Adventures into the Past: It Isn’t Nostalgia

Hope you’re all getting through 2020 well.

I know it’s been rough for a multitude of reasons for me, and I’ve been trying out different ways to destress as the weather thankfully shifts from ludicrously and almost oppressively hot, to a nice and even mix of warm and cool before my favorite season gets here.

Sometimes I have urges to revisit things, whether they are good things I haven’t checked out in a while, or rather dubious nostalgic things. For whatever reason, I decided to re-watch three direct-to-video animated movies based on a defunct LEGO toyline.

Have you ever heard of BIONICLE?

Created by LEGO employees Bob Thompson and Martin Andersen, alongside writer Alastair Swinnerton and Christian Faber of Advance (a Danish advertising agency), introduced in some parts of the world in the year 2000, and brought to the United States sometime in mid-2001, this LEGO line used the kinds of pieces meant for the LEGO Technics sets. In fact, the earliest waves of these sets still had them under the LEGO Technics moniker before being released as simply “LEGO BIONICLE”. The storyline involved human-like robots living in an elaborate fantasy setting that had a deep lore to it, making it unique amongst many other LEGO products and toylines. Several works of media collected the story, from Scholastic novels to comics to a pretty immense web game known as the Mata Nui Online Game. The Mata Nui Online Game was notable for its collection of Flash-animated cartoons, which bore some very stylistic visuals that suited the artists’ exact-recreations of how the toys looked…

I was eight years old when this series was introduced internationally. The advertisements for the toyline popped up in theaters, these elaborate CG ads that really made this line look like something big and exciting. I got my first BIONICLE set in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. For any fans of BIONICLE reading this, my first set was the Matoran character Kongu.

Back then, the Matoran – the villagers of the island of Mata Nui – were known as the “Tohunga”. However, LEGO was faced with a lawsuit that ended up leading to a few name changes happening in this series. This was because LEGO had actually used real Oceanic names for these characters and their races, prompting Maori groups to take action. For 8-year-old me, it was a cool combination of a robot, satisfying colors, and a really neat mask that you could take off. The Happy Meal toy came with a poster showing Kongu, and Toa Lewa. For the uninitiated, the Toa are the warriors to the villager Matoran. Basically, Lewa was like a bigger Kongu, but instead of a frisbee-like disc, he had a badass green axe. Then I saw that there were five more Toa, in different colors, much like the six Matoran. Each color represented a home for the characters, and an elemental power associated with it. For green, it was “air”, and all of the “air” BIONICLE characters came from the jungle region Le-Koro. The other colors/elements were red (fire / Ta-Koro), blue (water / Ga-Koro), brown (stone / Po-Koro), black (earth / Onu-Koro), and white (ice / Ko-Koro). Soon, I picked up on all the settings, the individual masks and their powers, and the whole concept of the adventure. By the end of 2001, my birthday and Christmas were all about BIONICLE. Over time I got all of the Toa, all of the Turaga (the elders to the Matoran), and even sets like the Rahi beasts (the island’s wild animal inhabitants). You could even take apart the characters and mutate them, building super-characters made out of the individual characters. I did a lot of mutating, making what were essentially “OCs”, and because of that… Half of my BIONICLE collection is possibly missing. (Will explain later… Maybe?) I played the online game, I got some of the Scholastic books, I read the comics, I wrote fanfiction. At age 10, one of the animated features I wanted to make in the future was a BIONICLE movie. BIONICLE’s lore also influenced and inspired a lot of my own work.

BIONICLE was through and through a special interest of mine, and continues to be one.

I will confess upfront that I was not a Star Wars kid, nor was I really into any franchises like that. I was mildly interested in Harry Potter upon the 2001 arrival of the first movie, and went and read the first book as a result, but I remained a casual fan of that series as each movie came out. I generally wasn’t into lore-heavy stuff as a kid, not like now where I’m all about a series’ deeper mythology and construction. I hadn’t seen a Star Wars film in full until 2011, when the original and prequel trilogies were released for the first time on Blu-ray. For years, Star Wars just did not interest me. For me 8-year-old me, BIONICLE was my gateway into lore-heavy stories and franchises. Stuff to remember, characters names’ to keep in mind, cool-looking toys to collect! I was a BIONICLE kid, through and through.

Throughout 2002, they kept the Mata Nui storyline going with the introduction of beasts called the Bohrok. I had a few of those, and much like the Toa, Turaga, and Matoran, they came in the same six colors. Then came the Toa Nuva (pictured above), which were upgraded versions of the Toa, with more detailed masks, shiny armor, and cooler weapons with unique functions. Of course, this was done to get me to ask my parents to buy the same characters because that’s how toys work, don’t they? Make some, release upgraded versions, kids ask for those, parents get ’em. I actually got Toa Gali Nuva on my first ever visit to New York, when visiting FAO Schwartz. Of all the things in that massive toy store, that’s what I got… More BIONICLE sets, content me!

2003 was arguably the year BIONICLE peaked, and the ever-expanding series was one of the things that got me through what was otherwise a very rough year. Between transitioning from my relatively safe elementary school to the battlefield that was middle school, to losing a very close relative of mine, 2003 was so not my year. However, I had these robotic life-forms to help get me through… I say that 2003 was BIONICLE’s peak year because they appeared to have concluded the story: With the introduction of the Toa of Light (a white and gold Toa called Takanuva), and an epic final battle with the series’ mainstay villain, a dark force known as Makuta – the evil brother of the Great Spirit, Mata Nui itself. Makuta’s final set of minions meant to take down the Toa were the formidable Rahkshi, whose sets were more dynamic than what had come before. They were a lot more posable than earlier BIONICLE characters, while keeping gear mechanisms for attack moves. The Tohunga were finally re-released as the Matoran, who also had mechanisms and accessories, and weren’t just a mere collection of hands, feet, a torso, and head. Additional beasts and characters were released, alongside…

A movie.

When I had heard that a BIONICLE movie was coming, I was thrilled. Regardless of whether it was a theatrical feature film or a direct-to-video affair, all 11-year-old me heard was “BIONICLE: The Movie” and boom… It came out just in time for my birthday, and let me tell you, this first BIONICLE movie was in heavy rotation back in the day.

BIONICLE: Mask of Light is a strange picture in retrospect. The production company behind the low budget CG-animated adventure was that of Creative Capers Entertainment, with assistance from studios overseas. If that name sounds familiar to you, then here is a refresher. Creative Capers Entertainment provided additional animation and services to a number of films such as Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Once Upon a Forest, The Pagemaster and a few live-action films such as 101 Dalmatians and Mr. Magoo. Other work of theirs includes several Disney video games, and TV fare like Nightmare Ned and Sitting Ducks. They almost got involved with Richard Williams’ The Thief and the Cobbler at one point. Their president and owner, Sue Shakespeare (who has a long history with Don Bluth and Bagdasarian Productions, among others), had proposed to help Williams iron out story issues with his incomplete film and even suggested getting Terry Gilliam on board to contribute. Her bid was rejected by The Completion Bond Company, whom had seized the film from Williams in 1992, and they instead went with TV animation veteran Fred Calvert to finish the film cheaply and mold it into something it wasn’t meant to be. What’s also fascinating is that BIONICLE: Mask of Light is a computer animated film. Most direct-to-video animated fare was still traditionally animated in the early 2000s, because CG was still kind of in its infancy when it came to all-animated features. In fact, the DVD release has an audio commentary with the filmmakers genuinely explaining why they chose to alter the designs of the BIONICLE characters so that they appeared to be more human-like and less rigid like the toys appeared to be.

Even as a kid, I did kind of balk at the few changes that they made to the designs, but accepted them just the same. The characters were still recognizable and retained a lot of their unique qualities, and the locations are for the most part nicely realized. The filmmakers tried to make this film seem cinematic, by trying to give the settings an atmosphere and the composer delivering a pretty epic-sounding score. There are a few scenes in it that still work, though others try very hard to be very big budget-like but just can’t be so because the low budget won’t allow it. Some of the voice acting is even kind of impressive, while the rest is questionable. On this viewing, which was the first time I had watched the film all the way through since 2008, I found Makuta’s voice (Lee Tockar) to be intimidating and effective, and Gali’s stereotypically “peacekeeper” voice (Kathleen Barr, who voiced – surprisingly – Kevin from Ed, Edd n Eddy) to be a standout as well. Some lines are kind of funny, such as a scene where Lewa makes a quip about how a sand and fire attack encase some of the Rahkshi in glass. “Ha ha, makes glass!” It’s so cheesy, I find myself smiling every time he says it.

An egregious detail here is how Gali is designed compared to her toy counterpart.

But as much as I still enjoy this movie, I don’t consider BIONICLE: Mask of Light to be of good quality. Taking a step back from nostalgia and from personal enjoyment of the thing, the movie is rife with issues. It is very clearly a toy commercial designed for 11-year-old me and several other 6-to-12-year-old boys out there, circa 2003. While the writers try to work in as much of the lore and character stuff as possible, the plot is a generic Hero’s Journey quest that borrows quite a bit from The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The Matoran are frustratingly portrayed as cliche preteens, probably because of their size in relation to the Toa, who unsurprisingly all sound like adults. Well, at least they got the Turaga right, as they have always been the elders. Various set-pieces happen, but few of them land, and they go by so quickly because of the slim 74-minute runtime. The other visual BIONICLE media has more of a serious sci-fi/fantasy adventure mood to it, which I always felt suited the world that Bob Thompson, Martin Andersen, Alastair Swinnerton, and Christian Faber created… Whereas Mask of Light is a straight up kids movie. I do like that it doesn’t shy away from being a little scary for young’uns, as it surprisingly garnered a PG rating from the MPAA, in an era before they got hell-bent on slapping a PG rating onto nearly every single family movie out there. The monstrous Rahkshi are pretty well-depicted, what with their heads opening up to reveal freaky, slithery tongues. Most of Makuta’s scenes are set in a shadowy, and pretty creepy lair. However, this is one of those animated movies that is definitely cool when you’re in the target age group, but for an adult, there’s little beyond that. If you don’t know a thing or two about the BIONICLE lore, forget it.

I can’t say much about the visuals, because it’s a direct-to-video CGI movie from 2003, what were you expecting? Finding Nemo? All I will say is that they, for the most part, did capture the look of the characters and some of the environments do look like they were translated faithfully from descriptions of them, but aren’t as inspired as they should be. The writing is about on par with the generic story, it feels like a feature-length cartoon that you’d see on a programming block like Jetix or Miguzi. I’ll have to explain that, too. Those were blocks on cartoon channels that focused on action-comedy stuff. Jetix was a Disney block in North America that was simultaneously on Toon Disney and ABC Family (now Freeform), which was home to cartoons like Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! (that title alone just screams “early-aughts attitude cartoon for boys”) and W.I.T.C.H., alongside stuff like Digimon and Power Rangers. Jetix was basically Disney XD before Disney XD, if that makes any sense. Miguzi was on Cartoon Network, and contained Teen Titans, Totally Spies!, Code Lyoko, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and a few others. I watched some of these shows (really dug Teen Titans back in the day, for example), and some I completely ignored. BIONICLE: Mask of Light feels like a movie version of those blocks. I watch this movie now as a 27-year-old and I get a hearty chuckle out of how cheesy it can be.

You have no idea how much this part thrilled 11-year-old me the first time I watched it.

Of course, BIONICLE was far from over. The story seemed to have ended with Takanuva defeating Makuta, so now LEGO was going to go backwards and tell the story of the world of Metru Nui, a more technologically-advanced island akin to Mata Nui. In this storyline, we follow the Turaga when they were the Toa Metru, and thus… Multiple new sets and comics and books and additional merch came forth… And a second movie! This all came slamming down in the autumn of 2004. As expected, I got all the Toa Metru and some additional characters, and got the second movie as a birthday gift! Strangely… Despite still being into BIONICLE at age 12… I didn’t really watch BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui all that much. Was it the absence of the characters from the original? Was it because it was a prequel? Was it because it just didn’t have the relative charm of the first movie? I think I may have seen it only five times, including this recent viewing of it… My interest in BIONICLE waned in 2005, despite getting some sets and still having my old ones. One more direct-to-video movie came about, BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows. I didn’t even *finish* it back then. I got the DVD in fall 2005, and just turned it off. It just wasn’t interesting to me.

When I had revisited BIONICLE in 2008, I had a fun time rewatching Mask of Light, and gave Legends of Metru Nui a whirl… I forgot what even happened in it. I don’t think I even bothered with Web of Shadows.

So now in the depths of 2020… I rewatched the two follow-up movies and actually finished the third one.

BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui is similarly straightforward and workmanlike, though I did appreciate its attempts to give Toa Vakama something of a character arc and some humility. (If you’re so interested, he’s the red guy in the above picture.) There were some sequences where he has freakish visions of the future, and they attempt to be a little surreal and artful for a direct-to-video movie. Otherwise, it was basically the first movie but with more plotting and a lot of strange and absolutely jarring frame-rate changes in the animation. I saw, once again, why I kept forgetting about it. It is just a forgettable movie. That I could remember how much I enjoyed the toys more than the movie itself in 2004 is quite telling. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t as steeped in the Metru Nui story like I was with the Mata Nui story. I knew the chronology, the ins and outs, the masks, what everything all meant… With Metru Nui, it was like starting over and maybe I just didn’t want to commit to that. I just simply got the toys and the movie and called it a day. With more knowledge of this specific lore, perhaps I would’ve enjoyed Legends of Metru Nui the same way I enjoyed Mask of Light? On recent viewing, I just got mild amusement out of it. Some of Metru Nui is neatly realized, but a setting this elaborate demanded a feature film budget and solid writing that would match the pictures.

BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows surprisingly fares a little bit better, and I wonder if that’s because they swapped the writers of the first two movies for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer vet. The main arc of this movie is Toa Vakama’s insecurities about being a leader, and how he teeter-totters between giving into a beastly evil side (a proto-Kylo Ren, if you will) or doing the right thing, all the while being manipulated by a queen that looks like the Predator. It’s nothing special, but I found it more engaging than Legends of Metru Nui and enjoyed the team more this time. I barely remembered any of this story between my 3/4 viewing in 2005 and now, and I chalk it up to me being interested in other things by then. As a kid and preteen, I always had trouble balancing a ton of special interests. I moved on from many of them, and then revisited them from time to time. As an adult, I try to go all galaxy brain on this kind of stuff and keep whatever it is I’m not focusing on tucked away safely in another part of my brain. BIONICLE is one such chestnut that I go back to every now and then, because everything else still holds up. (I’m largely unfamiliar with BIONICLE lore and characters post-2005, but that will change eventually…) The toys are cool and great to still have around, but I really dig the lore and the stories… Not so much these movies, which are really just commercials for the toys and everything else. I just like them now because of, admittedly, nostalgia, and also because I sometimes like and enjoy “not so good” stuff.

Often times, “nostalgia” is used as a means to dismiss the medium of animation.

Nostalgia is but one of many tools folks often use to keep animation in a box, in a kids’ corner. Can’t admit that you find a Disney animated classic to be a valid piece of filmmaking? Easy, just say “it was my childhood! That’s why I like it! I get to be a kid again when I watch it!” Not this guy. If I’m going to watch a Disney animated movie, I’m not going to do it because I want to pretend it’s the late 1990s again. Good animated movies are more than just “memories”, and with several Disney animated movies, I still find things to appreciate in them that I never saw in 2010, in 2005, in 2000, in 1995, etc. Ditto Pixar’s earlier films. I embrace animated movies I’ve never seen before with a fresh mindset, that I’m going to see something cool and unique made from my favorite art form, NOT “oh my god I’m gonna be seven again!” I actually watched these BIONICLE movies out of curiosity, to see how they’d hold up and if I’d still get some kind of enjoyment out of them as an adult. I didn’t want to pretend it was 2003 again, a year that wasn’t all that great for me. I just wanted to watch a trio of movies, though of course I was reminded of when Mask of Light and such brought me comfort in difficult times. But I know how to separate that from critical viewing, damn it!

BIONICLE: Mask of Light came out the same year as Finding Nemo, and I watched that ad naseum back then as well. I saw Finding Nemo in theaters three times, rented the DVD nonstop until I finally got said DVD (and the VHS, too!) as a Christmas present at the end of the year, and then rewatched the living heck out of the DVD. I revisited Finding Nemo years later, and was struck by it in new ways, I appreciated it even more than I did back in 2003 at age 11. I caught the movie in theaters for a *fourth* time when Disney theatrically re-released it in 3D, it hit me super-hard on that viewing. It continues to hold up whenever I watch it, it continues to impress me as a piece of filmmaking and as a piece of storytelling. I sometimes notice something new in it when I watch it. I didn’t hit the theaters to see Finding Dory in 2016 because “Finding Nemo was my childhood! Move out of the way, kids! I’ve been waiting a million years for this!” I went and saw Finding Dory because I love Finding Nemo. I never wanted a sequel to Finding Nemo, but when Pixar announced in 2013 that they were going to make one? I said, “Alright, let’s see what they’ve got!” Nostalgia means little beyond what it is, to me. It’s like a drug, I use it sparingly. I revisit media I’ve loved for years because of my personal love and appreciation for it, it has absolutely nothing to do with reliving my childhood. If anything, I want to make NEW memories with things that I love.

I will say, though, if Universal (who now has the rights to make theatrical LEGO movies) all of a sudden announced a new bigger budget take on BIONICLE with a more faithful storyline, you know what? I’m going to be there day one. Is it because I want to pretend it’s 2001 again? Nah, I like BIONICLE in the year TWENTY-TWENTY and will continue to like it, which is why I’ll be there to see it. A lot of things I liked in the early 2000s, I don’t really like anymore. Off the top of my head? Direct-to-video Disney sequels, that Rob Schneider movie The Animal, whatever other toy I was playing with back then. I still like BIONICLE, so there’s a difference… Sure, I’ll be watching this theoretical, better BIONICLE movie and think “Man, if this movie had come out back in the day, I would’ve been in seventh heaven!” But I’d also be there with a critical eye as well, and an intention to enjoy it.

(Please oh pretty please Universal, make this the next LEGO movie. I’d be fully behind it.)

Anyways, nostalgia is not why an adult would love animation, let alone consider a good animated movie to be valid cinema. Rewatching these BIONICLE movies reminds me of how to make that distinction, if I ever somehow forgot…

And yet, I still enjoy these things for what they are, because taste is very weird at the end of the day. There are several “technically not very good” movies I can enjoy for my own little reasons. I’ll put it in simple terms, and I’ll be 2003-centric for convenience… Finding Nemo is a film that I see as a work of cinema, a great work of animated storytelling for almost all ages. I don’t love it because I loved it at age 10/11, I love it because I feel it’s just a great film. I embrace several new animated films in similar ways at my age. 27-year-old me sees great things in Finding Nemo and great animated movies like it. None of that has to do with my memories of watching Finding Nemo and other animated movies as a young’un. BIONICLE: Mask of Light is a movie I can still watch at age 27 and get some *personal amusement* out of, but I don’t consider it to be a good piece of direct-to-video filmmaking. If not based on a toyline that I’m interested in to this day, I wonder if I would have watched it more than a few times past boyhood.

That there, to me, is the big difference. I can personally thank BIONICLE, among a few other things, for helping me somewhat articulate that…

3/4 of what currently remains of my BIONICLE collection. Take out the Cintiq, and this photo looks like it was taken in 2008, haha. Don’t mind the dust!