This project is hosted on the official Custom BIONICLE Wiki channel. |
MATA | |
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Series | |
Setting |
Mata Nui
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Date Set |
December 9, 2012-December 25, 2015
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Media Information | |
Runtime |
2-3 minutes (average)
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Directed by | |
Written by |
MATA is a comedy series created by CallanLoF, with Chicken Bond, BobTheDoctor27 and Ihu. It focuses on the Toa Mata living out their casual lives on the island of Mata Nui.
The series was cancelled in December 2015.
Production
The show is produced by CallanLoF, who does all of the directing and editing. Music is usually from CallanLoF's editing program iMovie. Episodes are primarily written by CallanLoF as well, though Chicken Bond and Jman98 also wrote episodes. All three participated in the conception of episodes, however. Towards the end of the first season, BobTheDoctor27 and Ihu joined the MATA writing team. Later on, Jman98 stepped down as a writer to focus on other projects, giving CallanLoF full creative control of the series. Chicken Bond, BobTheDoctor27 and Ihu continued to write scripts for further episodes until the eventual cancellation of the series in December 2015.
Conception
The idea for the series was sparked when CallanLoF created the shorts Bonding Brothers and Broken! on his own channel. This inspired Jman98 to approach CallanLoF with the idea of creating a full-fledged series surrounding the characters on the Custom BIONICLE channel. Enjoying the idea, CallanLoF agreed to produce them. Later on Chicken Bond became a writer for the show. The name MATA became final and was chosen due to it best representing what the series was about, the Toa Mata.
Casting
The cast from the two original pilot shorts were casting for MATA, namely CallanLoF, Jman98, Bethany Lang, and Jareroden97. With this, the final part in CallanLoF's shorts was released under the MATA name. During the pilot's production, iBIONICLE was casted as Lewa. The only main character not casted was Onua, which was undecided by the time the pilot finished it's primary production, in which Onua wasn't intended to appear until the following episode. However, it was finally decided that Ids5621 would take on the role. With this finalized casting choice, the final short in CallanLoF's Toa Mata shorts was released under the MATA name, titled Golden Kanohi that featured Onua. Along with this, an additional scene at the end of the pilot episode was made featuring Onua. After the pilot episode aired, Jareroden97 was replaced as the voice of Tahu due to unreliability, in which he was replaced by Heronexus. Lewa later on was also recasted after What the Dermis Turtle? had aired for similar reasons, being replaced by Toddy Harold.
Reception
Initially the first three episodes received mixed reactions, however after the release of the fourth episode, What the Dermis Turtle?, episode ratings began going up along with critical responses. The series has been called "one of the best stop motion series" by the TTV Channel, a BIONICLE news/media channel. The series has been praised for it's voice acting, writing, and production.
Characters
Toa Mata
- Tahu (10 episodes)
- Lewa (7 episodes)
- Gali (10 episodes)
- Kopaka (12 episodes)
- Pohatu (11 episodes)
- Onua (9 episodes)
Matoran
Rahi
- Dr. Doom (3 episodes)
Locations
Mata Nui
- Cafe Custom (1 episode)
- Best Buyonicle (1 episode)
Episodes
Volume One
Episode List | ||||||
# | Episode Title | Running Time | Description | Writer | Air Date | |
1. | Pilot | 1:30 | The first episode of MATA. | Jman98 | December 9, 2012 | |
2. | Puns | 1:11 | Pohatu plans on hanging out with his bud Kopaka, and throws out a few puns while doing it! | CallanLoF | January 31, 2013 | |
3. | Chirp | 1:57 | Onua finds out that he has over 30,000 followers on Chirp, though Pohatu isn't as happy about it as Onua is. | Jman98 | February 28, 2013 | |
4. | What the Dermis Turtle? | 10:15 | Gali's organizes an environmental protest to protect the endangered Rahi known as the Dermis Turtle. But things don't go exactly as planned. | Chicken Bond | April 15, 2013 | |
5. | Conversation | 2:16 | Gali's got a job for Kopaka, though he's reluctant to help. | CallanLoF | June 2, 2013 | |
6. | Life | 1:25 | Tahu becomes curious of Kopaka's interpretation of life. | Jman98 | August 1, 2013 | |
7. | Play | 4:53 | Lewa sets up a play, though it doesn't go exactly as planned. | CallanLoF | August 15, 2013 | |
8. | Order | 2:37 | The Toa get ready to order their food, but Pohatu can't seem to decide on what he wants. | CallanLoF | September 2, 2013 | |
9. | Computer | 4:18 | Gali needs a new computer since Onua broke the last one. | CallanLoF | September 28, 2013 | |
10. | Chat-Talk | 3:57 | Lewa receives a mysterious letter from someone to discuss past events. | Chicken Bond | October 25, 2013 | |
11. | Presents and Presence | 1:33 | Pohatu and Onua are in the Christmas spirit, while Kopaka is not. | CallanLoF | December 25, 2013 | |
12. | Akaku | 2:30 | Gali needs her Akaku, so Tahu tries using his to find it. | CallanLoF | January 29, 2014 | |
13. | Koro Kompanionship | 6:29 | Our six beloved heroes decide to stay in their own villages with their Matoran this holiday season, and discuss their thoughts on their fellow Toa. | BobTheDoctor27 | December 20th, 2014 |
Volume Two
Episode List | ||||||
# | Episode Title | Running Time | Description | Writer | Air Date | |
1. | Quest-Search | 2:29 | Gali asks Kopaka to go on a mission, but to his misfortune he will not be alone. | CallanLoF | September 10, 2015 | |
2. | Pilot (Remastered) | 2:25 | We begin with the Toa hanging around in Kopaka's room. Maybe not the best idea, though. Remake of the first episode. | CallanLoF, Jman98 | October 10, 2015 | |
3. | Bah Humdurst! | 1:29 | Onua is frustrated at Kopaka's lack of Christmas cheer, as well as his fascination with a rather un-Christmasy icon. | Ids5621 | December 25, 2015 | |
4. | Bah Humdurst! 2 | 2:40 | Onua cheers Kopaka after a tragic loss of his icon | Callanlof | December 24, 2018 |
Cast and Crew
Main Cast
- Heronexus - Tahu
- Toddy Harold - Lewa
- Carolyn Potts - Gali
- Colby Profitt - Kopaka
- CallanLoF - Pohatu
- Ids5621 - Onua
Former Cast
- Jareroden97 - Tahu
- iBIONICLE - Lewa
- Bethanix Lang - Gali
- Caitlin Buckley - Gali
- Jman98 - Kopaka
Crew
- CallanLoF - Writer | Director | Editor
- Chicken Bond - Writer
- BobTheDoctor27 - Writer
- Ihu - Writer
- SED - Visual FX
Gallery
Trivia
- CallanLoF's shorts Bonding Brothers and Broken are what inspired Jman98 to inquire a full fledged series surrounding the Toa. CallanLoF enjoyed the idea and thus, MATA was created.
- Initially, the series was planned to be an action-adventure series, with the Toa Mata going to multiple locations within Mata Nui to defend the Matoran. This idea was scrapped after the release of Puns.
- A special episode, titled Vocal Therapy, was created for The Three Virtues YouTube channel to announce the affiliation between Custom BIONICLE and them. It featured the cast from their upcoming film BioCraft and the cast of MATA acting off each other.
- What the Dermis Turtle? and Order are the only episodes thus far to feature all six Toa onscreen at once.
- The Toa Mata have appeared in videos on CallanLoF's channel, namely an episode of the Gallitor Report and his 2013 Christmas special.
- They also appeared in The Brutaka Update's 200 subscriber video.
- Puns, What the Dermis Turtle?, and Conversation all feature a glitch with the Custom BIONICLE intro, either it lagged or wasn't present at all. This was due to a problem with iMovie, the editing program CallanLoF uses to edit the episodes. The issue was fixed when Jman98 took on the job to add the intro and credits for each of the episodes starting with Life.
- Pohatu and Kopaka have more appearances than any of the other Toa in the series, while Lewa has the least.
- Despite having been mentioned in several episodes, the Turaga never actually appear.
- There are various unproduced scripts that Jman98 wrote. It is unknown if they will still be produced in the future.
- This was the last Custom BIONICLE series to premiere in 2012.
See Also
External Links
Custom BIONICLE original programming | ||
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Current | None | |
Past | Production (2013) • Chronicler (2014) • CBW Presents (2012-2014) • Bionicritical (2012-2014) • The Brutaka Update (2012-2014) • MATA (2012-2015) • custom.bionicle (2013-2014) • Minicle • (2013-2014) • CBI (2014) • The Skakdi Life (2014) • BIONICLE Nuva (2014) | |
Future | None |