This week I took my son, Zac, to see the new Minecraft movie, which is hardly a remarkable statement in the highly video game-branded world of 21st-century cinema – except that what followed was not typical at all. At least, not yet.
As you may have seen from a number of bewildered news reports over the last few days, A Minecraft Movie has quickly engendered a community of, let’s say, highly engaged and enthusiastic fans. Spurred on by TikTok meme posts, vast portions of the film’s audience are now yelling out key lines of dialogue as they happen and singing along to the songs. In one key moment where a rare character from the game – the zombie chicken jockey – is introduced, they go absolutely crazy, throwing drinks and popcorn around, and in some US cinemas, getting escorted from the screening by police.
The reaction was a little more muted in our tiny independent cinema in Frome, but still, there were rows of teenagers who had clearly seen all the TikTok posts telling them which lines to shout along to, and went to throw stuff, and they were extremely excited to be doing so, a few surreptitiously filming their mates’ reactions so they could add to the social media carnage. It was boisterous enough for the cinema to post on Facebook the next day about antisocial behaviour and the illegality of recording during a film.
There is much to unpack here about the exclusionary nature of internet culture, cinema etiquette and the migration of online communities into physical spaces. Most of the audience reactions were fine – it’s an intentionally daft movie made for fans, and it is thrilling to celebrate fandom in a crowded space with likeminded peers. The film itself constantly rewards those who are immersed in its fiction – we enjoyed spotting the many Easter eggs (“oh look, it’s Herobrine!”) as well as little cameos from Minecraft YouTubers and even the game’s developers. There are also genuinely funny moments of slapstick and irony, hinging on committed performances from Jack Black and Jason Momoa.
But for Zac, who is 19 and autistic, and for a lot of the smaller children in the auditorium, there were times when the atmosphere was confusing and a little intimidating. There have been comparisons to the wild reactions in screenings of Marvel movies such as Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home, but those responses were largely prompted by in-film events. We all understood why people cheered when Captain America successfully caught Thor’s hammer, since the moment was painstakingly built into the lore of the series.
With A Minecraft Movie, the prompts to audience reaction are largely from memes, that branch of internet comedy that is by its nature arcane: the joke is that you are seen to get the joke by other people who also get the joke. Out of context, a meme is a private gag you’re not in on. Perhaps the closest analogy is the culture around The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its legendary fan screenings in fleapit cinemas, complete with water pistols and drag attire. But those events were opt-in – everyone knew what they were getting. I’m not sure the same could be said for all of the parents leaving my screening picking popcorn out of their hair.
But look, we really enjoyed watching the film. When Zac was young and struggling to communicate, Minecraft was a cherished outlet for him, allowing him to be creative and to make friends. He still plays to this day; it is his comfort blanket and it changed our lives – not least because I ended up writing a novel, A Boy Made of Blocks, inspired by our experiences within the game. Just hearing that baleful piano music in the cinema, sharing those jokes, seeing something that has had a profound positive effect on my family depicted on a huge screen among other fans, was an emotional experience.
Of course, teenagers are supposed to be confusing and intimidating – that’s their job. We can’t just pivot from handwringing over the anxious generation to “let’s ban them from the cinemas because they’re naughty”. Also, in these difficult times for the movie industry, film-makers need to find ways to engage with teen audiences who are going out less, whether that’s due to the expense, social anxiety or the all-encompassing nature of digital culture. A Minecraft Movie is that most perfect unicorn of the entertainment business: a review-retardant, multimillion-dollar blockbuster that’s reaching the most unreachable generation in modern history. A lot of studios are now going to be busy working out how they can capture this meme-soaked magic in a bottle.
Perhaps cinema owners will get wise and organise dedicated autism-friendly screenings, or at the opposite end of the scale, embrace the chaos and do special fan nights. They just need to be prepared to pay the cleaning staff a little extra.
What to play
A few hundred years ago (well, 1998), my favourite example in the then-crowded real-time strategy genre was Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, a rip-roaring world war two tactical adventure where you directed a group of variously skilled soldiers through covert missions against German strongholds. Commandos: Origins is a reimagining of the series, modernising the original’s intricately detailed isometric landscapes and retaining its focus on stealth and sabotage. It’s like being in your own interactive version of old war comics such as Warlord and Battle Action, and I am fully prepared to lose hours of my life repeatedly attempting to get the sniper into the guard tower without being spotted by the patrolling Nazis.
Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox
Estimated playtime: 20+ hours
What to read
Polygon has some interesting follow-on from the recent Nintendo Switch 2 announcement: the console’s much-heralded group chat feature won’t be free. Instead, owners will have to pay a monthly fee to talk to pals while playing.
Elsewhere, Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry team has produced a typically excellent deep dive into the console’s tech specs, which we still know very little about.
The use ofAI in game development continues to be controversial and this Aftermath feature talking to game makers who are having to work with artificial intelligence is eye-opening and important.
What to click
South of Midnight – beautiful surfaces can’t hide thin gameplay | ★★★☆☆
Mario Kart World: hands-on with Nintendo’s crucial Switch 2 launch game
Block-busted: why homemade Minecraft movies are the real hits
Question Block
This week’s question comes from StevenMane on Bluesky, who asked:
“Fighting games tend to have some of the deepest stories. However, there’s a stigma that fighting games are only about pushing buttons and being hyper-competitive. What could developers and players do to break this stigma?”
I think this comes from the disconnect between the action of fighting games and their narrative content: usually, all the story happens in cutscenes and pre-fight taunts, so players can feel disconnected from the lore. A few fighting game designers have started to draw the narrative more into the interactivity, using specific locations, costumes and moves to express the story. I think Injustice and Blazblue do a good job of this, while Namco’s anime-based fighters Dragon Ball and Naruto really cram the ongoing plotlines into the fights. Maybe fighting game devs could look at breaking up bouts to let story sequences in, so players are more heavily invested in the story and understand the stakes. As for players, I’ve always found fighting game communities to be extremely welcoming – that’s all they really need to do.
If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
