Of all the things A Minecraft Movie does well, its respect for its beloved source material is high on the list. From breaking one’s fall with a water bucket to animals instantly turning into a succulent meal upon touching lava, there’s no shortage of homages to the hit game’s quirky rules and physics.
It turns out that the film’s faithfulness goes beyond these cute nods. Director Jared Hess says that every part of the movie, from complex machines to elaborate set pieces, is something the production team ensured was doable in the game.
“Everything we designed for the film, we wanted to make sure that you could actually go and make in the game,” Hess told TechRadar. “So, even Steve’s Lava Chicken Shack and all of those things, we’d be like ‘Gosh, are we sure we can do this? Does it work? Okay, let’s go to the game and build it right now. Right, it checks out. It’s bulletproof.’”
Minecraft is known for letting players do whatever they put their minds to, so long as they have the time and skill to build their wildest creations. It’s what made the concept of a Minecraft movie so puzzling in the first place.
The movie does a decent job of showing the game’s endless possibilities by pitting its cast of unlikely heroes against the odds, then having them craft their way out of trouble. However, the film almost took things a step further with the help of one of Minecraft’s most popular content creators.
“There were a ton of fun sequences we wanted to do,” Hess said. “Mumbo Jumbo, who’s a Redstone genius, was working on a great scene that we just couldn't do.”
The scrapped sequence would have involved “a giant Piglin robot, which was a Trojan horse-type thing that worked via Redstone,” Hess said, Redstone being one of Minecraft’s building materials. The scene was storyboarded, and had animatics and punchlines set up, but was cut before CG artists made it a reality.
“It would’ve been super fun to have that Mumbo Jumbo-designed sequence, but ultimately it didn't work out,” Hess said. “He [also] designed a bunch of crazy booby traps for us as well, but we couldn’t make those work in the confines of our movie.”
Despite Mumbo Jumbo’s scene not making the cut, he also built the set for the Redstone Mine sequence roughly halfway through the movie. In fact, A Minecraft Movie is stuffed with references to the community’s biggest names. Jens Bergensten, Mojang Studios' Chief Creative Officer, makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as a waiter during the dinner scene between Jennifer Coolidge and her square-headed love interest.
Creators DanTDM, Aphmau, and LDShadowLady, who have millions of subscribers on YouTube, make appearances as well. The most heartfelt, of course, is the brief appearance of the late Technoblade, who succumbed to cancer in 2022.
A Minecraft Movie has been a massive success so far, earning over $313 million globally in its opening weekend, and it’s only a matter of time before its fans put Hess’ claims about being able to replicate every scene in-game to the test.
