TIL Christopher Nolan has never had a movie rated as “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes and his lowest rated movie is The Prestige at 75%
To be fair, The Prestige has a lot of WTFery towards the end.
That’s why it was so great.
I think the WTFery in question is them suddenly “changing the rules” too late in the game. When telling a good story, you need to set the rules up early on. If you set new rules to late, it feels like a deus ex machina .
It’s established early on that the world of The Prestige is like our world, science based. All magic tricks in the movie are based on logic and sound rational devices. Then 3/4 into the movie they use ACTUAL MAGIC masquerading as science.
Arguably spoilers
No, they never used magic once. It was always science. Science fiction, yeah, but the movie was never set up to not be science fiction.
Interestingly, both sides on this have some pretty solid arguments if we go to the source material.
The novel the film is based on (and follows quite closely, in most regards) won the World Fantasy Award in 1996. It was packaged, marketed, and submitted to awards as a fantasy novel, implying magic.
The author, however, says he never considered it fantasy. To him, it was indeed science fiction, and seems a little bemused that it won the WFA.
Either way, I suggest the book to anyone who enjoyed the movie. It’s an excellent read.
Did you know that the author lover the movie—he even loved all the changes stating he wished he had thought of them!
I found that really refreshing!
The most refreshing part is that the Nolans actually care about story. Collaboration like this—someone writing a story, someone else improving it—should lead to awesome films being made from awesome books. I’ve always thought that the film should be BETTER than the book, for that reason.
Unfortunately, the truth of our film system (and, more accurately, the money involved in making films) means that you rarely get geniuses improving on each others ideas, and instead usually get story by committee.
Anyway, it always does my heart good to hear of an author liking—instead of hating—an adaptation of his/her work. Thanks for sharing that.
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