At this point I’m going to Ladbrokes and betting against everything Kotaku promotes. They are like Jim Cramer of the gaming industry.
wait what… what does the article say? who do they even mean by “you” in the first place? are they right? am i supposed to form an opinion based on the title? am i back on reddit???
Of course not.
I have taste.
I wouldn’t watch it even if the trailer was really good but…I’m gonna shit on it for looking awful, not being targeted towards adults. That opening green screen shot looks AWFUL. I said in another thread it reminds me of those old car commercial edits with the Mark guy. The perspectives of the camera vs the background don’t seem to fit
It completely looks like those fake College Humor or SNL trailers. You know, like this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UiIRlg4Xr5w
All they would probably need to do is replace the main cast with digital game characters, or at least something that’s rendered so they at least blend in a lot better.
It almost seems like the Sonic movie thing, where they first released a trailer that was so awful they had to change Sonic to look much better. I’m still not sure if it was a very expensive marketing move or not.
Based on the quality of the rest of it, I’m leaning it’s not a marketing move lol
Plenty of children movies appeal to both demographics. LTT’s most recent stream passed some good ideas around about what would have made a better movie.
The fact that movies aren’t being wholesale investigated for money laundering is a travesty at this point.
I had a conversation with my sister about that recently.
The amount of shows and movies that have $100,000,000+ budgets is rising, yet more and more of them feature very limited sets, small casts of mostly mid range talent, and a dozen executive producers all putting up their own money (this is all especially prominent with big shows on streaming networks, cough Star Trek cough The Acolyte)
Here’s my comparison: a group of 10 investors come out and announce they’re spending a billion dollars to develop a new luxury car. They drum it up as being the next big thing. Then, when it comes out, it’s about as nice and luxurious as a base model Toyota Camry. Fine, but not “a billion dollars” fine. Immediately, everyone would be wondering where the hell that money went? There’s definitely a chance it was just squandered, but you have to wonder. When you have a group of private investors with executive power over the project, what goes on behind closed doors?
For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest. Then, when the flock of people have to come and check out the new megaproject, all they need to recoup is a few million more than they spent (far less than the perceived budget), and they can run for the hills.
Anywho, crackpot theory time over. But think about it, if my simple brain can think this stuff up, why can’t the hollywood bigwigs, who actually have the capital to make it happen?
It gets better, because all the money they “lost” on a movie they can also write off. Oops, we didn’t make any money this year because we put out 10 billion dollar movies and only made 10 million at the box office. Tax break please!
Reminder: Jack Black broke up Tenacious D to try to save this thing
and…
“Oh, no see, you’re mad, but you see this version of the franchise isn’t for you. It’s for a new crowd that was alienated by the previous version and you need to be nice and let them have their…”
Shut the fuck up, if it’s a version of a thing made for people who are defined by not liking the thing, it’s not going to get the other crowd to like the thing, it’s just going to piss off the people who do like it…
who tf is it for then
Children
I wouldn’t bring a kid anywhere near this brainrot garbage.
are children still playing minecraft?
Yes.
shareholders?
Its proof-of-concept. They’re trying to get a movie out that’s entirely tied to the brand, without spending a meaningful amount of money on scripting, art direction, location scouting, or talent. This is the future of AI Movies in a nutshell.
Didnt they already try that with Halo?
How do you location scout for a movie about a block world?
Same way they did it for the Mario live action movie 30 years ago, I imagine. Get Tim Burton on it and I’m sure he’ll give you some advice.
Green screen my dude
OK, so it’s going to be a shitty movie and no one is going to watch it, other than YouTubers, so they can dunk on the movie.
This is a second shitty movie with Black Jack in it. Lets hope he’s not a trend setter.
He got a lot of money to be Bowser in a movie that made a lot of money, desperate film makers wanting to get in on the “Video Game Movie” trend thinking it’s the next “Super Hero Movie!” trend hire Jack Black thinking he’s the sole reason for Mario’s successful movie and not just a component of it.
…and Jack Black’s just taking the check and not correcting them.
Don’t blame him, he’s just grabbing that bag.
Showed this to my kids. Their reaction was:
Kid 1: bruh
Kid 2: Is that the guy from Peaches?
My kid loved it.
Did that too. Boy and girl, 13 and 11. My daughter said it was dumb. The son wouldn’t even finish watching the trailer. He said it’s cringe.
Biggest problem I have with a movie like this is them trying to make a movie out of an endless sandbox game. If a game has a definitive end, then sure it’s fine. Just look at the Fallout show and Sonic movie.
Imagine if for some reason The Powder Toy suddenly became a huge thing and they decided to make a movie out of it. Where do you go while not being lame? That’s how I feel about this upcoming film.
Sandboxes are literally grounds for infinite creativity. Just look at The Lego Movie. No, if there’s an issue with this movie it’s that they aren’t using the sandbox to its full potential, at least as far as our initial impressions can tell us. We have all seen every single one of the story beats shown in the trailer before in other movies.
Go check out your local bookstore. There’s plenty of minecraft chapter books already. Movies are a natural next step. In fact, Jack Black read the first audiobook in the series. It’s pretty good.
I really don’t see your point people have been playing minecraft in multiplayer, making stories for a very long time. There are TV shows dedicated to this on Korean TV. Kids love to watch those. There is every reason to make a movie.
And it might even bring up popularity in demographique that has never played understood the game
all D&D movies ever will be bad ig
Ender Dragon is not an end of some sort?
The problem with that is how they updated the end to add the end cities and other floating islands. If the end was just the dragon fight without the end cities like it used to be, I’d consider it more of a proper ending. Otherwise I’d consider it just like the warden or wither: a respawnable boss for a certain dimension. Though that’s just my opinion.
By this logic: “The Borderlands movie isn’t meant for you.”
Yes actually
“The new X thing isn’t meant for YOU!111”
Is a common line the media pulls out when the product is failing or have poor reception. Don’t take responsibiliy for the company fucking up, that implies the company is capable of doing wrong. Just shame fans for liking a property and wanted to see it respected. Call them bigots and say the problem is the thing they like is bigoted!
It’s… absolute bullshit.
Sadly it works, people who aren’t well-informed think of the fans of X are just assholes and the new thing is good actually…
It also doesn’t work because the people who aren’t well informed weren’t fans of X, so they’re not seeing/playing the new X thing…
Meaning I guess the The New X thing wasn’t really for anybody… “Literally no one” is a strange demographic to market it to.
See: Skullgirls censoring their game in order to “appeal to a wider demographic”, outlets claiming Skullgirl fans who hate the changes are “secretly pedophiles”, aaaaand… Now the game has a dwindling player count, the Steam forums are reduced to asking when the game will be fixed, and the original creator who was not involved with the censorship has a defamation lawsuit going because a lot of people called him a diddler…
It also works the other way around, when something the big corporations DON’T want to be popular is, just slander it as bigoted
See Also: That time Cuphead fans shat on a game journalist for not being able to clear an overly easy tutorial, so the oulet he worked for tried to save his street cred by… claiming Cuphead was racist and a front for antisemitism… Which the Cuphead fanbase just kinda laughed at because it’s an asinine claim.
It really sucks because as somewhat of a social justice activist and a gamer, well… “Clowns to the right of me, Jokers to the left of me…”
Sidenote: Can we stop the trend of neutering female characters? Seriously bought a fucking Avengers comic the other day (I mostly read Sonic, but I’ll pick up the occasional Marvel from time to time if I think the story looks interst) and I didn’t realize till after I paid for it that the “Thor” on the cover was actually Captain Marvel… all I saw at first was “Blonde, Masculine Face, Masculine Build. I guess that’s a new Thor costume? I dunno, don’t keep up with it.”
Got to reading it in the car and realized “Oh shit, that’s actually Captain Marvel. Sorry about that Carol.”, this didn’t impede my enjoyment of the book mind you. I like Captain Marvel and Thor, so it’s all good…
Look she doesn’t need to pull a Power Girl and have tits the size of her head hanging out of her costume, but I feel like the de-sexualization of female characters has gone far beyond combatting the male gaze and is now reaching the “Dear God, can’t let people see her ankles!” stage, which is actually more sexist than keeping the ridiculous chain mail bikinis in the first place, as it implies that traits we consider feminine are inherently sinful and should be hidden from view.
I mean, I know the example I used was a comic, but this shit is happening in games too. I’m a woman and a gamer, games are my power fantasy, me being highly attractive is PART of my power fantasy. Stop making me not hot damn it!
Sorry it’s just… Kotaku’s complacent for creating the environment this happened in, and we’re talking about Kotaku so I felt like airing a grievance of mine.
Apparently it wasn’t. I don’t remember where I saw it, I think maybe a Kyle Bosman video, but Gearbox/Randy Pitchford basically said they made the movie to pull in people who hadn’t played the games.
I’ve said this before: Randy Pitchford isn’t very smart.
Randy Pitchford also says he isn’t smart, it’s just usually in more words and in a daily tweet
It’s meant for whom, exactly?
Children probably
Children deserve better movies than this soulless green-screened cash grab.
They also deserve better games than Minecraft IMO, but that’s a different conversation.
Minecraft is an amazing game
Fuck you, minecraft is excellent. You just don’t like it because it’s popular.
This movie is bullshit but minecraft is excellent.
my 7 year old blows me away consistently with her Minecraft builds. it’s a genuinely good way of getting kids in a creative space while knowing they aren’t in online cesspools like fortnite and Roblox.
They also deserve better games than Minecraft IMO
One of the more pure-to-form sandbox games of the last generation? I’ll spot you all the shitty DLC and cosmetics have soured it considerably. But the baseline game is genuinely good. Same with classics like Fortnight.
They were quality products that got deluged with marketing gimmicks. But there are plenty of people running “Vanilla” Minecraft servers who are having a ton of fun.
I’m not disagreeing with you because I know terms like classic are entirely relative but holy shit referring to fortnight as a classic nearly triggered a mid-life crisis. Holy hell. Ow.
Seeing the type of boring shit I was into as a kid, I would’ve loved Minecraft movie when I was <9. I didn’t appreciate movies like Shrek, lion king and Toy Story until a bit later. Albeit, I didn’t see anything beyond the trailer, so idk if I’m missing anything.
Most of my favourite movies from when I was a kid are still great movies for me as an adult.
I would bet my next paycheck this is not the case for any kid who grows up seeing this movie. A good kids movie should age with you.
Great article, because it applies to anyone who reads it.
Looks like a likeable character, why are ppl mad?
It seemed like it would be a cheesey movie with some dry humor and I was okay with it up until the girl character called Jack Black “a massive toolbag.” Thats not what I expect from a movie oriented to children, and that made me immediately drop any interest I had left. Then the rest of the trailer somehow got worse with the llama scene, whatever that was.
They should have made the movie animated in the same style as all their commercials, with the characters in a Minecraft style skin based on their real world appearance. Have them start and end in real life, whatever. But boy is this not going to be good.
This looks like the 90s Mario movie all over again. Or the Sonic movie – before they fixed Sonic. Like, even the Resident Evil and Tomb Raider movies are probably better than this and those movies were generally very inaccurate to their source material, and not well receieved.
Don’t remember who (and I’m not about to watch it again) but doesn’t someone also say “what the hell” at some point?
Yes they do.
