RWallace

I agree a lot with what Sidrohan said above about design. I think that the reason G2 failed had nothing to do with the marketing or story or any of that. Yes, the G1 story was fantastic, the marketing was innovative, and the G2 story had some problems (in spite of some spectacular talent that was recruited), and the marketing was derivative. But. Given that it's a toy line, I think it was all about design. BIONICLE in 2001 debuted with the Toa and Turaga and then the Rahi. The promo CDs were obviously brilliant, as were the comics (we hadn't really seen anything like that before with LEGO), because it gave kids something to interact with, but it was the design that got kids to take a second look at the toys. In STAR WARS design philosophy, they talk about having a good silhouette when it comes to their characters. You can look at the silhouette of R2-D2 or Boba Fett, and you not only can differentiate them easily, but you immediately know who the character is, simply by their shape. Look at the masks that the line debuted for BIONICLE in 2001. Or the design of the characters. They pass the silhouette test perfectly. You didn't have to see the color of the mask or the finer details to recognize whose it was, a silhouette was enough to tell you immediately. The characters looked weird, unlike anything we had seen before, and some of them looked pretty menacing. It had that kind of morbid curiosity factor. Something alien, something scary, but something to get your imagination going, that you could lose yourself in. The G2 BIONICLE sets were quite big, and that was fun, but they looked a lot like action figures. Designs that could have come from anywhere. I think they were great in their own way, and some of the designs were outstanding. Ekimu's mask, for example, is an incredibly compelling piece. But there was nothing menacing, and nothing that screamed "this is something you haven't seen before." I think they would have done better had they gone with simpler characters who could be recognized and easily differentiated from each other as shadows in the rising sun. Designs that were simple and ominous. There was a lot of similarity between the characters in the design, I felt.

Thank you so much for your help! This has what I need.

WOAH! This is amazing--thank you so much for sharing this! It's amazing how dedicated this community has been to finding and sharing lost media. What an incredible fandom.

I’m wondering if anyone has the instruction manual for the GBA game LEGO BIONICLE that came out in 2001? I recently suffered another hard drive crash, and while I had most of the content backed up, I’m missing the Tales of the Tohunga/Quest for the Toa manual scans, and a few other rare scans for a project I’m hoping to complete this year. Thanks in advance!

Just dropping by to express how wonderful this project is progressing! I’m loving the care and scans that are going into this.

The Rahi Beasts PDF is actually the version hosted on Biomedia project, so I had no part in making it. Could you mention the pages that have this problem though? What device are you using to view the PDF? Most pages actually have a couple letters missing. The greatest amount of missing material, though, seems to be in the Rahaga's introduction to each Metru. I'm viewing the pdf on a Kindle Fire. I'm sorry to bother you, if I had paid better attention, I would have taken it up on the BMP forum. I've been looking at the PDF and I can't tell what you're talking about. My guess is that this is a "your end" problem.

Woo! Look forward to it. The scans will be SUPER helpful!

I literally just lost my copy to a basement flood a few days ago (the box was soaked and had to get thrown in the dumpster). My recollection is that the content was pretty similar to the kind of bios and information you’ll find in Mata Nui’s Guide to Bara Magna. (EDIT) Found some scans on another forum and sent you a PM with the link!

I cross-referenced a list of cards I have in a google doc after I couldn’t find #255 in my files. Cannot remember where the list was originally sourced, because I compiled it into my giant “list of BIONICLE story content” document, so it’s *possible* the information could be inaccurate (I certainly apologize if that is the case), but if you look at the gallery you linked to, it makes sense that it would be a Muaka story card. I wouldn’t know about any other cards, since I only kept the story cards portion of the list, but it looks like everything but 255 and 284 (I suppose that could be a story card too, but I don’t have it in my list) are available in that gallery until the scans get spotty starting with 285.

I just wanted to follow up and ask if anyone might be willing to create a new set of clean scans for the Legend of Mata Nui booklet and/or create a scan of story card #255. No worries either way, but I wanted to throw that question out to the community. Thanks!

The game was delayed several times. Usually, devs opt to scrap levels and problematic features when they’re in a rush to get the final product delivered. There’s lots of evidence of that happening here.

Thanks for the scans, TuragaNuva! Your contributions to the Bionicle community have been invaluable. Very interesting to look at. I’m still super perplexed as to why the brand new box I ordered didn’t come with this story booklet. Also, I’ll go back over my files tonight to look for those two mentioned in particular, but I would love, love, LOVE to see any missing cards, PlanetPerson! (EDIT) Is it card #255? That should be a Muaka story card and I don’t have a scan of it.

Looks more like the weird CGI they used in the card game artwork to me.

Could you take pics of this other booklet and share them? I would LOVE to see that. I would be happy to, but I don't have easy access to a scanner in my current situation. But if you can't wait, it's actually not that difficult to find the theme decks for sale online for pretty cheap. And they come with two Toa Mata masks . Would you believe my luck... I ordered one brand new off eBay, and it didn’t have a story booklet, just a rules one. It was cheap, but I wonder why. Just got here today. Is the actual text similar to text that can be found elsewhere, and just the artwork that’s sort of exclusive? [Edit] if anyone else has this and even just wanted to take pictures with a smartphone or something, I’d super appreciate it.

Could you take pics of this other booklet and share them? I would LOVE to see that.

You are so awesome! Thank you, thank you! The photos work very nicely.

Hey, planetperson, would you mind sharing some links to the archives where you've found these summaries? Thank you!

Great work! I downloaded the "standard" version of the complete collection. I did notice that there was a single blank page in the PDF (just a page number, no text), and there were a few typos in the pages I read. I didn't make any specific notes about where they were, but I may as I have more time. (I read about 150 pages, and scanned through the rest, though I plan on reading more.) That said, I can tell that you're a perfectionist (at least in regards to this project), and the care you've taken really shines through. The one thing I noticed is that it's kind of difficult for me to go from chapter to chapter when I don't know what it is that I'm reading. Sometimes it's a serial, sometimes it's a book, etc., and while some of it (like the "Wall of History") is clearly labeled, some of it isn't, and it takes a minute to orient myself to the text as it jumped around from source to source. I found it a little frustrating that I didn't know where the text of any given chapter was from, especially when you took the care to put everything in order. Perhaps those more familiar with the text than I won't find this a problem, but I'd love a little more in terms of labeling. Would it ruin your "chapters" mentality, though? I don't know. There are a few small other things that you may want to consider including. The "Legend of Lewa" comic may not be canon per se, but when asked about it, GregF essentially said, it doesn't contradict anything, so why not? There are a few things like that, but I was SUPER impressed that you've included stuff from the MNOGs. I probably would have made some slightly different editorial choices than you, but these are little things. This is a MASSIVE undertaking, and I thank you for doing it. (Question, because I didn't see the answer while I scanned through the pages, but is the text for "The Truth" and "The Rising" podcasts from BIONICLE.com included?) If you ever feel like working on yet another alternate version, I have a few ideas on a version of the project that I'd like to see, and, of course, I'd be happy to help out in any way that I can. Otherwise, I'll just enjoy the thousands of pages you've given us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Truly incredible. This is something that every BIONICLE fan should check out. [EDIT] The blank page was 1260. My idea, if you wanted to label things without adding additional text (ie. "this is a chapter from a book"), is that you could include like, the book cover, or the BIONICLEstory.com logo, or whatever else in the corner of the chapter page so we know where the material is coming from. But maybe that would be too difficult? No matter what: I love this project. Thank you again.

Thanks for the consideration. Looks like I definitely lost the vote in the results, but I'm so glad I got some members to read my work.

IMO, it isn't possible for G2 to act as a prelude to G1, so I agree with your assessment. I had a different idea in mind, but I cut it because it turned into such exposition. Regardless, I'm grateful for your feedback and read.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to read this! I've been at a conference, but this was definitely worth making time for. Great work! The story has a nice way of making things going full circle, and I especially like this bit at the end:

Thanks for the compliment. My first draft of this story was over 6,000 words long (I cut it down to about 1,500 before posting it), so I tried to make the most of every word I used. By the way, I hope everyone who reads my story feels comfortable giving me their reaction. I'd like to hear from as many people as I can, regardless of whether they liked it or not. If anyone has criticism that they don't feel like posting, but would still like to share, I do check my messages.

*picks up jaw from off the floor* I love BIONICLE and I love good science fiction ideas, and yours starts off with a bang! I really, REALLY enjoyed it. Fantastic work. I'm not sure what the obscure references were, though I certainly caught plenty of G1 stuff. I'll likely read this again soon, so I'll see if I can spot them.

Excellent work. It had a very classical feel, with Mata'Nui's death and the jealous god. Traditional, yet still surprising. It kind of conflicts with what I imagined in my head, but I think that goes to show that there IS some richness to the G2 mythology, despite what our initial impressions may have been. I'm having a blast reading all these contest entries.

Oh my gosh...this is horrifying, in the best possible way. Love it.