The Prestige reimagined - a badger, an aardvark and a rattlesnake walk into a bar (ep. 19)

What if The Prestige wasn’t a story about rival magicians… but a workplace comedy set in the afterlife where reincarnation is managed by an underfunded government department?In this episode of No Context Cinema Club – a comedy film podcast and movie rewrite podcast – Rob rewrites The Prestige without ever watching it. Using only the title and a few assumptions, he creates a surreal comedy about bureaucracy, morality, reincarnation, and the dangers of middle management.David Mitchell and Robert Webb star as Solomon and Gabriel, two exhausted employees working in the Reallocation Department of Prestige – the mysterious organisation responsible for deciding what happens after death.As humanity's moral standards continue to collapse, a crisis emerges. Too few people now qualify for human reincarnation, creating a shortage of humans on Earth and a growing surplus of increasingly confused animals.Gabriel believes the solution is hope. Solomon believes the solution is punishment.What follows is a workplace rivalry that spirals completely out of control as both men secretly attempt to reshape humanity according to their own beliefs, while an endless queue of pirates, astronauts, knights, clowns, and accountants wait to discover their fate.This funny film discussion blends fantasy, workplace comedy, existential questions, corporate incompetence, and absurd bureaucracy as Prestige slowly reveals itself to be far stranger than either its employees or its applicants realise.Expect:• David Mitchell deciding who deserves to return as a human• Robert Webb campaigning for more dolphins• Quarterly performance reviews with consequences nobody saw coming• Arguments about morality, reincarnation, and pyramid schemes• A complaints department somehow worse than death itselfAfter the rewrite is locked in, Kev scores the film for coherence, entertainment, and originality, feeding into the show's live leaderboard.If you enjoy movie podcasts, comedy podcasts, fantasy worlds, workplace sitcoms, Mitchell and Webb, afterlife stories, absurd British humour, and completely ridiculous film rewrites, this episode delivers one of the strangest concepts ever created on the show.Has Rob invented a clever satire about morality and human nature… or simply turned the afterlife into the world's most dysfunctional council office?Get in touchGot a film we have to re-write? Think we’ve completely lost the plot? 🎬 Film suggestions & score debates → [email protected] 🎟️ Quizzes & made-up movie rights → [email protected] 🍿 Feedback & episode questions → [email protected]