Found an interesting bit of information on the IMDb trivia page for this movie. See if you recognize this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Game_of_Ur.
Here's a close-up of the game board: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_game_of_Ur,at_the_British_Muse um.jpg. (There's a higher-resolution picture available as well, to which you can click through.)
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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Wow, good find! THat is amazing.
I always thought that game was just some made up thing they used as a prop for the movie, but this....wow. Just goes to show how much thought, money, time was put into this movie. The more I watch Screamers, the more I appreciate. And now this.
This reaffirms my belief that Screamers truly is a diamond in the ruff.
Yeah, that's pretty cool, isn't it? As I understand it from the Wikipedia article, the rules to the game have been lost, but they've been reliably reconstructed. I don't know what those rules are, but I wonder whether the players in the movie are actually following them.
Yep, very cool movie all around, and I'm hoping it gets some more attention (and a CD release of its excellent score by Normand Corbeil) now that a sequel is coming out. As you say, this game is one of many little touches that shows how much trouble went into this underappreciated movie.
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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.