BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui

'''Fluttershy was hurtling through space toward a decommissioned space station. Slowly, she pulled her knees to her chest and closed her eyes as her bowels begin to expel hundreds upon hundreds of beautiful, symmetrical turds, brown as the day is long. She laughed like a young filly as her turds drift aimlessly behind her; they were like butterflies to a pony frolicking in the fields of Equestria.'''

She approached the station's docking port, babby rabbit in hoof, and prepared to float gently into its inviting confines. She extended her rabbitless arm jubilantly, as to celebrate the majesty and depth of space, and thank jesus christ for this ultimate gift and blessing. But suddenly, her outstretched leg collides with the outer rim of the docking port, and the trajectory of her quaggy body is violently halted.

The fates afford her barely enough time to turn her head before the turds arrive. One thousand turds, each one seemingly larger than the last. She tries in vain to cleanse her eyes of the shitsting, but succeed only in smearing her own fecal matter into a fine asspaste, which slowly seeps into her eyes and nasal cavity. She inhaled three hundred and twenty four Space Turds; her lungs are permeated completely with her own shit. She hung lax, spirit broken, defeated by poop. She will never be the same. And yet, the horrors had just begun.

She started at Equestria and dreamed of her home. She saw her babby animals being slaughtered helplessly by the named body of Christ, weilding a flamming Claidheamh Mor of eternal hatred, severing the legs off of her beloved woodland creatures. He screamed in the native language of his Arabic, shouting words that would bring about the end of all creation, his flaccid cock swinging violently as he pursued the herd of small animals, swinging his sword with all of his might and sending tiny flaming babby animal legs in all directions. The look of terror on his face was immortalized by the furious souls of former Michigan State Governors, who had sat in the spaceships when he was a young chirst and saved the world from the evils of 9/11. With his final burst of rage, he decapitated John Moses Browning, for creating the M1911, for the South could never rise again.

The Story.
In this story, Vakama recalls the events that took place long before Mata Nui. His friends Nuju, Matau, Onewa, Whenua, and Nokama are chosen to be the Toa Metru of the island of Metru Nui. They must prove themselves worthy of Toa and fight off mysterious darknesess such as the dark hunters and an evil plan by a suspicious Turaga Dume.

The film was received with mixed reviews, with some noting the filling in of plot holes from the last movie, but continued to be noted for its visual effects and musical score, though others questioned its artistic merit. The film was followed by a sequel, Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows.

Plot
The film opens with Turaga Vakama describing a land that existed before Mata Nui. Toa protected the residents of Mata Nui until the Makuta creatures came to the land and defeated all of the Toa except Toa Lhikan. Before he was captured by the two Dark Hunters, Nidhiki and Krekka, Lhikan gave six Toa stones to six Matoran. The six were Whenua, Nuju, Matau, Onewa, Nokama, and Vakama himself, who met at the Great Temple in Ga-Metru. They were transformed into six Toa Metru. They then seek to recover Great Disks, called Kanoka, hidden throughout Metru Nui. Only with these Kanoka can they hope to defeat the evil Makuta posing as Turaga Dume, the leader of Metru Nui.

"Mama," neighed the young filly, her little poni eyes wide in terror. "The babby sheep, is make much awful noise today."

"Oh dear gawd," said Dad, much terror wristed by awful neighs of Daughter. "We must go sea and find reason for awful sound from anus region."

so mawm and dayd and doughter all walked with their many penised hooves to sound, where babby lamb had explosive rectal hemorrhaging from spiled meat and sour milk.

"Is too much sham to wrack an dircirplen." sayd dad

"We must help i defend from babbyeous corpses! yes, said dsauhter, "must help defend"

so they took babby and sat it near Trinitrotoluene block. Dad flipped leever and said "horey sheet we have to get out of here before it assploes the babbyieos cropseas"

So dad and mom and siaughter ran with they are many pingased foots and babby lmab assploded into sevenal mrillions flamming babby pieces, and whole battalion was fed well from slaughterhouse an Trinitrotoluene.

the slend.

The story also centers around the creation of the Kanohi Vahi or the Mask of Time, which will bring victory to which ever side possesses it. After defeating the Morbuzakh, dangerous plants that threatened the city, the six new Toa brought the Kanoka discs to the Coliseum. But the Makuta, disguised as Turaga Dume, denounces their existence as Toa and unleashes the Vahki law enforcers upon them. Three of the Toa, Onewa, Nuju, and Whenua are captured and put into the prison of the Dark Hunters, while Matau, Nokama, and Vakama escape. They pass through Le-Metru and get to Po-Metru where they encounter the two Dark Hunters, Nidhiki and Krekka. Along the way, Matau and Nokama find their mask powers, but Vakama does not (he later declares that he is not a real Toa).

Before they encounter the Dark Hunters, they secretly hitch a ride on a Vahki transport where Matoran have been imprisoned in spherical cases. Meanwhile, in the prison of the Dark Hunters, Onewa, Nuju, and Whenua meet a mysterious Turaga, who later turns out to be Lhikan. He helps them discover their own mask powers, and Vakama forges the Kanohi Vahi out of the six Great Disks that the Toa had collected. They manage to find a way out of the prison, and are reunited with their teammates.

The six Toa return to the Coliseum, where Makuta reveals himself and attacks Vakama, intending to kill him and take the Mask of Time. Lhikan intercepts Makuta's attack and gives Vakama his mask before he dies. While Makuta gloats over the Mask of Time, Vakama knocks it from Makuta's hands using his disc laucher, and the mask disappears into the ocean. Vakama finally discovers the use of his mask, and utilizes his newfound invisibility to defeat Makuta. Following this, all six Toa combine their powers to seal Makuta in Protodermis. The six Toa then rescue the imprisoned Matoran and gave up their powers to awaken them, transforming into Turaga in the process.

Production
Plans were in place before the release of the first Bionicle movie to create a second movie. The writers Terry Shakespeare and David Molina did have some input into the script, though most of the mythology had already been sketched out.

For the visual style of the film, director David Molina stated “We wanted to give this audience a bigger view of the BIONICLE world – more environments, larger vistas.” Also, “The island of BIONICLE 2 is something like Manhattan, with lots of commerce and large buildings. The first film was very intimate, very organic. Metru Nui is more mechanical, so it has a different feel.”

For the camera work, director Terry Shakespeare said "We really concentrated on depth of field with the camera," Comparing the two Bionicles, he felt "The first film had primary colors that were coded to the areas and a younger feel. For BIONICLE 2, we opened it up – the palette had to be more sophisticated, more realistic with earth tones, so we desaturated the characters."

Most of the animation was created in Taiwan by a company called CGCC. The process of creating the movie, from storyboarding to delivery of the film took 12 months. Molina additionally added that the pipeline and process for creating this film was faster and more refined than the original Bionicle movie. “Our strength is bringing characters to life and not just robots,” added Shakespeare.

Rating
Though being a direct-to-video release, this film was rated PG by the MPAA for action violence and scary images.

DVD release
Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui was released on DVD on 6 October 2004 in the United States. It was praised for its high quality picture and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. The DVD included a number of documentaries including the making of the movie and associated toy line. There is also a featurette entitled "The Legend Revealed" that has a brief question and answer session with the production team. Some critics were concerned that the DVD makes too much of an attempt to sell the Bionicle product.

Cast

 * Christopher Gaze as Turaga Vakama (Narrator) (voice)
 * Michael Dobson as Lhikan, Krekka (voice)
 * Paul Dobson as Nidhiki, Whenua (voice)
 * Tabitha St. Germain as Nokama (voice)
 * Brian Drummond as Onewa, Matau (voice)
 * Trevor Devall as Nuju (voice)
 * Alessandro Juliani as Vakama (voice)
 * Gerard Plunkett as Turaga Dume (voice)
 * Lee Tockar as Makuta, Kongu (voice)

Errors

 * During the movie in some cases the characters don't move their lips while speaking; most notably when Matoran Vakama shouts "Oh, help me, please!" and Nidhiki's "Do it." line. The audio-lip synch has proven to be a bit faulty as a whole; with no explanation why, it is considered a mistake.
 * When the Matoran are in the temple, they insert their Toa Stones into the symbols of their sections of Metru Nui. However, Nokama puts hers into a Ko-Metru symbol, and Nuju puts his into the Ga-Metru symbol.
 * When Lhikan delivers the blue Toa stone to Nokama, one of the other Ga-Matoran says "Toa Lhikan?" in a distinctly male voice. However, all Ga-Matoran are supposed to be female.

Trivia

 * Lhikan, upon first becoming a Turaga, carried a firestaff much like Vakama carries now, until he regained his shields again.