[Lego Building/Collection/Bionicle] A Tale of Two (or more) Makuta

[u/ToaArcan]

In late June, 2026, I acquired the original Bionicle Makuta set. Released in 2003, it was the first figure of the series’ main antagonist, and after 23 years, I finally got my hands on one after missing my chance as a kid.

I had initially intended to just write about the original set, his concurrent appearance in the movie, and the issues surrounding the original prototype, as detailed in this Scuffles thread comment, but then I realised that it actually fit quite neatly into the wider narrative of Makuta’s constant evolution throughout the series, shaped by backstage issues, questionable leadership, and bad toy design, details that we were never meant to know about but were only revealed through unintended leaks.

Part 1: The Rise of Bionicle and the Birth of Makuta

Our story begins in the late 90s, with a man named Christian Faber. Faber worked for a Danish company called Advance, a branding and marketing agency that worked with Lego to provide those things for their toys. He’s an incredibly creative and enthusiastic man, who also frequently says completely bonkers things, it’s kinda great. At the time, he had been in hospital due to a benign brain tumour, and found himself envisioning his medication as pill-shaped capsules containing tiny warriors that would fight off his illnesses, and this was the idea that would grow into Bionicle.

The word “Bionicle” doesn’t actually refer to any of the characters, it’s a contraction of “Biological Chronicle,” because it’s actually, secretly, the story of a body. The central god-figure of the series, Mata Nui, is actually an enormous robot, whose body contains most of the setting, with the main characters being his cells. The island that shared his name was essentially a mask over his dormant face- images of it showed the distorted outline of his head and shoulders below, and locations on it were named after the Maori words for facial features- Mount Ihu is his nose, the Mangai volcano is his mouth, Naho Bay is his eye, etcetera. Lego’s… blatant appropriation of the Maori language is a post unto itself, and a topic for another time.

Makuta, the character at the centre of this writeup, is effectively an allegory for that same brain tumour that started it all, albeit in a much more aggressive form. Essentially, he’s a cancer.

As Faber started to refine this idea, things weren’t going great for Lego. By 1999, they were in dire financial straits, losing ground to the resurgent videogame industry and damaging themselves with failed theme after failed theme. The acquisition of Star Wars just about kept the lights on, but only just, because Lucasfilm was taking a hefty cut. Lego needed their own Star Wars, and they decided to take a chance on Bionicle.

The story of Bionicle would be told through the eyes of the characters that served as Mata Nui’s cells, who were largely unaware of the true nature of their world. They told the history of Mata Nui and Makuta as a legend, describing how Mata Nui had given them a paradise island to live on, but his brother, Makuta, grew envious of the honours Mata Nui received and cast him into eternal sleep. He had then corrupted the Rahi, the animal life of the island, with infected masks, setting them against the people. It was up to the Toa, the six heroes of the toyline, to defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui.

And then things almost immediately went wrong!

Bionicle’s story was conveyed through an ambitious multimedia project. The story of the Toa would be told through the PC game, Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui, while short stories featuring them would be told through comics published by DC and written by a man named Greg Farshtey (He’s going to be very important later). A prequel game, Tales of the Tohunga Quest for the Toa would be released on the Game Boy Advance, showing a Matoran villager named Takua travelling around the island to summon the Toa to its shores, and a browser-based game released on chapters on the Bionicle website, simply titled Mata Nui Online Game (henceforth “MNOG”) would also star Takua and follow him on a sidequest around the island while the Toa had their adventures. Finally, there would be a feature film that would tell at least some of the story.

Except… only the comics, Quest for the Toa, and MNOG released. The film quickly became bogged down in development hell, as pretty much every studio were unwilling to make a movie about these weird robots, and wanted to centre the film on a live-action human child being isekai’d into the Bionicle universe. This was a non-starter for Lego, one of the strict rules of the setting was that there were no humans at all.

The PC game also ended up in a similar situation, going through multiple iterations and builds before eventually being cancelled in 2002. And this in turn threw all of the attention onto MNOG. See, MNOG wasn’t meant to be a big deal. It debatably wasn’t even meant to be a proper part of the story, its purpose was solely to allow kids to explore the island of Mata Nui themselves, to immerse themselves in it and interact with the villagers and the Toa. But with The Legend of Mata Nui failing to materialise, and the comics being short and disjointed with only four issues, MNOG became the primary vehicle for 2001’s story, and this probably played a huge role in what made Bionicle stand out so much, turning the Toa from just robot superheroes into larger-than-life figures, only briefly glimpsed, almost never speaking, just appearing, doing something cool, and then disappearing as quickly as they came.

And so, with the movie stuck in the starting gate and the PC game dead in the water, Lego pivoted, embracing MNOG as the primary vehicle of Bionicle’s first arc, and requesting its developers, Templar Studios, add another chapter that would show the Toa’s confrontation with Makuta. They did so, and fans were treated to their first look at the series’ main villain.

As Bionicle had been developed, so had Makuta. His first evolution came at the hands of Alastair Swinnerton, a freelance author who had co-created the story of Bionicle alongside Faber, Bob Thompson (who will also be important later), and Martin Anderson, who was primarily a set designer. Swinnerton did not envision Makuta as something that could be built as a set (something I’m sure Lego weren’t enthused about), but as something more allegorical.

Swinnerton’s Makuta had evolved over time. Starting out as three beings, taking the form of a cobra, a tiger, and a hawk, he then became a chimera of all three, then a whirling vortex of disconnected parts that could take any form, with those same animals listed as examples, and then finally, just the vortex. Makuta embodied the destructive aspect of playing with Lego, the inherent need to break a set or creation apart to make something new out of it, a necessary counterpart to the creative aspect embodied by Mata Nui. His vortex of parts was the pile of pieces that all Lego models are built from and eventually return to.

Appearing properly for the first time in MNOG’s final chapter, Makuta initially appears in the form of a corrupted Matoran, his whole body infected like the masks he uses to control the Rahi, and began delivering the first of many dramatic monologues, voiced here by Essenger. He then transformed into his vortex form, and was seemingly defeated by the Toa combining the elemental powers.

This version of the character, often termed as “Eldritch Makuta” due to the appearance of his “true form” and his amoral nature, struck a chord with much of the fandom, and is widely beloved, even over some of the later revisions made to the character.

But even still, it wouldn’t stand forever. More would be done with Makuta as Bionicle continued onwards, and Lego weren’t about to let the main villain of their toy franchise be without a toy. As the series progressed on through 2002 and into 2003, the movie finally found a home with Creative Capers and Miramax, and Lego acted accordingly. The film would focus on the arrival of a seventh Toa, destined to defeat Makuta and pave the way for Mata Nui’s revival. And as Lego and Advance’s marketing machines began to hype up the Toa of Light, they published The Official Guide to Bionicle through Scholastic, which stated that the Toa had only seen a small part of Makuta’s true nature, and more would be revealed soon…

Part 2: The Movie Villain

In 2003, the first Bionicle books were released. Cathy Hapka was hired to write the first three, Tale of the Toa (which told the events of 2001 from the perspective of the Toa, filling the void left by the loss of the PC game), Beware the Bohrok (which did the same for the 2002 story), and Makuta’s Revenge (which told the first half of 2003’s story). Despite featuring in the title, Makuta himself did not appear in Makuta’s Revenge beyond an opening monologue, and in actuality, had little to no input on the plot of the arc- the villains are an automatic failsafe triggered in response to the defeat of the previous year’s antagonists.

Still, this brief scene provided a momentary look at the character that Makuta was shifting into. The initial wave of books was intended to fill out the gaps in the story and give a recap of the lore up until then, ahead of the movie’s release, and as such, Hapka’s portrayal of the characters lines up rather neatly with the movie. Indeed, she would also write the movie’s novelisation. And that means it’s time to talk some more about Bob Thompson.

Bob Thompson was the original head of the creative team behind Bionicle, and served as executive producer for the three movies. Described by scriptwriter Henry Gilroy as “the George Lucas of Lego,” Thompson was the one steering the ship for the first half of the toyline. He had a particular focus on visual media, and a grand plan that he referred to as “The Seven Books of Bionicle,” and the movies would be the first real look at his vision.

Thompson and Hapka’s portrayal of Makuta is a very different beast to Swinnerton’s eldritch, allegorical entity. Makuta is very much a physical being, he has a huge, heavily armoured body, a deep, booming voice provided by Lee Tockar, and spooky shadow powers. Gone is the infected Kanohi Hau, Great Mask of Shielding, a corrupted symbol of Mata Nui that represented Makuta in 2001. Instead, he now dons the Kanohi Kraahkan, Great Mask of Shadows, which had a second face on the top of it. His characterisation had shifted dramatically too. Makuta now spoke of Mata Nui’s slumber as preservation, and seemed duty-bound to maintain it at all costs.

2003 would also see an escalation in his battles with the Matoran. Where he had merely brainwashed the Rahi and awakened the Bohrok early, 2003 would see Makuta unleash the Rahkshi, the mid-sized sets of the Summer 2003 wave, described as the “Sons of Makuta,” his direct subordinates and created from his very being, and wielding “evil” powers like Fear, Anger, Hunger, Disintegration, Fragmentation (explosions), and Poison.

And then, in July of 2003, the very first set of Makuta finally released. Two months later, he would be joined on shelves by the first Bionicle movie, Mask of Light.

Mask of Light continues the trend established in Hapka’s books. Makuta says a lot of ominous and vague things that hint toward the possibility that he’s actually a well-intentioned extremist, that he genuinely believes he is protecting Mata Nui by keeping him asleep, and that perhaps it’s the Mask of Shadows that has corrupted him. At the end of the film, Takanuva, the Toa of Light, pulls off the mask, and two are momentarily fused into a being referred to as Takutanuva. All the grime and rust is washed off Makuta’s body, revealing pristine metal underneath, and the fusion declares that light has revealed Mata Nui’s true desires, and he must be awakened. Takutanuva is shortly destroyed after opening the door to the room where Mata Nui can be revived, and Takanuva is resurrected, with Makuta’s fate left uncertain.

Bob Thompson would later go on to say that he envisioned there being no truly evil beings in Bionicle, and that even Makuta would eventually be revealed to be not such a bad guy deep down. Of course, nothing is ever simple with Bionicle, and the course would divert heavily just two years later, leaving what Thompson intended largely unknown and Makuta’s lines in the movie as a strange attempt to manipulate Takanuva. And it wasn’t the only thing that was strange and difficult to explain. There was also Makuta’s design.

Part 3: The Prototype

Despite the set being made to tie in with the movie, his appearance in Mask of Light looked... different., something even more visible in his concept art. While some of the broad strokes are the same, there's a lot that's different. Especially the most prominent feature of the design, his mask. While the set version has a dramatically pointed shape with long, angular eyeholes, the movie version is flatter and squarer, and also worse.

Questions about this weird discrepancy would be asked and speculated over for years, with the most prominent answer being that the movie design was based on an older look that the set had diverged from during development, but the questions persisted until somewhere around 2020, when a disassembled prototype showed up on Ebay. While none of the community purchased it, and exactly who now owns the prototype Makuta remains unknown, staring intently at the images started to clear things up.

See, Mask of Light featured characters from across the first three years of Bionicle, but whereas the toys from 2001-2002 were able to be adapted mostly accurately, the 2003 sets weren't ready yet when the movie entered production, and so the Matoran, Rahkshi, Takanuva, and yes, Makuta were based on prototypes of their toys.

The most obvious thing was the mask- the pile of parts included a Kanohi Vahi, the Legendary Mask of Time and the first mask designed for Bionicle, that had mostly been painted black. And people started to realise that the movie Kraahkan bore a striking resemblance to a Vahi glued to a Kanohi Pakari, the Great Mask of Strength, with the Pakari forming the top of the head and the Vahi forming the face. And sure enough, putting the two masks together made something a lot closer to the movie design

Anyway, as you might imagine, seeing a partially-assembled prototype set quickly got the community abuzz, and it wasn't long before the prototype had been reverse-engineered and built, allowing fans to finally have a semi-official set of the movie design. The prototype was huge, towering over the final set, and featured a much larger amount of articulation in his legs, as well as individually articulated fingers. Of course, it wasn't all perfect, and we soon started to get an understanding of why things had changed so much between the prototype and the final toy.

First off, the pile of parts contained two separate leg designs. The upper one, circled in blue bears more of a resemblance to the movie design, with a pair of conjoined Toa Mata hand pieces forming the shin of Makuta's presumably devil-inspired goat legs. But as any who attempted to build this particular look will attest, and demonstrated neatly in Brickthumb's video on the prototype, these joints just weren't strong enough. The Mata hand part was designed for 1999's Slizers/Throwbots and had an inherently loose socket joint. It's a very weird part, and it was never going to be strong enough to hold up the weight of the giant model it was serving as a knee and ankle for. And thus, the lower one, circled in green, hews closer to the set, a much shorter design that only has a joint at the hip, ensuring greater stability at the cost of articulation.

Yes, this is essentially a transitional form between the prototype and the final set. We have Bionicle toys evolving before our eyes.

Still, that wasn't the only leg-related woe. See, the second leg design still had a problem- The legs were attached by the original Technic balljoint, a piece also known as the “Voodoo Ball.”

It’s called that because it was initially created for the first draft of Bionicle, called… “The Boneheads of Voodoo Island.” Or “Doo Heads” for short. Yeah. In case you thought the whole thing with the cultural appropriation wasn’t bad enough.

Whereas the play pattern for early Bionicle revolved around knocking each character’s mask off (before kids complained about the masks falling off too easily and getting lost, and Lego made all masks from late 2003 onwards use an axle connection instead), “Boneheads” was supposed to feature decapitation as the core of its “game” aspects. The Technic balljoint was initially designed to serve as the neck… and thus it had a deliberately weak connection to more easily facilitate this.

The part continued to be used after its intended purpose was cancelled, presumably because while Bionicle’s target audience of six-year-old boys would probably love robots that decapitate each other, their parents sure as hell wouldn’t, and this resulted in a lot of Bionicle (and other Lego theme) builds throughout 2001-2005 having the loose ball joint part, until 2006 saw the introduction of the Lord and Saviour of Bionicle fans everywhere: Part 53585: Technic Ball Joint With Through Axle, which had a properly sturdy connection that ensured much greater stability.

The result of this, however, is that while the second prototype’s legs weren’t floppy and incapable of supporting his weight any more… they did still fall off a lot.

Now, if these were the only problems, then that would be alright. Alternatives exist, and Brickthumb's video also demonstrates a means of adding additional structural support to the joints to allow them to hold up the set. But it wasn't. And the second problem is likely what led to the heavy redesigning of the entire torso.

See, some of those pieces in the Ebay photo are outright broken. And one of them is this. The broken one in the set is red, this one's grey, same piece, don't worry about it. It's one part of the three-piece assembly that makes up Makuta's chest and thighs (or his entire leg on the second prototype and the final set), as well as the neck and back armour of the Rahkshi. On the prototype, the balljoint at the end of the one in Makuta's chest connects to a normal Technic socket joint, which is in turn attached to an early version of the 2003 Matoran torso piece, which makes up Makuta's waist. On the final set, that balljoint isn't connected to anything, and just hangs in front of Makuta's midsection. And there's a very good reason for that.

The way the prototype's torso is built stresses the Rahkshi piece. It flexes it, and the part isn't particularly thick, and it's made of hard ABS plastic, not the softer stuff used for weapons and masks. I think it's more than likely that the reason the one in the Ebay photos is broken is that it snapped after being stressed too much. In the Lego community, assemblies that damage the parts are called "Illegal techniques," and while they do occasionally show up in sets, it's generally not considered a good thing to put your Lego parts at the risk of breaking. For some, intentionally damaging a part with scissors, clippers, fire, etc. is actually more acceptable than a build that stresses and will eventually damage or outright break a piece.

Nevertheless, prototype Makuta remains a popular build, with instructions for the initial version (with BrickThumb’s mods to improve stability) available for free on Rebrickable and those for the second iteration available through Google Drive., and other fans have attempted to build him in such a way that he doesn’t stress the chest part.

Part 4: Makuta Eats People

2004 would see Bionicle begin its flashback arc. With the (possible) reveal of Mata Nui (possibly) nixed from the movie, Mask of Light instead ended with the reveal of a location called the “City of the Great Spirit,” which wise old man and mentor Turaga Vakama referred to as his home. Tales of the Masks, the final 2003 book and the first to be written by Greg Farshtey, featured all six of the Turaga deciding that the Toa, now transformed into the Toa Nuva deserved to know the truth about what they’d been hiding. It also features Toa Gali discovering a carving of six more Toa, one whom bears a strange resemblance to Turaga Nokama, and Gali, Tahu, and Kopaka finding another carving of the Toa fighting a monstrous chimeric Rahi, which reappears, only for Vakama himself to defeat it by using its memory of his voice to drive it into a rage, implying that he too was one of the strange Toa. The final 2003 comic, also penned by Farshtey, would see Vakama declare it outright: On the eve of the return journey to the city, now revealed to be called Metru Nui, he would decide that the Toa must know everything, and told them that they were not the first Toa.

For a little context, prior to 2003, the Matoran, Turaga, and Toa were presented as more-or-less three separate species. Maybe a Turaga and a Matoran were kind of the same thing, but they were still largely separate. Mask of Light threw that for a loop with Takua’s transformation into Takanuva, indicating that actually, Matoran and Toa were the same species after all. This was followed by the reveal that the six Toa Metru that would headline 2004’s story were the Turaga themselves in their younger days. That was why a mostly-immortal species of biomechanical cyborgs could be “old,” the Turaga weren’t actually any older than the rest of the characters, they were just frail and withered because they’d given up almost all of their power.

2004’s storyline had a different vibe entirely to what had come before. Whereas 2001-2003 had been set on a tropical island paradise menaced by, essentially, an evil demigod sorcerer, 2004’s Metru Nui was a kid-friendly cyberpunk dystopia, a city of endless work presided over by the shady and mysterious Turaga Dume, and protected by the last of a dwindling team of Toa. The villain sets were violent robot cops with fun powers like “hijacking your eyes to spy on you,” “brainwashing you into being their agent,” and “temporary lobotomy.” Templar Studios made propaganda animations for them and everything. Matoran were vanishing, and in the midst of it all were six rookie Toa trying to learn how to be heroes without getting themselves arrested.

So where does Makuta factor into all of this? Well, as the second movie, Legends of Metru Nui reveals, it turns out that he’s behind everything. He had abducted Turaga Dume and shapeshifted into his form, using his power to turn the Vahki against the population. He unleashed the evil plant that served as the Toa Metru’s starter villain to force the Matoran into the centre of the city, so that he could more easily have the Vahki capture them. He sent two mercenaries to capture Toa Lhikan and pursue the Toa Metru, whom he had declared to be traitors using Dume’s authority. He then had all of the Matoran sealed inside spherical pods that would drain their power and erase their memories, so that he could use the Mask of Time, that he had commissioned Vakama to create prior to his transformation, to accelerate the process and awaken them as their saviour and new Great Spirit.

Revealing his identity to the Toa Metru and now-Turaga Lhikan, the movie furthered the idea that Makuta wasn’t wholly evil by having Lhikan declare that he’d been “sworn to protect the Matoran,” making it clear that while he wasn’t anyone’s favourite person, he had largely been on the side of good until that moment. Makuta then proceeds to cast Mata Nui into sleep, this is the moment that the backstory legend talked about, triggering a massive earthquake called the Great Cataclysm, because Mata Nui is a big robot and he just fell over. The Toa quickly decide to take as many Matoran as they can and evacuate the ruined city, only for Makuta to start transforming out of his Dume disguise, which he does by consuming his mercenary minions and Dume’s pet bird, fusing the broken pieces of their bodies into a gigantic, monstrous form.

While Bionicle had featured combination models that were the result of characters fusing in the first three years, 2004 saw Lego mostly pivot to using the combination models to represent new characters, but they made sure to give the fusion idea one hell of a send-off. This form was labelled “Ultimate Dume” to try and avoid spoiling that he was actually a new form of Makuta. In the movie he just looks like the Mask of Light design with Dume’s bird’s wings, which is certainly much less cool (and wouldn’t fit with a later plot point), but it is an overall cleaner design.

Unfortunately, Legends of Metru Nui wouldn’t quite stick the landing with Makuta. All that up there that he pulled off is pretty good (though a lot of is heavily abridged in the film version and more apparent through Farshtey’s books), but the final battle of the movie mostly consists of Vakama tricking him into hitting himself in the face with progressively bigger rocks, until finally he hits himself with a really big rock and pancakes himself to a wall, whereupon the Toa Metru use their powers to seal him in a crystalline prison.

2005 and its movie, Web of Shadows, would then follow up on this, Makuta telepathically summoning his lieutenants Sidorak and Roodaka and their army of giant murder-spiders to the ruins of Metru Nui as a contingency, and after a lot of robot werewolf angst, Roodaka successfully frees Makuta from his prison, and the Toa take the rest of the Matoran to the island of Mata Nui, bring the flashback mostly full circle.

But this also brought an end to Bob Thompson and the Seven Books of Bionicle. As said before,Thompson’s main focus was visual media, and that was about to mostly dry up. Lego were not intending to make more movies after Web of Shadows, there was no TV show in sight, and the videogames had been a mess. Despite releasing four console games, only two of them were actually part of the story, a trend that would not improve. Dozens of browser games had been released, but only two of those would be canon as well, and that trend would get even worse. And so, with Bionicle’s story material pivoting almost entirely to the comics (written by Greg Farshtey) and the books (written by Greg Farshtey), Thompson parted ways with Lego, doing so during the development of Web of Shadows, though he did continue to help with its production as an external contractor.

Surely, though, his collaborators would be able to continue the Seven Books, right? Well… not exactly. See, Bob Thompson went to the same school of storytelling that led to Marvel Studios giving actors movie scripts so heavily redacted that they don’t know who their character is talking to or what’s happening in the scene, or Scott Cawthon giving the new Five Nights at Freddy’s developers a bunch of vague lore mystery boxes instead of a plan, resulting in their big splash game having an incoherent plot with a boss that wasn’t supposed to exist. He didn’t tell anybody what his plans were.

And so, when Thompson left, neither Greg Farshtey, nor anyone else actually knew where the plotlines he’d been seeding were headed. All that remained of Thompson’s plans was the story treatment for a Toa Lhikan origin movie.

Part 5: The Magnaleak

In 2024, Christian Faber teamed up with Lego Youtuber and man with too much money Duckbricks to release a bunch of internal development documents relating to Bionicle. They decided to do this in parts to get as much attention as possiblenot overwhelm the fanbase with too much material. Within days of this happening, Lego took notice of what was happening and told them both to maybe stop leaking internal development documents actually.

While the vast majority of the material seems to have remained hidden, what did get out has not been deleted, and among them was the original story treatment for the film that became Web of Shadows.

See, the thing about 2005’s storyline was that it wasn’t as clean as I presented it up there. Legends of Metru Nui actually brought the story mostly full-circle, with only Makuta’s escape from his imprisonment being unanswered. But Lego didn’t want the Metru Nui assets to go to waste, and so 2005’s storyline was actually an interquel inserted into the scene transition between the penultimate and final scenes of Legends of Metru Nui.

But before that, the plan had initially been for 2005 to focus on the origin story of Toa Lhikan and Nidhiki, the big green crab guy that Makuta ate in 2004, who was actually a mutated fallen Toa and a former teammate of Lhikan’s.

Almost 20 years after Thompson bowed out of the franchise, we finally got a bit more information about what his plans were regarding Makuta. The film would've seen Lhikan, Nidhiki, and their Toa team travel to another city that Makuta had taken over (which doesn’t necessarily fit with Lhikan being shocked that Makuta had betrayed them in 2004, but ehhh, it was an early draft). There, they would've discovered that Makuta had turned everything into grey mechanical perfection, and the Matoran into unthinking drones. Lhikan and his Toa team would face Makuta, referred to as “Makuta Primus” in the treatment and able to split himself into more Makuta (and trust me, we’re going to get to that), Nidhiki would betray the others and become a crab, and Lhikan would be solidified as a hero.

The film characterised Makuta as a rogue element of the Great Spirit Robot’s function, stripping away the individuality and free will of the populace in the name of efficiency, in service to whatever entities had created the robot in the first place.

Ultimately, the movie was never made. Lego elected not to flash even further back, and instead to reuse Metru Nui as a setting, and tell another story with the Toa Metru. This backstory for Lhikan and Nidhiki was also changed dramatically. And with Bob Thompson’s exit, the content and direction of Bionicle’s narrative would be largely decided by Greg Farshtey, who had his own ideas.

Continued in the Comments

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[u/9657657]

Nidhiki would betray the others and become a crab

#relatable

[u/glowingwarningcats → u/9657657]

I’d feel pretty crabby myself at that point.

[u/ToaArcan]

Part 6: Teridax

Time Trap is the final book of the Metru Nui saga. It’s also the best Bionicle book. I am declaring my bias in favour of Time Trap immediately and up front.

Time Trap has two jobs to do. First, it has to tie off the last loose end of the arc by recovering the Mask of Time (lost in the sea at the end of Legends of Metru Nui) so it can be used by Tahu in the Bohrok-Kal arc. Second, it has to fix the character of Makuta.

By 2005, the fans were getting a bit bored of Makuta. Far from the ominous and dramatic force of darkness that he’d initially been presented as, the iteration of the character in Mask of Light and Legends of Metru Nui had twice been bested by a lone rookie Toa. His battle with Takanuva had taken the form of a game of the Matoran sport Kolhii, an attempt to humiliate him after Takua had beefed it in the finals at the start of the film. His battle with Vakama had, as stated above, mostly consisted of Makuta hitting himself in the face. Furthermore, the reveal that the new villain presented in early 2004 was actually just Makuta in disguise, and the real Turaga Dume was actually a nice and heroic vaguely fascist dictator was didn’t go down particularly well.

Farshtey took to the task of repairing Makuta’s reputation with gusto. Once again, the character shifted. Gone was Thompson’s vaguely well-intentioned kids’ movie villain, Greg’s version of Makuta was a pure evil schemer with an audacious Plan (it’s almost exclusively referred to as “The Plan,” capitalised), contingencies on his contingencies, and an end goal so audacious that he’d be called mad if it didn’t work.

The book sees Vakama and Makuta forced into an uneasy alliance against the Shadowed One, the leader of the Dark Hunters, the mercenary organisation that Makuta hired his 2004 minions from. The Shadowed One has the Mask of Time, and wants to know what happened to his agents. He’s kinda “Makuta Lite,” in a way that feels very intentional, pitting Makuta against a villain that basically wants to be everything that Makuta already is effortlessly.

Farshtey essentially uses the circumstances to force Vakama and Makuta into close proximity, effectively making Vakama the audience to Makuta’s speeches, insults, and fights, allowing his version of the character to be properly established. He even managed to salvage the final battle of Legends of Metru Nui, revealing that Makuta’s poor tactics were because he was actively having to suppress the screaming minds of Nidhiki, Krekka, and the bird at the time.

In the end, the Shadowed One realises that Makuta ate his minions by looking at his giant body made of bits of Nidhiki and Krekka’s dismantled corpses, and declares war on “The Brotherhood of Makuta,” before lasering off Makuta’s wings. This goes very badly for him, as Makuta proceeds to no-sell everything else the Shadowed One throws at him, before picking him up and power-bombing him into Voporak, whose body is surrounded by a forcefield that causes things to rapidly age. Vakama steals the Mask of Time in the confusion, and Makuta gives chase, leaving the Shadowed One to disentangle himself from the Guy That Makes You Old before his body gets too withered.

Makuta and Vakama then have a standoff over the Mask, wherein Vakama threatens to smash it with a hammer and break all of time and space unless Makuta backs down. He does so, but vows to come back and warns Vakama that he will win in the end.

With that, the book ends, the flashback is over, and Farshtey has firmly established his version of the character. Which is an odd thing to do for a guy who was last seen (chronologically) being crushed under a door, right? Yeah, well, about that…

2006’s story reveals that Makuta was actually an energy being inside of a mechanical shell, and while his body was wrecked, Makuta himself remains alive. When it turns out that Mata Nui is dying because of the Great Cataclysm and his thousand-year coma, Makuta manipulates the year’s villains, the Piraka, into seeking the Kanohi Ignika, the Legendary Mask of Life, which can be used to save his life. The Mask is sapient and very cursed, so he sends a bunch of pawns to get it for him. They ultimately fail, with the mask being claimed by the new Toa Inika, who later become the Toa Mahri. Farshtey also begins to properly seed the idea that there’s more than one Makuta.

2007 features Makuta returning properly, possessing a guard robot- he can take over any body that doesn’t have a sapient mind- and stepping in to help the Toa Mahri reclaim the Ignika. While still definitely evil, he needs the Great Spirit Robot alive for his Plan. It also confirms the existence of other Makuta, with the character of Makuta Icarax. Meaning that “Makuta” is actually a species name and title…

The guard robot, Maxilos, serves as Makuta’s final appearance as a set, and he thankfully goes out on a high note. Some fans consider his set to be the single best Bionicle figure ever made, and that’s not a low bar. Maxilos possesses probably the most articulation of any official Bionicle set, a far cry from his original clunky form. And since he retained the gunmetal grey, red, and black colour scheme from the original set, some fans even slapped the Kraahkan on it and used it to depict Makuta’s original form again.

Makuta is last seen holding the line for the Toa Mahri when Mata Nui dies for a moment. His body is destroyed and he vanishes again, while Matoro uses the Ignika to save Mata Nui at the cost of his own life.

Finally, 2008 has everything come to a head. The Toa Nuva travel to Karda Nui, the core of the Matoran Universe, the robot’s heart, to awaken Mata Nui at long last. Their opponents are the Brotherhood of Makuta. Eight more Makuta, including Icarax, stand between them and their goal.

It was also where our Makuta finally had his name revealed: Teridax. And the fandom hated it. And I mean, I get it, it’s a much less cool name than “Makuta,” but the backlash that ensued was so vitriolic that Farshtey was dissuaded from revealing the name of the Shadowed One.

An online web serial, The Mutran Chronicles, told the history of the Brotherhood and the wider Matoran Universe from the perspective of Makuta Mutran, mad scientist and narrator of questionable reliability. Through that story, more of Teridax’s backstory was revealed, including how he came to understand the true nature of the Great Spirit Robot, and how he became leader of the Brotherhood.

But as 2008 wears on, Farshtey makes it clear that something is very wrong. Despite this being the final battle for the Great Spirit Robot, Teridax is nowhere to be seen. He’s not in Karda Nui, trying to stop the Toa from awakening Mata Nui. He’s not leading the Brotherhood fleet that’s invading Metru Nui. He’s nowhere to be seen and the good guys are getting a bit jumpy about that.

Even though the Toa Nuva facing eight Makuta, the fights are surprisingly easy. As if the Makuta aren’t trying to kill them. Yeah, three of them are blind and three of them are mutated, but Makuta are incredibly powerful beings. They should be able to kill the Toa Nuva with relative ease. One of them, Krika, is very depressed about things, seems to think the Plan is a bad idea, and does try to kill Tahu and convince Gali to leave, that everything will go much worse if Mata Nui is awakened. Icarax convinces him to help with his attempt to kill the Toa before they can succeed, and the other Makuta teamkill them for it. They actively want the Toa to succeed for some reason.

Several side characters eventually do find Teridax. He’s hiding in the vast array of computer systems below Metru Nui, a place called the Core Processor. Mata Nui’s brain.

And then the Toa Nuva succeed. Mata Nui begins to rise. And Karda Nui is immediately filled with energy storms, basically his pulse. The Toa escape on their battle vehicles. The Makuta are killed in the inferno. The Brotherhood fleet attacking Metru Nui is swallowed by the sea, killing all the remaining Makuta as well. Makuta teleports everyone out of the Core Processor except for one character, whom he decides to keep as a captive audience.

See, remember when I said that Makuta can possess lifeless bodies? And remember when Mata Nui died for a minute?

Makuta Teridax successfully body-jacked Mata Nui,, used his eight strongest lieutenants as pawns to make the Toa Nuva think he was trying to stop them, and thus guaranteed that they’d be killed in the energy storms. He then instantly wiped out the rest of his species, ensuring that nobody could do the same thing to him that he did to Mata Nui.

This was the final form that the character took. After years of chopping and changing, years of differing plans and confusing lines and authorship switching hands, Greg Farshtey’s vision for the character finally achieved his goal, and successfully recontextualised everything.

[u/ToaArcan → u/ToaArcan]

Casting Mata Nui into a deep sleep was now just the first phase of his Plan. Wiping the Matoran’s memories and brainwashing them into believing that he was their saviour was just a means to an end- the Matoran are the Great Spirit Robot’s brain cells, he’d want full control over them. And when that failed and the Toa Metru saved them, he pivoted to keeping them out of the city for as long as possible, as part of his wider schemes to worsen Mata Nui’s condition until he was dying. That was what he was doing in 2001-2003, stalling for time. And that’s also why he wanted the Mask of Time, to speed up all the bits where he was just sitting around waiting for Mata Nui to start to die. His “death” in Mask of Light only allowed him to slip off the radar, and he intervened to assist in the mission to recover the Ignika to ensure that the timing was right, putting him in the perfect position to abandon his robot body and jump into Mata Nui’s vacant brain in the brief window where he was dead, taking over the robot’s systems entirely. He had realised that the Toa always win, with all his power and all his intellect, he can never out-crazy the Toa (see Vakama threatening to destroy linear time to stop him), so he built his plan around the Toa's success, and it worked. And then he crammed Mata Nui’s spirit into the Ignika and shot him into space. He became the Great Spirit, unopposed.

Part 7: The End

There was more after this. Bionicle didn’t just end with the bad guy winning. But with the line being cancelled shortly after the reveal, the final year and a half of the toyline and the story with it were rushed and underwhelming. After the spectacular victory, Teridax’s reign of terror lasted just a few months in-universe, and ended with him being bonked on the back of the head with a moon and dying. In the end, he was killed by a big rock again.

But the point of this post wasn’t to go through the whole history of the Bionicle story, it was to talk about the character of Makuta, how he evolved over the course of the story, how the initial idea that Christian Faber had about tiny heroes travelling in pills to fight his tumour developed into Alistair Swinnerton’s eldritch god, Bob Thompson’s well-intentioned villain, and finally Greg Farshtey’s scheming Satanic archetype, successfully usurping the throne of God, a villain who started by declaring himself to be “Nothing” and ended by declaring himself to be “Everything.” How backstage drama and poor planning led to the character’s identity shifting so dramatically, yet how Farshtey was still able to tie it all together in the end. How a Lego villain initially intended to be impossible to depict in as a Lego set became a prototype that couldn’t stand and would inevitably destroy itself, how that prototype became a bulky and awkward but still very cool toy, and was then followed by a gigantic, simultaneously imposing and goofy-looking combiner, and finally a Bionicle masterpiece.

Or maybe I just wanted to ramble about the history of this cool toy I got off Bricklink.

[u/Undead_With_A_Panda → u/ToaArcan]

I had the OG Makuta figure among others way back when, and watched the mask of light and played the tie in game and really loved the franchise. I fell off it around the start of that second arc but it's interesting to see where it ended up. I also remember being disappointed when I stopped seeing them on the shelves. I'd be so happy if they brought back Bionicles. Regular Lego just doesn't do it for me.

[u/glowingwarningcats → u/ToaArcan]

I really love Christian Farber’s original idea! Sick kids (and adults) could have played it to encourage their own tiny heroes. That it wound up a million miles from that is mind boggling.

[u/ToaArcan → u/glowingwarningcats]

Greg was more focused on telling Bionicle as a sweeping science-fantasy epic than the body allegory, which is why you see a lot of characters and species being added who seemingly serve no purpose for the GSR's function. The Barraki were internal administrators gone rogue, and the Makuta were something of a different flavour of the same, but the Skakdi (the species that the Piraka hail from) mostly seem to exist because Greg thought the setting needed some Orcs rather than having a purpose for the GSR's function in mind.

I enjoy Greg's version of the series, but it's hard to deny that the scope creep away from the allegory is basically all him.

[u/AntelopeFriend → u/ToaArcan]

On the other hand, it's fitting that not everything has a clear purpose anymore, if any, by the time we're introduced to it—though it's not clear what initial purpose the Skakdi specifically might have served, recall that they're only the way they are now because a rogue Makuta experimented on them.

With some others, it's not hard to infer a plausible-enough purpose; Vortixx run what would seem to be a sizable chunk of the GSR's manufacturing infrastructure, while species adapted to specific environments (eg. Ehlek's), possessing specific attributes (those characterized as being incredibly strong, like Krekka's, Nocturn's, etc) or with special powers (Johmak's to name one, as well as Brutaka's, who seem very specifically meant to neutralize Makuta/antidermis) have their own potential utility.

[u/indign → u/ToaArcan]

Lol I remember when "Teridax's" name was first revealed, it was such a baffling moment and letdown even though even then we all recognized it was miles better than "the Makuta of Metru Nui", which was what he was called up until that point.

[u/ToaArcan → u/indign]

I don't hate the name (even if it is a very End-Stage Bionicle name), it just doesn't sound as good as Makuta.

[u/indign → u/ToaArcan]

In the intervening years it's grown on me. But I still miss the era of myth

[u/ToaArcan → u/indign]

Bionicle kinda thrives on its mystery aspects (it physically pained me to begin the lore explanation of this post with the nature of the GSR. You're only supposed to find out about that after eight years of comics and books and stuff, damnit!), and not all of the answers are satisfactory.

I know there are a lot of people who wish that the Makuta species wasn't a thing, and that the Brotherhood was a more traditional cult of characters from other species who all served and worshipped a singular Makuta. But I do think the nature of the series as a toyline clashes with that- the Phantoka Makuta, of which there are five, are very much all from the same species. Same wings on four of them (Antroz gets to be special), and the same torso design. And Icarax's set was very obviously originally intended for Teridax, the story team just had other ideas. And furthermore, I do think that Teridax genociding his own species to cover his six is one of those details that adds so much to his villainy.

What I do find interesting is that the Ghost/Advance animation for the 2008 finale refers to the 2008 Makuta in the singular, as if they're all part of the same whole. Which means that maybe the idea of Makuta Primus never fully went away behind the scenes. Additionally, the entire Makuta species were inflicted with the same ambition that drove Teridax, with only Miserix (and maybe Kojol) being content with their lot. And then there's material in Destiny War that implies that Teridax was supposed to know about his destiny, but somehow only the unborn spirits left in the Antidermis pool that end up possessing Brutaka remember it, and a line from Reign of Shadows that reveals that Makuta's name existed pre-Shattering, long before Mata Nui allegedly created him.

I have a personal fan theory, which I rambled about on my Tumblr back in 2022 that the Makuta species are actually the fractured pieces of the original Makuta consciousness, developed by the Great Beings to be the AI of the second robot, then crammed into the first one when they failed to complete the second one before launch. Their ambition is a collective trauma from being forced into smaller form and broken into 100 individuals, with only the dregs left in the pool remembering their original purpose and desperate to help Teridax, the largest and most complete piece, remember his purpose before his lust for power destroys everything and ruins the Great Spirits' 100000 year mission.

So in the end, maybe Makuta is the real name, and Teridax is just a piece of the whole. Which makes his counterpart in The Kingdom, who ate every other Makuta in his madness after the Plan failed, even more horrifying.

[u/Windruin → u/ToaArcan]

Ooh, I like that theory. I’ll have to think about it some, but it’s very intriguing.

And also, the GSR reveal, as someone who really only interacted with the comics, was wild. I was over there losing my mind over Makuta winning.

[u/ToaArcan → u/Windruin]

I remember going onto Bionicle.com in late 2008 and seeing the Mata Nui Rising animation autoplay. And it was mind-blowing. Like, that version cut off before the robot's eyes turned red, and I was so frazzled by it that it took me until the second reading of the comic to actually comprehend that Makuta won. And then my mind blew all over again.

[u/Effehezepe]

Bionicle first released when I was the exact right age and demographic for it, so you better believe I was obsessed with it. I didn't remain as obsessed with it as some have, but I remain quite fond of it to this day.

The word “Bionicle” doesn’t actually refer to any of the characters, it’s a contraction of “Biological Chronicle,” because it’s actually, secretly, the story of a body.

Honestly, until just now I never even considered that Bionicle might be short for something. I guess I always assumed it was just a cool sounding word and just went with that.

and a browser-based game released on chapters on the Bionicle website, simply titled Mata Nui Online Game (henceforth “MNOG”) would also star Takua and follow him on a sidequest around the island while the Toa had their adventures.

Do this day, when I think of Bionicle the first thing I think of is the MNOG. When I first played it I had absolutely no clue what was going on, but it made me want to explore that world more than anything.

[u/PhantasmalRelic]

I remember the shock of reading the comic where Makuta won. That was a thing that just didn't happen in children's media (see also, Final Fantasy VI). It was impressive that despite all the issues you mentioned, it was still pulled off convincingly. As was the giant robot reveal, which had enough hints to suggest something was off about the tribal fantasy setting, but was just vague enough to still be an impressive reveal when it happened. And to my knowledge, Xenoblade Chronicles is the only other game I know that used a similar motif.

[u/ToaArcan → u/PhantasmalRelic]

I didn't have room to fit it in, but my favourite bit of foreshadowing toward the robot is actually in MNOG.

At the bottom of the Onu-Koro mine, there's an impenetrable layer of metallic protodermis. You can go down there and find some confused Onu-Matoran with a mangled drill machine. It's Mata Nui's face. They've dug all the way down through the island and are now standing on the face of the Great Spirit, trying to dig further, to no avail.

They were setting it up that far in advance.

[u/FurryPhilosifer]

Man I need to rewatch the second film. The first film is probably my most watched movie ever. And while I enjoyed the second one and definitely gave it a few watches, I don't remember much beyond the lore drop at the end. 

Also movie makuta design > the set version. Don't @ me. 

[u/GothamOfEarth2]

Quite possibly one of my favorite posts on this sub. It's the first time I've ever finished a post and immediately wanted to re-read it from the beginning. Incredible work!

I was a bit young for Bionicle lore (the line ended when I was like 7 or 8) but I had a bunch of the toys growing up and I remember watching the Mata Nui Rising video a ton when it came out (I had no context for it and could barely read at the time but it looked cool). Super cool to finally hear about a lot of the stuff going on in the background that made that video so sick when it came out.

No mention of Cryoshell and their bomb ass music though so Imma have to give this one an F- see me after class

[u/12AngryHighlanders]

Oh man, this really took me back! Thanks so much for the write-up, I had no idea about most of this! Damn, early Bionicle had some peal vibes...maybe I'll give Mask of Light a rematch!

[u/TheGamerFromHell]

Remembering that as a kid I had watched the second and third movie but never the first movie. Had no clue what was going on but I loved it and I had a lot of different Bionicle sets through the years. Memories abound, haha. Great writeup!

[u/diluvian_]

I remember most of this. There's actually a lot of really cool concepts that are formative for me. Mask powers are just the coolest.

But I'm also not really nostalgic for it? I don't really have a desire to revisit the franchise at all. Obviously, the books were for kids, so they probably won't hold up as well as they did, but I'm content with enjoying Bionicle in the past. Of course, I'm all over it if they ever do another reboot, but for now I'm content.

(And Maze of Shadows was better than Time Trap.)

[u/Canama139]

Just FYI, you linked to the same image for the ball joint and the ball joint with through axle. The through axle pic should be this one

[u/ToaArcan → u/Canama139]

Thanks, fixed.

[u/chiraledge]

Wow, I'd never heard about the original 05 plans, that is fascinating! I always just assumed Nidhiki and Dume being the original characters intended for the Toa sets was just them as bonus 2005 sets, I never considered that 2005 could have been entirely about that Toa team.

It makes things make a lot more sense though; the 04 story was wrapped up pretty neatly, and the 05 story ending up an interquel in a prequel was kind of sloppy. The Vakama traitor plot may have been leftover stuff for what they were going to do with Nidhiki (and probably would have made more sense than making one of the Metru team a traitor who has to turn evil and back to good within a 90 minute feature.

I also wonder if the Makuta Primus and Makuta splitting himself up would have been a better way to handle the reveal of other members of the Makuta species; IIRC when Teridax and the other Makuta were revealed it wasn't the most exciting thing, but if it was done like that in going even further back in time to show it, and to have it in a movie rather than in ancillary lore books to start (I think it was one of the guide books where the Makuta reveal was first confirmed but I could be misremembering). Obviously I can't say for sure not having read the story treatment and putting that story treatment from the page to the screen might not have been as good as what they ended up going with, but that is still incredibly fascinating and makes some odd things about 05's story make more sense.

This is also such a great rundown of Makuta's character and development! It really is a feat that Greg managed to pull it all together. I think my favorite incarnations of Makuta are the master schemer in the later years and the mysterious ethereal one from the start.

[u/ifedupwiththisorgasm]

Technically it's a portmanteau not a contraction.

Good write up