I was six years old the first time I opened “Minecraft.” I had a friend who was a few years older than me, a third grader, who had a PC in her basement and pulled me down there one rainy day to show me something her brother and she had found. It was “Minecraft.”
Multiplayer didn’t exist at the time, so I sat behind her and watched as she built a simple house. It was so boring that a hyperactive first grader should have been bored, but I was mesmerized. I went home that day and begged my mom to dish out the $10 to get me my own copy of the game.
My friends and I built insanely complex houses and Redstone creations, pouring hours into every build. Now I even have the soundtrack saved onto multiple of my Spotify playlists, and they make me tear up every time they play.
Therefore, when it was announced that there was a movie in development, I nearly cried from pure childhood joy, but somewhere deep inside, it was also from fear. It’s common knowledge that most video game adaptations, except for a select few, aren’t faithful to their source material. “Minecraft” is different because the game has no real plot, but I was more worried that they wouldn’t keep the aesthetics. How can you have a movie about “Minecraft” that doesn’t honor the block?
Thankfully, it did. The movie looks exactly the way six-year-old me would want it to. The grass in the movie has layered textures, the mobs are built out of squares, and the doors have the same patterns. Steve built himself a base in a mushroom, something I loved to do as a child. His “Lava Chicken” stand reminded me of dispensers I’d made in my youth. I remember when the Nether, villages, and elytra were added to the game, and seeing those things on a big screen made my inner child’s heart sing.
Part of the reason I had a great experience with this movie was the theatre I saw it in. My roommate and I went to a theatre in her hometown at 10 PM, so naturally, there was only one actual child there. Instead, the room was filled with teenagers. The IMAX theatre was nearly sold out, and the moment the loading screen hit, the space was filled with claps and cheers. I knew I was in for a good time.
A lot of people do not like noisy theatres, and normally I do not, but this was a special exception. This felt like an “Endgame” level theatre, a community in that room that I hadn’t felt since I saw “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” The passion in that room was unmatched. Everyone cheered when the Overworld was shown, the Nether, YouTubers and game developers making cameos, and when different biomes were introduced.
It gave the fans exactly what they wanted: the exploration and unpredictability of the game we were raised by. Kids my age who weren’t sporty or particularly intellectual or outgoing found a home in that game. I wouldn’t have thrived through quarantine if it wasn’t for that game, and I love it because of that. Was “A Minecraft Movie” a good movie? No. But did it give my inner child another chance to hop onto multiplayer and punch a tree? Yes.
