Episode Transcript
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(00:16):
Hey everyone, welcome to The Withering Effect episode 188.
Today's date is May 31st, 2025 and I am duds or duds versus
known to the rest of the interwebs.
And I'm Carl, the day is the 1stof June 2025.
Liar. You may know me as Carl rides.
Later in this episode, we'll be having a great chat with Andrew
(00:39):
Ferrago, the author of a Minecraft movie.
From block to big screen. But first duds, what have you
been up to recently? I've actually been playing
Minecraft, believe it or not. No.
And it all goes downhill from there.
So I actually took an extended break from the game.
(01:00):
A little bit of burnout, but notthe real reason.
So medically, I've had some issues come up.
I got a little sick, not enough to be like full blown sick, but
enough where I didn't want to listen to my nasally voice in a
microphone anymore. So that passed and then I ended
up hurting my back. And then the big thing was I
(01:20):
started to get numbness in my hands so bad to the point where
six of my 10 fingers, I could nolonger feel anymore ache.
Yeah, like they would move and Icould tell them hey, move and I
could grab things and stuff. I could still type on a
keyboard, hold a pin and all that stuff, but I physically
couldn't feel what they were doing.
(01:40):
Kind of a freaky situation. So I tried to stop using my
hands as much as possible. Turns out it's carpal tunnel,
like I think I theorized on the last podcast.
Yeah, it had gotten so bad that six of my fingers were
essentially worthless to me. But I got some medication for
that, and they're healed up. They're not 100%.
I would put them at 80%. And I don't know if they're ever
(02:02):
going to get better. It feels like this has been an
extremely long process that No 1ended.
Insight. But my doctor was also worried
about my back because for the past year or so, I'm starting to
have a lot more back injuries. And for someone my age, while
I'm not a spry young person anymore, my age shouldn't have
that many back problems in the locations I'm having them.
(02:23):
I'm having them in very odd spots.
If you were to throw your back out, it would happen in like
this part of your back. And I'm having problems in that
part of my back. And she's like, let's go get
some X-rays. I want to see what's going on in
there. So I went and I did some X-rays
and it turns out I have arthritis in my spine.
Yay. That didn't sound good.
(02:45):
No, which basically means when it flares up there are certain
certain sitting positions I cannot sit in.
It is extremely uncomfortable and it's never the same
position. So like I can get in my car,
feel perfectly fine, and the carride will hurt my back.
Get out of the car, go sitting in my office chair, feel fine.
My office chair might cause me pain.
Sitting in there for 8 hours a day hurts.
(03:07):
Getting in my car, feel fine. Maybe coming home laying in bed,
I can't get comfortable with my own bed, but sitting on the
couch? Fine.
It's very weird and it's very pain in the butt to fix.
Bit of a weird one. Yep.
So it's just kind of one of the things I have to figure out.
We're trying some core exercises.
I've been working out a lot overthis past year.
(03:29):
This year alone I'm £85 down from last year so that's helping
a lot. Nice.
But it's also bringing up new issues because I'm I'm wearing
my body down with how much I'm working out.
I'm doing what a normal person should do.
I'm doing three times that much in a week.
It's a lot, but it's something Ineeded to be yeah done.
(03:50):
Like I went from being full blown diabetic to now I am no
longer diabetic. I went from being on three blood
pressure pills to now I am almost off of the last one.
So I could be back to full blownhealthy here within the next
year. So that's why I'm having a lot
of injuries and stuff come up. So a mixed health picture.
Yes, there's some good, there's some bad.
(04:13):
Yeah, my hands have finally gotten good enough where I
wanted to play some Minecraft again, so I jump back on the
create server. I saw, I saw.
And I noticed my my lava farm was empty.
My steam engines were brocaded. Oh dear.
Not brocaded in the fact that I needed to rebuild them.
It's no lava hurts. Them lava chicken.
(04:35):
No lava chicken. So I came up with a new way to
funnel lava into the steam engine system, along with a
reserve emergency backup that I'm using to fuel other sections
of my base. It doesn't necessarily fuel the
steam engines, it fuels a blaze burner to create industrial
iron. So I can now have industrial
(04:56):
iron on demand, which is awesomebecause I like industrial iron
in the create mod. It is a very, very nice set of
blocks, the industrial iron, very cool.
Yeah, then I started to record an episode just to find my OBS
settings were just wrecked and nothing worked.
I ended up getting in a call with Loki from channel 64.
(05:19):
The man's a St. We were in a call for like 3
hours, 3 1/2 hours, reworking mysettings just to get them back
to normal. I really wanted to be able to
have audio tracks on different tracks, so like my voice was on
a track, the game sounds was on a track, and if anyone else was
in the call it was on a different track.
Couldn't figure out how to do that for some reason.
(05:40):
Even if we told it, this track does this, this track pulls from
this source, this track pulls from that source, it would still
combine all of them onto a single track and then just make
multiple wavelengths. So don't know why it did that.
Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah, but I've got it
essentially, hopefully back to normal.
(06:00):
I haven't been able to do a recording since that did a lot
of working on the Jeep, but I'llsave that for post show because
this is a Minecraft podcast apparently.
Yeah, I've reworked the front ofmy base, which I'm super excited
for. I don't know if you've seen
that, Carl. I've not been on.
I saw you playing, yeah, but I haven't been on since.
(06:21):
Yeah, the the front of my base has got a refresh.
Noise. It's pretty nice.
That's what I'm working on in this episode, so I'm hoping to
get back to it a little bit tomorrow.
Yeah, I'm having more fun. That's good.
That's good. Yep, getting back into it
slowly. What about you?
What have you been up to? I moved some of my stuff around
because I should probably talk about Minecraft first.
(06:43):
Yeah, I did do a bit of Minecraft before you got on.
I saw I was on my base doing my roof finally, because, you know,
if you actually look at my base on the create server, it's, you
know, party in the front, nothing in the back at the
moment. Yeah.
Including the roof. So I've got most of the roof
(07:04):
sorted out now. For some reason I decided to use
tinted glass. Smart.
Why? I don't know, but it takes so
long to make. So annoying.
Yeah. But it does look good and I am
happy that I used it in the end because I want to get that top
section finished where the trainstation is going to be and to do
the train station area, I need the roof in place to know what
(07:27):
dimensions I'm working with. So I have to finish this roof.
So that's what I've been workingon and I hope to get on next
week when stuff's a little bit less frantic at work.
So hopefully I can do some of that the rest of the time.
Recently I've been enjoying the sun because duds the UK finally
went over like 25°C recently. And so I've been outside and,
(07:54):
you know, in participating in, in beverages at local
establishments, should we say? You want me to burst your
bubble? Cool.
So I've found that usually whether I get you get like 3
days later. It has not broken 70° till today
(08:14):
this week and it's rained every single day this week.
Yeah, our weather has kind of gone downhill the last couple of
days, so I'm glad that I spent. I spent our Bank Holiday Monday
in the public house, so that wasnice.
Just, you know, a bit of sun. It always lifts the mood and
everything and it's good. Yeah.
Been watching and a bit of YouTube between.
(08:36):
I've been so tired from work. It's that time of the year,
especially since we've had the Minecraft movie and Lilo and
Stitch and all these films. It's been very very, very, very,
very very busy and I've come home absolutely tired.
I just don't want to do anything.
So I've been watching a lot of YouTube for games that I don't
(08:57):
have time or the patience to play at the moment, like Planet
Coaster, 2H Architects schedule on these kind of like new games
that have come out. So I've been watching a bit of
those from some content creators.
And I've also been watching I'veI've been slow horses on Apple
TV. Plus they had a deal where you
(09:19):
can get three months for like 299.
So I was like, OK, I'm actually going to watch the show and it's
like the best thing ever. I watched the entire season,
which is only 6 episodes becausethat's how we do seasons in the
UK. But the six proper one hour
episode, so it's six hours and the story spans the season.
So you get 6 hours of really in depth story.
(09:42):
And then the next season is a completely different story.
And it's for those of you who don't know out there, and I
think we mentioned it a little bit last time, but Slow Horses
is like a a spy thriller where they're sort of the rejects from
MI 5, but they still like get cases to do and they kind of get
in the way and then, you know, mess things up and all that kind
of stuff. It is so well produced.
(10:03):
It surprised me how well this show is put together, so I've
really been enjoying that, bingeing it a little bit too
much all at once. I've watched like 2-2 of the
seasons now, and I kind of gave myself a break because there's
only four. Yeah, yeah, it's a really good
show. Check it out.
It's amazing show, but that's kind of it for me.
Not a lot of Minecraft, but some.
(10:23):
I will say I was also on the Apple TVI didn't get the same
deal you did, but if you are a prime member you got a weak
trial for free. Oh nice.
Yeah, so I, I really wanted to see Fountain of Youth with John
Krasinski, Natalie Portman, and directed by Guy Ritchie.
Yeah, great actors, really. Like Guy Ritchie.
Fountain of Youth was total garbage.
(10:45):
Really one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
It's not good. It's not good.
It's not good at all. You could tell every single
person on that set was phoning it in and didn't care.
Oh dear. They tried to make a knock off
of National Treasure and it did not look good.
It felt like a knock off. That being said, I watched the
(11:05):
Gorge on Apple TV with Miles Teller and Anna Taylor Joy.
Surprisingly amazing. It's not one of those you take
seriously, you just turn your brain off.
And I had so much fun during that movie.
I find with, I guess this goes for a lot of content like
subscription services, but I guess they just kind of have
more content so it's less noticeable.
(11:26):
But Apple TV especially, like it's either a massive win, a
massive hit, or it's complete rubbish.
Yeah, there's no real in between.
But I think that goes for Netflix or Amazon and that as
well. There's just so much content,
you don't really notice it with them, where Apple TV has quite a
limited library, so it's kind ofmore obvious.
Yeah. Moving on to the news.
(11:51):
I don't have any real update news.
I think the biggest thing was wecan now craft saddles.
Yep, in these last couple updates it it really was not
worth me going through every changelog for the past what, 5
weeks? Yeah.
To try to pull out what's stuck in my head.
We can craft saddles, That's thebig thing.
You guys have watched snapshot videos and zoomers videos and
(12:15):
stuff. You know what's going on?
Yeah, they're very small updatesand it's basically we fix this
bug. It's like OK.
Yeah, we're still waiting on theFabric version of Create.
Yeah, Omni warned me that it might be a while.
Yeah, it doesn't look like it's going to be anytime soon from
what I've been reading on their Discord, so, but we'll get there
(12:36):
eventually. A Minecraft movie.
We made a little prediction lastepisode of what we think fought
Minecraft movies ending total would be in terms of box office
revenue. I was on the optimistic side.
I thought they could crack that billion dollars and that's just
like 920. Yeah, well, it hasn't completely
(12:58):
exited theatres yet, but it is running down the last few days
of being on. You can buy it on digital so
it's done. Yeah.
So as of today, as of a few minutes before this recording,
the box office revenues worldwide. 944 million and
(13:24):
300,000 basically you know 24,000,000 over what you said
and quite a way from what I was project.
I thought it could do it, it gotclose.
It's, you know, on its budget, it's done exceptionally well.
Yeah. The top markets don't really
surprise you. top US next UK, Germany, Australia, Mexico,
(13:48):
China, Japan and France, and everyone else is under 20
million. So you know the kind of markets
you'd expect it to do well, and it did well.
But yeah, pretty good numbers for a, what, 150 million budget?
Yeah, they may bank. Well, we knew they were.
And let's remember, it was a good movie.
It was not a great movie. They're going to come up with a
(14:09):
#2. Oh, they have to.
It made too much money not to, so I assume they will have a
number 2. At this point, it's like 99%
sure at this point. Yeah, I hope it's really good.
Yeah, again, we'll be speaking to the author of the new
Minecraft movie book later on inthe episode.
So that was a really fun interview.
(14:29):
So stick around for that, guys. Yep.
Yep, Yep. Should we continue with a little
AD from Jimbo? Yeah, he's going to tell us.
Give us a little reminder of howyou can get a discount on your
own Minecraft server from BisectHosting.
You can get a discount on your own Minecraft server through our
(14:50):
partnership with Bisect Hosting,offering our community 25% off
any game server for the first month.
This is for new clients only. Visit bisecthosting.com/TWE and
use the code TWE at checkout to receive the discount.
(15:10):
Carl now makes me listening to our ads.
We never used to have to do thatbefore, Carl.
It's for the listeners, it's mainly for Mr. Monkey, who's in
live chat, and I also made him listen to it before the show
because I pressed the button by mistake.
Yeah, that's another thing. If you guys didn't know, if
you're a patron, you can listen to the show live when we go
(15:33):
live. Yeah.
So there's that. Check that out.
Anyways, should we get to mending Minecraft?
We had you guys choose what whatdo we call structures?
Yeah. Carl has deleted my script by
the way, so we're going off script.
That that did happen. We had you guys choose between
(15:55):
Chair Ruin Trail Ruins, Omen Words, Pillager Outpost in the
Shipwreck, and the overwhelming winner, Pillager Outpost.
Yeah, we're going to work on that.
I'm going to kind of cheat a little bit.
(16:17):
I had this idea. It doesn't really change the
outpost per SE. Dun Dun Dun it.
Adds to the outpost which I think is really cool.
Addition's as good as a change. I had it in a dream.
We're going with it. Do we need like some some like
mood music for a dream? No mood music.
(16:39):
The big thing was you have a normal outpost, but it would
have a section in the middle with a ladder down, reminiscent
of the igloo. So you know how in some igloos
you can go down and you learn how to cure a villager through
there? Yeah, the pillager outpost you
would go down and find a labyrinth.
Not a super big maze or anything, but a small one that
(17:02):
is in four sections, and each ofthe four sections houses a
villager. You have the iron Golem locked
up upstairs ground level, right?Why isn't there any villagers?
And it's obvious because illagers kill the villagers, but
I didn't want them to. I wanted them to capture the
villagers. So the villagers will be
imprisoned in the labyrinth. Your job is to go around and
(17:26):
find the villagers and save themand get a key.
You get all four keys and you unlock a door for a boss battle
boss. Battle.
Yeah, so the boss battle is going to bring back the
Illusioner. OK.
The illager that that has not been brought back into the game.
So you will fight an illusioner to beat the structure, or if
(17:49):
it's in a snowy Biome, you'll fight the Chillager.
Because I'm not calling it an isolager.
That's dumb. I think Minecraft calls it an
isolager because they hurt Chillager and go, oh man, that's
a cool name. We're not going to call it that,
but yeah. They should have just run with
it. Yeah, just take it.
Take on the Chillager yeah that way it brings back 2 fan
(18:11):
favorite mobs that didn't make it into the game and at the same
time if you don't want to face those guys you don't have to you
don't have to do anything with the OR pillager outpost.
It puts it in a spot where if all you want to do is go and
loot the tower for the little bit of goodies it has, or get
the alays you can. Or if you want to go a little
bit further, you can get some villagers locked in a cell and
(18:33):
you get a chance to fight some other mobs.
And I think that was the best ofboth worlds.
Noise. I like it.
I like it. Yeah, I thought it's pretty
cool. It doesn't really change the
outpost, which it makes it a little bit cheaty, but I like
the idea of putting mobs in thateveryone really liked but I
didn't like because I didn't want to have to constantly face
(18:54):
bad guys. But now it gives you a challenge
and you get to choose if you want to step forward and fight
those guys, which I think is an awesome idea, especially because
we have the the key system from the trial chambers.
Yeah, that's true. So it's sort of like reusing
that system for, Yep, something else.
(19:14):
Yeah, I like that. I like that.
Yep. Yeah.
You can't really do much to those Pillager outposts, you
know, they serve a purpose. They're quite simple builds.
I don't think there's much you could really change about them
that would make any kind of meaningful difference anyway.
So kind of adding something to that area kind of makes more
sense anyway. Yeah, I toyed with the idea.
Like if you beat the boss villager, do they does that area
(19:37):
spawning pillagers because somebody might want to live
there. But I know some people use it
for a farm, so it doesn't reallywould make sense to do something
like that. So I don't know.
I'm leaving that part open-ended.
So if somebody wants to let me know, like, Oh no, you should do
it this way. Go ahead.
Like, I didn't really think thatfar into it.
I just knew people want options.Yeah.
(19:58):
So the option to do the labyrinth is there, and the
option not to do the labyrinth is there.
Yeah, let us know in the Spotifycomments, YouTube comments on
Discord as well. Let us know what you think of
those changes and what you change about the the Pillager
Outpost. So next month duds what we're
doing for the next vote. We're going to vote on the Mace
(20:21):
smithing templates in the Spyglass.
We're doing items next month. Nice.
Also, guys, listen to the end ofthe episode when there'll be a
nice outtake. Yeah, yeah, outtake.
We love outtakes. The weavering effect.
Carl loves outtakes. Carl loves outtakes.
It's the first thing I do. I do the outtake first, I edit
(20:45):
that first and then I did the show.
It shows you where his true allegiance lies in the outtakes.
Love it, love it. So that's next month.
Look out for deleted my own script.
Nice, that's what you get. Look out for the votes on
Spotify, YouTube, and the Discord.
(21:08):
We'll add them all together and we'll mend the winner on the
next episode. Is it time for our main topic?
I think so now this main topic was pre recorded.
It was a fun recording. It was.
It was. Joining us now is Andrew
(21:29):
Ferrago, author of a Minecraft movie From Block to Big Screen.
Welcome to the show, Andrew. Hi, great to be here.
Thanks for thanks for having me.No problem at all.
No problem. I think we should start with
getting to know you a little bit.
Did you tell our audience about yourself and any of the other
books you've been involved in? Yeah, I'm the curator of the
(21:51):
Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.
That's my day job. I've been doing that for nearly
25 years at this point. That involves putting together
exhibitions of original cartoon and comic art and maintaining
our permanent collection, traveling to conventions and
working with artists, projects and presentations and classes
(22:13):
and all kinds of educational things.
That's the day job. That sounds really cool.
And almost 20 years ago, I started writing just kind of as
a sideline, so I got no editors and publishers I was invited to.
Actually, I kick things off by writing some essays for a book
on the 100 Greatest Mooney Tunes.
(22:33):
That led to an invitation to write a book called The Looney
Tunes Treasury about a year after that, which is a history
of so Looney Tunes characters astold by themselves, so Bugs
Bunny and Daffy Duck and Quirky Pig telling their own life
stories. So that was a really fun project
that led to Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles the Ultimate.
(22:55):
Visual history. Yeah.
You're hitting like, my entire childhood.
Looney Tunes and Ninja Turtles. Yeah, when you sit down and you
have a family portrait. For three years in a row, I wore
a Ninja Turtle sweater. Oh wow, so walk, walking the
walk. Yeah.
So that was that was a really intense project.
That was about two years of interviewing and tracking down
(23:18):
everybody I could find who's related to Turtles, from Eastman
and Laird to Vanilla Ice and allthe voice actors from the
original cartoons. And that actually led to being
able to do an updated version ofthat ten years later on.
And in the meantime, I've written books on Batman and
Peanuts and Harley Quinn and Sideshow Collectibles.
(23:41):
So I've gotten to be, yeah, I've, I've gotten to be, have a
pretty steady presence in the, in the coffee table book comic
history. So, so yeah, it's, it's been a,
it's been a really fun experience getting to know all
these. And basically when an editor
calls up and offers something, Isee, do I have some interest in
it? Do I have the time to do it?
Can I? What can I bring to the table
(24:02):
here that nobody else can? That actually falls right into
our next question was how are you approached about writing
this book? But this was, yeah, not quite
almost a year ago. So last summer and editor at
Inside Editions called me up andsaid I may have a project for
you. She was being very secretive.
So she said, first of all, just,you know, are you available, you
(24:24):
know, over the next six months to work on a book?
I said, yeah, I'm up. I'm up for anything.
And Insight does very high end, really, really nice, very
visually oriented art book. So it's like it could, I'm
thinking it could be anything, be a movie, it could be a video
game, it could be it was comics or anime, It was all of.
It. Yeah.
And she says, OK, what do you know about Minecraft?
(24:46):
And I thought about it for not even a second.
I said, son plays Minecraft all the time.
I'm actually looking over at himright now and he's playing
Minecraft right this minute. So I, it's like I've been
hearing about Minecraft every day or three years.
So I think, I think I can handlethat.
And she said, there's a, there'sa Minecraft movie.
(25:06):
I'll set up a meeting with us and Mojang talk about it.
I didn't really know anything about the movie yet because I
remember talking to them and they were talking about the
actors in it. I was under the impression oh
this this will be a fully animated movie.
Yeah, So what? So did we at first.
Yeah, and I, that's good. That's great.
It's, it's so smart to get somebody like Back Black to do a
(25:29):
fully animated Minecraft movie. They mentioned Jason Momoa and I
thought, OK, he'll be, he's got an interesting enough voice.
Like I, I think, I don't know ifhe's voice actor territory, but
yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll do that.
And then they, they realize I didn't know what I was talking
about yet. Yeah.
Well, actually it's live action and and like everybody else I
said, how are you going to do that?
(25:49):
Yeah, immediate reaction. What?
I've been, I've been interested in for yeah, I've been
interested in doing one of thesebooks for quite a while.
So I think, I think it was knownaround the office, get in on the
the ground floor and it's it's film making is just something
that is really interesting to me.
(26:11):
So I thought, yeah, if I can talk to people while this is in
production and all behind the scenes thing, I think that would
be that would be a lot of fun. Yeah.
So I, I, I said, let's, let's doit.
And they started setting up interviews, and over the course
of the next few months, they didabout two dozen interviews with
cast and crew and everybody fromthe actors to the set designers
(26:32):
and painters and graphic designers and who made the
swords and the costumes. And it was, yeah, it was
amazing. Very cool, very cool.
You kind of answered one of our questions, though.
I was going to talk about your interview in the book with
Sebastian, who plays Henry, and how that came about.
Yeah, I can actually talk about Sebastian a little bit.
That was that was. Yeah, that was really
interesting. So, yeah, between Mojang and
(26:54):
Legendary, who are the producersof the film, they they were able
to nearly every interview that Iwas hoping for.
What Sebastian is it is interesting because he's not
much older than my son. So it's kind of a typically I'm
interviewing people roughly, roughly my age or a little bit
older. So it was, it was interesting to
talk to somebody in that age bracket.
(27:15):
His father sat in on the call just to make sure it's it's.
And I told him like, we're not doing any a gotcha interview.
We're just having a fun talk about.
Yeah. And again, like from talking to
my son, it was just like, OK, we're going to talk about video
games. We're going to talk about what's
what's it like going from these smaller productions to this
gigantic over the top building? The entire Minecraft world in in
(27:38):
New Zealand just, you know, downthe road from the all the
hobbits and the everything else.And yeah.
And he was a very cool kid. Like he was very, very grounded
considering he had just spent a few months again in New Zealand
with Back Black and Emma Meyer. Yeah, he'd.
Been kind. Of high, wouldn't you?
At that point, he's just like, you know.
(27:58):
Did that and then it's, you know, and then it's back to, you
know, back to school with his friends and like just waiting,
like all of us like waiting to see.
What's the reaction going to be this movie?
Is this going to be I? I had a very nervous few weeks
after the book had been turned in and waiting to see.
I'm sure I'm sure you'd all see in the YouTube reactions to the
(28:20):
trailers. Yeah, yeah.
I heard comments of the commenters.
What are these animals? What's going on here?
What's the It's Jack, what I think he's doing?
We we definitely fell in the overly critical of the trailer.
Yes, of the style. We were not a fan in The funny
thing is our last episode we we talked about how we actually
(28:42):
went in movie. The more we saw of it, the more
we liked and liked and it got tothe point where it it did feel
mine crafty. It didn't at first glance, but
the more you got into this world, it's like, OK, this makes
sense. This does feel right.
And you started to enjoy a lot of the choices that were made
(29:02):
visually. My interview with Jeb Gens
Bergenstein, who's, you know, top director over there, my
interview with him was about a day after the trailer dropped.
And that was one of my questionstoward the end of our
interviews. Trailer's out.
Yeah. We've seen, you know, about
8,000,000 YouTube videos. People are freaked out about the
(29:24):
the pink. Yeah, yeah, the sheep.
The sheep and. And he said.
You know, we've, we've got time.We're working on it.
We're we're, you know, we're notgoing to change everything.
But he said, you know, we're taking those comments to heart.
We want to make sure this is themovie they want.
Yeah. And they, I mean, they had their
animators and everybody working around the clock on that.
(29:45):
One of the really fun things forme was I got to read the script
back in July last year. So I got to see how much paid in
I got. I got a sense of how much back
Black got to improvise, how muchDanielle Brooke got to change on
the spot. So that was, that was really fun
seeing some little changes, somereally big changes, but
(30:05):
everything they did they they had very good instinct.
Yeah, I think one of my favoriteparts of this book when you were
talking about the planning and stuff, it's like they they set
rules like, OK, this isn't goingto be identical to Minecraft
because we can't, we just can't and do live action.
So they created a set of rules and it was do not break the
rules and everything will work. And very much once I read that
(30:28):
in the book, I went, that's exactly it.
They created a rule set that wasMinecraft enough and stayed
within the rule set, and that's why everything worked.
Definitely. Yeah, you definitely you need
that for any, let's say for any fictional world, need to
establish the rules. And you establish again that
there, there are rules that are absolutely meant to be broken.
(30:49):
When they say things like, you know, no one has ever, you know,
flown to the top of this mountain or or drawn this sword
or something there that there are those kinds of story roles.
You set those up. But they, you know, they they
really put obviously it's Mojangwho is overseeing it.
So they are they're wonderful caretakers of the Minecraft
(31:10):
property. And so they did have their push
it this far. We can do this, but this is,
this is this is too much into the realm of magic or pretend
and that's that's not going to fly.
Yeah. Yeah, they were.
They were. They were amazing when it came
to that. One of my questions I have done
is like did you get to visit NewZealand in the set or was
everything kind of video interviews or and stuff like
(31:32):
that? This was, this was pretty much
entirely over doom. So we I did, I did memorize the
time difference between California and New Zealand
because I had to do so many. Time zones Fun.
Yeah, my my desk mat is a map ofthe world with different time
zones because of that same reason.
(31:53):
Yeah, the timing, the timing didn't quite work out.
I think I I would have been going to New Zealand on my own
dime, which would have I was basically writing the book for
free if that had happened. But you know, the again, people
were people were all over the place at this point, the people
who were in still in New Zealandwhen I was getting really deep
into the book more on the production side of things.
(32:16):
So it was the, you know, it was the IT was the animators and the
the graphic designers. Most of the the actors were
actually already back, you know,back home in Los Angeles and
wherever their homes were peoplelike Grant Major.
That was one of my favorite interviews.
Grant Major production designer on Word of the Rings.
And they wrapped him for Minecraft.
(32:37):
He was there and he was already working on his next project.
So some of the people who were in New Zealand had already
wrapped things up. Jared Hess was over there.
But that was working with the editors and the, you know,
figuring out what additional scenes do we need, what else do
we have to do here? So I don't, I don't know that
there would have been much to see if I'd, if I'd made it over
there. But yeah, if I, if I get another
(32:59):
excuse, like maybe if I get to write a, I get to do a Lord of
the Rings book down the road, I'll I'll build that into my
contract. There was definitely a lot of
Lord of the Ring references in this book.
I I very much enjoyed that. I yeah, again with the, with the
and Grant Major, I think got everyone in that mindset.
But also so many of the, the crew, the people who did the
(33:19):
weapons had worked on the thingsof power TV series for Amazon
Prime. The some of them had dated back
to the original Lord of the Rings trilogy or The Hobbit
movies. So they had, they had some
serious chops and they were put into the diamond.
Even Steve's stash, every, everybackground item, so much thought
(33:41):
going into it because of that overlap.
You know, they, they kind of called this, they called this
production Lord of the Ding Dongs.
I'd laughed out loud at that. Laughed.
Which, yeah, and I think that was so such, you know, it's it's
a group. They come together, they've got
a quest. And yeah, everybody involved
love movie. They had so much fun with it.
(34:03):
The people who were skeptical, they were won over very quickly
once they saw the enthusiasm that everybody had for it.
Yeah, I love seeing all of the the like models up close in the
book, all the pictures and all of the weapons.
Yeah, the concept art was amazing.
All the weapons and everything up close with those really high
(34:26):
quality pictures that that kind of art book style really works
for this film a lot. It was really enjoyable to read
through and see all those pictures and that's really
interesting. Were they just sent to you by
the team in New Zealand then, ordid you have sign of input into
what you wanted them to send you?
Or did they just send you a loadof things?
We had a lot of discussion aboutthat.
(34:47):
I had I signed all the non disclosure agreements so I had
access to all the production art.
Again, the reactions that peoplehad to the sheep in that first
trailer. If they they'd seen some of the
earliest production art, some ofthe earlier drafts of the
script, some of that material, you know, they would they would
have lost their minds. But it was, it was really fun
(35:08):
talking to them about, yeah, allthe design work that went into
it, like just how many drafts ofthe diamond sword they had to
get. What what's amazing?
But I the reason that I would have loved to have visited New
Zealand actually, is they built as much as they could.
Not the typical Hollywood production today where, you
know, they would have had a stick with ping pong balls glued
(35:29):
to it or green screen for everything.
They built as much as they could.
They wanted, they really wanted everybody to feel like we're in
the Minecraft world. We're using checkets and ender
pearls and and all of this. So this was, you know, the tater
tot gun. And yeah, and that's a Jared
Hess thing, like having tater tots and potatoes and Idaho
(35:51):
references in it. So he brought, I love, I love
that he brought so much of that Napoleon Dynamite and his
sensibility to this world. I did love that they built as
much as they could when I first thought about live actors, like,
oh, they're just going to green screen everything.
And then we started seeing pictures on X and we're like,
oh, there's actual trees and stuff actually going into that
(36:13):
studio. And then when you saw like the
movie on the big screen, everything just kind of fell
into fell into place at that point, you know, you could see
that it was proper set design. It wasn't just a green screen.
You could see that they'd taken on board the criticism from the
trailer and what came out was a a brilliant film in the end and
I think testament to doing that.You had mentioned that they were
(36:35):
trying to build the sets outsideand then it ended up being like
a rainy season. So they they were like, well, we
can just move this inside and they built full on sound stage
sets inside, which is cool. Really cool.
Yeah. And that that was the way to go
because they realized it's New Zealand, the weather's
unpredictable. So you could have, you could
(36:56):
have a total flood. You could have, you know, an
absolute parental downpour in the morning and then it could be
all clear by the afternoon. But obviously, it's not
practical to have a set where everything could be destroyed in
the morning and then you have toyeah, yeah.
Spend the rebuilding to get it destroyed the next day.
Yeah, I mean, if it rains and you walk on a path three Times
(37:17):
Now it's a muddy pathway and youcan see where people have been
walking multiple times. So kind of ruins the the magic.
It's like when you watch a moviewith a car scene, car chase and
then you look at the road and you see all the tire marks from
where it had done the stunt like10 times before, then killed a
little bit of the magic. So I definitely agree the sound
stage was the way to go and. That was that was easier on the
(37:40):
actors. So coordinating everybody and
their schedules with the limitedtime they have because
everybody's got other commitments.
And this movie took so long to come together that they really
needed they needed to make the most of their time together.
And I think they really did thateffectively.
Yeah, one of my favorite sections in your book was where
(38:01):
they talked about Proplandia. The a lot of the cast members
and stuff had a server they wereplaying on and like the prop
department had their own little section that Jack Black just so
happened to find his way into. I loved hearing about all these
people who may not be normal Minecraft players now falling
(38:21):
into Minecraft and being stuck to the point where like I think
you showed a couple of screenshots where like there
were advertisements of services and stuff on a billboard.
I was like, it is just like everybody else who starts a
multiplayer survey. Yeah, Jack Wack, his kids, his
son had played that he knew fromway back, and he got really into
(38:43):
it. So they said whenever he was not
on set, he was in his trailer. Porphy Mojang set up a dedicated
rivers everybody play together. And yeah, talking to Jack about
Lapis Lasley, which is his favorite element, you know, and
he he logged a lot of time. It's interesting, you know,
Jason Momoa is the gamer in the movie.
And they said he didn't play. He didn't bother with it.
(39:05):
Jack played Emma and Sebastian had grown up with it.
So they were they were happy to do that.
Yeah, my, I think my favorite story was, you know, Jack had
his house and he had some he hadabout Gosha tribute painting.
Yeah, it's capital, but it was stolen.
So he said. He says that, you know, that's
the pot for the next movie. Already is Who stole my little
(39:26):
Ghosh painting? Yeah, I'm very familiar with
which painting. Getting that, that would be an
amazing film. It really would be.
And with the was the in credit cutscene Easter egg, they can
bring Alex aboard. Yeah, that's, that's where my my
feelings went. As soon as I saw the end credits
(39:46):
scene, I was like, oh, Alex is here.
That could be for the sequel. They've got to do a sequel.
It's done too well. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. And I think, you know, they're,
they're, we're already thinking about that a little bit.
You have to nowadays with how the movie industry is like.
Everything has sequels or its own universe and all this stuff,
(40:08):
so. But then again, if it's just a
stand alone, it's a good stand alone movie, yeah.
Yeah, they've got a lot of different directions they can
take it. They they said the movie, you
know, everything came together when they realized they were
going to call it a Minecraft movie.
This is a story. And again, subsequent movies.
They can. They could bring in a totally
different cast and crew, director, everything they could.
(40:31):
Maybe they visit a new seat. The Minecraft players will will
be like, Oh yeah, that'd be cool.
And like with like with any universe that has this much in
an animation and production partthat goes into it, you have the
option to go bigger and better for sure with the sequel.
That's that's pretty exciting tome.
I told them I'm I'm on board ready to go they and again,
(40:53):
maybe I'll, maybe I'll book thatflight to New Zealand.
Yeah, I was about to say, maybe you can convince them to book
your flight to New Zealand for you.
I'll do that. I'll get in the stock.
Stockholm and go to the Mojango quarters a couple weeks in LA
with the server. So we'll do, yeah, we'll do the
whole thing. I think the last question is
kind of a big one. What was your favorite part of
(41:14):
this whole experience? So it's my my son's enthusiasm
for Minecraft, why I did not hesitate to sign on for this.
So getting to appreciate the game on the level that he does
and letting him sit in on a few of the interviews, including the
one with Jack Black. Wow, that's amazing.
That was just so that was such afun experience.
So he don't want to get him in trouble, but we let him go to
(41:37):
school a little bit late that day.
That seems perfectly fine to me.Yep.
And an hour talking to Jack Black in the morning before he
went home. How could I not excuse that?
There was no better excuse than that.
I have no idea if, you know, it's it's California, so it
might not have sounded that implausible.
(41:57):
But like coming into school withit because, yeah, I had to talk
to Jack Black about his next movie.
That's normally that'll get you sent right to the the
principal's office. Yeah.
Stop fibbing. Why were you really late?
But. We're gonna do a, we're gonna do
a book report for his, for his classroom in a couple weeks
here. All right, nice.
(42:18):
He helped with the caption a lot, which was great because
we're whipping through the pictures and going through all
the art that we did with Insightand Mojang and Legendary.
I said, so who are these guys? What's this weapon?
What's this? How would he describe this?
I think things that would have taken me a week to look up.
He just said, Oh yeah, that's. He's got the, he's got the info,
(42:39):
yeah. Research assistant was was
invaluable. And if it else does.
I think that's it. I think that's going to do it
for our interview with Andrew today.
If you enjoyed our conversation.Interested in picking up a copy
of a Minecraft movie from Block to big screen?
I've left links in the show notes for you to purchase it.
Go and take a look. It's a beautiful book with loads
(42:59):
of really interesting information about the film and
great imagery as well. I've also linked to Andrew's
website there as well for you guys to go check out.
Yes, please do. Our thanks go to Sarah Insight
Editions for reaching out and helping us set up this
interview. Also to Simon and Shuster for
sending us copies of the book aswell.
But most importantly, our thanksgo to Andrew for coming on
(43:21):
today. It's been a pleasure talking
with you. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much for spending time with us.
Thank you. Well, I think that's going to do
it for today's show. Before I have Carl read us out,
I want to say a huge thank you to all of our milk level
patrons, Avni, Fragile Rock, J Man, Loki, and the Meme Bug.
(43:41):
If you 2 would like to get access to
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(44:02):
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All those links are in the show notes.
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(44:22):
and myself. The amazing music you hear
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Everyone's social media info canbe found in the show notes.
You guys have been awesome. Thank you so much for getting
withered with us. Should probably go drink your
milk now. Bye.
See you guys. Did we decide what's next, Mom?
(44:53):
Oh no, I forgot. Oh my, I'm sorry.
Let's do that live. Let's do it live.
We did structures. What's next?
Is it item? Because I think we did mob.
We did structures. It's either Biome or items.
Yeah, whichever you want to go for real.
Let's do items. I like the idea of doing the
Mace. I have ideas already on how to
(45:16):
change the Mace even though I'venever gotten to play with one so
I would I want some more weapon style things.
They've kind of beat you on the saddle and.
Yeah, Spyglass, Mace and I keep wanting to do wind charge, but I
was trying to break it up and not do a lot of trial ruin type
(45:38):
stuff or trial chamber. Let's do smithing templates.
OK, Yeah, I have some ideas for smithing templates.
That's not specific to smithing templates, but how you can
implement them differently. And we're back in the room.
So next month, duds, what are wedoing for the next vote?
I just told you, oh, you want todo it for the show now?
(46:01):
Got to do the edit. Come on dude.
It's been a long day. So, duds, what are we doing for
the next vote? I'm going to keep saying it
until you answer the question. So duds what we do for the next
vote.