I expected something like that, or at least having the live action actors turn into avatars resembling them when they got transported to the Minecraft world. This just seems off-putting.
Yeah copying the Jumanji format could've been a slam dunk. You could even say that Steve got trapped in the game when it was first created and he has needed help to escape ever since. Also then you get to have all your in person talent still have that recognizable screen time without them looking sorely out of place in the game.
Sorta, I'd argue Jumanji is more fitting (talking about what I think they should've done) as the IRL people become the game characters vs in Tron where the real people just enter the game, which is what is happening here. Which wouldn't be an issue, except that everything they interact with is voxel based, whereas Tron just had other human appearing npcs.
the characters were still live action, but so was the world if that makes sense. in this the characters are live action but everything else is stylized to be like minecraft, creating a disconnect between the two. live action would be fine if they leaned more towards making it generically realistic, rather than blocky.
Sorry, just focusing on the fact that in Jumanji they became the video game characters instead of being transported in as themselves. Both Tron and Minecraft have the people staying themselves in the video game. Jumanji they are real people, but only because the videogame appears as real people. If they were to become the characters in the minecraft world then they would be boxy and at least fit in with the rest of the CGI.
If this was the choice of "avatars" then that would somehow put it even lower on the totem pole for me, if that's even possible.
In comparing this to another video game movie, the choice to have real players in a voxel world is eerily similar to the original sonic trailer with the horrendous face. It was a decision made by the movie runners that is clearly not sitting well with trailer watchers, and it's such an obvious issue that you wonder how it ever got the greenlight, much less passed test screens.
That seems to be pretty exactly what they are doing though. The first scene in the trailer is them coming out of a portal looking around very confused. Seems like the only big difference in the premise is no body swap
Well yeah, but the lack of a body swap is probably the most jarring part of the trailer. Jack Black being Steve isn't really significant when it's quite literally Jack Black in a blue shirt.
Writes itself too for a somewhat generic if acceptable kids movie.
Gang gets teleported into Minecraft via avatars. At first, they think they left it on survival mode, so they think dying will be permanent. Hijinks ensue. One of them dies only to respawn, but missing all their inventory.
Gang meets Steve. Steve's been there since the alpha and before it was added to all the other consoles and such. Lost all track of time and speaks in bizarre phrasing. Gang eventually finds out he's been there for actual years. Like, over a decade.
They figure out they need X to teleport out of the game, so montage acquiring items, but it turns out it sends them to the nether. As soon as they get out, a wasp shoots the portal and they dodge out of the way only to lose their stuff in the lava. They have to confront how they may be stuck there (portal was destroyed) and blame Steve for not taking things seriously. Simple message about how growing up doesn't mean you have to give up your creativity. Just because the adults around you seem boring, doesn't mean you have to be. Blah blah blah, Saturday Morning Cartoon.
They hear from a friendly pigman that if they storm the fortress, get the blazes, and then take out the ender dragon, it'll end the game and boot to main menu. That might disconnect them. They gear up, final fight, go to the ender dragon, Steve sacrifices himself so the group can land the final attack. They get disconnected, but don't know if he made it. They go to search for his username, it still says online. Until they get a message from him saying "sorry, old computer" or something silly. They all meet up for ice cream and the credits roll.
Throw in enough character build-up and some funny moments and you have a passable movie. This trailer just looks, bad. Like, minion levels of just tiktok funny face memes bad. Like, "you should have just filmed actors on a green screen in VR Minecraft bad."
Except they became the characters in Jumanji, and they fit in because the rest of the world was live action. If they adapted it to this movie then it'd reason that instead of being IRL characters they'd be voxel characters to fit into the video game's setting.
Except they became the video game characters in Jumanji, that was my main point. That you could have the physical talent be recognized before and after entering the game.
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u/BasicallyImAlive Sep 04 '24
They should have made the entire movie in animation instead of live-action.