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BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui is Still as Beloved as Fans Remember: A Response to Comic Book Resource and Matthew Attanasio

Hey everyone! I’m James, the guy behind Wall of History. I know I rarely drop the facade of my brand on official Wall of History accounts, but today, I’d like to make a more casual, opinionated post on something that’s been getting a lot of attention from the BIONICLE community on Twitter.

Last night, Comic Book Resources posted an article titled “BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui is Still as Pointless as Fans Remember,” and if you have even a surface-level familiarity with the BIONICLE community, I’m sure you can guess the reaction we had — CBR’s tweet was pretty quickly ratioed by fans, drawing comments like, “Comic book resource [sic] once again proving you do not require a brain to type,” and, “We think that the Vahki would like to have a word with you guys." BIONICLE fans generally agree that Legends of Metru Nui is the best film in the franchise, so claims that we universally “remember” it in such a negative light are completely baseless — I’d like to move past the inflammatory title, however, and analyze the actual contents of the article.

LEGO's decision to focus on prequel material was received as a slap in the face. While fans were ready to see the story press forward, it instead fell backwards to tell stories that held little significance to the ‘present day’ plot of the franchise.

To say that the story of Metru Nui held “little significance” to the plot of the franchise is ridiculous. For three years, fans had been given only vague legends about the origins of the Matoran and their struggle with the Makuta, and after Makuta’s defeat, “pressing forward” meant returning to the world they had left behind following the Great Cataclysm. To introduce us to that world and show us how the Matoran came to be in their present situation was an obvious next step for the story.

That's not to say the various comics and novels didn't deliver interesting stories; they did.

That’s true, they did! However, the rest of this article gives me reason to believe you didn’t actually read them (or, at the very least, didn’t pay attention when you did).

They just weren't what fans craved at the time. Legends of Metru Nui failed to bring anything valuable to the table in this regard, with a sloppy story, terrible pacing and forgettable characters.

There are numerous claims and implications throughout this article (we’ve already glossed over one) that BIONICLE fans generally felt certain ways about this film, as well as this story arc as a whole, but none of these claims are backed up. To blatantly misrepresent the feelings of the community like this is rather poor journalism.

Regarding your claim that Legends of Metru Nui failed to bring anything valuable to the table, I’ll reiterate my point from above — the ending of Mask of Light saw the Matoran take the first steps toward reclaiming their home, a home that had been hidden from us, the fans, since the inception of the franchise. Showing us why and how this home was lost in the first place proved to be a vital step in expanding the scope of the BIONICLE legend. Makuta’s actions in Legends of Metru Nui ended up being the inciting incident for the rest of the story, a story that was largely set in the Matoran Universe introduced by this arc.

Your claim that the film has forgettable characters is, like your claim that fans generally remember this film negatively, demonstrably false. Vakama is widely regarded as one of the best characters, if not the best character, in the franchise (the last post on this very blog is evidence of this), and Nidhiki proved to be so popular that his origin story was later relayed to us twice, in the short story “Birth of a Dark Hunter” and the novel BIONICLE Legends #4: Legacy of Evil.

These new heroes are Vakama, Nokama, Matau, Onewa, Whenua and Nuju, Toa of Fire, Water, Air, Stone, Earth and Ice, respectively. Whereas Mask of Light's Toa Nuva were already fan-favorites, the Toa Metru were a mixed bag, and this film did nothing to help their image. In truth, all three of the main Bionicle films failed to highlight how awesome the Toa could be, which is a shame.

BIONICLE is not the story of the Toa. It’s the story of the Matoran.

In the behind the scenes featurette on the Legends of Metru Nui DVD, the narrator makes the odd claim that both Mask of Light and Legends of Metru Nui are “all about the Toa.” This claim is odd not just because Mask of Light literally isn’t about the Toa (it’s mostly about two Matoran), but also because the Matoran have always been the heart of the franchise — a fact that Legends of Metru Nui comments on.

Many fans feel that Mata Nui: The Online Game is the best BIONICLE media, and it’s a story that largely focuses on the Matoran. You play as a Matoran, you primarily interact with Matoran, you solve Matoran problems… and until the very end, the Toa are mostly off doing their own thing. This makes for a really compelling story, precisely because the Matoran aren’t “awesome” like the Toa. It’s cool when the Toa unite their elemental powers to make the Makuta explode into a pile of scrap metal, but it’s compelling when the Matoran armies, whose leaders previously seemed preoccupied with their own problems, unite to save the ragtag Chronicler’s Company from what would have been a deadly Rahi attack.

The Matoran have always been the emotional heart of the BIONICLE legend (the Toa’s stories do focus on saving them, after all), and Legends of Metru Nui understands this. When Lhikan tells Vakama to “save the heart of Metru Nui,” the Toa Metru immediately assume he’s talking about himself… and that kind of makes sense! Lhikan is, after all, the last Toa, a fearless, noble hero, and the last bastion of light in a city being consumed by shadows. Of course he’s the heart of Metru Nui! The Toa Metru spend most of the film searching for Lhikan, but when they find him, he’s not the hero he used to be anymore — he’s a small, frail Turaga now, and he berates Vakama for seeking out him instead of saving the true heart of Metru Nui, the Matoran. This is a great twist, not only because it finally delivers on some of the spooky foreshadowing from earlier in the film, but also because it sends a clear message to the audience that the Matoran are the heart of this legend.

The plot revolves around Vakama's (voiced by Alessandro Juliani) inner struggle to realize who he is. If that sounds familiar, it's because that was basically the plot of the first Bionicle film, which handled these themes in a much stronger way.

While it’s true that Takua and Vakama both struggle to accept their destinies as Toa, I feel Vakama’s struggle is the stronger of the two, as his is based in the very relatable anxiety of impostor syndrome.

That's largely because Vakama, along with just about every other character in the film, is incredibly boring.

This is one of the comments I mentioned above that makes it hard for me to believe you actually read the comics and novels that tell the rest of the Metru Nui story. Vakama’s character arc is undoubtedly the most complex in the franchise, based in relatable anxieties, and actually has a clear beginning, middle, and end (contrast this with the more repetitive character arcs of the Toa Nuva, who have to learn about the importance of unity several times over before they finally internalize it).

Despite being the protagonist, Vakama has an incredibly erratic and unfocused arc, while Whenua (voiced by Paul Dobson) and Nuju (voiced by Trevor Devall) receive next to no development at all.

This latter statement regarding Whenua and Nuju is true, but I don’t think it works as a criticism of the film, which is clearly meant to focus on Vakama, Lhikan, the Matoran, and the Makuta. Rarely does a film with an ensemble cast give a complete arc to every single character, and if it keeps the film more focused, that’s a good thing.

And whereas the antagonistic Makuta had a consistent, threatening presence in Mask of Light, he's an absolute joke here.

He eats people in this movie!

However, much like Mask of Light, Legends of Metru Nui maintains the problem of poor editing to the point of being laughably bad. There are transitions and cuts that make absolutely no sense. The movie struggles to let scenes settle and develop, with many in the middle lasting no longer than a minute, which is extremely jarring to watch.

Alright, I’ll give you this one — the editing could stand to be a bit more polished. It’s a film that’s trying to juggle quite a few plot threads, though, so I think its ambition makes its editing shortcomings forgivable.

For example, in the comics, writer Greg Farshtey explains why Vakama experiences visions of the future. But in the film, there's no explanation for this at all, making it seem like Vakama has clairvoyant powers out of nowhere (not that his vision [sic] do anything substantial in the film).

This is an extremely odd comment, because it’s just not true on either count. Vakama’s visions are never explained in the comics, but they are explained in the film, barely fifteen minutes in: “Visions can be a sign of madness, yes, or messages from the Great Spirit.”

The claim that Vakama’s visions contribute nothing substantial to the film is also objectively false, since his visions are what compels the team to go after the Great Disks, from which Vakama crafts the Mask of Time.

There are plenty of other small lines and instances that ignore the continuity, like Whenua commenting on how he went from being a Matoran archivist to a Toa fugitive in a day. That's obviously not how it works -- the disk hunt alone takes a while in both the comics and the film, so Whenua's statement makes no sense.

Whenua’s line is, “When I woke up, all I worried about was cataloging.” He does not explicitly claim to have been a Matoran when he woke up. All this line does is show that Whenua thought he’d be able to return to his life as an archivist now that the Morbuzakh and Krahka had both been defeated.

Of course, nowadays, many Bionicle lore scribes have properly allotted the film in the larger Bionicle timeline. But at the time of release, it felt like Legends of Metru Nui was blatantly going against everything that was already happening in the canon, which was upsetting and/or painful to watch.

Do you have a source confirming that fans felt this way at the time? As I briefly discussed earlier, this article is filled with implications that BIONICLE fans in general feel the same way about Legends of Metru Nui that you do (this is even made explicit in the title), but none of these implications are backed up, and this is simply not the case.

For the true fans out there, revisit this film if you want. Just don't expect anything special.

I watched it just the other day and had a great time! And the last time I hosted a stream of it, we all had a great time! And this brings me back to the core issue with this article: the baseless claim, in both the title and contents, that BIONICLE fans generally dislike Legends of Metru Nui. Perhaps it’s odd to write a response like this for what’s probably a pretty harmless article. Perhaps it’s an overreaction. But to see a huge site like CBR publish an article like this, that's not just full of factual inaccuracies, but also misrepresents the feelings of most of this community, is upsetting. To ascribe this kind of negativity to a generally friendly community, a community that so genuinely loves what we love, flaws and all, for some clickbait ad revenue… is upsetting.

#BIONICLE

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