Behind the Scenes of the New Hero Factory Series

[Hapori Tohu]

Christian Faber has updated his blog, the aptly named Faber Files, to let us know about a new video his team has put together. Check out <a href='http://faberfiles.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-making-of-invasion-from-below.html' target='offsite'>the entry</a> to see the making of 'Invasion From Below.' It contains some interesting insight into what went on the movie - for example, did you know the ending was supposed to have the heroes make peace with the beasts but was completely redone in the last twelve hours of production? Check it out!

 

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[Nathan Evo]

...for example, did you know the ending was supposed to have the heroes make peace with the beasts but was completely redone in the last twelve hours of production?

well that certainly explains things

[believe victims]

I said it on Facebook and I'll say it here: that explains a lot about that shoddy ending. Obviously, unintentional moral ambiguity is HF's forte, but that was bad even for them.

 

EDIT: It appears someone's actually asked, in a roundabout way, whether or not the queen survived in the end, so maybe we'll finally get an answer to that. Of course, now that I've said that, and since this is Hero Factory, my guess is Faber will say something along the lines of "actually since we had to slap this together last minute we have no frickin clue what happened to the queen. I guess she could have died. oops."

Edited February 20, 2014 by some critics

[Toa Zaz]

Ah. No wonder that ending sucked so much.

 

The episode kind of seemed like it was leading to a peaceful resolution, actually, with Breez reading the glyphs and Furno getting captured after fighting and beating Splitter Beast. That's really a shame that it was ruined like that.

 

I guess some of the set pieces, like the zero gravity chamber, or the crystal place, or the weird column-place, or the acid pools or whatever, could have been cool, but the episode was so rushed we never really got a chance to explore them. Again, working within a too-short running time (this could have made a good hour-long special), I guess it was impressive that they fit everything in but I would have just cut some stuff out to make time.

[believe victims]

Ah. No wonder that ending sucked so much.

 

The episode kind of seemed like it was leading to a peaceful resolution, actually, with Breez reading the glyphs and Furno getting captured after fighting and beating Splitter Beast. That's really a shame that it was ruined like that.

 

I guess some of the set pieces, like the zero gravity chamber, or the crystal place, or the weird column-place, or the acid pools or whatever, could have been cool, but the episode was so rushed we never really got a chance to explore them. Again, working within a too-short running time (this could have made a good hour-long special), I guess it was impressive that they fit everything in but I would have just cut some stuff out to make time.

 

I would have cut out the ridiculous amount of padding. There was way too much unnecessary dialogue, from all the announcements of features to the stupid exchange between Furno and Evo after knocking down Splitter Beast. If they at least simplified every bit of clunky, useless dialogue they probably could have gained another few minutes somewhere else.

[Makaru]

I cannot wrap my head around the 12 hours bit. What a bizarrely specific time crunch.

[fishers64]

I liked the map. I want to see the map.

 

Anyway, the music and the art for this is gorgeous, and that was expounded on much. But the story was only mentioned in terms of the 12 hour-time-crunch stuff, at least in detail. They even mentioned "moving on to the next toy". Gee, way to disguise that this is a toy commercial, and not, you know, a story. (If you think about it, the whole thing does feel like a bunch of toy commercials strung together with bits of exposition and filler to make it all go together.)

 

Oh,wait, this is Hero Factory, and Advance/Ghost is an advertising studio famous for art, not story. That explains everything.

Edited February 20, 2014 by fishers64

[Aanchir]

Oh,wait, this is Hero Factory, and Advance/Ghost is an advertising studio famous for art, not story. That explains everything.

I find it odd that you say that considering that Christian Faber was the driving force behind the foundations of the BIONICLE story, basing the Toa's quest to defeat Makuta and restore their Great Spirit to health on his own cancer treatments. The idea of the Great Spirit as a colossal robot populated by a thriving Matoran culture was his doing. Advance has loads of experience with both art AND stories, and if they hadn't been so involved with the development of BIONICLE we could very easily have ended up with a much more shallow and less epic, mythic action figure series.

 

I sort of understand why a tidy diplomatic ending would not have been the most desirable from both a storytelling and an advertising standpoint. I feel like it might have made the beasts feel like less of a force of nature. But I agree the execution was somewhat lackluster. It was quite exciting for a mere 12 hours of work, though. Hopefully in future collaborations Advance and Ghost won't need to rush like that and will be able to turn out a more refined end product.

 

And yes, beautiful art direction throughout. It really did a lot to make the adventure seem colorful and larger-than-life. Perhaps if we ever see a more BIONICLE-like constraction theme, Advance and Ghost could collaborate on the core media. It'd certainly be in good hands!

[believe victims]

Ack, I should have seen this coming; he's not going to comment on it until this project is no longer "active". XP So much for clearing up the fate of the Beasts.

Edited February 20, 2014 by some critics

[fishers64]

 

Oh,wait, this is Hero Factory, and Advance/Ghost is an advertising studio famous for art, not story. That explains everything.

I find it odd that you say that considering that Christian Faber was the driving force behind the foundations of the BIONICLE story, basing the Toa's quest to defeat Makuta and restore their Great Spirit to health on his own cancer treatments. The idea of the Great Spirit as a colossal robot populated by a thriving Matoran culture was his doing. Advance has loads of experience with both art AND stories, and if they hadn't been so involved with the development of BIONICLE we could very easily have ended up with a much more shallow and less epic, mythic action figure series.

 

That's just Faber - and that's just a story concept, not the actual story, which was written by Greg (comics) and Hapka (later). What I remember Advance and Ghost the most for is Bionicle commercials, most specifically the Toa Mahri mini-movie and the 2008 Mata Nui rising video. Again, artistic marvels. But I can't say they made the world's finest for deep storytelling - that came from the books.

 

There's a whole boatload of difference between coming up with a story concept and actually executing said concept well in a story, in this case a TV episode. I don't mean that Advance is bad at coming up with story concepts, because they did come up with a good concept here. But in writing out an actual story based on that concept, they have a long way to go.

[Lyichir]

 

 

Oh,wait, this is Hero Factory, and Advance/Ghost is an advertising studio famous for art, not story. That explains everything.

I find it odd that you say that considering that Christian Faber was the driving force behind the foundations of the BIONICLE story, basing the Toa's quest to defeat Makuta and restore their Great Spirit to health on his own cancer treatments. The idea of the Great Spirit as a colossal robot populated by a thriving Matoran culture was his doing. Advance has loads of experience with both art AND stories, and if they hadn't been so involved with the development of BIONICLE we could very easily have ended up with a much more shallow and less epic, mythic action figure series.

 

That's just Faber - and that's just a story concept, not the actual story, which was written by Greg (comics) and Hapka (later). What I remember Advance and Ghost the most for is Bionicle commercials, most specifically the Toa Mahri mini-movie and the 2008 Mata Nui rising video. Again, artistic marvels. But I can't say they made the world's finest for deep storytelling - that came from the books.

 

There's a whole boatload of difference between coming up with a story concept and actually executing said concept well in a story, in this case a TV episode. I don't mean that Advance is bad at coming up with story concepts, because they did come up with a good concept here. But in writing out an actual story based on that concept, they have a long way to go.

 

Advance had a key role in the Bionicle story throughout, and I believe Faber was a key member of the story team throughout—and it was that story team that wrote the overarching story for each year's sets, with Greg simply fleshing them out for the comics and books. Without the story team, you were left with things like the serials: aimless, meandering collisions of unused characters for the sake of uncompelling drama and half-baked worldbuilding. So while you're right about the importance of skilled writers (the main reason the Hero Factory chapter books are on par with Greg's work on Bionicle), I think you're not giving Faber or Advance nearly enough credit.

[fishers64]

There's probably a reasonable middle ground. It's possible that Advance/Faber + Greg = awesome.

 

Although I would argue that the serials of Bionicle were better than this TV episode, but that's probably just me. (I would have to allocate for the fact that I liked Bionicle better than HF to begin with though, which would place this on a more even plane.)

[Wazdakka]

I think it was great, considering the fact that they needed to advertise all of the Hero Factory toys and have some kind of semblance of a story in thirty minutes. Thirty.

 

I think that the lackluster execution is excusable considering the fact that Lego's desire for an unabashed advertisement in such a short time ensured that even the best studio could not have made a plot-driven arc.

[Brappy Hour]

It's not a series. It was a 20 min plug, and it was awful.

 

The animation, music, and even the Beast roars were all decent. Sadly the story, and the constant flood of terrible dialogue ruined the whole experience. Could have been an exciting SERIES if they had spread it out over at least 3 episodes. Not 20 min.

 

Could go on forever about this, because it's not only bad as entertainment, it's bad as marketing.

[AdaptingChaos]

Did anyone notice the faded box art of Bionicle set Mutran and Vican in upper left hand corner of the background of 4:00 and 8:00?

As well as an Exo Force box next to it, an actual Exo Force set and Breakout Stringer?

Edited February 21, 2014 by AdaptingChaos