The Prestige movie - opinions needed

[Bullett00th]

SPOLIER ALERT
If you did not watch the movie - don't read this topic. Go watch the movie instead, it's amazing.

Now to the topic...

Had a very undudely argument with my friend over that movie yesterday, we almost killed each other, realized it was pointless and decided to ask for opinions from others.

When Angier (Hugh Jackman) enters Tesla's machine, he is cloned. One version lives on, the other appears sealed in the box with water and dies. In the end, Angier says it took courage to enter the machine every time, not knowing whether he'd be the victim or the prestige.

My friend says it's a pointless phrase as there is nothing to be afraid of in this system. No matter what, since both versions are the same person, you always survive. As in, if he was offered to enter this machine, he would enter every time since he'd both die and survive at the same time.

I'm trying to explain to him that the two versions become two separate beings with separate minds, and one dies. And the one who dies may be him. He says it doesn't matter because the other one survives and the other one is him as well, so there is no risk.
No matter how hard I try, I cant get the point through, that HIS conciousness may live through 1,2,3 etc clones and die on the 5th one. he NEVER KNOWS before entering the machine. But my friend says he knows he will survive because one always survives.



If I am wrong, please tell me so, because I am going insane here. I went full Walter yesterday as if it was Nam, dudes. I know I shouldn't have but I really want to get my point through.

[BrotherShamus]

I mean you're right about the separate consciousness theory. Just remember Christian Bale's character(s). He had a clone as well who pretended to be his assistant or brother or whatever (can't remember) but near the end he talks about how the two Christian Bales loved a different woman.

[Bullett00th]

I mean you're right about the separate consciousness theory. Just remember Christian Bale's character(s). He had a clone as well who pretended to be his assistant or brother or whatever (can't remember) but near the end he talks about how the two Christian Bales loved a different woman.

was that a clone too? I thought it was his brother.

or did he do one clone and not kill him?

[meekon5]

There was a similar premiss to a sci-fi story I read once.

Aliens had given the human race a wonderful piece of technology that copied you exactly then transmitted the information to another unit that re-built a copy of you somewhere else.

Your copy had all the memories of the original.

The point being you could travel vast distances by being copied from one place to another. Then be copied back.

The problem being, the deal was the original had to be destroyed so there was no imbalance caused in the universe.

The dilemma is the same as in the prestige. Though one copy (an exact copy) continues to exist (like the copies caused by Tesla's machine), is it really you?

For me a copy is still a copy, not the original, it is a completely different being who would not have existed if you hadn't.

IMHDO of course.

[cckeiser]

It was his twin brother.
We are changed by our experiences which are shaped by our perspective. Once cloned they become separated entities with a shared history, but each will evolve in it's own unique way and must become a different person than the other, but who is to say which is the "real" one. They both were the Real one.
The point of the movie to remember is when he was told that drowning in the tank was like "going home" and was not painful at all....a lie of course, but it was that lie that was needed for the story line to be somewhat believable. Would he have purposely killed his doppelganger if he had known how frightening and painful it really was?
(For me)That was really the question.

[Bullett00th]

It was his twin brother.
We are changed by our experiences which are shaped by our perspective. Once cloned they become separated entities with a shared history, but each will evolve in it's own unique way and must become a different person than the other, but who is to say which is the "real" one. They both were the Real one.

they may have both been the real one. in the argument we even dropped the concept of one being the original and the other - a clone, we just tried vieweing the situation as if he just split in two, like cells do.

but even both have seperate lives now, and one's life ends

[cckeiser]

....we just tried vieweing the situation as if he just split in two, like cells do.

I like that...a real good way to think of it. When a cell splits in two....which one was the "real" cell?...they both were.
It was a good movie dude.