Minecraft: Things You Might Have Overlooked in a Minecraft Movie

Warner Bros. Pictures Contains spoilers for "A Minecraft Movie" We've been worried about "A Minecraft Movie" for quite some time now. Early plans for some kind of project based on the hit video game were announced as far back as 2014, with both "Deadpool and Wolverine" director Shawn Levy and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" co-creator and star Rob McElhenney attached to direct at various points. But against all odds, the movie has finally hit the big screen with Jared Hess at the helm and, of course, Jack Black as Steve. Fan reactions to the trailers for "A Minecraft Movie" were mixed, to put it mildly. Some thought the decision to make a live-action "Minecraft" film was a bizarre one, but there were those willing to give the project the benefit of the doubt, as it did appear to be pretty faithful to the game. And they were correct in that, as "A Minecraft Movie" is filled to the brim with references longtime fans will no doubt enjoy seeing. Such dedication could easily propel the film to become one of the highest grossing video game movies of all time, especially with early box office projections showing that it's off to a strong start. Some of these references slap you right across the face, like the Orb of Dominance playing such a significant role. But others may have slipped by you, so in the interest of not seeming like a total noob in front of all of your "Minecraft" buddies, here are some small details you might have missed in "A Minecraft Movie." Steve says he 'yearns for the mines' Warner Bros. Pictures "A Minecraft Movie" opens with Steve's backstory, and he provides one key line of dialogue that lets us know everything we need to know about him: "As a child, I yearned for the mines." This may seem like a harmless enough line to show why Steve was always destined to enter the Overworld, but in actuality, it's referencing a meme only the chronically online would have caught. It stems from a 2022 tweet by X (formerly Twitter) user @Froggenthusias1 (via Know Your Meme), who wrote, "Minecraft proves that abolishing child labour was a mistake. The children yearn for the mines." A hilarious take on the video game and an instant hit, the tweet only gained more traction in the ensuing years as various states have rolled back child labor laws, such as Iowa making it easier for teenagers to work in preparing food and doing clerical work. It may not have been the mines, but the post has remained relevant ever since. It's not the first time a meme has broken into the mainstream within the thing it was referencing. One of the most frustrating moments in the "X-Men" film franchise is when Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) says, "I'm the Juggernaut," followed by an expletive, as a reference to a YouTube meme. Garrett 'The Garbage Man' Garrison blows into a Nintendo cartridge Warner Bros. Pictures "A Minecraft Movie" doesn't just pay homage to the titular video game; it's genuinely a love letter to the history of gaming, especially as we learn Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison's (Jason Momoa) backstory of being a video game champ in "Hunk City Rampage." And when we see Garrett enter a video game store, he blows into a Nintendo cartridge, which will be all too familiar to anyone who came of age in the 1980s. Blowing into a cartridge was seen at the time as a foolproof method of getting a game to work on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 when it was having issues connecting. The idea was that there was dust inside the cartridge, so you just needed to shake it loose a bit. Even if you didn't realize that's what you were doing, there was just something oddly therapeutic about giving your cartridges a little boost. Sadly, some buzzkill announced years later that blowing into Nintendo cartridges didn't actually do anything. The thing that actually got a game to work was simply removing it from the console and reinserting it (basically, unplugging and plugging it back in). Plus, blowing into a cartridge has been found to cause more harm than good, as all that breath can damage the intricate mechanisms inside the cartridge. We wouldn't expect Garrett to know that, especially at the time, so he was just doing what we all did. Garrett freaks out about an Atari Cosmos Warner Bros. Garrett has fallen quite a ways from his heyday as a video game champ, so he resorts to bidding on abandoned storage units to try and find treasures. The auctioneer Daryl (Jemaine Clement) informs him that a unit up for bid contains an Atari Cosmos box, and Garrett rightfully freaks out. A genuine Cosmos would solve all his money problems if he could sell it, because it's incredibly rare - in fact, it wasn't even released to the general public. The Atari Cosmos is among the many video game consoles that never actually came out . From the late 1970s to the '80s, Atari worked on the Cosmos as a holographic, handheld gaming system. It was going to come with a variety of games, including "Space Invaders," "Asteroids," and even "Superman." Despite Atari even announcing at one point that the Cosmos was ready for release, it never saw the light of day. This is seemingly due to the fact that the system would have been pretty bad. Despite being billed as offering holography, the Cosmos would have actually utilized a basic LED display, so Atari kept it hidden. Now, the Cosmos is a thing of legend; some prototypes have reportedly come out of the woodwork that are fully functional. This probably explains why the Atari Cosmos box in the storage unit is empty - it was just too good to be true. The Creepers explode differently in A Minecraft Movie Warner Bros. Pictures When Garrett, Dawn (Danielle Brooks), Natalie (Emma Myers), and Henry (Sebastian Hansen) first enter the Overworld, they're bombarded by an assortment of "Minecraft" entities, most notably Creepers. These will be recognizable to any "Minecraft" fan, but they function a bit differently in their big screen debut. In the game, a Creeper will sneak up on you (hence the name) and once it's within a certain distance, begin the process of exploding. You can try to save yourself by getting farther away, but the Creepers' explosions can set you back significantly - for example, if you're on a high ledge and an explosion knocks you off. There are even areas inside mines where if a Creeper ignites, lava will flow through. The big change to Creepers in "A Minecraft Movie" is that they don't explode upon getting within a certain distance. The characters have to slap them to get them to blow up, which Garrett does upon first seeing one, only to get knocked down. But the explosions turn into an asset later when the main characters are going through a Creeper farm that Steve built. They proceed to slap a bunch of Creepers, causing them to explode and defeat the Great Hog that's following them. How did the zombie get to the top of the building? Warner Bros. When the main characters enter the Overworld, it can lead to the spawning of zombies. To escape them, Henry - who figures out pretty quickly how to create structures - builds a castle where he, Natalie, and Dawn head for safety on the roof while Garrett contends with a Creeper below. They may think they're safe, but then zombies spawn at the very top. Anyone who's never played the game before may be confused as to how exactly they get up there, but hardcore fans know this isn't a plot hole at all. In "Minecraft," zombies spawn in areas that are in total darkness. If you construct a building, you need to make sure there are plenty of torches surrounding it to prevent zombies from randomly showing up. It won't keep them away if they happen to already be there or just wander nearby, but they won't automatically spawn. That's the fatal error in Henry's castle; he doesn't put any torches at the top, so zombies can spawn there completely on their own. It's a rookie mistake, but it's understandable since it's Henry's first time playing by these rules. The movie channels the good ol' days of players learning to craft Warner Bros. Pictures Once the four characters meet up with Steve, he shows them the ropes of the Overworld. This naturally involves a proper tutorial on how to craft objects, which involves accumulating a bunch of random items and hitting them to turn them into something else. Garrett makes himself some bucket nunchucks, but Henry is much more of a pro and uses his items to make a tater tot gun. It's a fun crafting showcase in the movie and it's meant to harken back to the game's beginnings. Torfi Frans Olafsson, creative director of entertainment at "Minecraft" developer Mojang Studios, said at Minecraft Live 2024 (via ComicBook.com ), "When the game came out ... there wasn't a recipe book, and people were like 'Wait, what happens if I put these things like that?' When Garrett's character and these new characters come into the world, they don't know the recipes, they don't know what to do." Henry's tater tot gun is a unique addition to the movie, probably being most akin to a potato cannon from the game. But it demonstrates how, technically, anything is possible in this world. Later in the film, the characters have a book of recipes to demonstrate how far along the game has come since it first debuted. There's the wonder of learning how to craft initially, but then there's that sense of community later where you can build on what others have discovered. The chicken hut is a real Minecraft technique Warner Bros. Pictures When Steve shows his new companions the village, he brings them to the chicken hut, which houses a bunch of birds within the top of the structure who are turned into a tasty treat when introduced to lava. "Minecraft" fans watching the movie may think they know everything there is to know about their beloved game, but this is a genuine technique that should be implemented if you haven't already. There are various ways to store chickens in the game. You can build a standard coop if you want. But the chicken hut displayed in "A Minecraft Movie"