#web of shadows

[mrmozzie]

The Marvel Wiki should add kickflipping on random civilians to Spider-Man's abilities column

(from web of shadows)

[brown-spider]

I enjoyed Snapcube’s stream of Web of Shadows

[jurakan]

I am tempted to say that the 'main hero turns evil' thing was a rip-off of Revenge of the Sith, but both movies came out in 2005 and this movie was probably in production for a while so it's not like it wasn't already far along when that movie came into theaters....

...then again, it's not like the Plot of RotS was a surprise when it came out.

And that shot of the burning Temple, hm...

[breelynnsblog]

Entangled! 💝💝💝

[arr-jim-lad]

:)

[a-wa-c]

The fact that the Bionicles movie trilogy is on YouTube is fuckin' sick.

I watched Mask of Light on DVD so many times as a little spud, usually while playing with Lego.

The world, the lore, the characters? They all fuck, and fuck hard.

[medusamagic]

Oh, so you met a strange, tall, broad-shouldered woman who took you under her wing, tied you up, injected you with hormones that changed your body, and made you howl for her?

*wiping sweat off my brow* That sounds like an absolute nightmare.

[bright-eyes-art]

"I knew you'd come, spider"

web of shadows symbiote designs go so hard

[bionic-baby]

Sidorak and Roodaka in a nutshell

How would a steltian even kiss someone?

I was gonna fill roodaka’s little bubble with spiders, but I decided against it.

[doomed-jester]

I was NOT ready for Spider-Man 2 to turn into Web of Shadows meets King in Black for the last 2 hours or so

[alastheswarmleaderhasescaped]

Deeply appreciate the Web Of Shadows novelisation for turning the movie-necessitated exposition into Vakama being even more of an obnoxious ass

[catsafari25]

Sometimes the book adaptation of the bionicle movies are funnier than the film

[jurakan]

BACK TO LIVEBLOGGING WEB OF SHADOWS

Visorak buffing the floor is random and I love it.

When did Sidorak have the time to have his face carved all into the Colosseum??

[moviemunchies]

It’s been about two years since I saw a BIONICLE movie, and it appears that my XBox 360 is dead, so I can’t watch another one on that. I still have other DVD-playing devices, though, and since it’s long-past time to watch Web of Shadows, let’s go ahead and watch the final BIONICLE movie*!

*Unless you care about The Legend Reborn which I don’t.

After defeating the Makuta in his attempt to take over the city of Metru Nui, the Toa Metru return to the island city to rescue the Matoran and take them to their new island home. But ohes noes! The city’s overrun by the Visorak horde–evil spider creatures that conquer everything in their path. The Toa are captured and mutated into the Toa Hordika, bestial creatures with strange forms and powers. Now the Toa, guided by the guidance of Norik, must master their new abilities if they hope to defeat the Visorak and find the one being that can restore their old Toa forms, Keetongu. But how can they accomplish this goal when one of them succumbs to his Hordika rage?

I’m going to spoil this movie, because I’m pretty sure if you know it exists, you’re already a BIONICLE fan who has seen it. Also, it’s twenty years old this year. Statue of Limitations and all that.

Alright, the first thing I think about with this movie is how the Plot  involves Vakama turning evil, something that Greg Farshtey, the lead writer of BIONICLE, famously disagreed with. See, the movies weren’t written by him, or with his input, so when a year’s storyline led to a movie, they had the movie written in advance, and he just had to write the books and comics that led up to it (and the novelization of the movie), even though the movies tended to ignore or skip those events. 

ANYHOW this was clearly a ‘from-on-high’ decision because it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s a speedrun of a Fallen Hero arc. Greg tried to give Vakama motivation for turning evil in the books, so the arc made sense, but none of those reasons are what’s used in the movie. His heel-face-turn is baffling; Sidorak and Roodaka offer to make him a ruler over Ta-Metru and commander of the Visorak horde, which is a weird thing to offer to someone who never had the desire to rule over others in the first place. Why he would want to rule over a decaying, ruined, empty city district is beyond me, and beyond anyone, really, but it sounds like the kind of thing to make a fallen hero (and Revenge of the Sith came out earlier the same year), so that’s what they went with, making his eyes turn evil green and calling it a day.

[Greg argued that Matau was more likely to turn evil, out of all of them, because he was a glory hound. Watching this movie, my take was that he’d break from everyone constantly dissing him. I discussed this with @autumnhobbit though, and really, Matau doesn’t seem like a good choice either, given that being a hero matters so much to him.]

They also have no clue how to write him turning back good again, so they use Matau telling him that his Destiny is to be their leader and save the Matoran, which Vakama, in his Hordika haze, evidently forgot? And this isn’t good reasoning either–Vakama should be a good guy not because it’s the right thing to do, or because being evil doesn’t lead to anything worthwhile, morally or even materially (WHO WANTS TO BE KING OF A CRUMBLING CITY DISTRICT FULL OF EVIL SPIDERS), it’s because it’s, uh, his Destiny. Which is actually suspect, going off of the novels at this point. I understand that ‘Destiny’ is one of the Three Virtues in this setting, but you’re going to have to give me better reasoning for why someone’s supposed to do something other than ‘the stars said so.’ Which, again, turns out that they didn’t.

It’s this core arc that might be the reason I haven’t seen this movie as many times as the other two–it just doesn’t work for me, even if there’s some cool action in there. The Toa other than Vakama and Matau barely have any personality, unless you count Nokama’s vague supportive role.

And it can’t be understated how aggressively this one ignores the books and comics for the 2005 storyline. It’s not just that they skip over events, where Vakama leaves to turn evil after the first conversation with the Rahaga. It’s weird little things like how Nokama and the other Toa refuse to follow the Rahaga into the Great Temple, because the temple is sacred to Toa, and as mutants they feel like they’re defiling the place. Except the Rahaga are also former Toa, and it’s a bit weird that no one mentions that. Matau, at least, should know that by this point. Legends of Metru Nui had a brief montage where you can imagine some of the book and comics events to have occurred; this film has no such thing. It’s frustrating because we’re told that the Toa must learn to use their new powers, and then they don’t–at the final battle, they storm the bad guys’ lair and have full control of their abilities.

Yet! This one feels much stronger in its action. There’s much more blasting, especially when it comes to the final battle, where the Toa are firing their spinners left and right at the Visorak hordes. It is impressive to see and hear Vakama roar, as an animal might, when he’s confined or confronted, and especially when he turns into a villain and attacks the Rahaga. It is really cool to see the Toa unite and attack Roodaka, too–it’s no wonder that a lot of fans assumed that she was dead after she fell in this movie (maybe she was, and the story team changed their minds or decided it was too gruesome?).

And yes, just like the last two movies, there are a lot of lines that are embedded in my head.

I can’t get past how this one handles its story, though, which relies on a character arc that just does not work for me. It’s clumsy and rushed, and more than the last movie, feels like a strange aberration in the storyline, rather than a planned conclusion. Obviously I can’t say that BIONICLE fans should skip it, and I think non-fans wouldn’t get much out of it, but I have to say that out of the movies, this is my least favorite.

[hiddency]

Lowtier Queen

[fandomnerd9602]

The spider gang confronts Y/N the Black Suit Spider…

Gwen: this isn’t you

Miles: come on man! That suit is killing you

Y/N: you’re not my Gwen…this suit is the only thing keeping me going

Peter B: guys I know a standard villain monologue. We gotta go

Various symbiotes surround the gang…

Gwen: time to go!

The gang disappear thru a portal…

For @konstantin609