A Minecraft Movie Trailer - What Did I Think?

hello this is dy and welcome to a video uh I guess reaction or I guess feedback or uh just my early thoughts for the trailer for the Minecraft movie so uh I've literally just watched it now and put together some of my thoughts I'm recording this on the the day that it came out so these are going to be super raw thoughts and obviously this is just the trailer like this is like just over a minute of footage of the the film and so obviously my thoughts here you know doesn't necessarily mean that's what my thoughts are going to be of the final film but I wasn't going to do this video but I saw this trailer dropped and I watched it and I immediately had a bunch of thoughts and I'm by myself right now and it's kind of annoying when you're like I want to talk about it but I got no one to talk about it to and then uh I looked to Twitter and there was a lot of people kind of messaging me curious about my faults I was like you know what this isn't the kind of thing I normally do but it's Minecraft I'm Stampy uh I might as well say what I think and yeah you can choose to ignore it or listen to it or whatever if you want uh so yeah that's what this is going to be um I wrote up like my thoughts cuz originally I was just going to do like a tweet uh with just kind of what my thoughts were cuz a lot of people were asking me on there and then I was like you know I might as well do a video cuz that's just a little bit more consumable for people and a lot of the things I was talking about it'd be good to have a video example of so I thought a video would make sense so uh I'm going to be kind of just reading most of my thoughts but I literally just wrote them like a second ago this is like obviously some big pre-planned thing cuz I didn't know this trailer was coming out I don't know if they even announced it uh one thing I would just say like right off the the top is I'm not in this film a lot of people think that I'm going to be in the film or messaging me saying that Stampy should be on the film uh I'm not in it that's not a trick that's not going to pull the rug out from under you and surprised I am actually in it I'm not in it and I'm also just not involved in it in any way like I'm not consulting or in any way anything to do of this um film I am just watching this as a viewer like everyone else is and that's kind of what my opinion is is just someone who is a fan of Minecraft and is reacting to a trailer for a uh yeah a film based on a game they like uh so right let's go let's go into it so the first thing that immediately stood out to me and uh it seems like just from reading some other comments is kind of standing out to to a lot of people is that it doesn't look particularly crafty like it's blocky like mostly blocky obviously like it's difficult for them to do full blocks because just logistically like the characters would or like the actors would be like jumping around the whole time they've added like a lot of detail like you can see just you look at the trees they have like a bunch of branches and it's like a lot more 3D geometry than You' get in Minecraft which is just blocky but it seems like they've said Minecraft is the game with blocks so we will make it blocky but then the rest of the stuff style is just kind of nothing to do with Minecraft like Minecraft is famous for its pixel art and I'm not saying that this should just look like Minecraft because you know they want to go for spectacle this is a blockbuster but the problem is is that like every Blockbuster these days has spectacle and there's only one that could have looked like Minecraft and that's the Minecraft movie and the Minecraft movie doesn't look like Minecraft like the yeah just like the textures like the the leaves the water like everything it looks like a mod pack or like some sort of Shader pack or or something is kind of the the art style that it it looks like which yeah I I was expecting to a certain extent but maybe not to to this degree I think that might have been some sort of Middle Ground where it could have looked a little bit closer to to Minecraft but you know of course still would have like realistic lighting and like the leaves blowing in the wind or or that sort of thing uh whereas this just looks like what you would expect from your standard computer generated movie but the terrain is blocky uh rather than you know smooth so that's kind of my first impression I like the trees like I really don't like the trees with like super realistic bark and stuff um yeah that surprised me how far they went in in that direction so that was kind of my my first response when I saw that also the the mobs I didn't realize they were going to go so far in the detective Pikachu direction of the almost grossly realistic mobs like like with the the really detailed fur and the eyes but obviously it's got the unrealistic proportions because it's based on you know an unrealistic body shape and so it kind of It kind of goes for humor by have by how detailed uh that they are uh and I think that worked really well in detective Pikachu uh it's kind of a little bit uh too early to see how that's going to work I think the wolf looks cool but you kind of only really see it in a in silhouette uh I think the piglins look all right it's the the the sheep and the um the uh the Llama that really stand out but I think that's very intentional like seeing the individual teeth and the the tongue and stuff like I think they're going for for humor uh with that um so yeah that kind of surprised me but I'm going to hold judgment on it uh until I've seen the the whole thing the actors being part of the world that's the part that I kind of struggled with the fact that in a lot of the shots not all of them the actors didn't really look like they're in the world and I've been kind of analyzing a little bit trying to work out why that is to honest I think a big part of it is just how Fantastical and unreal the world is that they're in I think that might be a contributing factor to why they look like they are in a studio in front of a green screen which we all know is what the reality is but I think because the world is so Fantastical I think that is the reason it looks like they stood out I think if they took those exact same shots with lighting and matched it up with a more realistic looking environment I think it would sell it a little bit more and so I do think that is the type of thing that when watching through the entire featurelength film I reckon after a certain point maybe 20 minutes in your brain would just start beginning to accept that they're in the world and it wouldn't stand out so much but just in this short snippet where you're kind of taking in this world for the first time and then seeing these super realistic people because there are real people inside of the world I think our brain starts saying like no no this doesn't match up here and I think that might be a reason why you know they do look so green screened in but I don't think that's the only reason I do think there's a technical reason as well uh if you notice a lot of the the shots uh almost all of them the characters have always a really strong backlight and you can mostly notice it around the the hair of a lot of the characters a lot of the characters have curly hair which I think sort of even emphasizes this further where they have such a strong backlight over them and the reason why a lot of films do a backlight is to give a separation from the the background but I think the thing is the backlight is so strong and so Universal that my brain doesn't believe that that is coming from the light source that is in the world you know in this case usually the Sun or the moon like it looks like Studio lighting and there's even one bit when they're speaking to to Steve where you can see Jack Black has a really strong backlight behind him and then it cuts to the the rest of the cast and they also have a really strong backlight behind them and so my brain start in the m is like where's where's the sun meant to to be here and I think that is another big reason I don't think they've done a brilliant job matching up the lighting for the world that's projected in the the background with the characters that are in the the scene that have been a stylistic choice like they are going for a very bright colorful look here so they're kind of you know there's not much Shadows on the characters faces in general you know it's quite evenly lit their their faces which is normal for comedies um but I do think it is contributing to the the fact that they the characters don't look like they are part of the the world but once again I do think that maybe watching an entire film maybe eventually you would stop noticing that and your brain would just kind of accept the the reality that you're shown and accept that they are inside of this uh of this world so maybe that won't be as big of a problem as it first seemed here uh so let's just kind of talk in general about the fact that it is kind of liveaction footage kind of merged with computer Graphics I never liked the idea of it being real life people put into a Minecraft world I would have much preferred it to be a Folly animated film and the world is just Minecraft and the characters in the world have just always been in the Minecraft world and it's just this alternative world like the obvious comparison is Minecraft story mode where like they're breaking down things and Building Things but they're not like whoa what are you doing it's like no that's just the the world that they're in like I think there are almost infinite interesting stories that could be told in that world and really cleverly play on the fact that it's Minecraft I'm a little bit worried that with this there's going to be a lot of jokes and there's kind of hints at it even within this teaser of like real life people reacting to the quirks of Minecraft you can kind of see it with when they obviously they've punched down a tree and you can see it floating or like they're crafting and you place down the thing and boom and then it's crafted things that are normal inside of Minecraft but would be like weird if it was uh in real life I'm a little bit worried that they're going to play on that Trope a little bit too much and there's going to be a lot of jokes that are playing on on them reacting to things that are normal in Minecraft but aren't normal in the real world because a lot of those jokes don't land with me and I think they can get played out very quickly like I think one or two for the big one I think the floating tree is probably the obvious one I'm concerned that that's what it's going to be throughout but I don't know if that's what it's going to be like that's complete speculation like I think the time to show those sort of jokes is in the teaser I think that's the sort of time you would sew those shots so maybe they've just selected those ones to to Showcase here because they play really well in a trailer without context you know for Minecraft fans so that was one of my worries but yeah in general I would have preferred it to be a Folly animated show and I did actually say that I spoke with Roy Lee who's one of the producers of the the film uh I checked my emails all the way back in 2014 I'd give him a followup email after I met him um at Warner Brothers and like I you know he didn't say what the the film was going to be and I'm sure even if he had it changed many times but I knew it was going to be liveaction actors back then and and I you know said that I personally would have preferred it to be a fully animated um film but that once again could absolutely just be personal preference and I think there's a lot of people that would prefer this I understand why you know the the film studios might prefer it because it means that they can have a bunch of famous actors on screen if you're paying for all of these you know a lot of them are award-winning actors you know they probably want to have their their faces on screens and I do think it does set up to kind of have those easier jokes and it also might be a little bit more approachable for people that aren't Minecraft fans possibly I'm not sure so yeah this is all complete speculation because as I say we've just seen this like really good little glimpse so I'm not even going to begin to comment on like the overall story or anything because the teaser really quite rightly is setting up the world you get like a little introduction to the characters just from seeing them a little bit you get an idea a little bit of what their characters are going to be like but mostly this is setting up for the world and it's quite vague in terms of what the overall story is uh which I like I like that in trailers in anyway and especially in teaser trailers in terms of the actual actors like I'm not really that much of like a film buff in terms of knowing actors uh so I'm not familiar with most of the the cast particularly well um I recognize uh some of them uh from what I've seen in this trailer like I have no concerns even though they don't have a huge amount of dialogue dialogue individually I think a lot of their reaction shots are quite good like for humor uh so none of them stood out to me in any way and if anything this um this tra has kind of given me confidence in them like I have no worry that any of them are going to be like cringy I suppose so yeah no issues with the the casting obviously uh Jack Black is kind of the the standout uh I'm really glad that he was cast um I like him I think he's quite funny he's also a huge Minecraft fan and so I think it's nice that he's uh involved in the the film um gives me a lot of confidence I'm sure he had an absolute blast with this film know his son as well as a big Minecraft fan so hopefully he was able to bring his son to set as well and have a lot of fun uh so that gives me a little bit of confidence as well and then also just the the team making it a really good team so uh as far as I know it's a lot of the the people uh that previously worked on the Lego movies at least a lot of the the heads and I think both the the Lego movies well I know there's more than two but the two main Lego movies um I was a really big fan of both of them I know the second one um was maybe like didn't have the same success as the first one and probably isn't as strong but I was a big fan of those films so I have a lot of confidence there I also know that Mojang is really heavily uh involved with this uh vu in particular I know has been taking a very Hands-On role uh for helping to produce this film uh so I have a lot of confidence confidence on him that he's going to kind of keep it faithful and within like Mojang's vision for what they want Minecraft to be and remember they own Minecraft we don't like the community has a huge influence on Minecraft without a doubt and can shape the the sentiment and the community around the the game but they are really the custodians of the the game and uh it's at the end of the day up to them uh but the fact that you know like I know that this isn't them cashing in and they've sold the license to to Minecraft and then they're going to give approval for whether it can go out or not like it isn't that situation like Mojang are involved in helping this and so that does give me uh more confidence as well some of the the humor um obviously it's just a very small teaser I was a little bit worried about some of kind of the um the more visual gags like once again like with the mobs there's like the extended joke at the end with the the Llama didn't particularly hit for me and they do kind of a very similar joke at the beginning with the the Sheep I was surprised at how young this trailer seemed geared towards like it seemed much uh like very much geared towards a young audience is what I meant to say um which I'm surprised by like obviously it's going to be a familyfriendly film and suitable for kids and you know should be enjoyable for children but Minecraft has been out for so long and is played by people of so many ages I was expecting this trailer to kind of represent that a little bit further whereas this does very much play like a kids movie whereas once again to bring it back to the Lego movies I think the Lego movies did a really good job of appealing to all ages and that might may just be down to the the shots chosen for this trailer rather than what the actual film is going to be um but I was surprised at how geared towards children this was for kind of the first introduction for what people are seeing uh for the the film but once again maybe that's just sort of subjective humor and and maybe other people found those bits really funny other adults but um yeah I guess those are kind of overall like my my first thoughts for the the teaser like as always with this stuff I've seen like a lot of like negativity like super quick about it um I mean I'm just looking like just basically just looking through the the comments of the um the the trailer and I think it's just I mean that like this is the sort of thing they're never going to win on because Minecraft is so many things to so many different people like there's nothing that they could have put out that everyone would be like yes this is what I had in my head for the thing that I love like they had an impossible task there's nothing that I've seen that makes me particularly worried about what this film is going to be like I think it's going to be a big hit I think it may be the highest grossing animated film of all time like that wouldn't be a surprise to me like that would almost hardly be a headline like obviously that would be huge news but it's Minecraft and an animated film of it made by Warner Brothers like at a certain point you almost it almost feels like it's failed its goal if it's not been that especially when you look at the success of like the Pokémon films of Mario of Sonic like animated films made of big video game franchises are like among the biggest films like at all now and there's nothing bigger than Minecraft so if this isn't an enormous hit like something has seriously gone wrong and I've not seen anything that makes me think it is not going to to be that obviously the visual look of the of the of what the film looks like um yeah I I just don't find it looks very visually appealing what I always like with these sorts of adaptations is seeing Oh what will the film version of this thing in the game look like and I like that everything even like in books I like saying oh what's the the film version of this thing I imagined in my head going to look like and one of the things I was looking forward to was what is the film big budget version of Minecraft going to to look like and this looks like too distinct of an art style I don't think I'm going to get that satisfaction of seeing what does this look like translated onto a big screen because it just looks like something different like it just this doesn't look like Minecraft to me like I bet you could run some sort of filter and just soften off some of the blocks and it would just like look like a completely other more generic film franchise uh which I'm personally a little bit disappointed for but I understand the reason why the decision may have been made to to be like that is because they want to make it look like the best possible and it's like oh sure if we kept it to blocks it could be like this but if we just added a bit more detail here and added this lighting here and if we let the leaves look like actual leaves like yeah as I said it looks like some sort of mashup pack or some Shader pack or mod or something uh rather than Minecraft uh which um yeah even even with me expecting it was going to be uh liveaction actors which I wasn't a fan of I wasn't expecting the rest of the the style to be such a departure which I was disappointed about but I mean I'm probably still going to watch it uh probably not in the cinema because that might be difficult and as I go in a disguise because that' probably be a little bit tricky for for me but yeah like there's nothing that I've seen that makes me think this is going to be a bad film if it has like a solid plot and the cast are as good as they seem from the the first impression that I've seen of them like I think this could be like a super solid film maybe even a great film and I am certainly curious to to see and hear more about it when it comes out so yeah those are my first takes any other thoughts that I forgot to mention I can leave leave as a comment down below if you got any questions for me feel free to to leave them uh down below and oh yeah one more thing while we're talking about Minecraft did you know that my lovely world is now available on the Minecraft Marketplace thought I might as well use this as an oportunity to to mention it yeah just in case uh you hadn't seen that and you're just kind of coming here to hear my thoughts on the the film uh my actual original lovely world that I spent over 10 years building is now available on the Minecraft Marketplace so that's on place play Xbox switch PC mobile devices anything else am I missing anything I think that's I think that's all the platforms so uh yeah if you uh did want to to kind of check that out uh I can leave a link uh for that down in the description or if you just search like Stampy like in the the store it should come up with uh my lovely world but anyway that's the uh the end of this video here thank you so much for spending the last 20 minutes or so with me I hope you have an amazing day and I see you later bye