entire career and yeah finally cracks the diary and we discover that it's all been a trick Borden gave Olivia the diary because he wanted her to hand it to him and also the word Tesla would just send him to America to waste his time also he thought Tesla actually cracks how to duplicate objects and he creates a copy of Ali's cat after an argument with his wife Angie goes to Fallon and says that Olivia knows she's finally figured out he's living a half-life and she ends here because she doesn't want to live a lie and here also tells Valen that his daughter wants to go to the zoo and that he should take care however he says that if he can't then he can take her tomorrow because he'll of course be in the disguise instead Tesla flees but he leaves behind the machine so that Angier can use it angio runs the test and he then kills his double I don't know why he doesn't just let the first one live and then carry out the trick living is two people but maybe maybe he wasn't willing to sacrifice the way he lived for his work he then does a reverse UNO card and the diary reveals to Borden that he in fact tricked him we see in the past as Angie starts his run I love how the guy booking the shows figures out what's really happening but he insists that they have to dress it up we then discover that Sarah wanted to meet Olivia the day before she died because she had something to tell her she didn't and she wants to know what the truth is Odin tells her the truth is that he never loved Sarah and that he in fact loved her the entire time in hindsight this conversation brings a lot with it as we see how the Borden Brothers both Loved Someone Olivia leaves him and we witness the sacrifice once more because both lose out throughout the entire film Borden has been guessing andya's tricks instantly however Ponting the final one he can't figure it out it drives him over the deep end and they stalk the show watching the tanks get tailed out every single night Borden says he's done and to leave him alone as they can't figure it out he says to Fallon don't go back there but this unfortunately falls on deaf ears and he winds up falling into angier's trap cordella then visits Borden in jail with his daughter and it's at this point that he reveals the truth he returns home to find color there who's shocked to see him still alive he realizes that he's complicit in angier's execution and at the prison we see the brothers say goodbye sorry about Sarah you go live your life before now right you live for both of us these lines obviously bring a lot with them and now we can go off and do his own thing we also see Borden's Prison number is d23 and Disney were the ones responsible for Distributing the movie the cell number d23 popped up in Civil War as well and whether it's intentional or not it might be the company giving themselves a pat on the back for their convention cutter then tells Angie the truth about the pain in drowning and after leaving Borden then arrives either owes the ball at him and this was of course thrown back to board in prison this ball was also part of his transported man trick and it's very much the way that Borden returns this is the prestige and bringing the man back after making him disappear is cemented by the fact this scene happens alongside of Brett's death his final words are Abracadabra and this magical word is of course existed in the pantheons of magic for centuries and centuries however it's also neatly slotted into the film through the character names Alfred Borden's initials are a b and Robert angier's initial rra put them together and you get Abra which is a nice little touch Borden explains the truth and why it's such an amazing twist that I don't think anyone saw coming Andrea also reveals to board and what he does and the fact that he has to murder himself the Kobe actually believes that he's the original and in truth we don't really know which one is because in a way they both are the one who isn't transported is the one who dies and technically the copy is the one who carries on Borden thinks he's done this all for nothing but angia says that it was all worth it to see the look on people's faces as his Hideaway Burns To The Ground we see that he's lined up all the copies who died and this is accompanied by the birds and the cages from the start it's a chilling way to end the movie but we sort of get a happy ending with one Warden at least getting to raise the door of the pair made that closes out the movie and once more it remains one of my favorite films ever it's incredible to think that Nolan made this in between Batman Begins in the Dark Knight and it stands as one of the most tightly woven pieces of sin Cinema that I think I've ever seen and of course love to hear your thoughts on the movie so make sure you comment below and let me know if you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of the thing which will be linked on screen right now we break down the entire thing and there's lots of details in there I've not seen another video so if you're a fan of that film then definitely head over after this without the way thanks for sending through the video I've been poor I'll see you next time take care peace

Channel: Heavy Spoilers

Views: 731,134

Keywords: the prestige, the prestige ending explained, the prestige breakdown, christopher nolan, hugh jackman, christian bale, michael caine, ending explained, movie details, hidden details, the prestige hidden details, the prestige foreshadowing, easter eggs, things you missed, david bowie, tesla, twin brother, insane details, the prestige movie details, breakdown, the prestige easter eggs, the prestige insane movie details, the prestige review, the prestige trailer

Id: D9xIY5UkRi4

Length: 21min 54sec (1314 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2022