Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/this-is-some-real-rubiks-cub.html
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There’s a subtle flick of his right middle finger at 0:19, which is surely him sweeping the cube off the board, but I’ll be damned if I can work out how he nudges the cube over far enough that the finger can reach fully behind it. Well executed.
Note also that the image of the cube is already on the card at 0:10, thus the awkward hold on the card intended to hide it.
Boy, the ability to go through a YT video frame by frame both improves the experience - by allowing one the chance to work out the finer points - and demeans it - for the same reason.
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Magic on teevee isn’t really magic. But that was very cool.
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I’m with you. I find it far more impressive when I can go back and see what they did to pull it off. Not knowing how it’s done makes me lose interest – it doesn’t make me stop and wonder.
Interesting if unpuzzling effect.
Though especially in the age of video, if you’re going to play on the idea that the cube transfers to the card as the magical premise, at least make sure that the cube faces on the card are aligned the same as the 3D cube.
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I don’t think his finger ever touches it. I think his finger is triggering something else–probably something to do with the mat. There’s also no audio on the video, which makes me think whatever he does would create a giveaway noise.
Edit: Alternatively, the mat is there so that he can slice up video and edit this with incredible precision.
There’s always that rightful suspicion. I recall one Copperfield tv special trick that involved a blob of ‘watery’ ink resolving itself into words. Oooooooooo!, went the crowd. It was so embarrassing; the lighting was poorly done, so you could see that the words must have been written on a moveable surface first, the surface tilted to make the ink run, then the video of that run backward. The changing lighting on the surface during the tilt gave it away. It wasn’t even a real magic trick, given the method.
Hell, if you’re going to trigger something in the mat then you just do it with your foot.
I was starting to like your thoughts abut the patterning on the mat when I realized that the cube-on-card at the beginning wouldn’t be necessary if you were going to the cutting room. In that light, I take the presence of the altered two of spades as evidence that he didn’t take this route.
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Or that’s what he wants you to think… misdirection upon misdirection. 
Very good point.
That Rubik’s cube seems really flimsy to me. Notice the poor fit and looseness between block sections? It’s probably really made of paper and collapses flat.
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The cube just slips on the One Ring when it’s hidden by the card. Cool trick; possibly not worth inevitably being chased by Nazgûl for.
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I thought the rule of making something disappear was you had to make it reappear.
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Pshht… he never even solved the rubik’s cube!
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Ah, the Rubik’s Cube, TOS progenitor of the Borg Cube.
From Shatner’s Guide to Sexy Aliens of The Alpha Quadrant:
The Rubik were a race of aliens who zipped around the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, annoying the citizens of the federation with an array of mechanical puzzles. Gene Roddenberry wrote several episodes that featured the Rubik, culminating in an Armageddon tale titled The Borromean Disentaglement, but the Rubik didn’t test well with audiences and the storyline was scrapped.
Years later, after the infamous Magnum PI BDSM orgy episode, the wardrobe department at Paramount Studios found itself with a lot of bondage wear gathering dust and asked writers for TNG to see what they could come up with to give it a second life. An initial false start involving Wesley Crusher and Betazed wedding traditions squicked everyone out, but eventually the Rubik were given a sexy makeover and the Borg were born.
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