DIVE TOO DEEP into... bionicle: MASK OF LIGHT {part1: it begins now}

in which drcakey plunges into a fool's errand, and much is made of rocks

BIONICLE: Mask of Light is a 2003 direct-to-video movie produced by Creative Capers for LEGO, and distributed by Miramax. Bionicle was a vital part of my childhood - I'm confident I've seen Mask of Light more than any other movie.

I watched it again recently. It's bad. It's real real bad.

But it's bad in ways I think are worth commenting on. I really like the idea of 'deep dives' - of digging down to the core of something and analyzing it as granularly as possible. But doing that requires knowledge, effort, and most important of all, interest, so they're not common. And not something I'm usually well-equipped to do.

And if you're curious about Bionicle and its byzantine lore, I can tell you all about that, too (though in 2003 the lore was merely dense, not impenetrable). My intention is for this long, long series of posts to be fully accessible to newcomers while also being of value and interest to fans present and former. This first post is mostly an introduction, serving to...introduce...the world and movie, so there's not too much analysis, but that will become more of a focus in subsequent posts. If you're interested in following along, the movie has been uploaded in full on YouTube. It's not hard to find.

First, some background on Bionicle.

Bionicle was an experiment for LEGO. While LEGO looms large in the public consciousness, that's frequently failed to translate into actual sales. They decided to try a new line of toys, with an emphasis on story to keep kids' interest. Thus Bionicle was born, initially as a spinoff of LEGO's Technic line.

Six Heroes. One Destiny. Each set sold separately.

Their experiment was a big success. Kids were attracted to the cool designs, and hooked by the story of living robots - blending sci-fi elements with fantasy - in a mysterious island setting. Comics and a few video games were released alongside it, though what was supposed to be their flagship game, BIONICLE: The Legend of Mata Nui, ended up cancelled (if you look at their history, Luck is LEGO's dump stat). This had the odd side-effect of making the six Toa, supposedly the main characters, almost peripheral to their own story, as no other game focused on them. Of all these initial works the most influential, at least for invested fans, was a point-and-click Flash adventure game called the Mata Nui Online Game, developed by Templar Studios. Its protagonist was a Matoran named Takua, who also happens to be the main character of Mask of Light.

Fast-forward to 2003. With Bionicle still a massive success (their single most successful product line, in fact), LEGO had begun looking into the possibility of turning it into a movie. I don't think anybody knows when exactly they started, but considering how long it takes to produce even a cheap movie, with an animated movie taking even longer, plus adding in time spent shopping the franchise around and negotiating deals, it must have been fairly early on.

The 2001 Bionicle logo, depicting an infected Hau, the Mask of
Shielding, blended with the island of Mata Nui, Bionicle's setting.

At this point it should be noted that while this movie is quite frustrating, It Could Have Been Worse. Now it can always be worse, but here I think it's genuinely worth acknowledging. These sorts of negotiations are private, so there's no way to know the details, but at least one studio was happy to make a Bionicle movie...but only if it had some human characters. And LEGO refused. Whether due to artistic integrity or simple understanding of their product, they were unwilling to make a movie about some kid following the Goblin King into the Bionicle universe. Kids don't want movies about kids, kids want movies about robots.

If Bionicle had been just a hair more popular, we'd have deeply researched, tell-all documentaries on the production of Mask of Light - but we do not. However rocky the road may or may not have been for LEGO, Miramax was willing to do things their way, and so on September 16, 2003, BIONICLE: Mask of Light was released on video and DVD.

It begins...now.

Wait, I forgot, gotta sit through the previews first. I have it on VHS you see. Let's see...Air Bud? George of the Jungle 2? MXP: Most Xtreme Primate???? God, I was nine when this movie came out and already I was 10 years too old for this trash.

Okay. Begins...now.

This is called the Amaja Circle. Because everything in Bionicle
has a name.

There's really only one way a Bionicle movie can begin. Fortunately, that "one way" isn't just about fans: it's also a niceintroduction to the background and mood of the world. Said way is telling the legend of Mata Nui.

The legend of Mata Nui is a short and heavily retconned narrative that gives much of the key backstory of the Bionicle world circa 2001-2003. The characters are all depicted with simple stone totems, reflecting the primitive island technology used by the Matoran. (NB: "Primitive technology" may or may not include advanced robotics.) The legend was first told in silent form in the Mata Nui Online Game, which I mentioned up in the introduction.

Left: Mata Nui as depicted in the MNOLG.
Right: Mata Nui as depicted in Mask of Light.

I'll just reproduce the movie's narration in full, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the intricacies of Bionicle lore:

"Listen again to our legend of the Bionicle."

Don't...don't actually say "Bionicle". That's just the name of the franchise, not... Carry on.

"In the time before time, the Great Spirit descended from the heavens, carrying we the ones called the Matoran to this paradise. We were separate and without purpose, so the Great Spirit illuminated us with the Three Virtues: Unity, Duty, and Destiny."

Left: Symbol of the Three Virtues
Right: The Matoran being illuminated/put into piles.

The opening is quite well-designed, I think. It strikes a balance, depicting the events abstractly as a story told with crude props, while heavily layering on visuals and explosions and other such sundries to make the experience more exciting and cinematic. I can't help but wish they'd used the MNOLG's music, though...

"We embraced these gifts and, in gratitude, named our island home Mata Nui, after the Great Spirit himself. But our happiness was not to last.

For Mata Nui's brother, the Makuta, was jealous of these honors and betrayed him, casting a spell over Mata Nui, who fell into a deep slumber."

Left: Makuta stone, movie version.
Right: Kind of adorable Makuta stone in 2001 promo art.

"The Makuta was free to unleash his shadows. And unleash them...he did...!"

DUN DUH DUH DUH DUN DUH DUH DUH DRAMATIC BUILDUP MOVIE LOGO...!!!!

This movie has great music.

Wait. Wait wait wait. Something feels...off about this. They forgot to include the most important part! And when I say "most important part", that's not the lead-up to some joke, I actually mean the most important part. The part where they get around to covering the plot. Seems kind of crucial to me. But alright movie, if you won't explain it, others will take up the torch. The prologue in each of the BIONICLE Chronicles books finishes the legend like so:

Still, all hope was not lost. Legends told of six mighty heroes, the Toa, who would arrive to save Mata Nui. Time would reveal that these were not simply myths - for the Toa did appear on the shores of the island. They arrive with no memory, no knowledge of one another - but they pledged to defend Mata Nui and its people against the darkness. Tahu, Toa of Fire. Onua, Toa of Earth. Gali, Toa of Water. Lewa, Toa of Air. Pohatu, Toa of Stone. And Kopaka, Toa of Ice. Great warriors with great power, drawn from the very elements themselves. Together, they were six heroes with one destiny: to defeat Makuta and save Mata Nui.

Each set sold separately. Wait I used that joke already.

Everything that follows is their fault. You know what you did, Alastair.

This is where I start to wish Blogger let me wrap text around images, because I'm posting a lot of them and this is starting to feel like a Buzzfeed article. The camera drifts through vague clouds, vague haze, and vague mountains, giving a vague impression of the island's scenery.

It finally arrives at Ta-Koro, the fire village. You see, Everything in Bionicle is helpfully color-coded as one of the six elements (the six elements as decreed by LEGO, that is). Personally, I don't feel like living in an active volcano is a good idea, but then I'm not a red robot.

You did nothing wrong, Nathan. Raise your head and walk proudly, my son.

We meet our deuteragonist, Jaller, and---

Okay, we need to talk about names.

Early Bionicle drew heavily on Polynesian culture, primarily Maori, for inspiration and for names of places and people, which gives it a very unique flavor. It's one of the franchise's great strengths, though it's also one of (many) things that make it so impenetrable. Around the time of Bionicle's launch, several Maori tribes issued a legal challenge to LEGO, alleging their usage of Maori words was...was something. I'll be honest, even after reading this Web 1.0 news article from BBC (so unlike my own lavishly designed website), I still don't understand the precise nature of the complaint because, like a lot of these sorts of controversies, the person who reported on it didn't understand either and didn't bother to try. Regardless of the specifics, LEGO agreed to change the spellings of several names and terms. These were:

• The name of the villagers' species was changed from Tohunga to Matoran.
• The character Jala was renamed Jaller.
• The character Maku was renamed Macku.
• The character Huki was renamed Hewkii.
• The character Puku (a crab) was renamed Pewku.
• The sport Koli was renamed Kolhii. They also changed the rules, but I assume that had nothing to do with the lawsuit.

In all the spelling changes, the pronunciation remains the same. So when you see 'Jaller', just replace it in your head with 'Jala'. You might be thinking this makes no sense. You would be right. I dunno, maybe it makes more sense in...Danish or something.

As I was saying, we meet our deuteragonist Jaller, looking for the protagonist, Takua. At this point, my ears begin to calcify.

"Takua! ...He's got more rocks in his head than a Po-Matoran."

As I said before, I watched Mask of Light again for the first time in many years. When I did, I was struck by two things: 1) it sucked, and 2) while there were certainly some awful things about it I'd never noticed before, the majority of them I'd noticed as a kid but actively chose to ignore. I'm not sure what this says about human nature and/or me.

This is one of those things. Jaller's voice is terrible. The movie is full of Power Rangers acting, but most characters are at least able to hit a good timbre. Jaller's is just awful. He's the captain of Ta-Koro's Guard, but he sounds like a younger, nasallier Tidus from Final Fantasy X.

That "He's got more rocks in his head than a Po-Matoran," is a real clunker. I understand why it's there. As a writer, it feels good. You're ~immersing the viewer in the world~ or something, and it does double-duty, because it's also a sort of clever exposition where the viewer learns that Po-Matoran having something to do with like...rocks or something. By all known laws of aviation, it should work.

But it doesn't. All the layman audience thinks is, "What's a 'Po-Matoran'? That intro where the big rock shot evil lightning at the little rock said something about 'Matoran', so I guess it has something to do with that? This movie is dumb." They're also left wondering why this weird robot boy didn't just say, "He's a fucking moron," instead. Besides the fact the movie is PG, I mean.

This is your fault just as much as it is the story guys'! For shame, Terry.
Do you think your great-grandpappy Will would have written

I had some harsh words for the story guys, but let's not leave out the directors. For shame, Terry. Do you think your great-grandpappy Will would have written a line like, "He has more rocks in his head than a Po-Matoran"? Yes. He probably would have.

Cut to: Takua with his pet giant crab, Pewku.

Yeah. Takua has a pet giant crab. Her name is Pewku. In a regular movie he would have a dog. Instead he has a crab. Maybe this movie is actually...good?

Right: God that looks awful never mind.
Left: Our intrepid hero.

Pewku, like everything in Bionicle, has a history. And like almost everything great about Bionicle, she was introduced in the MNOLG. She is an elderly Ussal crab (Everything Has A Name). Before being owned by Takua, she previously belonged to a Matoran named Onepu and served as a taxi crab, carrying Matoran around the dark tunnels of Onu-Koro, the village of earth. In her younger days she was a racing crab, and won the Great Ussal Race three times.

Yep.

And that's setting aside her prior history from a thousand years ago. Naturally.

Ussal crabs as depicted in the MNOLG. I don't think any of these are actually Pewku, but her design
was the blue-and-yellow one on the left.

Takua is intrigued by - in what's become something of a running theme - a rock. Because this is a movie, and he is in Ta-Koro, said rock is on the other side of a river of lava. With a convenient path of stepping stones leading right to it.

There's a bad habit in fiction - particularly in visual media and doubly particularly in animation without enough care put into it - where the only objects in a scene are the things directly relevant to that scene.

Unrelated image from Batman: The Killing Joke.

This is how you get things like a river with a straight line of footholds leading across, rather than laid out in a more natural scattering.

This particular case is so blatant that I kind of wonder how it could possibly have happened. It's insignificant, and yet in some ways that's the point. It's like going to a fancy restaurant and getting your meal served on a paper plate. It affects nothing...but it's impossible.

"I bet no one's ever recorded this before."

What? How? How has no one seen this before? The village is like...a hundred feet away. We saw it!

"That's why..."

"...they call..."

"...me..."

"...the Chronicler!"

They do indeed call him the Chronicler. Because he hops across lava to look at rocks, apparently.

Jaller finds him because, as previously discussed, he is a hundred goddamn feet from the village.

"What are you doing down here alone?"

"We're supposed to be at the Kolhii match!"

I'm no judge of 3D animation; I'm barely qualified to have an opinion on hand-drawn. Considering it's a direct-to-video movie from 2003 (Finding Nemo had come out less than six months earlier), Mask of Light is definitely solid, but the characters tend to over-emote and punctuate their every statement with a movement or gesture. It's possible they were worried the characters' faces wouldn't be expressive enough, but it's equally likely they just didn't realize they were overdoing it.

Back at the plot, the writers decide they're at risk of looking competent and indulge in a goofy cliche guaranteed to make themselves look like hacks.

This is just what Ancient Things on pedestals do.

What kind of Rube Goldberg machine could possibly have triggered
a massive lava surge?

What is this arcane, never-before-seen rock? Will the protagonist survive? Will Jaller and Takua be late for their Kolhii match? Find out next time on...this!!!

つづく