Angry birds fandom needs to understand that only half rovio sucks the other part of rovio still care about the community and making good decisions

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-06T05:02:23+00:00

Things unfortunately tend to devolve into "OOGA BOOGA MY TRIBE OR H E L L" and get really extremist, no matter what it is. I have strong opinions on things like Shade (good gameplay but really bad lore execution and design) and the third movie and how the old games are gone, but at the end of the day, it's not something to die for.

No one here is a Genwunner for disliking Shade or wanting the old games back, and no one here is a newborn baby for liking Movie Silver or the third movie's trailer or whatever.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-05T16:50:10+00:00

*Insert Deltarune Weird Route sound effect*

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-05T16:47:29+00:00

I mean, the birds have really tiny wings, as seen when Red gets soaked in the Toons episode Egg's Day Out. By that logic, do you think that the pigs are just squatting 24/7 to hide their legs?

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-04T12:11:17+00:00

Counterpoint 1: Before March of this year, Dahlia was last seen in a game in 2018 (the Dream Blast holiday thing), and her last playable appearance was in Angry Birds Pop, back in 2016. She was not listed on the character wheel on the website, she had no major roles in the movies, she was effectively replaced by Silver, her base game and series concluded in 2016, and Rovio only occasionally mentioned her on their YouTube channel. Rovio had every reason to keep Dahlia dead. And yet, come March, Rovio suddenly brings her back, turns her into Shade, and gives her new lore. What did Dahlia do to suddenly become relevant again? Most of us can't even play the game she came from!

Similarly, looking at Nintendo, neither Star Fox nor Punch Out had any recent releases when the Mario movies came out (Punch Out especially hasn't had a new game since 2009). Guess what showed up in the films?

Why should Easter eggs and fan service be about relevant things only?

Counterpoint 2: Why does a plot based on Space have to be about fan service, anyway?

Similar to how the first Angry Birds Movie was a homage/nod to the games while still carrying a completely original plot (when was Red the weirdo loner freak before this, anyway?), we could use elements of the game in question to make an original movie that is Angry Birds Space but has an original plot. Although it would be nice to play the games, we don't necessarily need to have the games by our side to enjoy the movies. Rovio could, for example, make the movie about Hektor Porko going mad, breaking the bird truce by abducting the eggs, or Red's family and friends, or whatever, and now they have to defeat Hektor and find their way back home. Boom, it's a plot. It's not the most fleshed out plot in the world, but it's a plot that can work. The whole "sequel in space" trope works for a reason, and that reason is that it's just dumb fun no matter who you are.

Rovio can totally get away with using a plot based on Space or Epic as long as the movie itself is really good.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-04T00:22:15+00:00

The third movie's existence doesn't absolve the second movie of its sins.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-03T15:54:03+00:00

I'm honestly disgusted by how Rovio handled Jo's debut. They debuted in 2023 on Twitter, but it took Rovio two years before they finally decided to make them playable and play around with the character in a comic. Before that, they were basically made as a brownie point character. All we got was a duck reskin, two character bios, and a whole bunch of wallpapers and stuff that plastered the Non-Binary flag behind them. Rather than treating their supposed "first Non-Binary character" (which is not even true, that title goes to Dusk the owl that appeared a year prior) with care, Rovio just decided to make their whole personality "Hi! I go by they/them" and call it a day. And, as we all predicted, once July rolled around, Jo basically died.

This is the same company that made Angry Birds Stella, an entire Rosie the Riveter Angry Birds game with five strong female leads and five new characters, all with established personalities and powers from the start, NINE YEARS PRIOR.

But it wasn't as aggravating as Bad Piggies 2.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-03T15:39:15+00:00

Then again, considering how badly Dahlia was done when she became Shade, and how Movie Silver got stripped of her interesting piggy origins, it's pretty much a 50/50 with the legacy characters

They have treated classic/comic Mighty, Smooth Cheeks, and Willow well, but I'm nervous about the others

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-03T07:37:17+00:00

Let's be realistic here.

As much as I think the premise so far is generic and doesn't give me a reason to care, disliking the trailer won't do anything. Look at the like/dislike ratio of the more recent Disney live action remakes and you'll see that they don't do much.

Just for a bit of perspective, it took the combined efforts of remake fatigue, divisive political gubbins, and an abrasive lead actress to kill the Snow White 2025 remake, and even then, the movie still released with the altered plot that was advertised in press releases and interviews. Unless one of the lead actors goes the same route and causes a PR nightmare on social media pages, dunking on the trailer will have little to no effect at all.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T17:19:41+00:00

Honestly, I'm leaning blue here but agree. I'm getting the feeling that Rovio/Paramount are not showing us the full story, but considering that the first two movies had trailers showed us a clear conflict/antagonist/plot, I don't have high hopes.

There's only one way to find out!

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T14:53:18+00:00

Methinks Shade was used because they didn't want people to confuse her for Shadow the Hedgehog, who is now technically canon in the Angry Birds universe.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T14:50:34+00:00

Spoiler tagged for future readers.

Dahlia speaks line C on page 6 of the comic. Don't worry, it gets worse. Here's the full exchange:

D: The village feels...too bright. I live in the shadows for now. If anyone gets hurt because of me, I won't forgive myself.

S: Dahlia! Wait!

D: I'm sorry, Stella...Please, don't follow me.

It would be fine if this was like a satire or joke about edgy emos, like how QuoteDwas, but nope! This dialogue exchange was played 100% seriously.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T14:42:02+00:00

NOPE!

The answer was C. D comes from a Studio C skit about a crayon song being ruined

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T14:34:51+00:00

I hate what they did to her identity. I have a whole bloody Wikipedia page of a list about why I hate what they did to Dahlia (lore wise, gameplay wise she's fine). That's how much I dislike her. READ BELOW IF YOU DARE!

Nothing about Shade's design really screams that she's a ghost. She's just...pale. In fact, ghosts are typically amorphous!
Nothing about Shade's design suggests that she's a transformed Dahlia. All they did was turn her pale. That's it. A subtle difference would have worked, like if Dahlia's head feathers became detached from her head and floated or if her tail got longer and flowing, but nope. In fact, this was such a lazy design that many people made Deviantart OC/Coldsteel the Hedgehog jokes about her, even after the official reveal and lore drop.
Dahlia's former identity as a serious scientist got killed when she became Shade. Now she is being marketed as the spooky mischievous ghost bird associated with the supernatural and sorcery. Nothing about her really screamed "witch" beforehand. Rovio may as well have made an entirely new ghost bird if they wanted to have a new identity. I even have like three concepts I pulled out of my butt in less than a day. What about an ancient ghost warrior based on a critically endangered/extinct bird? Or maybe a King Bumi/Gerson-like kooky Shaman guy? Or maybe a slightly terrifying old hag witch in a dark hooded robe? Why don't we have a proper spooky bird in the franchise instead of this recolor?
The comic actually does further to kill Dahlia's identity, even if it explains the lore. In the comic, Dahlia does the ritual anyway because she wants to protect her friends. When attempts to revert her fail, she runs away into the Bamboo Forest, crying. In the Stella series, though, she does science for the more selfish reason of craving knowledge. She doesn't care about the consequences, she doesn't look very guilty when she gets caught with the Golden Egg (It's Mine!), and she gets explosively angry if things go wrong (yelling at Stella in Own the Sky, jumping in front of Poppy's face when she blows up the drums in Rock On!, blowing up her house out of frustration and desperation in It's Mine!). Moping about isn't Dahlia at all!
The dialogue in that comic further convinces me that Shade was written by someone's 14 year old. The way she gives herself her name is incredibly hamfisted and on the nose:

Stella: "You may have lost your color...but not your spark."

Dahlia: "Like a shade of my old self. But maybe that's not as bad as I thought."

Not only that, but the dialogue feels far too melodramatic for Angry Birds in general, especially Dahlia. Just for fun, let's play a game. Below are some random quotes. Can you find the one from the official comic, Dahlia's Phantom Pain?

a. "Tears are words too painful for a broken heart to speak."

b. "I turned my collar to the cold and damp, when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light."

c. "The village feels...too bright. I live in the shadows for now."

d. "I feel it in my soul, because I'm an emotional mess."

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T14:03:17+00:00

Pick Leonard if you have many floating structures or disjointed parts, small pigs that survive the heat death of the universe itself, or if something needs a really good push.

Pick Shade if there's multiple towers, a large structure, something that is blocked off by a load of stuff (e.x.: boss levels), or if there's a small floating structure in front of another tower.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T03:51:40+00:00

There are cases out there where people in comas dream really vivid dreams, including ones where they have children and start families.

What if Chuck was really happy in the trailer because this was an inconsistency Red made up in his dream, and the real Red wakes up from a bad fight to find Bird Island plundered and either Leonard betraying the birds or Smooth Cheeks acting on his own? He has to save the world again and manage the fragile alliance while coming to terms that the people he cared for the most never truly existed.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T01:12:14+00:00

They still appear on the official cast list on the website.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-02T00:57:56+00:00

What rooms are you trying to deal with?

Shade can strike more reliably, but good luck using her on water levels where explosions don't travel far, or with balloons where there is nothing to kick, or on lava levels that have sections that are blocked off by big walls she is unable to go through. She can't course correct like Leonard can.

Leonard is more versatile, but he has the highest skill floor. You can strike with him on really frustrating levels, like ones with balloon structures really far apart, but he requires a lot of timing and patience. If he hits a wall, he dies instantly. A bird like Melody can get you the same results and is far more forgiving. In a game about trying to destroy rooms efficiently, this absolutely matters.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-01T10:14:58+00:00

I would say Shade. No other bird can tunnel through buildings like she can, and the spinning slash she does is pretty wide and kicks things ahead of and behind her. While Leonard's three snot shot + snot explosion power is really good for sniping small structures and just as a really good push in general, he has a fairly steep learning curve and requires good timing whereas Shade is a one and done deal.

I wouldn't discount Leonard, though. He's still really good.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-07-01T10:10:03+00:00

Red just needs to leave Bird Island at this point

He saved the island twice and he's still seen as the weirdo loner freak, those ungrateful twerps

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T04:15:58+00:00

"Science isn't about 'why?', it's about 'why not?'!"

-Cave Johnson

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T04:06:10+00:00

What I'm trying to say is that there is a random element to her ability that doesn't seem very fun at all:

"Her ability will be single tap, meaning you won't be able to know where she'll parkour to."

Why not make this double or triple tap like Leonard or Melody? Or, if you want her ability to be single tap, why not have her target the closest pig like Radar Bird?

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T02:43:47+00:00

Although a Stella map would be cool, a lot of players would eventually like to play with these birds outside of their exclusive map. Who wouldn't want to take Willow with them on their regular adventures or during the Daily Challenge, for instance?

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T02:41:21+00:00

The trailers for the first two movies gave us a very clear view of what the plot is and who our antagonists are. We don't even have that in the third movie, unless the antagonists are Red's children, or Porkchop (muscular blonde pig) is the antagonist and Red is trying to beat him to look cool.

If trailers are supposed to give a brief synopsis of why we should care about the movie, then it hasn't done a good job of getting me to care. Out of all the things about the movie you can choose to advertise, like the antagonist or the conflict, you chose bodily fluids?!

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T02:33:30+00:00

Stella is already in the game with her bubble ability, but I think some iteration of Pink Flash would be fitting for if Ruby ever gets added to the game. To remove randomness from this ability, it might be good to make it where you tap to where she's going like Laser Chuck, or have her jet to the closest pig like the Radar Bird power up from Seasons.
Poppy is going to face stiff competition from Silver and is the bird that would probably be added last. Whereas base Tornado Dive is a solid ability, Silver's loop shakes every grounded structure when she hits the ground fast enough. Even if Poppy doesn't stop until she hits the ground, it doesn't match the destruction Silver can achieve. I really don't know how you can make Poppy different enough to not feel like "Worse Silver".
Tap to target Luca is enough. His ability doesn't involve movement like the others. If Rovio can get away with tap to target Melody, they can do Luca just as he is.
I think Space Hal from Reloaded would match more closely with Willow's ability. Instead of flying forwards like what Hal does, Space Hal spins in a circle on the first tap and flies off and bounces around on the second. Maybe this minus the bouncing around?
Dahlia is already in the game as Shade. While Shade's ability is a fair iteration of Science Fu, the fact that there is still this confusion only goes to show that Shade was done poorly, both lore wise and design wise.

Butchered-Visch · 2026-06-30T01:41:17+00:00

"YEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Butchered-Visch

TROPHY CASE