How The Prestige Should Have Ended

Preface
First of all I just want to declare that I think that the Prestige is a brilliant film. Secondly I assume that the reader has understood the entire concept with Borden having a twin brother, that he was misleading Angier with the Tesla trail and that the Tesla machine actually produced clones of Angier.
The Borden brothers will be called only Borden.

What is wrong with the current end?
My main problem with the current end is that I do not think that it is suitable for the entire mindset of the film. The mindset of the film is that magic is all about letting people doubt that the world is this stable and predictable place. And that the only way of accomplishing this is by outsmarting them with the use of creative construction, brilliance and dexterousness.
The conflict in this movie is jealousy and desire and it is exampled through the arms race between Borden and Angier.
In the current end, the climax of Angier getting over taken by his obsession of the arms race is torn in to pieces when the Tesla machine actually works. This ruins the psychological devastation of Angier that has been built up during the movie.

How it should have ended
The machine should not have been working. Borden should have planned the entire Tesla trace including putting out the hats and cats and the sudden disappearance of Tesla. This is totally in line with the other sacrifices and efforts that are in the movie. Borden planning the entire trace should have resulted in an even greater feeling of brilliance when it is revealed trough his diary.
It can be argued whether or not Borden could afford this kind of operation but this could have been solved with some kind of personal interest from Tesla in cheating Angier (this could actually have put an extra dimension to the plot) or some kind of debt of Tesla to Borden.
However the psychological devastation of Angier would have been much further increased when he was left the Tesla machine, believing it was working due to the hat and cats incident but didn’t manage to get it to work when returning to London. This could have been the final blow for Angier. Driven to madness he would come to the conclusion that the only way to reach the secret was through Borden’s daughter (in the very same way he does in the movie acting as the Lord). And doing this by framing Borden with murder would also finally revenge him for the death of Angier’s wife by separating Borden and his daughter with death. The frame could possibly have been done using a body double again to lure Borden in to the set where he would have drowned the body double, very much like drowning the clone.
This end would have kept the greatness in the fact that the only way of performing the trick that for an instance, every night, made the world doubt was the simple and logical solution. And this would dawn on Angier in the very same way as it does in the movie when he realize that they were a twin couple and it would actually have enhanced the effect of the revelation instead of how it is now, decreased, with him knowing the Tesla machine also did the trick.
In defend of the current ending I think that Angier however didn’t feel any satisfaction when he died knowing that he Tesla machine also did the trick. The conflict wasn’t him being able to do it at all but rather him being able to do it the Borden way. This is however somewhat contradicted by the fact that he tears Borden’s solution saying “But mine is better”. But this is probably because Angier at this stage still believes that Borden also was using some kind of cloning or teleporting device.

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