Plastic Wrap

Hmmm... just posted a similar observation/thought elsewhere.

maybe they not really in a cube at all, they're actually in a computer simulation?? The ending would suggest it was real but, let's face it, the ending is pretty naff, and I'd be happy to pretend that the last few minutes don't actually exist! ;)

"There is no physical cube. The cube in the first film is physical, but this new one, the hypercube, is not physically real - their minds are put in to it, their subconcious."

Yeah, that WOULD work, except Kate had a physical object that she took from Sasha in the hypercube.

This movie really was crap. There's no getting around it.

Someone on the YouTube boards for this film had an interesting notion that the characters were all duplicate versions of themselves.

"They shot Kate's duplicate. Matter transportation [quantum teleportation] is the same as matter duplication.

The clue is in the bed under the plastic. The runaway Alex had no 'original' under plastic in the bed.

'They' had to get the full design of the hypercube out of the actual hypercube the designer gave them. She didn't give them the whole design. She thought making duplicates of people was immoral and open to abuse."

So:
- they make a duplicate of Alex Trusk to get the full design out of her
- they kit her out with a recording device in the hope that it will capture the information they require
- they send in other people who might be able to decipher some of the information (e.g. the scientist who works out that there is a time limit, Mrs Paley was a personal link to Alex Trusk and knew her work), check that the design works (e.g. Jerry confirming that his design for the doors works) and explain various features further (e.g. Max explaining how his variable time speed rooms works) - all of this is captured on Sasha's recording device
- they ensure an agent (Kate) is there to bring that information back to the real world, as otherwise it would just disappear when the hypercube implodes
- when Kate escapes the hypercube, IZON manage to get the missing information they require AND prove Alex Trusk's theory that flesh and blood duplicates can be created as a result of hypercube (also proving that Alex Trusk fears that creating duplicates would be immoral and open to abuse)
- they shoot the test subject (duplicate Kate) because she serves no further purpose.

The question is, if Alex Trusk didn't give them the full design for a hypercube, how were IZON able to construct one and put people in it? Unless all they had was the basic design and the information they needed to be able to control the hypercube and make it work in their best interest was the information that they were missing?

As the hypercube only existed for around 6 minutes, the use of duplicates could also mean that Izon could run multiple simulations/scenarios by populating the different parallel universives that existed inside the hypercube all at once, thus increasing the possibility of getting the information they required.

Sasha seems aware that she is a duplicate and when she says to Simon 'there's no point, we're all dead anyway' just before he kills her, she could be implying either:
a) that they are all dead in the real world or
b) there is no point to any of their actions in the hypercube as all of the duplicates will end up dead anyway. If b) is the case, the real-world versions of the characters never leave the gurneys. As we never see Sasha in the real world, she is either dead already, or they cannot find her.

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but right at the start of the movie as you are seeing things from Becky Young's perspective, the last thing she does is go through a door and someone in a surgical mask turns round to look at her - it looked like it could be Kate - although I couldn't be sure!