Cube (Pacific Rim?!)

[TGLS]

Why does the title say pacific rim?

Because it originally looked like this:

[Wargriffin]

What do we know?

1. The film is shot from a third person omnisicent perspective - we never see the person from the opening again, so it's not told from the view of the survivors.
2. There is clearly a world outside the cube from which the prisoners are obtained.
3. It's clear that nobody from outside the cube has any idea it exists.
4. The cube is gigantic.
5. The only time we see the exterior of the cube, it is dark. There are no stars visible, or any landscape around it.
6. The prisoners can be transported between cubes without any of them waking. Either they are drugged in their sleep, or teleported.

Based on this, I don't think a mundane explanation can exist. I think it's a lovecraftian genius loci that operates on its own logic. I think it cultivates people in our world to find the right mix of skills and personalities. If it was ever "built", it was because it wanted humans to think they built it; in fact it already existed, and the humans merely created a shell for it to inhabit.

ETA: I saw the film a long time ago, and had no interest in revisiting it; I'm going entirely off of Chuck's review and whatever memories it jarrred loose.

Honestly You could argue the entire thing is some supernatural abstract of Death, Hell or Purgatory

[phantom000]

I have never seen Cube and I don't want to watch it. I remember seeing a preview for it on the Sci-fi channel, back before it was Syfy, and it freaked me out. Some years ago i was reminded of it and decided to see the original trailer on youtube and it left me kinda numb.

Then i get 12 minutes into the review and decide i am going as far as i ever want to go. After reading the synopsis on Wikipedia i feel like even if i did sit down and watch it all the way through the ending would just leave me even more numb.

So no thank you, this one i am going to pass on...

[FaxModem1]

Now, taken non-literally, IE, this isn't some weird government conspiracy or aliens, or whatever, this is a rather interesting analysis on human nature, the nature of prisons, the nature of hell, and what they say about us.

For instance, each character is named after a famous prison on Earth, which says something about their character. From the TVTropes page on the film: [url]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Cube[/url]

Kazan (the autistic man) is a disorganized prison. Rennes (the "mentor") pioneered many of today's prison policies. Quentin (the policeman who eventually goes Ax-Crazy) is known for brutality. Holloway is a women's prison. Alderson (who is killed before even so much as seeing another human being within the cube) is a prison where isolation is a common punishment. Leavenworth runs on a rigid set of rules (Leaven's mathematics), and the new prison is corporately owned and built (Worth, hired as an architect)

So, if you're knowledgeable about famous prisons, that should tell you some things about the characters, for instance, that Quentin, while exhibiting some of the stock hero notes, is someone you should keep an eye out on. Maybe if his name was Attica, no one would have followed his lead at all.

[clearspira]

Thinking about it, the Cube would work very well as a Vault in Fallout (where VaultTec decided to run all of these tests on people after the end just because they could and perhaps to gain some Dr Mengele style data from it afterward.) Throw an escape artist, a student, a cop, a hippie and a man with special needs into Vault Cube and see what happens. And the original guy who died in the cheese grater? The Overseer trying to rescue them after manifesting a conscience.

In seriousness though it is interesting to muse on that original guy. What was his purpose? What would he have given this group? my theory if he isn't a mole is that he is a lawyer. Remember the ''girl in the red dress scene'' from The Matrix where it talks about how some people are so dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it? Who better to put into this situation where his government has turned on him? He would certainly be an interesting counter to the cop and the hippie.

[FaxModem1]

Thinking about it, the Cube would work very well as a Vault in Fallout (where VaultTec decided to run all of these tests on people after the end just because they could and perhaps to gain some Dr Mengele style data from it afterward.) Throw an escape artist, a student, a cop, a hippie and a man with special needs into Vault Cube and see what happens. And the original guy who died in the cheese grater? The Overseer trying to rescue them after manifesting a conscience.

In seriousness though it is interesting to muse on that original guy. What was his purpose? What would he have given this group? my theory if he isn't a mole is that he is a lawyer. Remember the ''girl in the red dress scene'' from The Matrix where it talks about how some people are so dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it? Who better to put into this situation where his government has turned on him? He would certainly be an interesting counter to the cop and the hippie.

Point of Order, the 'hippie' is a doctor/social worker who is also a conspiracy theorist. Different flavor of crazy. Holloway isn't asking everyone to reach out for the trees and meditate, smoke some joints, and do a drum circle.

Instead, she's asking for compassion while also asking everyone to believe that they're being held by aliens/the government, etc. But it does point to this being purposeful, as a social worker/doctor is handy for handling a savant and for helping everyone else out with first aid. Well, until the cop throws her down the outside of the cube.

[Beastro]

It's been ages since I last watched it, but Cube is one of those movies that has a simple, wonderful premise that is then derailed too much about the ideas behind it that are loaded on later on in it.

I recently experienced the same thing with an old 60s WWII movie by the name of Morituri, about a unwilling spy shoved into disabling some charges on a German ship carrying rubber the Allies want to capture. In both cases the first part is fine when the films are busy doing what they're doing, in that Marlin Brando going around disabling the charges while keeping up his SS cover, in Cube them simply working through the cube, but once they get to that stage of trying to subvert and change the direction of the story they start to lose themselves.

In Morituri it's simply that too much going on that ties the story in knots as the latter half focuses more and more on morality issues of war and pacifism; in this movie it always feels like it lost interest in the original Ten Little Indians premise when that puzzle rooms are the big appeal of the setting (I recall how by the end they're montaging right through them like mad).

The funny thing is, I usually like movies that take some time to go deeper, but in both of these cases they should have just stuck to the simple nuts and bolts of their plot and left things simple.

[Deledrius]

It's been ages since I last watched it, but Cube is one of those movies that has a simple, wonderful premise that is then derailed too much about the ideas behind it that are loaded on later on in it.

I feel the opposite about Cube. If it weren't for the themes and topics it floats, the film would be forgettable and all of the suspense would be for nothing. It rises above the simplicity of the production because it has something to say.

[Thebestoftherest]

Yeah I love Chuck work, but I think the whole beaurcracy cause it to be made for no reason is a kinda dumb, there must be a purpose.

[Deledrius]

It's odd how obsessed humans are with needing to ascribe purpose to so many features of the universe which lack it.