Angry Birds and the Plea for Laziness

Did you guys know there is an angry birds movie coming out?! Raise your hand if you’re excited!! What no hands? What? Was the first “Angry Birds” movie that you didn’t see not good enough for you? Was it the unnecessary plot too stupid? Was it because it had absolutely nothing to do with the game? Have you lost interest with this introduction because I still haven’t gotten to the point? Omg same. 

But yeah there is a second Angry Birds movie coming out. It’s going to be awful because not only is it an animated sequel of a bad movie, Sony animation is involved, and some of the voice cast form the last one didn’t even want to return. If that is not the unholy trinity for a shitty sequel, I don’t know what is. 

So the movie is done and I can imagine it’s going to underperform because there has been literally no advertisement. But I wanted to take a moment and plead about simplicity. Movies that leech off the property of already existing TV shows or video games aren’t doing any service to the franchise. They are there because in almost all cases the property is running out of ideas and money. Recently it seems like a shot in the dark hoping that your reboot will succeed or fail, but I don’t think it needs to be taking a property and making a movie can be fairly simple as long as you include one thing. A Prophecy. 

Prophecies are wonderful things. They are a really simple concept that almost anyone can understand, plus they are always always a catalyst for “something bigger”. Take Mario for example. He’s been jumping on Bowser’s face and saving the day for over 30 years now.  It’s a concept we all understand. But what if there was a prophecy foretelling a bigger threat in a far off land? Now we have Mario traveling somewhere new in an organic fashion, and the usual dynamic gets shaken up a little. Everyone involved has to be on their toes now that the situation is unpredictable. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. This is essentially what happens in “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door” for the Nintendo Gamecube. The plot consists of constant twists and turns that ultimately end in a betrayal. It’s a great game and a wonderful example of using recognizable concepts to tell unique stories by simply adding a few extra new elements to the story. (p.s. “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door” starts off with a Prophecy. Just saying.)

Prophecies do a good job at carrying significance, but at the same time they don’t actually mean anything. “The Simpsons Movie” a prophecy brought to light when Grandpa Simpson yells it out in church, but the idea is completely dropped 20 minutes later  so they can drop a dome over Springfield. In this situation,  The Prophecy gives the characters the information they should be wary of, then is not spoken of after because it is only the catalyst. It doesn’t serve any other purpose and has no reason to stick around or continue to be mentioned. 

My favorite version of a prophecy without any real significance in William Shakespeare’s “MacBeth”. Where the The Weird sister’s prediction eventually lead Macbeth to his demise despite the fact that if Macbeth would have ignored the reading all along, nothing would have happened. The way MacBeth is given a glimpse of a possible future for himself instantly forces the character to show their intentions in a very simple manor. It could highlight someone’s vanity or fear of death. Not because you tired hard to set up a complicated character, but because you just put some dumb lady with a glowing orb in front of them for 5 minutes. It has the veiled complexity of time travel, without all the stupid nonsense of time travel. 

In “The Lego Movie”, our prophecy was completely made up in order to buy Morgan Freeman more time. It led to a story about a character trusting his own abilities and it was awesome. In “South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut” it was simply a method to introduce The Devil as a character. The Prophecy has countless uses and quite often very effective when moving things along. A prophecy is, without a doubt, the easiest and most effective tool to use when you are reviving a series or bringing a familiar concept to the big screen

Video games and TV shows with clear tropes and patterns are very hard to feel like they belong on the silver screen. So stop trying so hard. Seriously. You’re ruining it for everyone. Use a Prophecy to get things going and watch how easily everything else in your shitty cash grab flows together. 

I’ll let you take my amazing advice for free today, but just know that next time, it’ll cost ya.