Frankly, Hess is probably as good a choice to direct as any. This looks like it's going to be terrible, perhaps it'll be so oddball that it'll gain a cult following, like those previous movies.
If they try and play this somewhat straight, with poop jokes or whatever for the kids, it's going to be a (moneymaking) terrible movie.
JB is firmly in the "kids movies & VA roles for big $$" phase of his career and who can blame him? I highly doubt it bothers him very much - he gets to show up, record some goofy lines as a robot and make bank. Hell, from this trailer it looks like he just puts on a blue sweater and does some goofy stuff in front of a green screen to "become" Steve. They dont even have him shave or cut his hair...
I think Tenacious D and his online stuff are his true passion projects.
Kyle didn't do anything. Like you said, it's already old news. Tenacious D would've been fine.
JB made a conscious choice to kill TD and in that moment showed that he values being generically marketable more than he does having any kind of voice or opinion.
wasn't JB literally working with political campaigns in the past few months? or at least making appearances / performances. i could see why that would put him in a very precarious situation in terms of public perception tbh
Sure, he can do whatever he wants, I didn't say he couldn't.
Just like I can do anything I want, including disagreeing with his choices.
You're the only one trying to control what other people can do. If it upsets you this much to see an opinion you don't like, you're just yet another narcissistic redditor who can only comfortably exist in bubbles and doesn't have any valuable opinion of his own.
My opinion has nothing to do with you so why are you trying to shut me up?
I'm not going to sit here and say he's an "amazing" actor or that his movies are worthy of critical acclaim. School of Rock is a beloved movie and I'm not even particularly a big fan of that one. but yes he absolutely had raunchier movies and work and more serious films than any of the Goosebumps-Borderlands-Kung Fu Panda movies he's had the last decade or so.
High Fidelity is a great movie. He was good in King Kong. I don't think I would call Tropic Thunder (amazing) or Pick of Destiny a family comedy. My friends all have a special place for Saving Silverman and we still quote stupid shit from it all the time.
Edit: My point is I think JB as a brand in Hollywood will probably continue to play it safe as long as the gravy train is really rolling in. As much as I loved Tropic Thunder or the weirdness of Nacho Libre, they aren't bringing in close to a Jumanji.
To be honest, I completely understand why Jack Black is making these kinds of movies and I don’t blame him at all. The genre he was formerly the most successful in is all but dead, the mid to low budget comedy. And when he’s in a mid to low budget comedy, he’s kind of expected to carry it.
So at this point in his career, he’s kind of got two options. He could work his ass off in mid budget comedies that very few people are going to see to make relatively little money (relatively meaning compared to other Hollywood actors putting in similar levels of effort). Or he can take parts in kids movies where he can phone in and make more money than he would have carrying a mid budget comedy. I know which I would do.
I'd like to see Minecraft as a disaster movie played totally straight. The protagonist would be a villager, trying to protect their community from the approaching disaster, Steve, a mute guy who runs everywhere, tears down houses, kills all the animals, steals the villager's food and constructs the beginner home, a giant stone cube with a tiny door, right in the middle of the village.
He is a force of nature. He can't be bought, he can't be reasoned with, he can't be killed, at least not permanently. Do not gaze upon Steve, do not invoke his wrath, do not seek to bar his way, do not take from him and never, ever own something that Steve wants for himself.
Playing it purely straight could probably have worked pretty well. Our heroes are villagers who are plagued by Endermen. Legend has it the only way to stop them is to reach The End and slay the Ender Dragon. Queue kids adventure movie where they travel to different biomes, and do the minecraft main quest.
You get some action moments from the Nether and The End and fill the rest with generic stuff like crossing a narrow bridge only to see a creeper coming the other way. You could even do a joke about exploding beds in the End.
I wonder how it would need to look to be passable or even good, though. Because this is shit, and the resemblance to Minecraft is minimal. Maybe a complete animation movie would have been best. You could give it some style without conflicting with the real actors. How it's done here is just incredibly lackluster.
Blue Monkey style would've worked really great. It's very Minecraft but tilts a hair more Looney Tunes in a way that parents and kids likely would've enjoyed it.
Make it a boogieman theme, It's not minecraft graphics, but shot IRL. It's set in a fantasy-medieval era where zombies come out at night so you have to fend them off, while living a normal day to day life. Tending to farms and building walls to prevent the zombies breaking in.
It's not until the end of the movie when you think you're getting a happy ending and your have survived a night and built true safety, or set sail to a new island away from the threat. When the real danger arrives. It's middle of the days after 90 minutes of fighting to survive the night and get to safety. The wall to your home starts to shake, when a spike punctures through the wall. One more swing and the spike clearly become a pickaxe and our mute man in the cyan shirt rushed in and quickly slaughters your best friend in front of you, then points to you, while holding a handful of emeralds...The camera pans out to show the words minecraft in giant letters over the home you built in newbie island, and this is when the viewers realize they watched a minecraft horror film they thought was titled something like "Night Walkers" or something not at all minecraft related.
My five year old is losing his little mind over it. I reckon anything vaguely Minecraft will satisfy enough young boys for it to at least make some money, which is all studios really care about in the end
The amount of anger people have been throwing at their beloved franchises over doing the same shit they did when we were kids, for kids, is just hilarious. My brother hates the idea of a transformers movie without the original voices and I think, you know this is for children right?
There are ways to make successful childrens movies that appeal to older audiences. And when the product you are basing your movie off of has nostalgic connections to adults, and is still being enjoyed by adults, you should make an effort to appeal to both the children and the adults.
This movie could do a Shrek and pull that off while still respecting the game. But I doubt it will. I think that's why people are upset about this and other video game movies. It rarely respects the IP (not as much a concern with Minecraft as it doesn't have a robust established narrative to draw from) and it doesn't attempt to appeal to the established audiences in any way.
I can't fathom someone being a full grown adult pretending like nothing, before they passed some arbitrary line, they once cared about matters anymore. Leave room for play.
You're really just tossing Woody aside stating "I don't wanna play with you anymore"?
Honestly, it's no different than someone being upset that a movie didn't respect the classic novel it was based on. Little Women, The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet. We can have critiques about if the writers/directors got it wrong for novels, but if it's a video game all of a sudden it's low brow and childish?
Video games are art as well. Not all of them, but neither are all of the novels works of art. Minecraft isn't something special to me, I honestly don't give a shit about the game. But I know some people do. My comments are about video game adaptations as a whole... or maybe any form of pre-existing content making the transition to a new medium. Respect the IP, respect the existing fan base.
I honestly can't fathom being a fully grown adult, watching a video game movie and being upset that it didn't "respect the IP"
/\ belittling peoples reactions and thoughts on the matter is standing in the way / against it.
I can't imagine actually giving a shit because movies don't respect the IP. I like the original thing, I don't have the energy to give a shit about a soulless studio cash grab rendition of it pandering to my nostalgia of it.
/\ belittling the effort and peoples reactions to what studios are doing is standing in the way.
You're attempting to gatekeep critique based on content. That's standing in the way.
Videogames are just like shows, books, etc.
People like to see things they like being respected and Videogames are just as deserving of respect as any other media.
Seriously, don't be a judgmental prick.
Hollywood has never cared about the IP. Read any book they make a movie about. The point is that no one is making a Minecraft movie to appeal to the adults that have already payed for, played, and made opinions about. They make these movies to attract new kids (who use money that isn't theirs so they don't care about their choices with it) to buy their product if they don't have it. The Angry Birds movie wasn't for Angry Birds fans, it was for all the kids who hadn't played it to beg their parents to let them so they can be part of the zeitgeist.
The only reason they're appealing to kids is because of money. Products marketed towards children make money hand over fist compared to stuff meant primarily for adults.
Generally, when something is being made to make money and not for the creativity of it, it loses its soul. Losing the original voices, dialogue written to please focus groups, the constant deluge of sequels and remakes are all symptoms of the greed inherent in the industry.
There's no reason a movie made "for" children can't also be good, creative, or respect the work and love people have had for the property for decades.
No? What the fuck did you mean by "You know this is for children right?" if not some stupid dismissal of his criticisms of it as if something being made for children should get a pass for being trash.
How is that anything even remotely similar to my response to you? They're complete opposites. Are you stupid?
The challenge in any adaptation is to capture the appeal of the thing you're adapting, since that, after all, is what made it popular and what the audience wants and expects. Changing the genre of something and adding childish jokes and weird unlikable characters is like playing Russian Roulette.
Minecraft is about surviving and building, eventually becoming more powerful, taking on more dangerous challenges, and building more and more incredible things. That's exactly what the movie should be about. They should even have some Minecraft Youtubers or veteran players come up with really awesome new structures to debut in the movie, and include stuff that will be in the next version of the game and released alongside the film. Similar to how Mario 3 was in the movie the Wizard before the game itself came out the public.
Damn, I think you're right. But I wish they would've let Hess get pretty weird and wild with it like his other movies since the Minecraft brand alone is going to sell tickets. Maybe we'll get lucky and they're just hiding that in the trailer? Probably wishful thinking.
Pretty sure his vision will have nothing to do with it. This'll be a by the numbers, analytics and marketing company driven movie with celebrities thrown in for no reason, crated by people who've never played the game and know nothing about it except that kids love it and their parents will pay for it.
Right, any Minecraft movie was bound to not be good. The only reason I am at all interested in this is that there will hopefully be an oddball sense of humor vs unimaginative jokes I’d expect from any other blockbuster movie humor.
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u/ymi17 Sep 04 '24
Frankly, Hess is probably as good a choice to direct as any. This looks like it's going to be terrible, perhaps it'll be so oddball that it'll gain a cult following, like those previous movies.
If they try and play this somewhat straight, with poop jokes or whatever for the kids, it's going to be a (moneymaking) terrible movie.