HeartOfMetruNui

Anything new?

On 12/22/2019 at 4:07 PM, Toa of Italy said:

There isn't much I can add to what has already been said.

Takua's character development in MoL is mostly as you set it out, but the authors completely failed to take into account the fact that he had already become far more responsible and heroic in earlier years (we can see this especially in 2002, where, in the online animations, Takua takes the lead in the defense of both Le-Koro and Ga-Koro).

In general, I must say that (unlike in 2004, where they truly nailed it with Vakama's character) the movie's authors did a pretty bad job with character building (though of course, it was nothing compared to the disaster of the Legend Reborn in 2009). It's not just Takua... Jaller also is portrayed in a completely different way compared to the previous years, where he was far more serious and formal. Of course, much of the blame can be attributed to the awful voiceovers (which also led to horrific mispronounciations such as "Jalla"). I think the general idea was to portray the Matoran so as to push kids to identify themselves with them... thus their more immature behavior (be it Jaller's or Takua's) and their young-sounding voices.

Takanuva himself is also somewhat neglected in terms of character development. From the moment of his transformation it just seems as if he is following the path that destiny has set out... no attempt is truly made to explain why he does certain things (why does he keep the Toa Nuva from joining him? why does he then have Hahli summon the Matoran? and so on...) and what is going on inside his head when he does.

I must say, however, that the authors did get one thing right: the scene of Jaller's sacrifice and Takua's transformation is one of the most fantastic moments of BIONICLE as a whole. That scene, at least, is in continuity with the previous years: Takua's transformation is the culmination of the process that began in 2001 and makes perfect sense seen in that light. I wasn't on BZP back then, so I don't know how many people had figured out the Toa of Light's true identity before the movie came out... but I'd dare speculate that even those who were expecting it must have found it immensely satisfying to actually see it happen.

 

 

I agree about the writers disregarding the character's build up in previous media. However, I think that many Bionicle fans misinterpret the movie to be a direct continuation to the rest of the canon.

In fact, it's meant to be more like what the Ninjago movie is to the Ninjago series; it's made to stand on it's own, to be a self-contained story. It's set in the same universe but the characters are totally different ones. And that was a right decision IMO. In order to keep up with the story of 2001/2002 you needed 3 things:

1. already be a fan of the series who explored previous story mediums.

2. have computer/internet connection - in 2001/2 to be a kid and have computer access wasn't a granted thing. You also needed to be old enough to understand how browsers work. I was 6/7 YO at the time and Google was at it's infancy. If you wanted to get into a website you needed to manually enter it's URL. Who would believe this in our age, haha. Point is, it was reasonably complicated to find this content as a kid.

3. The animations and games were not globally translated. So many English speaking people are not aware that Bionicle was an international craze. The games and animations were only available in English (and sometimes German if I remember correctly). The movie, however, was dubbeed into 26 languages. 26. F-ing. languages. Think about it for a second, while the previous media was only available in 1 or 2 languages, the movie came out in 26. Wouldn't it be disappointing if as a kids who spoke one of the other 24 languages couldn't keep up with the movie's plot becuase they didn't speak the right language?

So while this movie almost completely ignores previous story mediums, I think that was the right decision for the franchise. Having Takua to be irresponsible again gave this movie an opportunity to have him develop during the course of the plot.

To sum up, yeah, if you judge this movie as a part of the larger plot it could really be disappointing. But if, like me, you were one of the kids who spoke the one of the other 24 languages, all this would never bother you.

On 12/4/2019 at 8:30 AM, Toatapio Nuva said:

No need for that, the trilogy is available in HD already.

That's just fake HD, an upscale of the DVD. Also they messed up the aspect ratio for some reason.

8 hours ago, Xboxtravis said:

I remember reading a few interviews with Alastair Swinerton a while back and some other suggested cancelled Bionicle ideas; and I find it interesting this movie was supposed to be the finale for the franchise. The reason Hahli had the Matoran go underground and spoke of awakening the Great Spirit "this day" was because Mata Nui was supposed to awaken and rise up at the end of the film. The decision to keep the line running longer than that pushed the Mata Nui reveal into 2008; but enough elements of it remain in the final film that its obvious that it was cut out. 
 

Also another oddity I noticed the other day... I saw a few people on Facebook comparing the new Knights of Ren sword to a Bionicle piece and complaining "Star Wars is so unoriginal making Bionicle knock off blades; I am glad Disney never messed with our beloved Bionicle!" I didn't have the gut to tell them... but Miramax and Buena Vista Pictures while they were making the Bionicle Trilogy where owned by Disney; so yes Disney already made 3/4 of all the Bionicle official films. The Wikipedia page for all Disney animated films even includes the Bionicle Trilogy there under Mirimax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_theatrical_animated_features#Films_distributed_by_Miramax I wonder if Disney still owns the distribution rights, or if they went with Miramax when it was spun off later? Or if Lego owns the distribution rights? If Disney still owns the distribution rights, it would be a strange twist if they somehow ended up on Disney+. 

I guess my ramblings have not much to do with your post, but its all been thoughts on Mask of Light that have been stewing in my head the last few days. 

I would commit all 7 deadly sins for actual HD verions of the Miramax trilogy.

3 hours ago, Terrorsaur said:

Excellent analysis on your part, but for me personally this movie doesn't hit at all because of all the story elements before it. In MNOG Takua pretty much has this same arc, he's the lazy outcast with strange behavior that leads everyone to mark him as irresponsible. But when the Toa prove to not be enough, he steps up to the plate and proves himself to be a capable and worthy hero in his own right.

You're right that the movie works as a stand alone piece, but in the larger Bionicle story it feels like a cheap rehash in terms of character development.

Thanks for the feedback!

You are right. The writers had to reverse Takua's previous lessons and achivements for this movie to work on it's own.

However, for me, the movie HAD to work on it's own. Maybe you could deduct as much by my spelling and way of speaking, but Im not native english speaking. I live in Israel. I did play the MNOG as a kid, but it was never translated to my hebrew, so I could only understand the visual bits of the story:

The lore being told by the stones, Tahu's arrival, the Matoran standing up for themselves, etc. I never knew who Takua was. Everything I knew about Bionicle was from the old catalogs, which they did translate to hebew. Bionicle was widely popular here as well (at least within my school). The movie, luckily, was dubbed in hebew. And bless Mata Nui for that! It was my first time ACTUALLY understanding the story. Actually hearing the dialog.

So for me, even now as an adult, this movie is my first window to the Bionicle world, that I could clearly see through. I have special feelings for it, and that's why I can personally forgive Takua's character reversal.

I would totally understand other fans not being fond of it though.

Hi there folks. I want to share with you my observations and thoughts about my favorite Bionicle character, Takanuva.

In this article, I will discuss the philosophy of character deveopment, and the way that Takanuva's arc is being unfolded in the movie. For my own comfort, Im gonna call Jaller "Jalla", because that's what he's called in the movie. Also, to be more focused, I won't take into account plot and lore details from media that is not the movie, as it was made to mainly stand on it's own.

So let's dive right.

What is character development?

Character development is the process of a character reshaping their beliefes, approaches , ablilities, or perspectives during the course of a story. There are many ways to achive character development.

For example:

1. A protagonist could start the story weak and powerless, and get stronger until he can overcome the antagonist.

2. A charachter might be greedy, and during the story let down his friends for profit, but later on learn that his friends are more important than greed, causing him to pay for his friend's expensive surgery.

These two examples can be distincted from one another, because while the first one thechnically is character development, the second one is a meaningful character development. That's because every character development comes from a character flaw. In the first example, the character flaw was weakness. However, it was never mentioned that his weakness had any effect on the plot. In contrast, the second example was meaningful because the character's flaw - in this case greed, served to benefit the story by causing an event, in which the character let down his friends.

In other words, for a meaningful character development, it is neccesary that the character's flaw will somehow negatively effect the story. After the character reshapes their ideals, the story should demonstrate how their new resolve helps them overcome the main problem.

So the process of a character development is:

Flaw ----> problem caused by the flaw -----> reshaping of oneself ----> demonstration of resolution.

Takua:

now, after establishing the principles of character development, I can explain Takua's arc.

Flaw: Takua's flaw, as being established very early on, is being irresponsible. The very beginning of the story depicts how Takua has disappeared right before his kohlii match, to research an old totem. Our very introduction to his character paints him as someone who has a weak sense of duty. We are also intoduced to another character, Jalla, who serves the story as the voice of reason for Takua. During the course of the story, he will challenge Takua's resolve time and time again.

Takua's character flaw gives contributes to the core problem of the story: Takua declines his duty as the herald of the seventh Toa.

Problem caused by the flaw: Makuta threatens Takua in the cave. Because of Takua's lack of dedication and responsibility, he abandons his quest as result of said threats. He's duty comes second to his fear.

Walking away from his duty, Takua's path takes him to Onu-koro. Suddenly, the Rahkshi appear and attack the city. Takua witnesses the damage that he has done, reflecting on himself. "What... have I done...", he says to himself outloud. It is in this moment, that he changes his resolution. With determination in his face, instead of running away, he now, as a mere Matoran, orders pewku to go back, and he tries to confront tha rahkshi.

He is rescued by Toa Lewa, who sets him back on the path. "Quick speed to Jalla, warn him". Takua, confidently says, "I will". "C'mon Pewku, we gotta find Jalla".

Demonstration of resolution: After Takua reunites with Jalla, they arrive at Kini-nui. They are then attacked by all six rahkshi. Jalla, instinctively says "Give me the mask!" and takes it from Takua's hands. Takua, however, has changed. Instead of letting Jalla take the mask, he now says "Jalla, no, we both know tha mask chose me, Im the true herald".

Jalla then, proceeds to challenge this resolve. "Are you sure? even now?" The situation is very dangerous. All six rahkshi are after them. The old Takua would have ran away. But the now changed Takua, despite the risk, demonstates his resolve! Confidently, he answers, taking the mask back into his own hands, "Yes! I AM the herald! and I say RUN!". Takua has now fully accepted his own duty. Even while risking his life, he is commited to his own resolve.

It is this resolution that let's him understand who he really is. When Takua puts on the mask of life, he is ready, mentally, to become the seventh Toa. As Turaga Vakama says, his journy was not to be on the island of Mata Nui, but in his own heart.

As Takanuva, he now had the courage and commitment to face Makuta himself, event sacrificing himself under the gate, before being revived at the end.

And that, is why Takua/Takanuva is a well rounded character in this movie. That's it. I hope you enjoyed this article, I definetly enjoyed writing it.

Here's two more:

1. Takanuva didn't carve the rock to be his former mask (kanohi pakari). He just peeled the outer layer to reveal that the internal sculpture of the pakari was there all along. Don't believe me? look at it frame by frame. You can clearly see half of the mask already being there before the beam reaches the rock.

2. in the beginning of "the mask of light", Takua reads the writing on the mask of light, and says the he has never seen this langage before,  but then reads the same symbols at ono-koro highway. Many people believe it to be a plot hole. Couldn't be more wrong! These are the same symbols that are used in the matoran language, indeed, but just like latin letters are used throughout many human languages, the symbols being the same does not mean that the words are in matoran. Don't believe me? when Nokama translates the words on the mask, you can clearly hear her saying that are not in english (and for us, english is matoran). So, you can assume that the symbols on the mask are supposed to be read differently than matoran.

Now, I know that they in fact do spell something in english, that is an easter egg, but I would argue that even if the symbols are the same, the sound they should make could be different. When Takua tried to read them as if they were regular matoran, all he read was gibberish, and thus him saying - "never seen this language before".

On 11/20/2019 at 8:04 AM, Markusha said:

Maybe it was like that to draw parallel between him and Makuta, who had a similar effect on his voice?

On 11/20/2019 at 10:08 AM, Master Inika said:

I always thought it made him sound more godly/adult. Good observation with how they also filtered Makuta's voice.

Yes, I believe both of you are right. What a nice little touch. Im so glad LEGO cared about this movie to have subtle details in it.

In the mask of light movie, after Takua transformes, they used some kind of filter on his voice., to make him sound more "pure". 

It's a neat little detail Im having a lot of fun with.

Oh, I got it. Thank you all for explaining

Title says it all. I never owned any g2 set so I cannot tell for myself.

Oh, cool. Six at the price of one.

bs01 or the wiki never explain anything more than "the toa needed those". So, what's their power? how is a golden hau more powerful than the normal great hau?

(besides being a cool collectible, that is)

Im talking about the Mata Nui Saga, you can find here: 

Is there any more media, that covers any part of the Bionicle storyline, that has the movies voice actors telling a story/audiobooks?

Yes, I really do. Despite this movie getting lots of hate, I think its really awesome.

First, Im going to acknowledge the fact that it is toned down compared to the other movies. It never feels as dark, or as threatening as the other three. However, a movie can be lighthearted and still be fun.

So, Im gonna list the things that I like about the movie:

The universe just got a lot bigger:

After all these years we spent in the matoran universe, we are suddenly exposed to a new world, with an all new culture. The universe just got a lot bigger with Bara Magna. It's ystem of tribes and glatorians is simply awesome, and unique. The movie does well to introduce this idea:

"Back in the day, the villages settled disputes the old-fashioned way, by destroying each other. Very messy. Lot of clean-up.So we came up with a solution."

"Not sport, problem solving. Much more honorable than slaughtering each other. And considerably more profitable." - Metus.

This line is very subtle, but also very deep.

You may also notice a minor detail about their culture: 

In the matoran universe, when two beings want to greet each other they clash fists (at least that's what I know from the movies, I havn't gotten into all the cannon sources). However, Metus greeted Mata Nui with a hand shake. It such a small detail, but it goes to see that the cultures are different even in subtle ways.

Mata Nui's character is awesome:

Mata Nui, the great spirit himself, finds himself alone and powerless, a stranger in a new world. He says to click:

"Before this day I never needed help from anyone or anything, thank you."

He is weak, and almost unable to stand his own. In his fight agains strakk, he trippes over a rock, loses his balance every now and then. He is unaccustomed to his new, small body. There's actually a shot of him trembling in fear! He was saved only by the power of the ignika.

after Ackar calles him a friend for the first time, his reaction is "Strange. I have worn many titles, been called a lot of things. but never 'friend'".

Before being called a friend, Mata Nui stated that he had to leave the group to fight his own battle. But after being called a friend, Ackar askes him yet again if he will stay, and this time, Mata Nui's answer is "Then, as a friend, I will stay". This is his journy of becoming one of a group, instead of a ruler.

He displays this well in his battle agains Tuma, when he sais "Be careful. Arrogance can topple giants. Trust me, I know."

Overall, Mata Nui really is the star of 2009/2010 for me, and I find it cool to like him not as a great spirit, but as "only a part".

The prototype robot:

You can see that the prototype robot was well planned through this movie. In almost everyBe careful. other scene you can locate pieces of the robot somewhere in the frame, beginning to end.

As you watch the movie for the first time, you always notice that "hmm, this rock looks like a Bionicle part, strange.. is that just an artistic choise?" until the ending where all the pieces come together.

Then, our characters find the labratory. Mata Nui explains that he "saw a ghost" - the plans for a giant robot, much like the one that was his own body.

And at the end of the movie, we witness the prototype robot being built, and when seeing this the first time I was so excited. Maybe some of you figured it out during the movie, but for me the revelation that the terrain actually formed another robot was shocking.

Also, this is an artistic way of differentiating both worlds: The matoran universe was inside a giant robot, and Bara magna was built on the ruins of one.

If you judge this movie as a part of a bigger picture, it really pays off in my opinion. Mata Nui's journy to learn about friendship, the grand scheme of the spirit robots, and the personal story of the villages are all very appealing to me.

Title really says it all. Im just curios whether or not he is still employed by LEGO because we would still take his word for cannon matters, even though he is not the real owner of the IP (unlike how George lucas owne Star wars, for example).

Pesonaly, he is a trusted cannon source no matter what, but It would be interesting to know if he's officially a Bionicle writer as of now.

54 minutes ago, TuragaNuva said:

Greg has stated that Mata Nui's body was that of a Glatorian: http://board.ttvchannel.com/t/was-mata-nui-physically-a-glatorian-or-a-toa/49950/5

The Ignika's powers didn't need someone physically wearing the mask in order to activate, so I assume Mata Nui wouldn't physically need to be a Toa in order for the mask to work. The Ignika also often seemed to use its powers on its own while Mata Nui had it (rather than him using them with direct control).

(also, do we know for certain that a Glatorian couldn't potentially use a Kanohi, since the only requirement seems to be focus and willpower?)

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say he could channel elemental powers.

It's really obscure, but if you look closely at TLR at 27:45, you can clearly see Mata Nui using some kind of energy on his blade, much like an elemental power.

I want to share my connection with Bionicle with you all.

I was born in 1995, in Israel. When Bionicle came out, I was but 5 years old. A friend of my mother knew that I loved LEGO by then (My favorite theme was Advanturers, more specifically the dino island stuff) and she bought me my first ever bonkle, Toa (mata) Pohatu. At first, I remember being shocked. As I always looked through the old cataloges, I skipped the Bionicle page because I thought I was a "grown up kid's theme". Why, you may ask. Well, think about the classic LEGO figures. All of them, even the "specialy designed" ones (AKA Johnny thunder, etc. who had a uniqe face instead of the classic LEGO Smily face) were smiling. Dual head printing didn't exist back then, so the characters never had a distressed, sad or angry look.

But those Bionicle figures... looked so agressive to me. Their masks were scary, and the faces behind were even scarier! But when I looked at Pohatu, I couldn't help but shift my point of view on these models. Suddenly, instead of agressive, they began to look mysterious.

Now, as a 5yo Israeli kid, I didn't know a single word in english, but all the LEGO catalogs were translated, so they were my main source of cannon. I remember reading about each toa's trait, and how they fought the rahi in the time before time. And boy, nothing in the world seemed more cool than this. I began collecting the sets, and got most of the toa and many rahi.

And than... I discovered the best piece of storyline I could imagine at the time... The Mata Nui online game, that is. As I have mentioned before, I didn't understand english at all. I couldn't even read the letters back then. However, fortunatly the game was heavy on visual story telling. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, or why, but I always ended up discovering the cutscenes after randomly clicking on things. I rememver Tahu's arrival. How the matoran first attacked him, but then Turaga Vakama came to bow before him, and they all understoon that it was not an enemy they were looking upon, but a hero.

In 2003, the the first movie, mask of light came out. I didn't know it came out, until I watched an old VHS that had an ad for the movie. I simply cannot put into words my excitement when the ad first played, and the narrator said "in the time... before time...". At that exact moment, I knew exactly what I was watching. I went with my parents to the nearest movie store (what a wierd concept in 2019) and got the VHS. And thank god, it was dubbed in hebew. Thats when EVERYONE were crazy about Bionicle in my elementary school - after the movie was out. I was considered to be a hero in my classmates eyes, because when we discussed the movie, I always knew every bit of lore detail, and could tell them all about the mysteries of Mata Nui.

Now, Im not going to go into detail about every year, but generally, Bionicle was always a theme that I cherished. Ofcourse, during its 10 years of runtime I was going on and off about my interest in the theme, but it was always a place for me to come back to every now and then. When Mata Nui was revealed to be a giant robot I went bananas. It was CRAZY for me to realize that the great spirint that controls the universe, WAS the universe. Even now I get chills writing this.

My point is, for me Bionicle is a theme that I will always appreciate and love for its story, characters and mystery. All the way from pohatu, to Tahu, to Takanuva, to Vakama, to the piraka and barraki, and finally, to Mata Nui himself.

Do you think, that kids who were 5 or 6 in 2015 felt the same way that I did about G2? I'd really love to be shared with the stories of the younger generation.

On Bara magna, Mata Nui presented himself as a toa.

Was that because he was a toa by spirit, or a toa by being? 

Traits he shared with toa:

- he could use his kanohi ignika

- it seems like he could channel elemental powers

Traits he shared with glatorian:

- his overall build, especially the face.

- the fact that his body adapted rather quickly to bara magna

Well, I guess he could have just been a "random body the mask created for him". But where's the fun in that?

At first glance, I tought that the artistic style was vastly different between the miramax film trilogy and TLR.

The character had actual "faces" behind their mask/helmet. eyes were now square-ish and blue, the models had teeth, etc.

But then, I noticed that at the beginning of TLR, the matoran actually look like the miramax ones: (see attached images)

The eyes are red dots, and they have the same "mouth" movement they had before. The eyebrows behave the same way they did before.

Now, there *is* the obvious difference of the part accuracy - the miramax trilogy have notoriously changend the bodies and mask, some to the point of not even reminding their physical counterparts (AKA, Vakama's great huna as Toa). In TLR the part accuracy is near perfect, even on the matoran.

But you know what? it's nice to see that TLR creators honored the original style before changing it to their own. Ofcourse there's the in-universe reason for the agori/gladtorian to look different from the matoran universe beings, but I really adore this slight callback at the beginning.

The description for some of the images of LoMN are wrong

like 'vakama uses the mask of time' - "hey!!! that's not true!!!"

Well, my personal opinion is that while it does look better than my DVD copy when scaled up to fullscreen, it still doesn't really look that better. Your work here is undoubtedly good, but the source material is not promising. the DVDs had quite poor quality (digitally speaking, especially with today's standards) and were riddled with heavy interlacing (except LoMN, which was only ghosted at some parts).

Upscaling than adding 'sharp filter' won't make this any better, only a true HD version released by miramax would look really better (I believe that they actually exist somewhere on their storage).

Sadly I find it hard to believe that we would every lay out hand on it tough, as the movies weren't popular enough for a licenced re-release (even not through a streaming service).

Anyway - I do appreciate your work, it never hurts to see such projects

But seriously, leave the aspect ratio be. 

Slight changes in voice between the movies could be explained by the Toa's mutations in Web of Shadows.

They had their voices changed even before (and after) being exposed to the hordika venom.

Slight changes happen. It wasn't a blockbuster hit where they are immersed in the character. And several of the Toa changed voice actors anyways between 2 and 3

Actually, that's not true. I cheked BS01, and the cast remained the same for every returning character (the toa metru and turaga vakama).

After all those years, now, after rewatching the original movies I noticed that the voice actors of the Toa Metru completely forgot the way that they used to dub the characters during the time between LoMN and WoS.

My biggest disappointment was the voice of Vakama - in LoMN it was FLAWLESS. Really, he had some sort of forign accent to his words, he sounded very hero-like yet had his doubts. In WoS, its like most of the actors completely lost their passion.

For example -  compare Vakam's voice: listen to those two lines one by one:

LoMN - https://youtu.be/_DKLLCJI-_8?t=1h4m15s

WoS - https://youtu.be/beDjUvU1v9U?t=1h11m34s (The audio is a bit pitched down here, but it still makes the point clear)

The voice acting is one of the many reasons that I elect LoMN as my personal favorite movie (in addition to plot, characters, locations, powers, pacing, concept, and design :] )

Do you also find the voices VASTLY different? Lets discuss it, and the movies in general

"There will always be new tales to be written and new tales to be shared. But it is time to stop speaking of the past, Hahli - we have a future to build, together."

—Turaga Vakama