Cube is a 1997 Canadian independent science fiction horror film directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali. A product of the Canadian Film Centre’s First Feature Project, Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Julian Richings, Wayne Robson, and Maurice Dean Wint star as individuals trapped in a bizarre and deadly labyrinth of cube-shaped rooms.
As an IT nerd I loved how they made the door out of rack slides. Probably the easiest and cheapest way to make something that seems futuristic, but if you work with servers you see them every day.
The opening scene is also epic, still legendary to this day. I rented the movie on VHS back in the day, looked promising, but I wasn’t that interested to be fair. Then the opening scene happened and I was glued to the screen.
I’ve watched this movie more times than I can say. I’m less into it now (I watched it again 20 days ago and wasn’t as excited with other movies I still watch again).
There was a lot of thought into it making mathematical sense and how to make it feel believable. The plot is perhaps not as deep, but the movie remains enjoyable!
I never thought about it, but I’ve always been hunting for new details and this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for!
Do you happen to remember if this is before or after Leven decides whether a trap number must be a power of a prime?
Because after she understands this, a number like 125 = 5^3 is a trap number, but a number like 212 = 2^2 x 53 is not a trap number since it has two distinct prime factors
Cheers mate!
Edit: I just found out that Lemmy can exponentiate expressions so 2^2x53 is not what I wanted to write (aka 2^2 x 53)
Peeking at the script, I think this was the scene that annoyed me.
"It seems like if any of these numbers of prime, then the room is trapped. Ok, 645... 645, that's not prime. 372... no. 649... Wait, 11 x 59, it's not prime either. So that room is safe."
The pauses after 645 and 372 are pretty bad. The line should have been something like "645 and 372 are not prime. 649..."
As at the moment she was operating under the theory that only primeness mattered, anything with an even number or a five should have been instantaneous. 3s take a second to check (add the digits and see if that's a multiple of 3). The rest of the primes up to 31 are tougher. (Well, you only have to worry about 961 for 31, as otherwise a lower prime will interfere, but eh.)
Oooh, I never thought about reading the script! When this came out in 1997 internet was a thing, but not the same it is today.
You’re right, she pauses after numbers which are obviously not prime (when primes were the known working theory)
We could argue that it’s a very stressful situation and she pauses to think because it’s not a relaxed moment and she doesn’t want to get it wrong or another possibility is let the audience think for themselves and realize they couldn’t have been prime, but then it would have been better if she had said loudly what the numbers were and the easy rule to exclude them
I just watched it for the second time (the first being about twenty years ago or more), and I made the realization they only needed one cube to film it up until the ending. Glad to learn it was a cube and a half.
I watched this movie and tried adapting the idea into a session of my Star Wars RPG campaign. I didn’t use a three dimension cube, more like one level of rooms. I had a map of what room did what, where everyone was, and cut down the math big time, and my players still hated me for it. Good times.
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