In this episode, your host Gavin Ronald, discusses the recent A Minecraft Movie trailer with his friend Christopher Reynolds, a fellow fan of the game. He starts the podcast off discussing why Minecraft is important to Gen Z, and he does this by explaining how Minecraft is one of the biggest games of all time and defined many people’s childhoods. Christopher adds to this by explaining that fans of the game have been eagerly anticipating a movie after so many years of speculation since it originally got announced, which means there is a lot of hype surrounding the movie. This hype has only been compounded over the years by the fact that many successful video game adaptations as movies have come out in the last few years. Five Night’s At Freddy’s was the highest-grossing horror film of 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of the highest grossing animated movies of all time, and the recent Sonic The Hedgehog movies having a combined global box office of over $700 million.
The trailer for A Minecraft Movie came out September 4, 2024, and there has been mass negativity online from fans. Gavin and Christopher point out that one reason for this negativity is that the art-style does not feel like Minecraft and that the people behind the movie are not actually aware with what made people love the game to begin with. The discussion than turns to the casting of the main character of Minecraft, Steve. Jack Black as Steve has been considered by many as a strange choice since the character Steve does not actually ever talk in the game, yet they cast one of the loudest actors there currently is as him. There are some positives to the trailer though, as some of the details added to parts of the game like villages improve on the game’s visual style in a fitting way. Gavin brings up the Sonic The Hedgehog movie and compares the recent situation with this trailer to that. When the original trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog came out, it was criticized relentlessly, but the studio listened and made changes, and in the end the movie is loved by many today. The conversation ends with a reminder that this is only a trailer, and that there is reasons to have hope the movie can get better.
Music by Bensound
License code: V2TSTULUNN5CI4SU
Hi Gavin,
Your podcast was quite enjoyable to listen to, and I think you did a great job with it. The subject of your podcast caught my attention because this is a hot topic in my household. My brother and I grew up with Minecraft, and my brother is still an avid enjoyer of the game. He makes sure to attend all the Minecraft live streams, detailing the newest updates about Minecraft. You noted that many Gen Z grew up playing Minecraft, which is undoubtedly the case with my brother and me. Minecraft came out the year my little brother was born, so it has been interesting watching Minecraft grow and evolve alongside him. Gosh! I remember when villagers, who now seem like such an integral part of Minecraft, were added to the game. The Minecraft movie trailer has generated a lot of disappointment. I can’t say I’m super happy with the trailer either; as you mentioned, it doesn’t feel like Minecraft. It feels like a significant departure from what we have seen with the franchise so far. Compelling narratives have been created using the world and rules of Minecraft. I was, and still am, a huge fan of the “Minecraft Story-Mode” series. I was honestly hoping for something like that when it came to the movie. But like you and Christopher mentioned, we can’t really judge the movie until it is entirely out.
Hi Gavin,
what a fun podcast, I really enjoyed listening to your commentary on the upcoming Minecraft Movie. I Found myself reminiscing on the old days when I would get home from school and boot up to game and play for a few hours, cant stop thinking of all of fun nights playing Minecraft online with my friends. The new trailer for the Minecraft movie adaptation does look pretty disappointing, it feels cheap, rushed and like a quick cash grab, it doesn’t have the charm that the game has. The dialogue that we get to see in the trailer just tells us it has bad writing and the story isn’t gonna be all great. With how many good video game movie adaptations we have had in recent years, I thought we had finally left the “bad video game movie” phase behind but I guess I was wrong. Im hopping this was just a bad trailer and the movie turns out to be good, even tho it seems impossible. but I’m still not a fan on the art direction the directors went, I don’t think making the Minecraft movie a live action movie was a wise choice. Anyways great Job on the podcast, it was fun to listen.