How did Borden know about Tesla?

[Drob127]

Angier while eating lunch with tesla says to tesla "you've built it for another magician" I also thought he meant borden, but the weirdest thing about their conversation is when tesla says he has already begun to create the machine.

[tykjen]

Angier while eating lunch with tesla says to tesla "you've built it for another magician" I also thought he meant borden, but the weirdest thing about their conversation is when tesla says he has already begun to create the machine.

Angier said to begin with to Tesla; "I need something impossible". Tesla understood right away and asked Angier he was ready for the cost of such a machine. Angier thought about money, while Tesla spoke about Angier's soul.

Borden's act of the transported man had NO electricity what so ever in the start of the act. After they saw Tesla some sparks and effects were added to the act, and probably done by Tesla.

[dijinn]

Wow.
Sorry - new here. But I've been deep in the trenches of the Nolan universe out on my own blog and didn't even know this was here. Call me naive. Regardless...

This bit is one of the key points that proves that the machine does not work. That it actually doesn't duplicate anything. Think about it... Borden sends Angier on a wild goose chase and Angier accidentally finds the goose?! No, no no... that makes no sense. But to think that Borden & Tesla were in league - that Borden planned in advance to take Angier for all he was worth? That I buy.

Again, sorry for missing out on this board until now. Feel free to see the entirety of my argument against the machine working here: http://taylorholmes.com/2009/08/26/the-prestige-explained/ I obviously can't do it justice here. I'm sure this board will disagree heartily with my opinion - but I welcome the discussion seeing as though most people (even Nolan fans) have completely misunderstood this movie.

[nolanlove]

Wow.
Sorry - new here. But I've been deep in the trenches of the Nolan universe out on my own blog and didn't even know this was here. Call me naive. Regardless...

This bit is one of the key points that proves that the machine does not work. That it actually doesn't duplicate anything. Think about it... Borden sends Angier on a wild goose chase and Angier accidentally finds the goose?! No, no no... that makes no sense. But to think that Borden & Tesla were in league - that Borden planned in advance to take Angier for all he was worth? That I buy.

Again, sorry for missing out on this board until now. Feel free to see the entirety of my argument against the machine working here: http://taylorholmes.com/2009/08/26/the-prestige-explained/ I obviously can't do it justice here. I'm sure this board will disagree heartily with my opinion - but I welcome the discussion seeing as though most people (even Nolan fans) have completely misunderstood this movie.

How can I put this to you my friend ? Simply Bravo. Not because you are 100% right , not because you are 100% wrong , just because of the thought process you had provided us there . I have gone through the link that you posted . Simply brilliant . I have been studying science for years now and after watching the movie I had the same questions in my mind . I didn't believe the machine worked at all. But then again I couldn't connect the dots like you did . I simply left it like there as Nolan's brilliance and to the fact that I liked it more than Inception .


The main reason I couldn't connect it like how you did it was just simply I was aware of the History "the current war" between Thomas Edison & Tesla .And when you said that Angier realized that the machine doesn't work after the lab got destroyed , are you suggesting that Thomas Edison's men and all that were a lie too. Edison's men didn't destroy the lab of Tesla ? And Tesla had other reasons , particularly Angier's machine ??? If that is a yes , then we can connect the dots .


And you are way too correct when you point out the narration . I have thought about that too. But couldn't make out any possible outcomes because maybe I wanted to be fooled. Now I can see Nolan just created a diversion or just simply misguided us visually. Diary is the key part imo.


but But but , what is the real magic then ? Those are fake sparks. Angier goes down and after few second from the first floor of the hall angier comes out again . Angier's look-alike ?? Oh well, we already had one of Angier's look-alike in the movie !

[bsopher1177]

The machine was real... too much evidence supporting that it was real. Especially the light bulbs in the snow that were not connected to any wires. If Tesla could build that, then we have to believe that it's possible he could build the machine.

[dijinn]

The machine was real... too much evidence supporting that it was real. Especially the light bulbs in the snow that were not connected to any wires. If Tesla could build that, then we have to believe that it's possible he could build the machine.

Let me get this straight - you believe the machine is real because of some wireless power? Tesla was clever. But he wasn't God. Only God can create something ex nihilo. Out of nothing. And even today, this is still an impossibility to create a cloned human being with the same memories, same knowledge, same everything. Its physically impossible to do this.

But aside from that, "Too much evidence supporting that it was real" - by that, what you really mean is... well, that is what Angier said happened in the end so that is the truth. Never mind the voice over saying "But you don't want to know, because you want to believe in the magic"... which is really very true. And I'm fine with that, I'm ok with you wanting to believe in the magic. I don't want to destroy that facade for you. But the movie is a magic trick, and most everyone would prefer to be fooled as to knowing the truth. And we can agree to disagree there.

Taylor

[bsopher1177]

Honestly, I think you are missing the point of that last line. If you think back to the beginning of the the film, Cutter is explaining the 3 steps of a magic trick to the little girl. The trick is essentially making the bird disappear by killing the one in the cage and using a similar (clone) to fool the the little girl. A pretty simple trick when you think about it, but until the secret is revealed we are mystified by how it's done. In my opinion, this is the key theme Nolan was driving home throughout the film. Whether it's the "disappearing bird", the "bullet catch", or "the teleported man" the tricks are all based on a very simple premise. The significance of Cutter repeating the exact same line in the beginning and at the end was to draw the audience back to that first scene, which is essentially the same trick that Angier and Borden had been performing (only theirs had much bigger stakes).

This is why Nolan is such a freaking genius. Everything the audience needed to know was told to them in the first few minutes. But we (the audience) didn't want to accept that Borden had a twin brother or that Angier was cloning himself, so we let Nolan misdirect us and take us on a wild ride throughout the rest of the film... only to bring us back to the same point at the very end. Why repeat the same line twice? If Nolan had only written that line at the end I might agree with you, but the fact it's the first and last line of the film signifies that those 2 scenes are connected.

And with regards to the machine, I agree that cloning human beings with the same memories, same knowledge, etc is impossible, but this is a movie. My point about the bulbs was to reference that Tesla had already proved that he could do things beyond man's comprehension, so it wasn't a complete stretch that he was able to make the machine work. And my most compelling argument occurs at about 1hr and 37 minutes when Angier demonstrates the machine to the theater owner. In this scene, we can clearly see Angier speaking with Cutter and the theater owner. Angier then walks down to the machine and turns it on and vanishes only to reappear at the back of the theater. No way it was a double. I literally watched the scene as I typed this and it's clear as day. While your theory about the machine is an interesting one, it creates far too many plot holes that you cannot account for and I just don't buy it.

[nolanlove]

He does vanish . But did you really get the magic trick ? I am not sure what did you mean by "he vanishes himself" ??? He simply had a secret chamber beneath his feet and electricity sparks creates a misdirection , he goes down and a look-alike comes out from the top .

You are simply being fooled . The whole movie was based on two great rivals and their magics but the final plot is all about Nolan trying to trick us with the Special magic trick. This is not a science fiction . This is how Nolan involves the audience in the movie. Just keep an open mind to everything , you will understand .

The voice over in the last scene is simply brilliant.

[bsopher1177]

Go back and watch the movie again at the time that I indicated. I get how the trick works, but there is no double in that scene. We see angier walk down, step into the machine and then randomly appear behind Cutter and the theater owner. Explain that and maybe I will agree with you.

[Octaviana]

I do agree that the first and last scene are connected with that line. And I study science too. After watching the movie, I had to think a lot about it, because magic does not exist my friends. If the machine did work, there had to be a method. We know Nikola Tesla worked on magnetism and wireless telecommunications and electrical power transmission (the light bulbs have an explanation because we can establish a current if we connect an object to the earth -I don't really know how to explain it in english-)
But we know that Tesla had been working with teleportation (his "wall of light") In the movie, Tesla says sorry to Angier because some things doesn't always go as planned. What I think is being implied is that he tried to make the teleportation machine but it ended up being a cloning machine.
It's a movie. Nolan didn't study science. Instead, he studied english literature. So we have to stop thinking in science a little bit.
What it's so wonderful is that both explanations are possible. You can make your own movie after you watch The Prestige. Maybe your movie it's not Nolan's, but who cares?
(Sorry if there are excessive and boring references to science facts for the ones that are not into it but you caught me preparing myself for the physics olympiad, haha)