Bionicle: Mask Of Light: Director's Cut

Does everybody know about a special series of LEGO products called Bionicle? The LEGO pieces are being used to create a character. You know what I mean, right? Here's a quote from Wikipedia!

"Bionicle (stylized as BIONICLE) was a line of toys created by the LEGO Group marketed primarily for 5- to 16-year-olds. The line was launched on December 30, 2000 and 2001 in Canada, Europe, Australia and the United States. "Bionicle" is a portmanteau constructed from the words "biological chronicle".[1] The concept is similar to Lego Group's earlier themes, Slizers/Throwbots and RoboRiders in that each of those lines had characters based on classical elements. Earlier Bionicle packages had displayed the Technic Logo, but it was later phased out, and Bionicle evolved into its own line. In 2010, Lego announced that they would stop making Bionicle sets "for the foreseeable future". However, while production of sets will stop, the story would not, as Greg Farshtey promised to continue to update it on the website.[2] The story abruptly stopped in the middle of 2011, presumably to focus on other projects, ending the series in a cliffhanger. After production of the toyline ended in 2010, Bionicle's replacement in the buildable action figure genre is Hero Factory, which was released later that same year, while Ninjago is widely considered to be the spiritual successor to Bionicle."

Now, for the Bionicle franchise, there are four movies. Bionicle: Mask Of Light, Bionicle 2: Legends Of Metru Nui, Bionicle 3: Web Of Shadows, and Bionicle: The Legend Reborn.

But, for the first movie, Bionicle: Mask Of Light, there is secretly an unreleased director's cut.

I wanted to see it so badly, so I began a search for it. I tried contacting the people who worked on the film, via emails or phone calls, but I never got a response or I only got an answering machine.

My last resort was contacting Terry Shakespeare, one of the two people who directed the film. I managed to get on a Skype interview with him, and I asked him general questions like "Where did you get the idea for this film?" and "What did you think of the finished film?" and whatnot. So when I finally asked him about the purported "Director's Cut", he just fell silent. I could see his face going pale. He proceeded to tell me, "Don't look for it. Just let the memory die." He hung up the call right then, and I just sat at my desk, confused. I went to bed.

The next day, I tried emailing Mr. Shakespeare about the Director's Cut, in an attempt to find out more. I managed to get a response exactly fourty-five minutes later! The email said: "Just give me your address and I will send it to you... if you're sure you want to see it, then I guess I can't stop you. Beware, for the things you will see will forever stay in your mind for the rest of your life." I was unsure if I really wanted to see the Director's Cut at this point, but hey, morbid curiosity got the best of me. So I sent back another email with my address and a "thank you".

About a week later, I received a package from Mr. Shakespeare himself. It was the Director's Cut VHS tape... strangely it had the exact same design as the regular Bionicle: Mask Of Light VHS tape. I popped it in my VHS player (Yes, I still have one) and let it play.

If only I would be able to take that back.

The LEGO and Miramax logos were shown normally, but the intro of the film was different. You know, where the narrator is about to show the story. Well, the shot just... stays there. It just froze on the Mata Nui stone. It didn't move at all. You couldn't even hear the narrator's voice. It was just total silence. After about six minutes, the tape cut to the scene of Takua and Jala entering the Kolhi arena...Wow, this was pretty late in the film. Again, it was dead silence. It cut to static for about five minutes, but again it was silent. The weird thing is that I could make out some sort of video in the static... It looked like Takua pulling Jala apart. I was shocked upon seeing this, but after the video clip ended, the film cut to the scene where Jala tells Takua that he knows who he is, and that he was always different, and he gives him the Kanohi Avohkii, the great mask of light, before he dies, but again it was silent.

Right when Takua puts on the mask, it once again cut to static. This time there was no hidden video thankfully, and it was just regular static. It cut to the point where Takanuva went down the pit on his speeder to defeat Teridax. However the scene went on longer than I expected... the Toa Nuva start fighting each other for no reason, and you can see their body parts flying. I laughed a bit.

It cut to the scene where Takanuva and Teridax are fighting. The disturbing thing is, the scene just keeps going. Teridax eventually kills Takanuva by blasting him into oblivion. Instead of the credits rolling, there was the SMPTE color bars showing.

Man, that was awkward.

I quickly turned off my VCR, ejected the tape and THREW IT AT THE WALL. Unfortunately my mind was quick enough to think to destroy the tape, so it is still out there somewhere... if you ever see a VHS copy of the director's cut of Bionicle: Mask Of Light, leave it alone.