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Furst isn't specific, but considering Web of Shadows ends with Vakama telling Takanuva, Jaller, and Hahli "Now it's time for you to make new legends," I'm pretty sure 6 matoran becoming Toa for that arc was always the plan, not to trot out the Toa Nuva again. See also how Jaller gets Lhikan's Hau and even as far back as 01 was singled out for being in the clan of Lhii, whatever that was supposed to mean. I personally feel like Metru Nui as a concept has a fair amount of merit, but I don't understand why people think staying on Mata Nui would have been bad. Was Lego Island 2 enriched by bringing in Castle and Adventurers Island? Sure, Mata Nui could have gotten boring if they kept showing us the same places and situations over and over, but they wouldn't have had to do that. Mata Nui's a big place and it's not like after 3 years we had seen literally everything on it. And I'm taking for granted here that you aren't saying we needed new characters or something, because there are endless examples of long-running stories out there that keep to a core cast of characters - that's just kind of how stories tend to work in general. All that said, though, I'm not even that opposed to the idea of leaving Mata Nui - what bothered me more was the concurrent rapidly decreasing investment they put into keeping the story accessible and, more importantly, interesting. All the characters became flat and there was no reason to care because it was all so impersonal. But that's neither here nor there. I'm pretty sure that's inconsistent just because Greg writes by the seat of his pants and doesn't try too hard to make sure all the details line up. I was re-reading Mystery of Metru Nui recently and Greg has Ehyre tell Nuju more or less "the Great Disk is in such a dangerous place, you're probably going to die." Come to reveal the location in the next book, and its... on the side of a Knowledge Tower. And Nuju had already climbed up a Knowledge Tower to save Ehyre, before Ehyre said the whole "ohoho its so deadly" thing. Even better, it is implied Ehyre didn't even know it was on the side of the Tower, he just though it was on the top somewhere. Greg establishes that Knowledge Towers have convenient chutes leading up to their roofs earlier on.

Very interesting. I'm ultimately glad we didn't get a Makuta origin-story. It would probably have been a hackneyed "Upstanding hero turns psychotic after losing a friend/getting his feelings hurt"-sort of affair, not to mention a rip-off of the near contemporaneous Star Wars prequel trilogy. Ditto Takanuva leading the Toa Nuva. I quite appreciate that BIONICLE gave us a side-step with the Inika/Mahri. If that hadn't happened, I fear we'd have seen an absurd raising of the stakes, in order to prevent the Toa from looking invincible. I think there's a blindly nostalgic tendency among Bonkle fans to wish that the Mata Nui years had remained the status quo, as if that wouldn't have gotten stale rather quickly. Still, the prospect of ongoing BIONICLE films, not to mention a broader look at the Matoran Univere's history (the glimpses of which I found quite enjoyable,) is an enticing one. This probably isn't the case, but I can't help but wonder if the Takanuva plan was what Krakua was supposed to be referring to in Time Trap. Certainly, the whole thing doesn't line up with what actually happened, with Dume sending the Nuva, and Nokama sending the Inika-to-be.

Makuta Origin Movie... that's hard to imagine. If they took it seriously and made a wave(s) of sets around it, it could have been pretty darn cool. But if they didn't put their all into it, it's better that Makuta's backstory is left more to the imagination (not that Greg leaves much to the imagination, but it's a less solid impression than a movie would be). I guess it's because I only got into BIONICLE in 2004, but I'm kind of happy with how it all went. Having the "chosen one" lead the Ignition trilogy could have opened up the door to a million cliches and horrible prophecy-driven plots. And to be honest, I don't think BIONICLE ever got too techno; if the alternative was sticking too close to 01-03, that would have gotten old after 10 years, cool as it was for the first 3. It's sort of nice we got some diversity. </controversial opinion> Except I think these were all planned for after Metru Nui anyway.