The New Chronicles: The Journey Begins

The New Chronicles: The Journey Begins is a 1999 El Kadsreian kadsresatsu film written by Sung Gim and directed by Pasi Peure, produced by BTV Films and distributed in the United States by and internationally by. Released on October 15, 1999, it is the first installment of the The New Chronicles series and the first of the TH2 franchise.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, who praised its visual effects and soundtrack, and character designs, but criticized the plot, the film was a moderate box office success, grossing $425.7 million worldwide against its $107 million budget. It spawned a TV spin-off series The New Chronicles: The Story Continues, which aired from 2000 to 2002 in El Kadsre on Banushen Television and in the US on, as well as six more sequels. It has also been considered a cult classic.

Plot
In the year 2005, a meteor enters the and collides into the CPN Media Tower in the southeastern El Kadsreian city of Capulco, harming several people and disrupting all CPN broadcasts in the process. The meteor is filled with Turectillium, a rare element from the planet Karrak, which has the ability to grant armor which can be activated by will, superhuman strength and eternal youth to the carrier of the element. The meteor is taken into custody at the hands of the UEKN's government and is placed in the basement of the Cactus Grove main building near Narakonai. One week later, Sentanese-El Kadsreian scientist at the Tyran University, Hisato Hashimoto (Hideki Hamasaki) visits a residence of his friends Katrina Mills (Janet Myeong) and Samuel Jones (Arnold Minstrom) to have dinner. Hisato asks Katrina to steal a meteor’s element and pass it over to him so he can study on it, in which she accepts.

A following day, Katrina and Samuel arrive at Cactus Grove. There, Katrina manages to steal the meteor's element, which was made easy after Samuel hacked into the Cactus Grove’s security systems and disabled all of the security cameras. Katrina rushes back to Samuel’s van, which drives to Hisato's lab at Tyran University. Five hours later, Katrina, Samuel, and Hisato's fun-loving nephew, Daniel Hiroto (Michael Hamasaki) camouflaged themselves as plumbers to enter the campus and arrived at Hisato's lab, where they gave Hisato the Turrectillium for him to analyze and try and use as an energy source. As Katrina, Samuel and Daniel leave, though, Hisato gets a garbled message from a Karrakan leader sent through his monitors, and he tries hard enough to decipher it and see what it is.

When Hisato fails to decipher the message, he sends his time-travelling personal droid, SAM (Mark Korvyn) to 30 minutes before the message and travel to the location the message was sent from. SAM finds himself on Karrak, which is currently a colony of the galactic empire ruled by a tyrannical leader named Tunar from the planet Ekanxi, Tunar is then revealed to be the one who sent this message, and the message reveals that unless the Turectillium shard is returned to Karrak in 5 days, his army will destroy Earth, and throughout each of the five days, he will send waves of his minions to destroy Aritonesia, and take the humans hostage. SAM is then caught by Tunar's assistant Rosiah, who commands elder imprisoned scientist and former Karrakan leader, Kanark to dissect and destroy SAM. Kanark then goes to his lab and secretly spares him, then gives him knowledge of Karrak's warriors born from the Turectillium, the Chronicles: Martukex, Meikin, Ontus, and Brauru, Martukex can manipulate sound, Meikin, lightning, Ontus, water, and Brauru, stone. He then inserts a chip into SAM that allows him to contact Kanark from Earth, and then sends him back home. When SAM arrives at Hisato's lab in the morning he explains the message sent by Tunar and introduces him to Kanark, who tells him the backstory of the Chronicles.

Once, the Chronicles were Kanark's royal guardians born from four Karrakans touching a Turectillium crystal, and for eons, have protected Karrak from evil armies bound on taking over Kanark, both from Karrak and other planets. One day, after stopping an army from infiltrating Kanark's royal laboratories, Tunar and his army came to invade Karrak, and began destroying the Karrakan capital, Amalos. The Chronicles had fought with all of their might, but were immediately thwarted by Tunar and his army, and Kanark was overthrown, imprisoned, and demoted to being a royal scientist. The dying warriors then channeled their form and powers into a Turectillium shard, which was the one encased in the meteor that fell to Earth. Using the last of their strength, they threw the shard into space onto a meteor, hoping that a new race will take their place and return Kanark to his throne. Knowing how the meteor landed on Earth, Kanark believes that Hisato and 3 other people may be the humans the original Chronicles hoped would take their place. After hearing the story, Hisato asks Kanark how to reject the ability of eternal youth out of the shard. Kanark begins to explain, but hearing that he will be assigned onto a task soon, he instead sends the instructions through SAM for extracting out the Turectillium's ability for immortality before ending the transmission.

After hearing the transmission, Hisato invites Katrina, Samuel and Daniel back to his lab, where he tells them the story of the Chronicles. After telling them the story, they all touch the Turectillium shard together and gain the Chronicles' abilities and forms. While examining their new abilities, they discover that Tunar's first wave of minions are attacking Capulco and set out to battle against the minions while still learning their new powers. After defeating Tunar's soldiers and droids and rescuing people, the first wave retreats, and the warriors, dubbing themselves, the "New Chronicles", are won over by the residents of El Kadsre. However, Tunar transmits another message to every screen in Capulco, this time more clearer than the last one Hisato received, where he warns the residents and the New Chronicles that the first wave was only the beginning, as his next wave tomorrow will be more powerful, and he will send his assistant Rosiah into battle as the next wave's leader.

The following day, upon hearing the message and learning about the attack, the El Kadsreian president Youta Kutoki (Andrew Kayos) advised EKITO to send out a warning throughout all of the nations of the archipelgo to stay inside at all means while the New Chronicles fight off the second wave. However, as soon as everyone begins evacuating, the second wave arrives and begins attacking the entire archipelago's population, as a result, the heroes take off and fight against the army with the aid of Sophie Peak (Kate Elder), an African-born former Air Force pilot who uses her old jet to help the New Chronicles fight against Rosiah's forces. The four heroes then destroy Rosiah and her ship, shutting down the automated army. Kanark then transmits another message, telling the citizens that his 3rd wave will come at midnight and will consist of a giant monster capable of devouring anything.

Later that night, the Chronicles and Sophie visit her house where they build the space pod from scraps in the garage. However, after the first flight of the pod, the giant monster appeared, which turned out to be mech resembling a spider crab, piloted by Tunar himself. As soon it strucked midnight, the mech begin destroying massive chunks of the Capulco outskirts. The New Chronicles ordered Kutoki to deploy the military to fire missiles at the mech and the droids while the Chronicles use their space pod to get inside of the mech. When they're inside of the mech, they fought against waves of Tunar's soilders while they head their way to the mech's control room, where they found Tunar. After the brief confrontation, the Chronicles and Tunar all engaged in the duel.

Cast

 * Hideki Hamasaki as Hisato Hashimoto/Martukex
 * Janet Myeong as Katrina Mills/Meikin
 * Arnold Minstrom as Samuel Jones/Ontus
 * Michael Hamasaki as Daniel Hiroto/Brauru
 * William Benter as Tunar
 * Lindsay Smith as Rosiah
 * Mitsuomi Ekomoto as Kanark
 * Mark Korvyn as SAM
 * Kate Elder as Sophie Peak
 * Guy Pearce as Aiden Wilkins
 * Andrew Kayos as Youta Kuroki
 * Edwin Hade as Phillip Hawke

Production
In 1996, after leaving El TV Kadsre, Darren Cody moved to Banushen Media Corporation where he became the CEO of the company. He wanted to take Sung Gim's script for the unfinished Technic Heroes film B11: Bionicle: The Next Generation 2 and retooled the script and characters and created the concept for The New Chronicles, and pitched it to BTV Films.

October Films purchased the U.S. distribution rights for $20 million, after a contract battle with Fox Searchlight Pictures, Miramax and R.A. Releasing. TimeWarner also bought international distribution rights outside of Aritonesia and the United States in conjunction with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Both Sony and TimeWarner released it through Castle Rock Entertainment and Columbia Pictures theatrically.

Filming mostly occurred in the Capulco area (for scenes in Capulco) and filmed in the and  metropolitan areas (for scenes in Capulco's outskirts and most of the studio filming) in the summer of 1998. Many scenes at Tyran University were filmed at 's. The interior shots of the Tyran University auditorium were filmed at in Dallas'  complex. The production also shot interior sequences at The Studios at Las Colinas in.

The scenes at the Sanbe Space Center are a combination of establishing shots at the NASA in Houston and shots with the actors at the  plant in. Due to scheduling issues, they could not close down the plant for filming, and thus, much of those in the background of these shots were Texas Instruments employees. The scenes of Cactus Grove were filmed at Tawaranobe Airport, EEKS while the scenes at the Allways Mall were filmed in the and the. The McDonald's is on North Belt Line Road in Irving.

Additional filming took place in the Oza Islands, including the ancient city of Ky Viriki in Shetne standing in for Karrak's lunar base (with interiors filmed in the Naptennu Studios).

The film also employs computer-generated imagery and special effects created by Fuse Special Effects and the -based VFX house Lone Star VFX Productions. The costumes for the Chronicles were designed by Susumu Bramley, who also designed the majority of the characters from Bionicle and Hero Factory.

Marketing
In months leading up to the film’s theatrical release, Banushen Television launched the Tyran University and the Tyran University’s VidSpace channel. Both the website and the VidSpace channel were updated regularly and give out news to the campus. The website remained active until the conclusion of The New Chronicles: The Story Continues, when it was redirected to the TH2 official website while the VidSpace channel remained inactive.

Home media
The films was released by El TV Kadsre Home Entertainment in 2000 in Aritonesia on VHS, Betamax, TVD, Laserdisc, and on DVD. It was also released in VHS by USA Home Entertainment the same year in the US. It was released in VHS and DVD by Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment the 2001 in Canada, Europe, Asia and the Pacific.