It's really cool that Andrew Garfield is interested in Bionicle

2002: spooky ball robots are destroying our villages 2007: the only item that can revive the dying god who's body we live in has fallen into a radioactive underwater prison full of war criminals who turned into weird sea monsters

The lore for Bionicle goes about as hard as Tolkien.

The third movie may have been the worst, but the scene where the evil lady orders the spiders _to commit suicide, _*_and they do it because she scares them that much_* goes hard.

This needs a sequel because you barely scratched the surface of the lore.

Jala's name turns into Jaller because a lot of the names found in Bionicle came from the Maori language and the Maori tribes of New Zealand weren't to keen on how Lego/Bionicle was using their language. After a settlement between the two, some of the names changes (like how Matoran were no longer called Tohunga) while others were allowed to stay the same (like Toa, Kopaka, and Kanohi) and even name changes like Jala to Jaller and Huki to Hewkii were given a canon reason through a Naming Celebration after some proved their worth through heroic deeds.

I remember being let down by the modeling and animation of Mask of Light because the commercials looked so much better and like the figures. I thought that’s how the movie would be.

One of my main complaints about the movies is how much they cut out. There were like, two whole arcs that the second movie skipped over. The first movie also really backpedaled on Takua as he also had a couple arcs beforehand where he and his friends battled Makuta Teridax and the Bohrak-Kal. They were also instrumental in helping the Toa Mata and their transformation into Toa Nuva. Also I am mad that the executives forced the creator to make Vakama evil instead of Matau in the third movie, not to mention it took place right before Time Trap which is a great Bionicle story that introduced the Dark Hunters.

Every kanohi mask has a different associated power so that, despite the fact that only six elements are seen as toa (there are actually like twelve) each toa can still have unique abilities, like how tahu's mask makes him less physically vulnerable (allowing him to actually surf on lava) but vakama's mask let him turn invisible and jaller's mask put him at peak physical performance, all the time.

growing up, web of shadows was actually my favourite of the movies. I had read all the books as a kid, and specifically vakama's struggle in this arc always resonated with me. then again, it's basically a copy of revenge of the sith, which is my favourite movie of all time

The mask of time speeds up or slows down time in a small area. So it basically created the one slow motion effect in the final fight. Makuta wanted to use it to speed up the brainwashing he intended for the Matoran. Otherwise it would "take a lifetimes journey" to complete his plan. The big robot was created on the Glatorian planet. When you look at the title sequence the planet looks like the icon of the three virtues. Long ago there was a war on the planet over a resource that was responsible for stabilizing the planet (the silver liquid in Makutas chamber in Mask of Light). That made the planet split it in three parts. The robot was created to fix the planet, but on the day it was about to do so, Makuta send Mata Nui to sleep. The other broken robot is a much older prototype from a time where the planet was still at piece.

Bionicle Lore is totally insane. Some of the stuff that's in this thing? It is just crazy. Read if you want to know some crazy nonsense: Metru nui is canonically a city state where the government straight up kills civilians it doesn't like (until the Toa free it, but still, wth) Makuta starts off as a single villain, then we learn that Makuta is a whole race. Then we learn that they are a living spectral gas. There is an ancient, elder god-like entity on the giant robot that is indescribable and is kinda miffed that it doesn't get more control in the goings on in the robot. There is also a second horrific deity that consumes dreams and eats people's life force, just cause. The water outside the robot has been contaminated by leaks in the robot's systems, turning the water mutagenic. There are multiple races in Bionicle lore that barely get any screen time. Roodaka? Yeah, she's a member of a whole race of entities that live in a Matriarchal society that produces weapons. MATORAN HELL, HEAVEN, AND LIMBO ARE REAL PLACES. Matoran hell is called Kahrzani and is described as a place where sand flows like water and Matoran who break down get whipped by a mad titan. Matoran heaven is a land where they get to craft god-like MacGuffins like the Mask of Light and the Mask of Life. Matoran limbo is a spaceship that acts as a communication satellite and beams people (yep) to and from it. 1000 years pass between the end of movie 2 and the start of movie 1. Between movie 1 and the start of movie 4 (when Makuta takes over Mata Nui) takes about 1 year.

This doesn't even _begin_ to describe the sheer depths of this toyline's lore. It gets _so_ much wilder than this.

They’re not robots actually. Only half, they still have organs. Also there is a lore related reason why the blue one is a girl. All Matoran and Toa of Water, Psionics and Lightning are female while Matoran of Light and Shadow could be either, with Takanuva being the only Toa of Light.

The name change was due to a lawsuit by Maori activists for appropriating their sacred language and they incorporated an entire story around why they had names changed.

Web of Shadows is important to the Bionicle community since it introduced Roodaka. If you know... You know how big role Roodaka has in the community and all that...

why does everyone think the 3rd is the worse one? its such a cool concept being a werewolf noir story

Currently halfway through the 9 hour lore video

one thing about the legend reborn i find annoying is the people on Bara Magna (the mad max world) is the people there are not robots they are lesser cyborgs. the matoren are also cyborgs but more like a robot with with organs then a person with a robotic limb. you can see it in the older film especially mask of light where muscle fibers are easier to see.

The animation in the first three Bionicle films are done by Creative Capers and the studio actually consisted of former Don Bluth animators

That Cryoshell album that went with Bionicle absolutly slaps!!

The fun part about their arbitrary powers given by the masks is that when the series began, those arbitrary powers were the whole gimmick. You would buy a blind bag of masks in different colors so that you could give Tahu's mask to Gali so that she could have his shield powers, or Wenua's flashlight.

The thing that always surprises me looking back is how many dark elements were present.

I have been binge reading the books and honestly they are a treat. Read Time Trap twice in the same month. I am upset we didn’t get movies of the Ignition trilogy, then again... it’s the darkest arc in the series with a literal journey to Hell, slavery, necromancy and the threat of universal destruction. No chance for an origin series either since mass genocide is a big part of that story.

I kinda love how eventually your pronunciation goes from “Bionicle” to “bonkle”

god that box art for mask of light is so grossly incandescent

9:21 "When we do we pick our names and costumes? Cause I call dibs on Zach-Attack"

Theres a character that is so canonically hideous, it damaged the revival system of the Matoran Universe

You forgot the Mata Nui online game, which takes place before the Nuva Arc which the Mask of Light takes place in and stars the protagonist of the MoL movie who is referred to as just Chronicler. And Makuta is Mata Nui's brother and also Nothingness before it got reconned and Makuta becomes a species and title and Teridax who is the Makuta in question is actually a usurper who turned his species to darkness and wants to become a god in place of Mata Nui.

The whole time I watched this I just imagined Andrew Garfield with an in-depth but very surface level knowledge of Bionicle telling me Bionicle lore and I freaking loved every second of this

Cool, but I was expecting a dive into the stuff the movies and comics don't cover, like what the novels talk about or even hint at. THAT is actually nuts.

Do not cite the deep magic to me witch. I was there when it was written.

The lead designer used this product line as an allegory for an illness he was going through at the time. The continent of Metra Nui the characters live on is actually the comatose body of a Titan god (ala xenoblade). The bad guys represent viruses and cancer, and the hero's arrive in capsules that represent medicine pills. You're literally playing as chemotherapy avatars battling a disease to save the organism you live on. That goes SO unbelievably hard.

Its so funny to say "the bionicle lore goes HARD" then promptly skip over the comics or books which actually show off the lore of the universe more than the movies did.

This and godzilla were my childhood. I still have the case for nuhvok-kal as my piggy bank, though the actual bionicles are given away. Connecting them to each other weirdly was always fun.

12:04 the reason Vakama does all that- going off on his own, joining the bad guys, and having to be reminded of the mission- is because turning into Hordika made them really instinctual. They get kinda crazy and short-tempered like teenagers because they became half animal. Vakama's confidence at the start of 3 was all bravado. His hubris got them caught, and he beats himself up hard for it, after. But then the others join in, is the thing. Since all of them were so instinctual and easily angered all of a sudden, they couldn't sympathize properly with Vakama when he needed them the most. They got mad and gave him shit, so he got mad, and went off. The baddies exploited his anger towards the other Toa and promised that power could help save the Matoran as well. They don't really show it off in the movie, but in the books and comics, during missions the Toa went on with the little guys to find Makoki stones, some of the Toa (mostly Nokama) go a little wild. She gets a kick out of what her animal side does to her sense of inhibition. She gets warned not to lean into that so much, or she'll lose her marbles. It's all about managing as best you can when your primal selfish side is cranked up way past what it should be. Some managed better than others, and Vakama wasn't one of them. When you've got all these things telling you you suck and you're worthless and you shouldn't even have this job, which is what you already believed, might as well say _fuck it. This method could maybe let me save the matoran, and trash all these idiots, too._ but leaning into those instincts causes him to go super bestial and all but forget about the matoran. Oops. Web of Shadows is far from perfect, but the _Bionicle Adventures_ books it adapts are very compelling. I don't think it's the worst one, either. Some stuff I've left out or forgotten, but the Hordika arc is pretty damn cool altogether, as a story.

Mata Nui died for a little bit, and in that small window of opportunity, Makuta took over the giant robot body. Then Matoro -- one of the toa -- sacrificed himself to bring Mata Nui back to life. At some point in time, the Mask of Life gained consciousness and made itself a toa to help the other toa... do something. I don't know. The island they were on is called Cardi Nui and Gravity Hurts is blasting in the background so who cares. Anyways, at the end of the music video, the Mata Nui robot wakes up and everyone is partying, but it turns out they resurrected God's with Makuta's mind inside. Then God-Makuta stuffs Mata Nui's soul(?) into the Mask of Life and shoots it into space, never to be found again. That's right, in the end, Makuta, the evil guy, actually wins. Then Lego had a soft reboot of the franchise and that's where Legend Reborn comes in. And I thought for sure Toa Ignika was going to be the protagonist. Like, the comic ends with the line "a hero stands reborn," and the guy is wearing the mask, and everything is pointing to a story where Toa Ignika has to return to Metru Nui and deliver Mata Nui's soul back to the robot and expel Makuta once and for all. Then it slaps you across the face, telling you that no, Mata Nui is the protagonist. That Toa of Life shit? No, we're done with that. That was a one-time character.

Ok, potentially hot take: Making Tahu not just hotheaded literally and figuratively but also an actual asshole is what makes him interesting. It's honestly bold to make the face of a franchise aimed at children a dick most of the way through the Mata Nui arc. It would be really easy to make the face of your franchise just the best guy ever (*coughHeroFactorycough*) but Farshtey gave him a character arc across the comic series. Makes me wish his Bionicle Stars design was a combination of all three of his looks (Mata, Nuva, and Mistika) instead of being exclusively based on his Mata design.

I want the AKIRA pill jacket, except it’s a Bionicle pill capsule

First gen bionicles look so cool. I had the ice earth and water one. Still can’t get over how cool they are on the small pamphlet thing that came with the toy that explains a bit about the character and the lore

9:03 the masks(kanohi) always gave them powers even back in the first movie. It's something the masks just always did, they're made from kanoka disks which is what imbudes them with said power, the disks themselves from what I remember are just protodermis.

Mistika was one of my favorite lines in Bionicle

You just unlocked a bunch of memories about legend reborn because I watched over and over again when I was super little

Danny: 0% script, 100% enthusiasm love it i remember playing the website point and click adventure, thank you so much for acknowledging bionicle. the pill capsule container cancer thing is nuts

I really love Boncles

Great video! I loved web of shadows growing up and also your bit at the intro and end.

i enjoyed your content my guy, thanks for the blast to the past

Creeping in my soul is now one of my favorite songs 😂

Mans literally started his essay video with: 1840, the industry of train.

I've honestly always loved 3 from what I remember

bro really skipped over Matoro's death like it wasn't the saddest moment of the whole 2000s

The legend reborn lives rent free in my head due to the amazing location designs tbh

Something I've noticed about Tahu: He's.. weirdly raclst at the start of the line. Dude seems to hate just about every bonkle that isn't related a ta-matoran, ta-toa, or ta-turaga.

I do not agree with your take that the toa's kanohi powers didn't have much bearing on the story of Legends of Metru Nui. With the exception of the flashlight mask, pretty much all of them had a direct impact on the plot that couldn't really be replicated without them.

Bionicle is what helped me find all American rejects.

Andrew Garfield dissing Spider-Man is WILD🤣🚪👈

Oh man, that is insane. I just remembered being a super fan of the movies and I had most of them

Hero Factory lore: hehe robocops vs bad guys Bionicle lore:

That intro was smooth af

Disappointed you didn’t use Crash for the underwater section. That song made it so hype

I never knew I needed this

Awsome video man 🔥🔥

Really good video. Underrated video in fact.

Bionicle and Flight of the Concords. You just teleported me straight back to 2007

I still have the "Bionicle voyage of (Matinui? Mahtinui? Mahtinuy? How to spell-)

I was there as a kid when it began. Playing with the sets and the games on it's website. Good times. I kind of stopped after the Visorak part of the story, though I kept up with the website's updating the lore and games. The story could have been done better and be more engaging, but I'll be glad it was a part of my childhood.

To be fair about the blue Toa being the female character, most of the time it’s the same character with a suit upgrade. Both Gahli and Hahli got different versions throughout the series. There were a few male characters that were blue, but they weren’t actually Toa.

Movies are the worst introduction to get around the Bionicle lore... Like you said at the start of the video, it's the combination of all media which really made a great experience. Hell, all the content on the Bionicle websites was way better than any game or movie lego produced.

Lego legit created some Star Wars/Warhammer level lore for a fucking toy line that was DISCONTINUED.

Andrew Garfield is a big fan of Bionicle who knew! How awesome is that!

the online game I remember being really atmospheric

My childhood nostalgia is satisfied.. thank you

Bionicles apparently had more world building than i thought

This is me high at 2 am explaining to my friends

My favorite sets that ever came out from the Bionicle toy line were the Barraki and the Phantoka. Those were the height of awesomeness for me.

I wish that they would bring Bionicles back, they were awesome.

You deserve way more subs man

The G1 Commercials hit hard.

Move along was such a banger when I was 10

wtf do you mean vakama turns bad for no reason? Bro was being lead on by a hot goth dommy mommy and you DONT want him to forsake everything for for robo-poonani?

NGL , that boinicle trailer is where I first heard Move Along

- Matau's(funny green Toa Metru) mask power isn't shape shifting, it's illusion. - Pretty much all the species in Bionicle use collective nouns, so just like you wouldn't say "sheeps" or "milks", the plural of Toa is just Toa, same with Matoran, Visorak, Rahi, Bohrok, Rahkshi, etc. - Matoran of Lightning, Psionics and Water were all female, with the exception of the first Toa of psionics, and Light and Shadow could be either gender. Although most elements of Matoran and Toa were often confined to a single gender, the same is not true for the Glatorians and Agori on Bara Magna, all of the tribes can be either gender.

M8 be careful, i think your room its on fire, and about the video, i think i never took the time to realize that Bionicle 3 was inside Bionicle 2 in timeline, i love all the movies and stuff from Bionicle, i cant critizice it too much, but when someone else does i figure out new things, that gr8, one can never get enough of boncles. Great video m8¡

Okay repeat after me ! Mata | Mata Nui | Nui Mata Nui | Mata Nuitie !✨

havent watched these since I was like 8. dont plan on watching them again because I know they wont be as good as they are in my memories

I actually think that Bionicle holds up as a movie, obviously nostalgia plays a role but the lore is great and it doesn't waste too much time

The Kanoka Disks were usually forged in the city of Metru Nui using liquid protodermis. The purer the protodermis, and the more skilled the forger was, the higher quality the disk was. Different disks had different powers, and masks could be forged from these disks. The six Great Disks were forged on Artakha (Technologically advanced island which the matoran thought was heaven) and then secretly teleported to Metru Nui so that Vakama and the other Toa Metru could find them later. Most disks aren't just lying around. These six disks were merged together to form the Disk of Time, which Vakama forged the Mask of Time from. This Mask of Time is one of the three known Legendary Masks (the others being Life, and Creation), which would later be given to Tahu to defeat the Bohrok-Kal after the Toa Nuva were stripped of elemental powers.

Man I just always had it in my head that they were succeeding generations of sentient warrior robots with a forgotten origin, designed to work and operate in different environments and with exchangeable parts. I cropped out the magic part and the establishment lore cause it just didn't make sense to me.

I'm watcging this at 3am in the morning trying to sleep.

Dude bionicle was so cool. I wish I still had all my comics and legos.

The vizorak toys are great to add to starwars scenes as some sort of spider driod or other threats Also great for castle and kingdoms and other medieval lego themes

Goddamn I miss the early 2000s so much

To be fair, it was established first year that all water type matorans/toa/turaga are female. Doesn't make much sense to me but shhh, it's sacred lore

I love that you say Mata Nuity

“Is” nuts, bionicle never dies

I do think of one day frying my brain with Elder Scrolls lore, and then do the same with Bionicle lore to see which one is the deeper rabbit hole

The gold disks gotta be from Throwbots. I don't know if that's true at all, but they had that "heroes of the elements" kind of feel that Bionicle has.

Lego didnt loose the Star Wars license, its just they werent making as much money from it due to paying for the licensed fees, and the fact that sales dipped inbetween movie release years. The worst years were the ones where there werent any new Harry Potter or Star Wars movies, and thats when Bionicle basically hard carried the entire company to prevent bankruptcy. It was a last ditch attempt from Lego to make a successful theme when all other Lego themes sucked balls (the Era of Jack Stone-like lazy system builds). They hit gold with Slizers, but didnt fully realize its potential and just moved on with Roboriders, which was less fun Slizers. Bionicle is the evolution of Slizers and the first Lego IP to have a dedicated story to it. Without it, there wouldnt be lines like Ninjago or The Lego Movie, and there wouldnt be the Lego company. I only wish it became its own separate company as it was initially planned, Lego itself limited the franchises potential, ultimately needlessly killing it off due to horrible quality control of the parts and lazier standard set builds on top of it all being more expensive to collect. We could have had Robot Dinosaurs and Warhammer with Bonks, what was Lego even thinking not giving Bionicle the chance it deserved!? Oh and they rushed the G2 release with a dumbed down story and lackluster second wave and second year set designs, even though they could have just taken Fabers pitch which would have easily connected the two generations of Bionicle through a time traveling storyline, along with Hero Factory (which was always speculated by fans to have some connections with Bionicle besides having the same set designers and writers).

I knew nothing about Bionicle before. As a child I owned only one and the absolute cheapest one. And yet your video was very entertaining. :D

No no, you said bionicle "WAS" nuts, it will always be nuts