Ending of the prestige?

Question

I just asked this question but I think it was a little confusing... I know angier framed Fallon and everything BUT AT THE VERY VERY END LIKE LITTERALLY 3 SEC BEFORE THE MOVIE ENDS you see angier in a tank... why is he in the tank when we clearly just saw Fallon shoot him? Is angier dead or alive? Its confusing because I am told that angier cloned himself multiple times...at least in the book? That's what my mom said.

Answer 1

I rewatched the scene again and realised what you were talking about. I heard that Angier survives in the book but nevermind that. I think he died, because Angier did not know that Borden would have the tables turned on him, he did not expect to be killed by Borden who he thought was already dead. Hence, there is no reason to keep the clone in the tank alive. At least, that is what I believe.



I also feel that Nolan meant to kept that part ambiguous and leave it to our imagination. Especially with how the narrator said we are looking for the secret, but we won't find it, because we are not really looking. But honestly I believe that Angier died, thus putting an end to the rivalry.

Answer 2

Yes that was Angier in the tank at the end, but he's dead. If you look around there's a bunch of tanks filled with clones of Angiers. You see, the cloning device actually sent the original somewhere else (the real Angier) and made a duplicate in its place (Angier clone). What Angier kept doing was trapping all the clones in tanks of water to kill them after he was done with them. Angier would transport up into the balcony each time, while his new clone would fall into a locked tank and die. Again, this was done multiple times before as we see more than one tank with a clone of Angier at the end if you look closely. The Angier in the end that's in the tank is a clone, and Fallon DID shoot, and kill the real Angier. Also another thing that people tend to confuse is that Fallon never did clone himself, he had an identical twin that looked just like him, not a clone.

Answer 3

Well yea, he cloned himself using this machine during the trick, and he never knew which one of him would end up in the tank or on top of the stage, the cloning is a result of the act of teleporting, the machine doesn't just teleport you it puts another version of you where you want to go, but the real body stays, that's bad for the trick, so they put the tank uder the stage. When the teleporting happens, new body lands somewhere, old body drops in the tank. That's how they thought he was dead the first time, and framed fallon.