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Why should the Morbuzakh story have been included in LoMN?


fishers64

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Title says it all. Go forth!

 

(Also, I think it's worth noting that nobody complained about the Bara Magna background being left out of TLR. Or the Bohrok-Kal being left out of MoL. Or the Krahka-Sidorak Tower-Tahtorak-Zivion battle being left out of WoS (okay, fine, I heard a little bit of that, but not a lot.). I don't know why the Morbuzak thing is such a stickler, but I keep on hearing that it should have been there, and that it's omission was a really bad thing.)

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Yeah, if they did add the Morbuzakh story, it would have crowded out Makuta, the Dark Hunters, and the Vahki. I think it was still a great movie without it.

 

What I don't like, however, is some of the lines about the Great Disks that ignore that they're more than trinkets. I'm not sure how they could have been amended, though.

 

Keep in mind there was no Morbuzakh set.

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I don't think there's anything wrong with the movie not being about the Morbuzakh, because the movie was not about the Morbuzakh. What did bother me is how the Morbuzakh wasn't ever really mentioned at all. The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

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I see no reason why it should have been, and several for why it shouldn't:

 

- Too many villains. There's already Vahki, Dark Hunters and eventually Makuta himself for the Toa to face.

 

- Impossible to fit into the running time. The movie is rather rushed even without it.

 

- Beyond trying to herd the Matoran into the island's centre, the Morbuzakh has no long-term significance to the plot.

 

 

 

Or the Bohrok-Kal being left out of MoL.

 

The Kal have no relevance to the Mask of Light story.

 

 

 

The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

 

They didn't get any chance to. Dume declared them impostors, blamed them for Lhikan's disappearance (which Vakama denied), then ordered their arrest, after which the Vahki attacked which left half of them imprisoned and the other on the run. At what point could they have told the whole Morbuzakh story to anyone?

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The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

They didn't get any chance to. Dume declared them impostors, blamed them for Lhikan's disappearance (which Vakama denied), then ordered their arrest, after which the Vahki attacked which left half of them imprisoned and the other on the run. At what point could they have told the whole Morbuzakh story to anyone?
I was more confused by the toa's reaction to Dume not accepting the disks. 'what a waste'? They Saved The City, sorta... In the context of the film alone this made sense but Greg could at least have cleared it up in the book.
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The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

 

They didn't get any chance to. Dume declared them impostors, blamed them for Lhikan's disappearance (which Vakama denied), then ordered their arrest, after which the Vahki attacked which left half of them imprisoned and the other on the run. At what point could they have told the whole Morbuzakh story to anyone?

Not exactly. If I remember correctly, the Toa were allowed to walk up to the Turaga, and they had a whole little chat (before they started being thrown around by those pillars and branded traitors), during which (like northmarch mentioned) they treated the disks as if they didn't and never had had any purpose. It's not necessarily that they didn't say anything--none of them even thought of bringing it up when Dume was demanding that they prove their worth as Toa.

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I see no reason why it should have been, and several for why it shouldn't:

 

- Too many villains. There's already Vahki, Dark Hunters and eventually Makuta himself for the Toa to face.

 

- Impossible to fit into the running time. The movie is rather rushed even without it.

 

- Beyond trying to herd the Matoran into the island's centre, the Morbuzakh has no long-term significance to the plot.

This. I was kind of disappointed with it being left out, but the movie would've stretched too long for my liking.

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I wonder, what did the Matoran think defeated the Morbuzakh?

 

Matoran: We are free! I wonder who could have defeated that evil plant?

 

Makuta: It was the Vahki! Our efforts have finally defeated the Morbuzakh. See? Trust in me, and you will all be safe.

 

Matoran: The Vahki? You mean the robots the Morbuzakh has been tearing apart like paper the whole time?

 

Makuta: ...

"You are an absolute in these uncertain times. Your past is forgotten, and your
future is an empty book. You must find your own destiny, my brave adventurer.
"
-- Turaga Nokama

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The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

 

They didn't get any chance to. Dume declared them impostors, blamed them for Lhikan's disappearance (which Vakama denied), then ordered their arrest, after which the Vahki attacked which left half of them imprisoned and the other on the run. At what point could they have told the whole Morbuzakh story to anyone?

Not exactly. If I remember correctly, the Toa were allowed to walk up to the Turaga, and they had a whole little chat (before they started being thrown around by those pillars and branded traitors), during which (like northmarch mentioned) they treated the disks as if they didn't and never had had any purpose. It's not necessarily that they didn't say anything--none of them even thought of bringing it up when Dume was demanding that they prove their worth as Toa.

 

Okay, that's a good point. The only real explanation is that within the movie's condensed version of the '04 story, all the Toa had achieved up until then was finding the Great Discs, whereas in the full story they'd done a heck of a lot more (battling and defeating the Morbuzakh, plus finding the missing Matoran and encountering Krahka). The movie could only have had the Toa bringing this stuff up (and have it make sense to viewers) if it'd been included in its version, and it wasn't.

Edited by Sir Kohran
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The Morbuzahk was pretty much the worst "villain" in Bionicle, being only slightly better than the nebulous "virus" from RoboRiders. It was unbuildable, had next to no personality, and basically only existed as "filler" to occupy the Toa Metru until the Matoran traitor was revealed and the Vahki and Dark Hunters (the real villains of the 2004 story) were properly introduced later in the year. Sure, the Morbuzahk and its defeat by the Great Disks canonically would have taken place during Legends of Metru Nui, but ultimately LoMN was a better movie for glossing over them.

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Yeah, the Morbuzakh was filler. I forgive LEGO for that because it still had great interactions between the Toa, showed us what daily life in Metru Nui was like by comparing it to life after the Morbuzakh appeared, and the epic Great Furnace battle.

"You are an absolute in these uncertain times. Your past is forgotten, and your
future is an empty book. You must find your own destiny, my brave adventurer.
"
-- Turaga Nokama

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I think the reason people complain is mostly because the Toa don't really have much reason to find the Great Disks in the movie. The Morbuzakh was their only motive for finding them. Also, the Morbuzakh was a bit bigger than those other complaints you sorta listed at the bottom. Nothing really happened (or, at least, nothing notable enough for me to remember) in the early part of Bara Magna, and the story was told from Mata Nui's perspective. The Kal were stupid and really lame sets, and had no relation at all to the Mask of Light (weren't they a few months apart?). Those battles would have been epic in WoS, except that the movie was pretty much all action and not much plot anyway. More action would have dragged it down even further. Also, those fights weren't really as big as the whole Morbuzakh thing; I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought all of 2004 was going to be about stopping the Morbuzakh way back when. That all said, I doubt they could have worked the darn plant into the movie in any way that would help it. I'm sure the limit was always going to be around 75 minutes, and the movie was pretty quick-paced as is.

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Title says it all. Go forth!

 

(Also, I think it's worth noting that nobody complained about the Bara Magna background being left out of TLR. Or the Bohrok-Kal being left out of MoL. Or the Krahka-Sidorak Tower-Tahtorak-Zivion battle being left out of WoS (okay, fine, I heard a little bit of that, but not a lot.). I don't know why the Morbuzak thing is such a stickler, but I keep on hearing that it should have been there, and that it's omission was a really bad thing.)

Most likely reason why this is such a "stickler" is because there was a large period of time in between the time the Toa Metru became toa and when they went to the Coliseum to present the Great Disk to Turaga Dume. People probably felt like Lego left a really large gap in between the two events.

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The Bara Magna background wouldn't have made the movie more interesting to most people, and the Bohrok-Kal had no reason to be in Mask of Light - the story is everything directly after that.

 

I do believe that the Morbuzakh would have been great in a movie, but not in Legends of Metru Nui. It would reduce the significance of the storyline afterward. The Morbuzakh would require a significant portion of the movie, which would segment it - you'd have the first third, fighting the Morbuzakh, then the rest. It would downplay the significance of Makuta, who is the most important character in the story (due to his role on Mata Nui - the movie is the story being told by Turaga Vakama).

 

 

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The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

 

They didn't get any chance to. Dume declared them impostors, blamed them for Lhikan's disappearance (which Vakama denied), then ordered their arrest, after which the Vahki attacked which left half of them imprisoned and the other on the run. At what point could they have told the whole Morbuzakh story to anyone?

Not exactly. If I remember correctly, the Toa were allowed to walk up to the Turaga, and they had a whole little chat (before they started being thrown around by those pillars and branded traitors), during which (like northmarch mentioned) they treated the disks as if they didn't and never had had any purpose. It's not necessarily that they didn't say anything--none of them even thought of bringing it up when Dume was demanding that they prove their worth as Toa.

 

Okay, that's a good point. The only real explanation is that within the movie's condensed version of the '04 story, all the Toa had achieved up until then was finding the Great Discs, whereas in the full story they'd done a heck of a lot more (battling and defeating the Morbuzakh, plus finding the missing Matoran and encountering Krahka). The movie could only have had the Toa bringing this stuff up (and have it make sense to viewers) if it'd been included in its version, and it wasn't.

 

Well, I've watched the Coliseum scene again and even when they meet Dume I'd still say they don't really get the chance to mention defeating the Morbuzakh. All the chat consists of is Dume chastising Vakama for not finishing the Vahi, the Toa showing off the Great Discs, Dume dismissing them, then him lifting off in his throne to address the Matoran and begin the 'sea of Protodermis' challenge. The Toa hardly get a word in.

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I would agree with several people who have posted before me in that while it would have been really awesome to have some Morbuzahk action in the movie, the more important part for them to put in the movie (story-wise) was the whole Makuta thing.

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The whole Morbuzakh plot could have been its own movie, really.

There was probably enough content to make it its own movie, but I don't know that it would have made a very GOOD movie. While there was a certain amount of intrigue involved, there wasn't any kind of unified emotional journey that was resolved at the end or any kind of meaningful lesson that helped the Toa Metru win the final battle against the Morbuzakh. Rather, they won based on a spur-of-the-moment decision on Vakama's part, after they had already exhausted every other option.

 

I suppose you could try and rewrite that half of the year's story as a story of the Toa Metru learning to trust Vakama's visions and leadership, but then you'd have the odd question of why the Toa Metru are going on a deadly scavenger hunt if they don't actually believe in what their leader has instructed them to do. And that's still not nearly as compelling a story as Legends of Metru Nui, in which the Toa Metru discover what being a hero means to each of them as individuals, and in doing so unlock their mask powers.

 

I also think that the BIONICLE movies would have been less enjoyable as a series if there were a third of them where the final battle was won with a strategy of "everyone attack the villain at once". Especially when said villain was so much less complex and interesting than Makuta or Roodaka, so the victory would feel far less rewarding.

 

I have to say, later years of BIONICLE (as well as subsequent story themes like Hero Factory and Ninjago) did a good thing in avoiding that extremely tiresome method of conflict resolution, since there's nothing especially original about four to six heroes deciding to attack a villain all at once and all in the exact same way, particularly when they greatly outnumber said villain. Yet BIONICLE used slight variations of that method to resolve the final conflicts in 2001, 2002, the first half of 2003, both halves of 2004, and 2005. Unity is great and all, but having the heroes win by sheer force of numbers instead of by taking advantage of each team member's unique abilities and previous characterization results in a fairly bland conclusion where the heroes seem generic and interchangeable. The only character who ever stands out in these kind of critical moments is the one who comes up with the idea of what everyone else should be doing (e.g. Gali in the Bohrok-Kal arc or Vakama in the Morbuzakh arc).

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the Krahka-Sidorak Tower-Tahtorak-Zivion battle being left out of WoS

I now want a whole movie of this. But I think the Morbuzakh was shown when Vakama got his disk. As it wasn't a set, it makes sense to downplay its importance.

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  • 1 month later...

I don't think there's anything wrong with the movie not being about the Morbuzakh, because the movie was not about the Morbuzakh. What did bother me is how the Morbuzakh wasn't ever really mentioned at all. The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

 

I totally agree. It's kind of hard to imagine that in a population of less than 1,000, the Toa Metru weren't given much attention. Then again, everything they did in the first three books was more or less over the course of two days, maximum, which brings us to another problem...

 

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I don't think there's anything wrong with the movie not being about the Morbuzakh, because the movie was not about the Morbuzakh. What did bother me is how the Morbuzakh wasn't ever really mentioned at all. The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

I totally agree. It's kind of hard to imagine that in a population of less than 1,000, the Toa Metru weren't given much attention. Then again, everything they did in the first three books was more or less over the course of two days, maximum, which brings us to another problem...

 

:akaku: X-Ray :akaku:

 

 

Assuming Turaga Dume had as much control over the Metru Nui media as he did over most of the rest of the city, it's not implausible that he could suppress news of the Toa. A lot of their greatest feats were done out of sight of Matoran, such as the journey into the archives and the actual fight against the King Root of the Morbuzahk. And as for the others? Sure, some of the Matoran who witnessed the Toa's other feats might continue to believe in them even after they'd been painted as frauds and traitors, but then, that's what the Vahki were for. Message control is easy in what amounts to a police state.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

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I don't think there's anything wrong with the movie not being about the Morbuzakh, because the movie was not about the Morbuzakh. What did bother me is how the Morbuzakh wasn't ever really mentioned at all. The entire idea of arresting the Toa for being impostors (because they hadn't done anything heroic and kind of sucked) rested on them not having done anything heroic and sucking. The fact that not a single one of them thought of mentioning how they actually already saved the city once is kind of really dumb.

I totally agree. It's kind of hard to imagine that in a population of less than 1,000, the Toa Metru weren't given much attention. Then again, everything they did in the first three books was more or less over the course of two days, maximum, which brings us to another problem... :akaku: X-Ray :akaku:
Assuming Turaga Dume had as much control over the Metru Nui media as he did over most of the rest of the city, it's not implausible that he could suppress news of the Toa. A lot of their greatest feats were done out of sight of Matoran, such as the journey into the archives and the actual fight against the King Root of the Morbuzahk. And as for the others? Sure, some of the Matoran who witnessed the Toa's other feats might continue to believe in them even after they'd been painted as frauds and traitors, but then, that's what the Vahki were for. Message control is easy in what amounts to a police state.

Yeah, I always assumed Dume/Makuta made it seen like the Vahki defeated the Morbuzakh and that the Great Disks the Toa presented were forgeries. It was one of the dark implications I liked about BIONICLE.

"You are an absolute in these uncertain times. Your past is forgotten, and your
future is an empty book. You must find your own destiny, my brave adventurer.
"
-- Turaga Nokama

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