As the Minecraft movie trailer broke yesterday afternoon, the internet was immediately abuzz with cynicism and disappointment, as adults across the world simultaneously expressed one thought: “Who is this film even for?” What almost every single one of them forgot is that they’re not nine-year-olds.
My son, who is a nine-year-old (turning 10 next month) loves Minecraft as much as pretty much any other kid his age. He has Minecraft t-shirts, watches endless hours of other people playing Minecraft on YouTube, and is currently mostly obsessed with the so-called “parkour” modes when playing the game himself. He builds elaborate castles littered with what I’m incessantly informed are “three-block jumps,” moving around with a deftness I couldn’t hope to achieve on my PC, and yet manages this on the touchscreen of his tablet. He, I’m very sorry to tell you, is Minecraft’s target audience.
This morning, while he was having his breakfast, I showed him the Minecraft movie trailer. I did this because I’d told sneery old Zack and Ethan in the Kotaku Slack that I would, promising to show it unprompted, so I could report back his genuine reaction.
When Infiniminer clone Minecraft appeared on radars in 2009, it was a game for adults. That’s mostly because it was a sort of secret, an alpha project passed around between friends, launched via a weird Java console, with weekly updates dropping new elements that would have to be discovered. The website I was co-running at the time was posting about it as early as June 2009, and I personally played it a lot that year, and indeed for much of 2010. It was this barebones game of survival, where there were no goals beyond the simple pleasure of exploration, and it hooked a huge group of indie games players. Heck, my 2010 birthday cake made by my then-girlfriend (now wife, and mother of the aforementioned nine-year-old) was Minecraft-themed.
So I get it. There’s a generation that feels like Minecraft belongs to them. They were in there ahead of the crowds, loving the game before it even officially launched in 2011, and certainly before it became one of the biggest franchises in the world and Microsoft bought it for $US2.5 billion.
But even that colossal sale was ten years ago. For ten years, Minecraft has been one of the top-grossing media franchises, more likely to be seen on clothing in Walmart than on the news feed of your favorite gaming site. Minecraft has multiple physical magazines, both official and unofficial, and I hope you’re not shocked to learn they’re aimed at elementary school kids. There’s an interactive cartoon on Netflix, and…it’s for children. Visit any toy store and there will be shelves and shelves and shelves of tie-in plastic figures, swords, Steve heads, Creeper plushies, enormous Ender Dragon toys, Lego kits, and on and on.
Ask anyone with a child under 12 what their kids’ favorite game is, and it’s a coinflip if they’ll say Fortnite or Minecraft.
Minecraft, whether you like it or not, is now a game aimed at kids. And so it should be a surprise to no one at all that a movie based on the game would be, too. And kids, especially under-12s, are not perhaps as sophisticated as you might wish.
So I showed the trailer to Toby this morning. He was annoyed that I was interrupting his watching a video about snakes, but then immediately changed his mind when he saw the opening block-built vista. “Woah!” he said. Then, as it cut between the faces of the four humans, he asked, “What is this?” I didn’t answer, because then the pink sheep appeared and he burst out laughing.
He then just sat wide-eyed at the barrage of Minecraft-y things, the crafting, the Piglins, the Creeper, Jason Momoa’s hair, and then when Jack Black appeared he exclaimed, “That’s Jack Black! Why’s he there?!”
“I… am STEVE,” replies Jack Black.
And Toby tips back his head and guffaws. It’s funny, see, because Jack Black looks like Jack Black, not Steve as he knows Steve, but he’s also dressed like Steve! And then there’s the pretty, sassy teenage girl, before it cuts to the titles: “A Minecraft Movie.”
And I swear this is his reaction:
“Wait? WAIT?! That’s not IT? There’s a whole MOVIE of this to come?!”
He had thought it was a fun sketch, and had loved it, but was now realizing it was going to be so much more. “Yeah,” I said.
“I NEED TO SEE IT RIGHT NOW!” he declared, a massive smile on his face. I pointed out it’s out in April.
“BUT I NEED TO SEE IT NOW!”
Now, none of this raises the movie above criticism, of course. A Minecraft Movie might turn out to be absolutely dreadful, even for the audience at which it’s clearly aimed. It could prove to be too long, or too boring, or not funny for children. Hell, it could be perfect for its obviously desired demographic, and still merit scathing critical analysis by those who want to study it as a text. Or, you know, it could be really good fun. (My guess, based on this trailer, is that it’s set up well for the latter.)
But the internet’s adult bemusement that this cartoonish movie set in a game primarily played by children didn’t look like Deadpool Vs. Wolverine 2 is one that I think certainly deserves some scorn. You can be disappointed that its art style doesn’t more accurately replicate that of the game, or despair that it contains big, wacky characters. You can absolutely draw comparisons with the aforementioned Netflix cartoon, that took everything far more seriously with Patton Oswalt and Catherine Taber’s alternative Jesses, and wish it had been more like that. But you are being disappointed for yourself, and not speaking for all of mankind.
Because the answer to that question that rang out across the world yesterday, “Who is this even for?” is easy. It’s for kids. It’s designed to make kids happy. And you aren’t a kid, as much as you may wish that weren’t true. Minecraft, even if you still play it 17 hours a day, is for kids now. It’s one of the biggest children’s media franchises in existence. And based on my incredibly scientific study of one super-smart, super-imaginative nine-year-old’s reaction to the trailer, it’s doing exactly what it should be.
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