Should you ever find yourself in a situation where a friend wants to talk about how meta Christopher Nolan‘s Inception was for its cast mirroring a film crew, the Nerdwriter just gave us the best possible follow up with his latest video on 2006’s The Prestige.

If you haven’t watched the videos by Evan Puschak, a.k.a. the Nerdwriter, do yourself a favor and set aside the time to do so. You’ll come out of it with a new outlook on a varied amount of topics like politics, art, math, and entertainment. Our favorites, as you can probably guess, are the videos in which Puschak deconstructs the concepts in film.

Taking a deep dive into The Prestige, the Nerdwriter gives us a wonderful breakdown of how Christopher Nolan’s film about the world of magic gave itself away in the first few shots and we didn’t even notice. Even if the title card with the words “the Prestige” hovering over dozens of identical top hats weren’t enough, quite a few subsequent scenes give away the twist throughout the film. Magic tricks with identical birds are performed throughout with one even being spotted by a keen-eyed and heartbroken little boy who saw what we as the audience did not. Nerdwriter’s points just go to show how Nolan deserves every bit of praise he gets as a filmmaker. He made a film in which we became so drawn into figuring out one trick that we didn’t even notice he was giving us the answer from the very beginning.

Check out more of The Nerdwriter’s videos on his channel and let us know what you think of his thoughts on The Prestige in the comments below.

–

Image:  Warner Bros. Pictures