“A Minecraft Movie” Brings Audiences Back to Their Childhood
Brady Lyons
He/Him
Staff Writer
4/17/25
Minecraft, the video game of the past two decades that has influenced the lives of billions, has finally reached the big screen in a running trend of live-action remakes and adaptations. I was lucky enough to see this movie opening weekend with some of my closest friends along with what I estimated to be twenty other students from Plymouth State, and boy was it a treat.
Like most of the people reading this, I’d like to imagine we all grew up with Minecraft whether it be playing on our phones with our sibling and cousins at family gatherings, split screen on your best friend’s PS3 after you walked home from school on a fresh spring day, on a PC playing on modded worlds, or just watching YouTube lets plays from YouTubers that names still hold a special place in our your heart.
I remember when the first trailer for “A Minecraft Movie” was released, the internet was skeptical and more than a little doubtful pending its release. I, however, was excited for this movie despite what everyone was telling me.
Some friends close to me expected this to be a bad movie and hoped for its downfall, some expected it to be a joke (which they were kind of right about). I was just excited to see the movie and enjoy it with the people I grew up playing this game with.
The day finally came when I got to see “A Minecraft Movie” and I went with my three other roommates, our good friend, and my little brother. When we reached the theatre, we recognized so many classmates, peers, and other friends from campus. Even our neighbors were there, sitting in the same row as us.
As the movie began, and Jack Black began narrating, we all anxiously awaited to hear the fabled words we’d heard on repeat in stupid TikTok’s or Reals circling the internet. And as Jack Black said the words “FLINT AND STEAL” the entire theatre echoed in unison and an eruption of applause and cheering began to follow suit.
This continued throughout the entire movie for almost every phraseBlack had emphasized in the trailers, featuring “Enderpearl,” “Crafting Table,” and of course “CHICKEN JOCKIE.” My favorite however was when Jack Black said “First we Mine, then we Craft, LETS MINECRAFT!” which by far ensued the biggest reaction from the audience.
Me, my brother, and a few of my best friends in the world left that theatre with some of the biggest smiles on our faces. We laughed and quoted the movie endlessly on our way home and still do to this day.
As fun as the movie was, I sit back as I write this and realize how emotional of an experience it was for me as well. I look back on the scene of the main characters’ first night and remember my own when I first discovered a Creeper and was scared to death by one.
I looked towards my little brother Riley, the person who I have probably played the most hours of Minecraft with in my life, and look back on all the worlds we’ve created together and all the memories they hold. When we recreated the Eye of Sauron, first killed the Ender Dragon, the world we played together in when we first discovered what grief was when we lost our grandfather.
“A Minecraft Movie” contains so many good memes but also experiences that I’ve lived through time and time again with my friends and family. It felt like a story with the imagination that only a kid and their friends would think of as a narrative for their Minecraft world.
Minecraft can be whatever story it wants to be, whether that be stopping the evil Piglin Malgosha, defending your village from Illager raiders and their general Grey Nose, quests to collect treasure, racing to the moon, defeating modded and mutant bosses, or just killing the Ender Dragon. It’s not THE story of Minecraft, but A story that any of us could tell in our own Minecraft world.