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I remember watching a movie on TV when I was little kid, probably late 60's. In one scene an android was playing craps in the casino. He was winning because he could compute how the dice would roll. To stop him, the casino gave him weighted dice. When he picked up the dice he noticed there was something wrong and squeezed them into the proper shape, then rolled them and won again.

Does anyone else remember this?

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    Fun thing: if he was able to compute how the dice would roll, then he wouldn't need to squeeze the dice, he could just have computed it anyway, weighted or not.
    – o0'.
    Jan 30, 2014 at 18:44
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    That's true, but if the dice are weighted to land on snake eyes, then all the computing in the world won't change the fact that you lose when they come up.
    – Valorum
    Jan 30, 2014 at 19:19
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    You won't lose if you bet it, and rolling any craps doesn't result in you losing the dice. So bet don't pass and aces as the shooter...
    – user11521
    Jan 30, 2014 at 20:02
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    Today I was remembering this same scene and wanted to find out what it was from. This question popped up as possibly related, with the correct answer I was looking for. :D
    – NJohnny
    Sep 27 at 23:29

2 Answers 2

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The movie you're thinking of is "The Questor Tapes", a 1974 television movie (starring Robert Foxworth and Mike Farrell) about an android with incomplete memory tapes who is searching for his creator.

The scene in question is below;

Interestingly, Questor was a pilot from gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) that didn't make it into production. There is a great deal of similarity between Questor and Lt Cmdr Data from Star Trek : The Next Generation, notably when Data does the same "trick" of reshaping dice in the TNG episode "The Royale"

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  • I think that's it! Thanks.
    – user1008646
    Jan 30, 2014 at 13:35
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    You should summarize the answer here, as if the yahoo link decays, it devalues the answer.
    – JohnP
    Jan 30, 2014 at 14:31
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    Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, created The Questor Tapes in 1974, as a pilot that didn't sell. Questor and Data have many similarities, among them the "fully functional" line, and reshaping dice.
    – user1008646
    Jan 30, 2014 at 15:14
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    I've added a bit of a summary and some vid links. Great answer Zimul8r
    – Valorum
    Jan 30, 2014 at 17:37
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    I love that the scene with Data in "The Royale" turns out to be a shout-out to a previous Gene Roddenberry pilot that didn't get picked up as a series.
    – Mark Bessey
    Jan 30, 2014 at 18:16
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You're likely thinking about a Star Trek The Next Generation episode called The Royale.

In it Data (the android) plays craps. He says he can compute how the dice will roll, but his first roll is off. He then notices that the dice are not weighed correctly (they were perceptively off) and squeezes them to their proper shape, thus continuing to win.

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  • Ah but was this an homage to an older film?
    – Valorum
    Jan 30, 2014 at 12:44
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    Had that episode in mind, too. It's a good episode, by the way. It's based on the novel "Hotel Royale".
    – Trollwut
    Jan 30, 2014 at 13:21
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    Is my brain scrambling something I saw as an adult 25 years ago with something I saw as a little kid 45 years ago? -- Or did one of the Star Trek writers see the same movie that I did?
    – user1008646
    Jan 30, 2014 at 13:22

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