The Minecraft Movie Trailer Confirms The Biggest Mistake With The Video Game Adaptation
The first trailer for A Minecraft Movie has caused a lot of controversy online, with the first look at the film confirming the biggest mistake with the video game adaptation. Although movie adaptations of video games used to be a surefire sign of a critical flop, the video game movie curse has been broken, with a new era of great films like Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog being released. However, A Minecraft Movie seems to be falling into the trappings of a prior video game movie era, with the film having one major problem that the trailer highlights.
A Minecraft Movie‘s first trailer has been released, with it finally showing off Jack Black’s Steve as well as a band of other human characters. Up until the trailer for A Minecraft Movie was released, many fans of the original video game were wondering what the movie’s art direction would look like. Minecraft is known for its signature blocky style, and ever since it was revealed that A Minecraft Movie would be live-action, it has been difficult to imagine how the movie would look. However, now that A Minecraft Movie‘s visual style has been revealed, it hasn’t been received positively.
A Minecraft Movie Changed The Video Game Animation & Includes Live-Action Characters
It Tries To Recreate The Blocky Style
The biggest problem with A Minecraft Movie is that it changed the video game animation, with it deciding to include live-action characters. The original Minecraft video game is one of the most visually unique games of all time, with everything being made out of blocks. This visual identity is core to the franchise and its gameplay, which is why for years many claimed that the only way to properly do a Minecraft movie would be to make it animated. However, A Minecraft Movie is live-action, with it unsurprisingly failing to pull off this impossible adaptation.
Everything in the A Minecraft Trailer has a pseudo-blocky style, but the realistic textures and strange character design choices make everything seem uncanny. The original Minecraft mobs all look a bit creepy, especially those meant to represent real animals. However, this style wasn’t applied to one aspect of A Minecraft Movie: the human characters. Instead of trying to make the characters fit in with the environment and mobs, A Minecraft Movie‘s main cast of characters are just regular humans, making them stand out from the environment in an unappealing way.
A Minecraft Movie Should’ve Used The Original Video Game Animation Style & This Trailer Proves It
The Fan-Made Trailer Looks Much Better
If A Minecraft Movie wanted to succeed, it should’ve used the original video game animation style. This has been proven by a fan-made version of the trailer that was put out shortly after the official A Minecraft Movie trailer dropped. The YouTube channel Alumio reanimated the entirety of A Minecraft Movie‘s first trailer, using the game’s original art style rather than the live-action visuals. This version looks significantly better, as everything blends together due to A Minecraft Movie‘s human characters sharing the same style as everything else in the trailer.
The original Minecraft style is charming because it is simplistic, and making everything hyper-realistic while maintaining the blocky style does not look good. Alumio’s trailer recreation perfectly maintains the charm of the original Minecraft video game, with many viewers wishing that they could see a version of the movie animated like this rather than the official film. This fan-made trailer proves that an animated Minecraft movie would have been so much better, with this change completely changing the experience of the trailer.
Why A Minecraft Movie Is Live-Action Instead Of Animated
It Is A Mix Of Both
A Minecraft Movie‘s choice to use live-action instead of animation is weird, but it seems to have a story reason behind it. The main cast of characters in A Minecraft Movie are humans from the real world who are sucked into the world of Minecraft, explaining why they are live-action while the rest of the world consists of CGI animation. Since Jack Black’s Steve is live-action, it seems likely that he will be a character from the real world as well, although he will have most likely been in the Minecraft world for longer.
Pulling characters from the real world into a video game is a trope that has been used many times before, with it recently being used in the immensely popular Jumanji revival series. The look of A Minecraft Movie may be disappointing to many, and the aforementioned fan-made trailer highlights the sad reality of what could have been.
