Well-known community member Duckbricks recently visited Christian Faber and gained access to massive amounts of behind the scenes Lego content… arguably most interesting of which being a massive amount of Hero Factory lore. Perhaps most surprising of all:
With this in hindsight, you can see hints of this in the final product. Mr Makuro is obviously very Turaga-like in appearance, something people have picked up on before, and his name is literally just Makuta with the last two letters changed. Brings a new meaning to Makuhero City…
And here’s some concept art for that underground Villain Factory:
Oh wow, that finally justfies many fan theories about HF and many questions we were asking in the past!
I always knew Villain Factory was teased (dissapointing it didn’t go anywhere) and wondered where did the Villains come from originally… And yes, it comes as no surprise that there is more to Mr. Makuro - the guy was an enigma on purpose for a reason. I’m not sure they would actually go all out with the Makuta revelation, or just keep the idea of corrupt Makuro. I would expect the latter, due to the whole “don’t confuse the fans” thing.
I hope Duckbricks will do a good job of relayig all this information to the rest of the community
PS: Oh and I like how the Hero/Villain Factories form the very familiar shape Nice easter egg
That Breakout scene was confusing, but I interpreted it as Voltix generating some electrical brainwave copy of Von Nebula’s consciousness, who tried to reach his true self in the Black Hole Orb Staff…
Well that explains why he wears a Noble Mahiki and the Mata foot
Edit: Also, I now feel justified in my head-cannon that the island of Okoto and everything on it was just Artaka’s pet project, fueled by nostalgia filled fever dreams caused by him contracting the dreaming plague
So Faber originally planned for Hero Factory to be a continuation of Bionicle? Or does this just mean in a more thematic sense that Makuro would have similar characterization to a Makuta?
Either way, Makuro becoming the main villain would be quite the twist, as is the idea of the heroes remaining personally loyal to him (though I’m sure there’d be plenty of defectors).
I believe Faber revealed the Makuro=Makuta connection in an Instagram post, pointing out the Hero Factory insignia has two letter Ms.
I assumed this was Faber retconning things years after the fact, not from the beginning. But as others would point out, the Makuta connection would’ve likely been tossed out had they actually followed through with the Villain Factory plotline.
Why connect it with a villain from a canceled theme that new kids would have no knowledge about?
Oh, it does, that’s crazy! Now if some doubters think Makuta hiding big "M"s in other symbols or texts, and naming things based on his name is silly, remember in G1 he did this:
Something along those lines, yes. Question is, where would Voltix get VN’s brain pattern, but remember, if there is a Villain Factory beneath HF , then both Voltix and VN would ultimately be created by the same person (Makuro), who has access to both AI programs.
Not only that, but in the TTV interview, we all thought his remark about Good Guy having an “M” body shape and secretly being Makuta was just a funny joke, but now I see Faber’s mind was primed for this kind of thinking because of HF and it might have even been a hint - they did talk about HF in that interview after all.
Yeah, no offense to Faber and the design team behind hero Factory, but this reveal is kind of… Stupid. Having there be a major twist about the operating forces at work in the Hero Factory universe is one thing, sure, and it’s a pretty neat concept, but having that antagonist - the double agent manufacturing both sides of the war - actually be the canonical G1 Makuta?
Ignoring the fact that Makuta is deceased beyond any point of debate, you have the world of Bionicle essentially completely changing with no semblance to its original self left, completely destroying the prior franchise all so the worlds can “connect”, which in my opinion would have made people more angry than it having ended did. Why wipe away ten years of story building to completely rebuild the world while directly implying the only thing that remains is Makuta, who at Bionicle’s close was uttering statements like MakutaVerse?
Hero Factory being its own thing and being underwhelming is still better than having an immense plot twist and deep lore riding atop Bionicle’s bloated corpse. It’s sad that we never got to see the Villain Factory twist play out, but it wouldn’t have been worth sacrificing Bionicle for the sake of attempted continuity.
A connection to G1 wouldnt ruin G1 in my opinion. With the info we have currently, Makuta would be the only connection between the themes, but I’m sure that more explanation would have been provided if they did go down that route. Hero Factory could have taken place hundreds of thousands of years after Bionicle’s conclusion—maybe it wouldn’t have even taken place on Spherus Magna.
And I don’t see why (if we’re assuming that Mr. Makuro is Teridax specifically) Makuta’s survival is impossible either, I feel as though no one would bat an eye if the writers said that he did manage to live on in some form
But regardless, it’s always cool to see what was going on behind the scenes
I would have to agree it would have been pretty silly to reveal this. That is why I think it was only the “inspiration” behind a more original twist. I believe if they had gone with this story point, it would be a corrupt Mr. Makuro, but any Bionicle connection would be omitted.
Actually revealing HF as having direct ties to Bionicle would contradict many things even Faber himself said about it and what the goal of the theme was.
It is entirely possible that Makuro being Makuta is something only Faber envisioned while pitching the concept for HF. It wouldn’t be the last time he made an ad hoc Bionicle origin story for Makuro (8:56):
Nice easter egg
