Bionicle 4: Island of Doom - a pitch for collaboration

ToaZaz · March 1, 2024, 4:30am

Hello! My name is Jackson. I go by Toa Zaz here and on BZPower. 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: BIONICLE 4 Island of Doom draft 6 2-3-24.pdf - Google Drive

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.

.

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 veins creepy 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.

.

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!

Minethuselah · March 1, 2024, 9:01am

This all looks amazing! That first image, the poster, had me hooked the second I saw it. I think the Piraka look a bit “squiggly,” but apart from that the detail is amazing, from the Voya Nui sphere to the tubes and organics on the Inika masks.

I saw you were trying to figure out the Piraka weapons - I have a suggestion. Part 99009c01 is kind of where I got this: a handle on the side (with a trigger or button to activate) and a turn-table on the side of the weapon. Alternatively, the handle you have now could work; using Thok’s gun as an example, the weapon could slide on the circular track you’ve created and could be held on the inside of the Piraka arm, similar to how a real gun would be held. To get a better idea, the grip the Piraka would have is comparable to the real-life gun grip called the “chicken arm.”

I’m not great at drawing (and I don’t know how to 3D model), so I can’t really thing of anything useful I could bring to this project. You seem to have the story “finalized” as well (or at least you know what scenes you want) so I can’t really help with writing either. At the same time, I can’t wait to see where this goes and I definitely encourage you to continue!

DuneToa · March 1, 2024, 10:57am

That one picture of Makuta disguised as Dume is honestly scarier than his movie appearance. I’m impressed at the work you put into this. The storyboards of your own that you posted look quite well done, and the effort you put into the tile poster is great!

Enbeanie · March 1, 2024, 12:13pm

I like how Zaktan is all wiggly because he’s made of Protodites

This is seriously cool, it’s like you reached into some parallel dimension where Mirimax made an Inika movie and stole the storyboards!

Very nice work here.

ToaZaz · March 2, 2024, 7:35pm

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

@Enbeanie thanks so much! That was exactly what I was hoping to evoke!

@Minethuselah those are great suggestions! The one thing about the chicken arm grip is that from what I can see on Google images, it seems to be only for two-handed guns, not sure if it would work as well for the Piraka’s one-handed weapons.

Here is a rough sketch of what I was going for with the Piraka weapons’ flipping functionality:

Also, here are a few other 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.