A Minecraft Movie is taking the box office by storm, but many seem to be forgetting that it’s not just based on one game: it takes inspiration from all the different spin-offs from Minecraft , as well.
There are more than a few different -up titles to Minecraft, including Minecraft Dungeons , Minecraft Legends , Minecraft: Story Mode , and the now-defunct Minecraft Earth. We were able to catch some references and nods to these games multiple times throughout the movie, and it’s possible you missed some of them.
8 Boots of Swiftness
Gotta go fast!
One object of great importance to the plot of the film is the Boots of Swiftness, but unless you’re playing with mods or some pretty hefty commands and cheats, these are not able to be found anywhere in the open worlds of Minecraft.
The Boots of Swiftness are actually an item lifted from the 2020 action-adventure game Minecraft Dungeons, allowing the wearer to temporarily double their movement speed on command. Being able to put them on an Iron Golem and give him superpowers is not a feature in Dungeons, however.
7 Orb of Dominance
That's a cube
They make a pretty big deal about the «Orb of Dominance» in the movie, which allows humans to traverse different dimensions. This may seem odd at first, given that there’s no item similar to that in the original game (beacons do look a bit similar, though), but it’s actually a deep-cut that appears in both Dungeons and Legends.
The Orb of Dominance acts as a major plot device in both games, with the main antagonist of Minecraft Dungeons using it to summon enemies and monsters, while the Seer from Minecraft: Legends uses it to create the Night Beacon (but more on that later).
6 Piglin Variants
Oink?
There are a lot of different Piglins in this film, and most of them are not a part of the average adventure to the Nether in classic vanilla Minecraft. In fact, a lot of the Piglins in the movie are pulled from various Minecraft spin-offs.
Piglins that are dual-wielding weapons, boasting a much larger size than their other companions, or seeming oddly well-equipped for being baby members of the troop, are all references to various Piglin enemies in the spin-offs. There are even a few of the Piglin bosses that make appearances in the movie, and we’re not talking about Chungus.
5 The Unbreakable
He's going by a different name these days.
The Great Hog is actually a character from Minecraft: Legends, but there are a few differences in the film that lead us to believe that we’re actually seeing a different boss enemy from the game: The Unbreakable.
The Great Hog is the leader of the Piglin army in the game, but in the film he’s more of a big brute enemy with a gold cauldron wrapped around his fist. This design is nearly identical to The Unbreakable, a sub-boss from Legends, and his move set is pretty familiar as well.
4 The Night Beacon (Legends)
A one-way ticket to the piglands
Turns out the whole «cover the world in darkness with a big evil beacon on a Nether portal» idea wasn’t just some random story they made up for the movie; it’s from one of the main missions in Minecraft: Legends.
The Night Beacon is a base in Minecraft Legends that uses the power of the Orb of Dominance to create an ever-lasting night sky (sound familiar?), and is attached to a huge Nether portal underneath it. While the movie didn’t quite do the original base’s scale and difficulty justice, it still made for a good finale to the film.
3 Piglin Raids (Legends)
Who rang the town bell?!
Illager raids are a common (and difficult) nuisance in the world of Minecraft, but you never actually see an army of Piglins attack an innocent village full of people in the game. The movie’s depiction of a Piglin raid is actually a callback to the plot of Minecraft: Legends.
In Legends, Piglins are waging a war to take over the Overworld, and many of your encounters with the attacking armies take the form of protecting villages from the onslaughts of porky enemies. That being said, even Minecraft: Legends doesn’t have the Piglins carried on Ghast-blimps.
2 Redstone Mines (Dungeons)
The cactus dispensers still don't make sense
Finding a cave full of one specific type of ore is completely unheard of in the original Minecraft, but the Redstone Mines seen in the film are actually a location pulled from the hack-n-slash levels of Minecraft Dungeons.
The Redstone Mines are the fifth location that players will visit on their journey across the Overworld, explaining how Steve was able to designate a single location as a pure source of redstone (we can’t explain the Creeper farm, though, seeing as there are no cats nearby).
1 Malgosha is The Seer (Legends)
Her name is way scarier in the movie
It might be fair to argue that A Minecraft Movie actually should have been called A Minecraft: Legends Movie, because they pull a lot of the overall plot from the often-forgotten RTS game (although, it’s not like Minecraft had a ton of story elements to work with).
Malgosha, the film’s brutal antagonist, is clearly a renamed version of The Seer from Minecraft: Legends. Both of them are evil Piglin magicians, who wield the Orb of Dominance in order to create and power the Night Beacon to take over the verworld. I don’t remember anything about the Seer dancing in a talent show, though.
