The Prestige

I read this book by Chris Priest a few months back after hearing of the new movie starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman and directed by Chris Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins). I gotta say it's very good and I'm looking forward to the movie.
Since reading the book I've been fascinated by magic. I'd never before heard the term prestidigitation. I'm definately more like Angier in pursuit of magic. I look at the tricks a thousand times and still can't figure out even the simplest of them.
Gotta say though, I was a little disappointed in the final revelation and ending.

Despite how much I enjoyed the book, I'm glad Nolan is making changes. This is one book that needs change before translating to film. And from the looks of the trailer, it seems the changes are for the best. I also did not like the narrative choices the author made. Most of the book is supposed to be reading excerpts from two diaries in the 1800's. I'm glad Nolan will not be doing anything like that.

So, what do our resident raveners think of the book/movie?

And now that Prestige is wrapping up, Nolan needs to work on the dark knight.

Thnaks for the heads up, if you dig Abe, I have a feeling I would probably dig it also!

Yeah the movie looks great. And I'm glad to see Michael Caine in there, not sure what kind of character he'll be playing, because he's not in the book.

I had some minor problems with the book but they're problems that deal with the ending to i'm hesitant to spoil them for people who haven't read it.

is anyone having trouble getting the trailer that I linked to in the first post to work? It's not working for me right now.
...nevermind, works now...

All I saw was the trailer and I definitely plan on seeing it when it comes out.

Decent flic . . . . but Christian Bale grates on me to no end (people actually like this stiff as Batman?). Johannson was shot in a different light. Disappointing ending. Michael Caine is the new Gene Hackman (in other words, he's mailing in his standard issue performance now on a yearly basis). The London set street scenes were awful. But Tesla made a decent appearance . . . which I assume appealed to some. I'm curious as to how this flic is going to do at the box office. . . .

Guess I should've gone to check out Eastwood's flic -- but after Saving Private Ryan, I'm never getting my wife back into another war movie.

I almost went to see this Sat. night. I felt in my heart that it will not be as good as Ed Norton's film of the same genre, so based on your description, I am glad I didn't...

I saw The Prestige this weekend. I liked it. What didn't you like about the ending, Joe?

I thought Bale was excellent as Patrick Bateman in American Pyscho, and he was good as Batman (slightly better than Keaton, far better than George Clooney)

Oh, and it made 14.8 Million this weekend, making it the top movie this weekend.

Joe Brody said:

Guess I should've gone to check out Eastwood's flic -- but after Saving Private Ryan, I'm never getting my wife back into another war movie.

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Heh.

Sounds familiar. Though I did successfully talk my wife into going to Blackhawk Down post-Ryan... I think I've worn out that welcome.

I had thought of going to see it this weekend, mostly because of Scarlett Johansson.

I saw The Departed instead. Excellent.

Slight spoilers.

I saw the Prestige tonight. All I've been thinking about is that duplicating machine. Imagine what you could do with something like that. You could steal something you liked and duplicate it then return the original or you could buy a car and duplicate it over and over and sell them. But in the wrong hands somebody could duplicate their self and commit a crime and frame their duplicate. And those are just the simple things. With a little imagination you could create entire elaborate scenarios involving nothing but duplicates. You could get more done in a day than you could in you whole lifetime otherwise. I thought about duplicating money but no dollar is the same and it would get noticed and severely mess up the economy most likely. They wouldn't know which bills were real and would eventually have to come up with a new currency. It would be chaos! And you wouldn't care as long as you had that machine. You wouldn't need anything else. The possibilities are endless. Well, they would be if that machine existed. And to think those guys were using the machine to do magic tricks.

I wonder how plausible that would be. I wonder if the science behind that has any credibility. I would think it's more plausible than time travel.

Deadlock said:

Though I did successfully talk my wife into going to Blackhawk Down post-Ryan... I think I've worn out that welcome.

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Thank goodness I married a sociologist. Most of the time, she would rather watch Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket then Steal Magnolias. Go figure.

Fortunately, my wife's upbringing has given her a taste for science fiction. Without that, her Jane Austen movie addiction might drive me up the wall.

" Imagine what you could do with something like that."
Star Trek has been imagining it for a long time, in the form of the Replicator and holodeck...

"I wonder if the science behind that has any credibility"
There are a lot of people working in the field of nano-tech that seem to think it's possible

Indy Benson said:

I saw The Prestige this weekend. I liked it. What didn't you like about the ending, Joe?

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Simply, both male leads were louts, and I didn't care if they lived or died. It was a good entertaining flic -- but it's a flawed (or very brave) film when the leads are so unsympathic.

Deadlock said:

Fortunately, my wife's upbringing has given her a taste for science fiction. Without that, her Jane Austen movie addiction might drive me up the wall.

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I don't know what the problem is here. Jane Austen type chic flics are fairly reliable in providing distractions for male viewers. . . and I find they usually hold up well on their own accord.

Simply, both male leads were louts, and I didn't care if they lived or died. It was a good entertaining flic -- but it's a flawed (or very brave) film when the leads are so unsympathic.

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At first I was the same way, but towards the end, I cared for the character(s) played by Bale, especially when they reveal what's going on, and I didn't care at all for Jackman's character by the end.

There's Oscar talk for Bale for this role. I liked him in this, but I don't think it's Oscar-worthy.

ClintonHammond said:

" Imagine what you could do with something like that."
Star Trek has been imagining it for a long time, in the form of the Replicator and holodeck...

"I wonder if the science behind that has any credibility"
There are a lot of people working in the field of nano-tech that seem to think it's possible

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After thinking about it so much I think this invention would be catastrophic. It would undoubtedly be usurped for military purposes by whatever government and that military would be unstoppable unless you destroyed the machine. And what if they made a bigger one just so they could duplicate duplicators?

I'm going to look into this nano-tech stuff.

This is great film making!!

I just saw the Prestige on DVD. A fantastic movie from the cast and crew who brought us Batman Begins. I think alot of Raveners will enjoy this movie. Nikola Tesla is a main figure in the story. In the forum for "Indy 4 discussions" under the thread "archeology of the 1950's" I proposed a few weeks ago that Nikola Tesla would be a wonderful character for Indy to meet and his numerous inventions could easily be a catalyst for a great Mcguffin. I have always been fascinated with Tesla,his inventions were way ahead of his time,even now scientists ponder his creations. Magic,and science blend perfectly in this film,Scarlett Johansen's screen presence makes it even more the sweeter. I also posted some pictures that I took of Croatia (where Tesla lived for many years) on the Globe Trotting forum under the Fagarass Fortress thread. Check it out!

I never buy a movie before seeing it first, but I did for this one. It was well worth it. Christopher Nolan is a great director and Jonathan Nolan is a great screenwriter. I can't wait to see them team up for Batman's next outing

Katarn07 said:

I never buy a movie before seeing it first, but I did for this one. It was well worth it. Christopher Nolan is a great director and Jonathan Nolan is a great screenwriter. I can't wait to see them team up for Batman's next outing

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+1. The Nolan duo rules. Prestige was the best movie of 2006, IMO.

Im glad you guys enjoyed it to,Tesla deserves to be in more movies,Bowie did a great job depicting him. Im glad these guys are doing Batman,the series is saved once again.