“The Minecraft Movie” is unlike any other movie in recent memory, and that’s not because it is ‘peak cinema’, although there are many who believe it is. Its uniqueness is a result of the movie’s social influence.

For a month or more before I watched the movie, I had seen countless videos of funny clips from the trailers and previews, replaying and quoting things like ‘chicken jockey’ or ‘The Nether’, which had rapidly become a very popular and funny trend.

The consensus between my friends and I, as well as likely much of the movie’s viewer base, was that it would likely be a half-baked, low effort, money grab by some greedy film executives.

Despite that shared understanding, hype began to grow around it because of these trends, which, over time, grew on me and about everybody I knew until it was quite regular for people to randomly utter ‘flint and steel’ in the middle of a conversation. The best part was that, most of the time, everybody laughed.

Those jokes, as dumb as they may have been, made it much easier for the movie’s target demographic to fall in love with it before they even watched it. That demographic was mainly Gen-Z and Millennials, some who once played the game “Minecraft” and others who still do.

Finally walking into the theater after spending weeks waiting for the movie to release was its own experience.

The theater had Minecraft drawings on the glass doors and windows in and around the entrance. On the inside, there was “Minecraft” merchandise and drinks. 

Everywhere I looked there were groups of young adults, kids, teens, and even grown men and women who were going to experience “The Minecraft Movie” in theaters, nearly every individual theater in the cinema was showing that same movie all day.

Walking into my individual theater where I would be seeing the movie, I was shocked by the population of the room, despite probably eight or nine other rooms premiering the movie, a whole week after release, this one was packed.

For now though, as the movie started, a “Minecraft” animation popped up, and the audience’s reaction to that gave me the first dose of what makes this movie one of the best I’ve seen in theatres.

The crowd, of many different ages and walks of life, cheered in unity – and they weren’t quiet about it either.

As the film went on, the cheers did too. 

At a midpoint in the movie, I had to use the restroom, so I quickly left and returned to the theater stadium. In that short time, I heard cheers from three different theaters.

Eventually, the infamous ‘chicken jockey’ scene came, which has become internationally notorious for being the point in the movie where watchers go absolutely crazy. Popcorn flies across the theatre, people stand on each other’s shoulders and make chicken noises, occasionally, people even smuggle chickens into theaters for this moment.

While there were no live farm animals in my experience, there was still a very loud ‘CHICKEN JOCKEY!’ from the crowd, and popcorn was thrown across the theater.

Leaving the theater, I felt an unexpectedly deep appreciation for not only “Minecraft” itself, a game and brand I heavily grew up on, but also the community around it who made the experience of the movie, and the game before it, so special. 

That feeling is a testament that the heart of the “Minecraft” brand is not in a game, movie, or company, but in the community that has made it what it is: a pillar of Gen-Z culture and childhood.