Bionicle 4: Island of Doom - a pitch for collaboration

[Toa Zaz]

Hello! My name is Jackson. I go by Toa Zaz here and on TTV Message Boards. I've been a Bionicle fan since I was 6 years old- still love it- and I'm always in awe at the breathtaking creativity and undying passion that the Bionicle fan community continues to show.

This topic is to share some stuff I've been working on, and also a pitch to see if anyone might be interested in collaborating to take this further.

So many of us over the years have imagined what it would have been like if Lego had created a Bionicle movie for the 2006 storyline. A HUGE inspiration for me was Tohkann, Toa of Arts' incredible work; I remember his awesome Rebirth Chronicles videos, and since then he's done stunning animations and 3d modeling of 2006 and 2007 in the Miramax style (YouTube) (DeviantArt)

As a fun writing challenge, I tried to create a script for this, taking four 100+ page Bionicle Legends books written by Greg Farshtey (who of course is just brilliant and a truly fantastic writer) and compressing them to 76 pages in screenplay format (according to the rule of thumb that 1 age = 1 minute of screentime, Web of Shadows is 76 minutes).

Link to the script: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zbQpbwzuNKUJY0A36CWi1PqEhv3yDGGw/view?usp=sharing

I used WriterDuet, a free screenwriting software, to get the proper formatting. I've gone through several drafts, added stuff in and taken stuff out, trying to keep the essentials and have the whole plot make sense, and tried to avoid having any more deviation from the books than the difference between the 4 official movies and the corresponding books/comics.

I then took one of the scenes from the script and storyboarded it- 100 panels, starts on page 64 of the script.

I've become fascinated with the storyboards for the Miramax movies (thanks, BioMedia project!), with their strange human-like faces; it feels like rewatching the same story through a very different lens.

And there are great YouTube videos where people put the storyboards and a finished scene side-by-side:

• Legends of Metru Nui - credit to Emily on YouTube.
• Web of Shadows - credit to La Voix d'Ekimu on YouTube.

So I thought it'd be cool to take the storyboards I made and edit them into a video and add audio:

Bionicle 4 pitch video with storyboards

All music is taken from Nathan Furst's magnificent score for the trilogy. Voices are self-performed. Sound effects are either taken from the trilogy, self-created, or Creative Commons 0 (meaning they can be used without permission of their creator).

Last, I made a mock DVD cover using Krita, at the top of this post. Reference drawing:

There were some specific choices for adapting the character designs to the Miramax style:

     

Jaller's arm was based on the arms in CrazyTAC's incredible entry for the Toa Hagah canon contest.

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The Piraka's flipping weapons are a main feature in the set (and also described in Legends #3 when Hakann's launcher flips backwards and fires). I was looking for a way to represent that while giving them clawed hands. I thought of the Inquisitor lightsabers from Star Wars. For the Piraka, I imagined there's a little thumb switch (out of view in the DVD cover) that the Piraka can hit and the whole weapon flips up or down; I've done some rough sketches of the various buttons/triggers for each Piraka's weapon. For this to work and to eliminate the hole/gap in the Piraka's left arms, some of the weapons had to be redesigned slightly; for example, the protrusion at the top of Thok's ice gun now retracts inwards when it flips up.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the rubberized grips on the weapons were inspired by the brilliant Miramax-style Toa Mahri Matoro created by the incredibly talented Tohkann.

I adapted the cross axle in the Piraka's heads to be Frankenstein-like bolts with creepy veins sticking outwards. This was to fit the less set-like Miramax style, and also because as Skakdi, the Piraka are canonically unstable dangerous science experiments of Makuta Spiriah.

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I based Avak off the prototype, as an homage to how many character designs in the Miramax movies were based on different-looking prototypes, and because a lot of fans really like the prototype Avak design.

For the Zamor launchers, I tried to stylize it to not look exactly like the set, like the Miramax films did for the Kanoka and Rhotuka. I had the idea of the Zamor spheres, which in the canon are crystal, looking like a crystal ball instead of a true sphere. I made the flex-axle straight to appear "taught"; I thought it could have an appearance like a real-world crossbow, although the functionality would be more like a slingshot. I gave Avak's launcher a stock- I thought it looked kind of cool, would be easy to MOC, and would be practical for aiming a powerful single-hand weapon- but then I realized it wouldn't work against the Inika's thicker wrists, so maybe we shouldn't include it (everything here is just a suggestion). For the Inika launchers, I thought since the Matoran Resistance built them, they have limited resources and would care much more about getting the launchers operational ASAP than their appearance (unlike Avak who has more of an artist's ego), the colors of the components would be a little random and jumbled. And I made the colors of the Inika's Zamors the same as the Energized Protodermis as depicted in Mask of Light.

I definitely don't want to stop here- I plan to do more art and stuff related to this project. I welcome all feedback and critiques- my hope here is to make something for the community and as a tribute/thank you to Greg Farshtey and the rest of the creatives who brought us so much happiness. And I'm now looking to see if anyone would be interested in collaborating. This could be something like making more 2006 art in Miramax-style, or more storyboard stuff; or it could be something like 3d modeling or animation, which I have no ability to do but there are incredibly talented people in the Bionicle fan community who have done amazing stuff like that. If no one's interested, then of course that's totally fine. And if people are interested but cannot contribute due to limited time/availability, or due to commitment to the Renaissance of amazing Bionicle fan projects in development right now, completely understand. And in that case, what I would do then is just work on storyboarding the entire film myself.

But if anyone is interested in collaborating, I would absolutely love to do so. Let me know!

Anyway, thank you so much for reading this super-long post! Have a great day!

 

Script attached below:

BIONICLE 4 Island of Doom draft 6 2-3-24.pdf

Edited March 16 by Toa Zaz

[confused piraka]

so what do you need help for?

sorry if I missed it it's a long post

Edited March 1 by confused piraka

[Toa Zaz]

Hey thanks for your reply! Sorry it's a long post! Don't need help but wanted to ask in case anyone might want to collaborate in any way on making more stuff based around the idea of "what if there was a fourth Miramax movie, for the 2006 storyline?" And if not no problem of course, I also wanted to just share what I've been working on!

[confused piraka]

29 minutes ago, Toa Zaz said:

This could be something like making more 2006 art in Miramax-style, or more storyboard stuff; or it could be something like 3d modeling or animation, which I have no ability to do

I mean I could do tiny stop motion moc-up clips to how your script would work. (can't see script for some reason)

Edited March 1 by confused piraka

[Nato G]

I love the amount of thought and attention-to-detail that you've put into this. I don't think I have any skills that would be useful for assisting you, but hopefully there are some talented folks in the community who'd be able to help you out. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses. 

[Voltex]

Read through the script, and I think for a draft of merging all of 2006 into a single movie (which is a pretty tough ask - 2006 is all over the place story-wise!) it does a great job! Like Nato, I don't think I have the skills to assist you but the project does pique my interest.

[Toa Zaz]

Thank you all for your replies!

I edited the first post to include a working link to a readable version of the script, instead of a downloadable file. Here's the new link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zbQpbwzuNKUJY0A36CWi1PqEhv3yDGGw/view?usp=sharing 

On 2/29/2024 at 8:58 PM, confused piraka said:

I mean I could do tiny stop motion moc-up clips to how your script would work. (can't see script for some reason)

Thanks so much for suggesting that! I don't think that would necessarily be the best approach since stop-motion animation is very different than the Miramax animation style. But thanks for your interest!

On 2/29/2024 at 9:17 PM, Nato G said:

I love the amount of thought and attention-to-detail that you've put into this. I don't think I have any skills that would be useful for assisting you, but hopefully there are some talented folks in the community who'd be able to help you out. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses. 

Thanks so much!

On 3/1/2024 at 5:48 AM, Voltex said:

Read through the script, and I think for a draft of merging all of 2006 into a single movie (which is a pretty tough ask - 2006 is all over the place story-wise!) it does a great job! Like Nato, I don't think I have the skills to assist you but the project does pique my interest.

Thanks so much! It was a fun challenge but not as difficult as it might have been, because I had envisioned ahead of time that certain aspects of the story (Chamber of Nightmares, Umbra, almost all of Karzahni, etc) would have to inevitably be skipped over. I started by making a list of absolutely essential scenes; then after writing those, I decided what to add with the remaining room. The hardest part was finding a way to keep necessary exposition or character moments that was from a scene I cut out, and doing it without straying very far from what Greg wrote.

Also, here are a few rough sketches related to the project:

Rough unfinished sketches of Matoro as a Matoran, Balta, and Avak.

Attempt to draw Matoro and Hakann in the Miramax style- the torsos are what got redesigned the most. I realized afterwards that I forgot to draw Hakann's tail. All of this stuff is basically a suggestion of ideas that can be changed; I tried giving Matoro simplified thigh armor to look like the Toa Metru in the movies and "bellbottom ankles" to look like both the Metru from the movies and the Inika from Bionicle Heroes, but now I think it would be better to have both of those parts stick closer to the appearance in the set.

Figuring out the Piraka torso. The set piece is very gappy, so wanted to close the gaps and include visible muscle tissue while preserving the overall shape.

Figuring out the two Inika torsos. The torso for Matoro, Hewkii, and Nuparu I thought could be redesigned to have a similar shape and mobility to the Toa's torsos in the Miramax movies, but the torso armor for Jaller Kongu and Hahli had to be pretty different than the Miramax torsos, or else they wouldn't adequately resemble the set designs. So I was trying to figure out how to preserve the set design while capturing the "physics" of the Miramax bodies. In the Miramax movies, what moves are the joints and pistons, the armor shells move minimally and should also allow space for the characters to bend down etc; compared to the Legend Reborn style, in which the actual set piece bends and stretches.

A rough sketch for the flipping function of the Piraka's weapons.

Edited March 2 by Toa Zaz

[Taka Nuvia]

Super impressed by the amount of care, work and attention to detail that went into this! (And thank you for including the link to the Miramax storyboards, these are super intriguing.)
Your storyboard looks cool!

For the Matoro/Hakann sketches, I think they could even be simplified/stylized even further, right now they still feel very set-like to me (but that is definitely a matter of personal preference) - what's the style you're aiming for for the final result?

I'm afraid I can't help with this, but I'll definitely keep an eye on this project