Video game movie adaptations have become very popular due to bringing popular characters that were cherished for their games to the movie screen. People enjoy showcasing the characters and the original plot, as well as adding their own twists from these adaptations. Most of these adaptations have been very successful, like the “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Detective Pikachu” and “Resident Evil.” That being said, others like the “Angry Birds” movies and “Alone in the Dark” have been less popular.
What mostly gets these movies very popular is their own trailers and sneak peeks of content before these movies make their first appearance; “The Sonic 3” movie and the “Minecraft Movie” have released their own trailers.
The Sonic 3 Movie trailer is an example of a good movie adaptation trailer, which came out on Aug. 27, 2024, showcasing a multitude of new content that made the Sonic community go bonkers. The important part of this trailer shows the most recent video game character coming to this movie series, Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow is a popular character in the Sonic franchise, known to be The Ultimate Lifeform and an important rival of Sonic during “Sonic Adventure 2.”
The team working on the movie did a great job of reintroducing him in the trailer, describing his battle against Sonic and his role in the plot. He is seen as a broken antagonist in the trailer compared to his appearance in Sonic Adventure 2. This is shown in one of the scenes in the trailer where he first encounters Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Shadow easily starts attacking all three of them just a few seconds after he says his line, “You’re a colorful bunch.”
The trailer also showed more of SA2’s lore, showcasing Shadow’s past on seeing his best friend Maria die with a new twist of Dr. Gerald Robotnik, a character brought back to life. This trailer single-handedly carried the movie and made Sonic fans more eager to watch it when it came out.
On the other hand, the trailer of “A Minecraft Movie” is probably an example of a bad movie adaptation trailer; it received a lot of negative backlash from the media and fans.
The designs for the mobs from the game appearing in the movie look ugly such as the sheep, the Piglin, and the Lambs. The characters in the movie did not fit well for the adaptation including the most popular Minecraft character, Steve. This is shown when the main characters are shown to not be animated as the block-by-block body from the original game during the movie and appear as humans.
Besides that, other flaws include the possible plot being very hard to conceptualize and the main antagonists’ incongruity with the gamer. These antagonists, the piglins, are shown as hostile mobs in the games, but they aren’t as important in the game as implied by the trailer. I dislike the trailer for not showing any signs of the final antagonists like the Warden and the Ender Dragon, culminating in a rather disappointing movie. However, I can say some of the mobs’ appearances, such as the Wolf, the Ghasts and the iconic Creeper, were nice. With all the negativity aside, the Minecraft community is also seemingly eager to see the movie coming into theaters.
In conclusion, what makes a video game adaptation trailer is its advertisement, adding the important plot events, and the movie trailer’s overall quality.
