The City of Legends Stars in BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui

The City of Legends Stars in BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui
Magazine Article
Issue	BIONICLE 20: Struggle in the Sky

The City of Legends Stars in BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui was an article included in BIONICLE 20: Struggle in the Sky. The article contained an interview with Christian Faber, Duane Loose, and David Molina about their work on BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui.

Contents

The new BIONICLE movie, BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, brings the Toa Metru and the vast and wondrous city of Metru Nui to the screen for the first time. The new city setting is a long way from the tropical island of Mata Nui, and presented new challenges for the designers and film makers. We talked with Christian Faber, art director for the Advance Agency, and BIONICLE 2 art director Duane Loose, and BIONICLE 2 movie director David Molina about bringing the city to life for viewers.

Q. What role did you play in the design of Metru Nui?

CF: I did the first work on how the city looks and functions. I started out by designing the map of Metru Nui and, at the same time, worked on some more detailed sketches with designer Jan Kjaer.

DL: The overall design of the BIONICLE universe was already very well established by the creative team at the LEGO Company. Our task was to follow a script, and create a world that felt like it was the precursor of Mata Nui.

DM: Duane Loose had a big hand in filling out the “worldscape.” Terry (Shakespeare, co-director) and I just told him to go wild and think “monumental” in size and scope.

Q. What were some of the ideas behind the look of the city?

CF: We needed Metru Nui to be a totally unique place, so everything had to be designed from the ground up. The inspiration was taken from biology, where you can see all sorts of balanced systems based on energy and chemistry.

DM: I directed the designers to think of Mata Nui as the country and consider Metru Nui as Hong Kong meets Manhattan. The city was designed to present a highly advanced culture with an amazing history.

Q. Were there any particular locations you most enjoyed working on?

DM: I like the transport tubes. Man, I’d like to ride those! If I could only hold my breath that long!

CF: The protodermis tube system felt like a winner from the very beginning. We needed some kind of transportation that would be new, fun and biological.

DM: My favorite location is the mythological location of the opening shot. It’s a place outside of our own time and space.

Q. If you had more time, is there anything you would have liked to add to Metru Nui?

CF: The city is constantly building upwards so the new buildings are standing on older structures. There could be many exciting secrets in the older (subsurface) layers.

DL: I am sad (and grateful and happy) that I only got to spend a year of my life working on that world. I want to go back and explore it some more.