What would characters look like as live-action?

[Lenny7092]

Hi, guys! As you see, there are live-action adaptions, where characters, who were either flat or 3-D in their original media, became live-action. Their live-action forms usually capture the same looks as their original forms. Well, almost. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog in 2020 (he used to look like a hairy beast, which people didn’t like, but he was redesigned to almost look like his original video game self in Sonic 2006 game while making him realistic, but with hairy arms like Sonic Boom TV show and the hairy texture like his Werehog form in Sonic Unleashed). There are some live-action adaptions that are not so accurate, like Abomination from The Incredible Hulk in 2008 and Steppenwolf from Justice League in 2017, which some people complain about. Every maker of live-action adaptions have their own tastes. 
 

So, let me ask you this: How would Bionicle characters look like in live-action, even if you daydream? I’m not asking you guys to think of a live-action movie or TV show. Just the character designs. Well, here’s how I put it: 

The Toa Mata would almost look like their 2001 selves, but with some differences. The gear boxes would not appear, as their bodies would look kind of human (but Onua can still look like a hunchback Pohatu’s torso can still look upside down). They would have organic mouths and their eyes would be like either the Transformers from the Transformers movies or the Heroes’ eyes from Hero Factory’s Invasion From Below TV episode. Any bio-mechanical Kanohi wearer would have dot-shaped things on their cheekbones that does electromagnetism, which allows the mask to attach to the wear tight. It’s like Bionicle G2 when you think about it. Their normal Kanohi masks wouldn’t have mouths, like in Bionicle: The Journey to One. The dot-shaped things on Tahu Mata’s, Lewa Mata’s, and Kopaka Mata’s chests would be flat. The Toa Mata’s bodies can have the organic muscles within the holes in their bodies, similar to the Miramax trilogy in 2003-2005 and Bionicle: The Legend Reborn, making them look like alien cyborg. Tahu Mata’s, Lewa Mata’s, and Pohatu Mata’s two-fingered hands would be normal five-fingered hands (like Tahu’s fingers being black and palm being red, and Lewa would have gray finger tips). In fact, every Bionicle character would have normal five-fingered hands unless there are some that wouldn’t, like Axonn and Hydraxon. I would think that the Toa Mata’s arms would look even. Same with other characters, like Kopaka Nuva and Hewkii Mahri. Of course, Hewkii Mahri’s mask would look like a normal mask. The same would apply to other normal bio-mechanical and humanoid characters. They can keep their heart lights. 
 

The masks would glow when in use. Plus, they could have eyebrows. The characters’ eyes would stay in the heads with eyelids, like Bionicle: The Legend Reborn and Hero Factory’s TV show, so the eyes wouldn’t enlarge or shrink, not like the Miramax trilogy or TJtO. 
 

For the animals, including the Rahi, some would be terrifying to look at, like the 2001 Infected Rahi, the Visorak, Fenrakk, Kardas, and Gadunka. They can have the same cyborg feel. For the Bohrok, Bohrok Va, and Bahrag, same, but the Bohrok and Bohrok Va would be robotic with organic-looking Krana while the Bahrag would be cyborgs. 
 

For certain people, like Vortixx, Skakdi, and the Barraki, they would be terrifying to look at while looking like cyborgs, too. They would look like monsters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Transformers movies. I mean, they would have organic mouths with long teeth. 
 

For the Makuta species, they would look like robots with no holes in the main parts of their bodies, like Makuta Teridax from the Miramax trilogy, but if there is a scratched hole in their armor or their masks are removed, they would have gaseous or liquid Antidermis coming back from them. They would be floating black and green gases with red eyes. 
 

For Glatorian and other people in Spherus Magna, I would say that they look like organic beings with a few mechanical implants. Their eyes and mouths would be like the Heroes’ from Invasion From Below. Their helmet could have mouth guards that flip to appear when in battle, like The Legend Reborn. 
 

As a bonus, when the Toa are upset or unleash their full or true potential, they would have their elemental powers flowing around them, making them glow, and their eyes would glow in different colors, like Tahu being fiery and have red glowing lights on his eyes and Onua having the ground covering around him and have green glowing lights on his eyes. It’s like the Ninjago from Ninjago TV show and Sonic the Hedgehog movie. It’s a natural way of getting stronger. The Glatorian with elemental powers, Makuta, and perhaps other species could do that, too. 
 

For humanoid characters of any kind, they would be actors wearing CGI suits, and others, like the Bahrag and the Rahi, would be completely CGI, perhaps with voice actors to spice things up. I would imagine the Toa’s faces would look like their actors, like Hugh Jackman’s face in Tahu’s face and Scarlett Johansson’s face in Gali’s face. 
 

So, there. You would have to use a lot of CGI to make the characters look that realistic when they are in live-action movies or TV shows.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Lenny7092

[Aderia]

I don't see why it can't be like this. 


But if we have a bigger budget, full-body motion capture on actors might work,  and also give some pretty great behind-the-scenes footage. Maybe Iron Man level CGI is too big a dream, or is missing the target audience, but I think that would be great. 
 

17 minutes ago, Lenny7092 said:

For certain people, like Vortixx, Skakdi, and the Barraki, they would be terrifying to look at while looking like cyborgs, too. They would look like monsters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Transformers movies. I mean, they would have organic mouths with long teeth. 

The '06 storyline with the Piraka could be great and terrifying if they design the Skakdi right. 
 

[Xboxtravis]

I think any live action attempt would be much like Disney's second Lion King... its not really live action. Unless they wanted to do puppets or costumes or something else like that, I really couldn't see any reason to use any live action. The Bionicle designs are just to alien, to weird to pull off on live film without CGI. Since there are zero humans in the Bionicle story, I think any "live action" would just be high end CGI animation at the end of the day. 

[Lenny7092]

On 5/20/2020 at 1:41 PM, Aderia said:

I don't see why it can't be like this. 


But if we have a bigger budget, full-body motion capture on actors might work,  and also give some pretty great behind-the-scenes footage. Maybe Iron Man level CGI is too big a dream, or is missing the target audience, but I think that would be great. 
 

The '06 storyline with the Piraka could be great and terrifying if they design the Skakdi right. 
 

I would love to see the Piraka having opening mouths. Plus, if such a movie is successful, we might get costumes for customers again. Lol.

[Vorahk1Panrahk2]

I think Iron Man is actually a good reference for how to model them. In the latter Marvel movies you can tell its a robot (technically mechanical suit, but the distinction isn't important) but the character still moves elegantly and almost organically at times, blurring the distinction between metal and muscle. I think its the perfect aesthetic for characters whose sets are robotic in appearance but skew organic in the lore.

Of course this begs the question- how willing are people to sit through a movie filled with Iron-Man esque characters interacting with each other? It's hard to say. The Lion King (2019) shows that people are willing to watch a movie about near photorealistic characters, but the characters are animals that are familiar to us. And it helps that it was based on a popular animated movie. Avatar (2009) showed that you can make a massively successful movie filled with near photorealistic humanoids, but there were also a lot of normal humans in that movie to provide an anchor point and give the audience a rest from big blue aliens. Same for the Transformers films.

Frankly, I'd rather just see an animated film with a budget myself.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Vorahk1Panrahk2