Top 6 Greatest Minecraft Creations

I'm not sure if there's not much point in making this post because I'm guessing that at most only about eight or so people I know would read this and find it interesting. So to those eight people, this post is made just for you. I hope you like it.

#6 Halnicholas' USS Enterprise

The reason I put this up first is because it was the first Minecraft creation that left my mouth hanging open because it was so huge (safe). This was made when Minecraft was still in Alpha (though the creation is made in Classic) so this was before people had crazy mods and stuff to design massive epic structures. I think this was the first project of its scale ever made. An early milestone of Minecraft creations.

#5 Minecraft Cathedral by 'Sunflower'

Original forum thread and more images here. (I think the server on which this is built is still open to public).

The guy who built this (I'm guessing it was a dude) writes that he is a 'field expert in historical architectural theory and design' and that this cathedral takes inspiration from 'from Chartres, Amiens, Rouen, and Notre Dame de' Paris, and my experience studying and designing churches in real life'. This is quite a believable claim, looking at how intricately detailed both the interior and exterior of this cathedral is. It's worthy of note that this is designed using the original Minecraft texture pack, which is quite impressive considering its limited colour palette and tones compared to say, Painterly.

#4 Kiershar's Sky Monster Trap



There are two ways to play Minecraft: Creative and Survival. While Creative creations are generally much more interesting and impressive, there's something to be said for Kiershar's survival creations. Doing everything legitly with no mods on single player, he makes all kinds of clever and amazing traps for mobs and other players. This sky monster trap is the most impressive creation he's made so far though his devious traps to ensnare unwitting players are also definitely worth a look.

#3 FVDisco's Temple of Notch



Of all the Minecraft creations I've seen, this guy's creations, without a doubt, have got the most style. What sets this guy apart is his quirky and unique sense of design. He uses his own texture pack named 'OCD' which is changes all the textures to solid colours, straight lines and 90 degree angles. All his creations are compulsively neat, smartly presented and for lack of a better word, very, very groovy. If Minecraft creations were computer products, this guy would be Apple.

The video above is a prime example of why he's so cool. On my first viewing when the Notch statue opened its eyes I shat myself.

#2



Because every list needs a troll entry.

#1 The Voxel Box


It's not really right that I'm putting everything made by the Voxel Box server as one listing because really, this could be a list of top 5 Voxel Box creations. This is a very dedicated community of creative builders who build pretty much everything from towns, theme parks and crazy redstone devices. Their stated goal is to 'push the limits of what Minecraft can deliver to builders and players'. They also recently released an adventure map which is really amazing. It uses a mod that adds in custom sounds for atmospheric music and voiceovers.









And I just realised that this post completely contradicts the first sentence of my previous post.

The Thin Red Line

I've managed to pick up movie watching again as a slightly more constructive study-reward habit than Minecraft. I'm really glad I did because the three movies I've watched in the past week or so are some of the best I've seen all year (which doesn't really mean anything because I don't see movies in the same year they're released). Those movies are Minority Report, Being John Malkovich and The Thin Red Line. I just finished watching The Thin Red Line ten minutes ago so I'll write a few things. I'm typing this on my iPod so I won't write a lot.

The Thin Red Line is a movie portraying the Pacific theatre of World War II. It came out around the same time as Saving Private Ryan did and it's quite tempting to make comparisons. I'd say that this movie is more ambitious than Spielberg's in that it tries to encapsulate more completely what war is about. Whereas Saving Private Ryan told a story about one particular group of men on a mission, this movie dwells on a larger ensemble of characters and often alternates between different perspectives.

Often you judge a war movie by how horrific and gritty it is. While this movie certainly does do this, more amazing is how much of a sense of loss you feel after each violent episode. Terrence Malick (director) has this trademark where he likes to break down the events into a montage while the protagonist voices philosophical questions like 'Where did our evil come from?' and 'Who is killing us?'. Sometimes the film gets very reflective and you're at a loss at what it's trying to say. There are times when the film lingers on images that are beautiful but kind of come out of nowhere. I think they are there to prolong the mood of a scene in order to signal to us that something profound lies underneath. There is one character, Private Whit (I think) who is the closest thing we get to a protagonist and his belief that there is goodness in humanity that is being carelessly discarded becomes an important theme in the film.

Well anyway this was a great movie and I'm glad I decided to see it. Its quite unlike any other war movie I've seen.

(500) Days of Summer

Right at the beginning of (500) Days of Summer, a deep-voiced narrator tells us what the movie will be about:

'This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know upfront, this is not a love story.'

The movie is about a guy called Tom who falls in love with Summer, dates her, gets dumped by her and spends the rest of the movie trying to get over it.

The reason for the popularity of this movie, I believe, is how easy it is to relate to. A lot of guys could empathise with the idea of loving a girl so much but being mystified at how she can’t return it. The other reason is that it deals with this feeling gracefully in a very light-hearted and enjoyable way. I wish that if I was put in the same situation as Tom, I could be just as witty and likeable.

It's a great movie because it takes an approach to the feeling of heartbreak that is humorous but true to the feelings involved. Tom's anguish appears genuine but the film takes every chance to make light of his situation. The balance between drama and comedy is helped a lot by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance which is really great.

There is also a lot of exciting editing in this film. The director (Marc Webb, who previously directed music videos) stated that he wanted this film to be like a 'pop song in movie form' and we see this in the use of split-screens, the narrating voice-over and the non-chronological sequence held together by 'Day X'- type title cards. It's all designed to be choppy, exciting and highly palatable to a modern audience. In fact, I think Webb is a bit critical about the relevance of 'serious art' for being so esoteric and inaccessible to most of society. My evidence is a scene in a modern art gallery, and a short montage of scenes parodying some Ingmar Bergmann films.

The cinematography's great too. I can’t describe it technically but it has a nostalgic tone to it and alternates between very warm and very cool. On IMDb it says that the bluish tones are there to bring out Zooey Deschanel’s pretty pretty eyes, which is nice.

If I had a choice of the kinds of movies I'd like to see more of, it'd be movies like these. Not necessarily important or challenging movies, but clever enjoyable movies that tell important truths through lives not very different to our own.

(Normally I should be posting this on the other blog, though since both are inactive right now I'd thought I'd revive this one first. And also because people asked for this on this blog.)