What You Want Is Now

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You just made him look epic.

His head... floats... how odd...

 

~Bunda

That's cuz MN is eew. And his yellows are all screwed up. And he has a long neck and a messy body.

 

But I got MN only for the parts, not for the set =P

It's okay Deev, just take apart the pieces one by one and sorte them in to your Lego bin(s?)

Considering how lame the set is, it actually looks really cool.

Well, I have this...but yeah, he's just eh.

 

You have a really nice white background for all of your pix.

 

-CF

Oh geez... These photos, being perhaps the best-quality ones of the set I've seen, have pretty much cemented my negative view on the set. Srsly, some of that stuff, specifically the ankles (OH GOD THE ANKLES ><) is kinda sickening. Thanks for snapping me out of the notion of actually possibly purchasing him.

I kinda like him. He looks like an interesting creature.

I think he's totally awesome. He needs more black to look like the smaller Mata Nui (and his legs need to be longer and less sloppy), but hopefully someday I can get a decent revamp that more resembles the smaller one. Flipping the foot on the chest upside-down is a good start, as it provides that great \_/ shape near the top and the \___/ shape near the bottom.

 

Yes, I said it. The legs could use some additional length. Why? It's something I noticed lately when drawing Kiina for a proportion study. The long legs combined with the large feet create a sort of forced perspective (think Cinderella Castle at Disneyland), creating the illusion of looking up at the character (as well as the illusion of dramatic-yet-realistic proportions).

 

The torso still strikes me as incredible. It's to scale with the smaller Mata Nui (believe me, I took apart the whole torso to attempt a revamp before realizing I didn't have to) and uses several clever building techniques. Yes, it's a pin-and-beam build, but it's a brilliant pin-and-beam build.

 

The yellows work amazingly well together in my eyes. They could possibly have been better organized, but mostly in the arms and legs which to be honest are pretty terrible anyway. Even the yellow-gold, while still terribly blatant against the yellow and yellow-orange base, is waaaaay better than it looks on that terrible box art.

 

The hands are, admittedly, only OK. But the thumbs, at least, have the most poseability of any BIONICLE thumbs to date besides (arguably) those of Axonn and Ultimate Dume. The upper arms are, needless to say, a disappointment, as are the legs, which function well but look excessively chunky and nothing like the smaller Mata Nui's legs.

 

Overall, I'm proud to have Toa Mata Nui standing on the shelf of my new college dorm, regardless of his flaws. He is a brilliant set, even if he could have been better in some ways.

He just looks so jumbly and awkward. I'm not sure what they were thinking.

I think he's totally awesome. He needs more black to look like the smaller Mata Nui (and his legs need to be longer and less sloppy), but hopefully someday I can get a decent revamp that more resembles the smaller one. Flipping the foot on the chest upside-down is a good start, as it provides that great \_/ shape near the top and the \___/ shape near the bottom.

 

Yes, I said it. The legs could use some additional length. Why? It's something I noticed lately when drawing Kiina for a proportion study. The long legs combined with the large feet create a sort of forced perspective (think Cinderella Castle at Disneyland), creating the illusion of looking up at the character (as well as the illusion of dramatic-yet-realistic proportions).

 

The torso still strikes me as incredible. It's to scale with the smaller Mata Nui (believe me, I took apart the whole torso to attempt a revamp before realizing I didn't have to) and uses several clever building techniques. Yes, it's a pin-and-beam build, but it's a brilliant pin-and-beam build.

 

The yellows work amazingly well together in my eyes. They could possibly have been better organized, but mostly in the arms and legs which to be honest are pretty terrible anyway. Even the yellow-gold, while still terribly blatant against the yellow and yellow-orange base, is waaaaay better than it looks on that terrible box art.

 

The hands are, admittedly, only OK. But the thumbs, at least, have the most poseability of any BIONICLE thumbs to date besides (arguably) those of Axonn and Ultimate Dume. The upper arms are, needless to say, a disappointment, as are the legs, which function well but look excessively chunky and nothing like the smaller Mata Nui's legs.

 

Overall, I'm proud to have Toa Mata Nui standing on the shelf of my new college dorm, regardless of his flaws. He is a brilliant set, even if he could have been better in some ways.

I disagree on the longer legs. My personal thoughts on this issue align more with the 'his torso is too long' stance. Sure, this may be more in proportion with his Glatorian Legends form (a far superior Mata Nui set!), but it's too long. Legs look too short? Arms look too short? Head looks off? Torso is too long.

 

That said, the torso is all-around the worst part of this set. It's thin, it's see-through, it looks cobbled together by a child unfamiliar with the elements used to build it. I also don't see anything to label as 'brilliant' in the build. It does the same shoulder design as Takanuva, builds a far less cohesive torso, and then adds this weird jumble of pistons to the waist to just look awkward. That's not brilliant. It's shoddy.

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You just made him look epic.

Epic FAIL, right?

 

-=< >=-

I sadly regret my purchase of this set. Hopefully, I can revamp it into a white and gold set, but I doubt I'll be able to pull it off. I'd love to see you make this guy better though.

Dijon mustard yellow and mac'n'cheese orange will NEVER look good together. They look like they taste, and they don't taste very good, looking at this. :X

 

-Nikira

I'll be honest. He actually looks kind of cool in those photos at a first glance.

 

After looking for a few seconds, I realize how much the set truly does suck.

 

Your photography could make me look cool.

I think he's totally awesome. He needs more black to look like the smaller Mata Nui (and his legs need to be longer and less sloppy), but hopefully someday I can get a decent revamp that more resembles the smaller one. Flipping the foot on the chest upside-down is a good start, as it provides that great \_/ shape near the top and the \___/ shape near the bottom.

 

Yes, I said it. The legs could use some additional length. Why? It's something I noticed lately when drawing Kiina for a proportion study. The long legs combined with the large feet create a sort of forced perspective (think Cinderella Castle at Disneyland), creating the illusion of looking up at the character (as well as the illusion of dramatic-yet-realistic proportions).

 

The torso still strikes me as incredible. It's to scale with the smaller Mata Nui (believe me, I took apart the whole torso to attempt a revamp before realizing I didn't have to) and uses several clever building techniques. Yes, it's a pin-and-beam build, but it's a brilliant pin-and-beam build.

 

The yellows work amazingly well together in my eyes. They could possibly have been better organized, but mostly in the arms and legs which to be honest are pretty terrible anyway. Even the yellow-gold, while still terribly blatant against the yellow and yellow-orange base, is waaaaay better than it looks on that terrible box art.

 

The hands are, admittedly, only OK. But the thumbs, at least, have the most poseability of any BIONICLE thumbs to date besides (arguably) those of Axonn and Ultimate Dume. The upper arms are, needless to say, a disappointment, as are the legs, which function well but look excessively chunky and nothing like the smaller Mata Nui's legs.

 

Overall, I'm proud to have Toa Mata Nui standing on the shelf of my new college dorm, regardless of his flaws. He is a brilliant set, even if he could have been better in some ways.

I disagree on the longer legs. My personal thoughts on this issue align more with the 'his torso is too long' stance. Sure, this may be more in proportion with his Glatorian Legends form (a far superior Mata Nui set!), but it's too long. Legs look too short? Arms look too short? Head looks off? Torso is too long.

That said, the torso is all-around the worst part of this set. It's thin, it's see-through, it looks cobbled together by a child unfamiliar with the elements used to build it. I also don't see anything to label as 'brilliant' in the build. It does the same shoulder design as Takanuva, builds a far less cohesive torso, and then adds this weird jumble of pistons to the waist to just look awkward. That's not brilliant. It's shoddy.

The point is, though, that if the legs were longer, the exaggeration would flow evenly, with the feet largest and the head smallest. Hence, a nice dose of forced perspective along with a better replication of the smaller set (which I feel is the only place this Mata Nui could really use improvement).

 

Longer legs also successfully alleviate some of the excessive chunkiness, though I believe the canister-large set similarities could be further assisted by somehow fashioning those Bitil wings onto the upper legs. It'd also reduce some of that hideous blockiness in the upper legs.

 

Hey, man, don't be hatin' on the pistons. The pistons strike me as incredibly cohesive, moreso than on some BIONICLE parts. Yes, they make it a bit gappy, but for the sake of functional, well-aligned pistons I'll accept that.

 

Of course, they'd look better in black. I normally refrain from expecting LEGO to make a part in a new color when it's thus far functioned fine in a single, neutral color. But surely LEGO could put black pistons to work somewhere. For that matter, this applies to most of the bley parts besides the Hordika necks (maybe even including the Hordika necks after so many years) and the Metru head. No idea why they're not black, even if the bley isn't nearly as hideous as I expected.

 

The rest of the torso is surprisingly cohesive as I see it. Not as much as Takanuva, but the Keetorange accents are arranged well over the yellow armor base. If anything, the torso is thee best spot for this layering. "Cobbled together" is not how I'd describe this, as I don't think any child I know could manage to get the torso proportions correct relative to the smaller set, devise such a brilliant way to reflect the trapezoidal torso armor, and create such an effective piston-based suspension system. Yes, it's kind of sloppy in the back, but the way the life counter mount fills that center space is very nice. And getting the Takanuva shoulder design to work on a larger torso is brilliant in its own right-- sometimes adapting an older motif for a newer design is as difficult as fabricating one from scratch.

 

I'll refrain from the weak jibe "I'd like to see YOU do better!", but it's better than I could do, and better than many MOCists could do within a minimal range of difficulty. Creating a completely custom torso with so many effective structural techniques strikes me as very difficult, and in this case I can't help but see LEGO's work in that area as a success.

 

I'm surprised you haven't made any complaints about the legs (but maybe that's because we agree that they're pretty terrible ).

You know a set has issues when it makes an awesome mask (gold Ignika!!1!1!oneone) look not-so-awesome by clashing with the rest of the set.

 

Sadness.

I really think this is one of those sets that pics don't do justice for. It has to be seen in person to fully appreciate.

 

In all of the pics I've seen it looks meh but having it, myself, I honestly think Titan Mata Nui is the greatest Boinicle set I've ever gotten, if not out of all the sets.

As I said in my blog post about Toa Mata Nui, he is easily the ugliest Bionicle set I have ever seen. Jumbled build, horribly contrasting colors, bad proportions, and terrible, terrible weapons. And this is coming from someone who adores the second version of Takanuva. But seriously, that's basically how you can sum up Toa Mata Nui: Takanuva minus everything that made the earlier set cool.

~~END~~

I said screw it and just ordered the mask itself from Lego. I felt like Lego was starting to hit their stride with Titans in 2006, but that it kind of fell apart after that (with the exception of Gadunka). I was hoping Titans would start taking precedence over vehicles in some way/shape/form, but not like this. TTMN makes Umbra look more impressive by comparison.

DtM

And LEGO forces us to buy it because they put a gold Ignika in there.

As I said in my blog post about Toa Mata Nui, he is easily the ugliest Bionicle set I have ever seen. Jumbled build, horribly contrasting colors, bad proportions, and terrible, terrible weapons. And this is coming from someone who adores the second version of Takanuva. But seriously, that's basically how you can sum up Toa Mata Nui: Takanuva minus everything that made the earlier set cool.

 

~~END~~

I don't understand how everyone can whine to no end about Inika torsos on titans in 2007, stop caring in 2008, and then whine to no end about custom torsos on titans in 2009. Unless people have, ya know, seen sense and realized that custom isn't always better.

 

But I think the custom torso for Toa Mata Nui works wonderfully. We've got functional pistons galore, an upper torso that is only slightly gappy, and mostly from the back (unlike Maxilos's), and a lower torso that they put forth an obvious effort to fill out even if it's still gappy from many angles. Seriously, that's a lot more than I would expect from a totally custom torso design, especially a pin-and-beam build.

 

Still feeling maybe I should revamp him someday, but I always try, get bored or frustrated, and decide I prefer having him on my shelf to having him in pieces.

Darth Vader,

I see what you mean. The ankles and neck are very awkward. The hips are cool, but otherwise? Really, he should have had a Glatorian head too.

 

What's most glaring, however, are the colors. They are what make me want to cover my eyes. The are such eyesores. Some of the yellows used don't even match up, and there's way too much of it. He should have been gold, not just because it's the royal color, but because it would have been easier on the eyes.

 

Live long and prosper.

TTMN makes Umbra look more impressive by comparison.

Green and orange and black and silver and red and blue.

 

You will write this phrase 100 times on the blackboard. Then you will return to your desk and think before you speak.