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BZPower (and essentially all of human society) tends to dwell on the negative. This is evidenced by topics such as "Biggest BIONICLE Dissapointments," and those old "BZP Problems" topics. In part, this is because negativity tends to draw out other opinions better than positivity, thus encouraging discussion, but it can also leave a bad taste.

 

Because of that, I'd like to bring up a topic focused on the positive. Like a mirror version of "Biggest BIONICLE Dissapointments", this topic asks, "What parts of BIONICLE exceeded your expectations?" This isn't referring to what qualities of BIONICLE exceeded your expectations, such as the fact that it had a relatively mature, epic storyline. Rather, this would refer to specific parts of the theme that surprised you pleasantly.

 

For instance, I particularly was pleased with the end of 2008. The true nature of the MU--what had been BIONICLE's best-kept secret--was revealed in a shocking way. While it wasn't fully unexpected, thanks to Planetperson having connected the many dots from over the years, the reveal of the MU robot was made even more mind-blowing by also coinciding with the revelation of Teridax's success. It was undoubtedly the pinnacle of my BIONICLE experience.

 

Using that as an example, what part of the BIONICLE story went above and beyond what you expected from it?

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I don't think that there's anything wrong with discussing the segments of Bionicle which disappointed us, as it is a topic which draws in many fans and helps us to decide what we would like Lego to focus on improving upon in the future. As a means of examining the other side of the discussion, however, this topic is a very good one.

 

I was very pleasantly surprised with the amount of backstory which we received for the Barrack in 2007.

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For me, I say the ending, the big finale.

 

In 2010, I saw the Stars sets and though them a little weird, being just simper versions of previous sets. I also saw the webcomic thing on the Bionicle website, which explained Mata Nui's quest to fix Spherus Manga. At that time, I was like "so, that's it, whatever." But a while(or more than a while, really) later, I saw the Journey's End serial, and read it. I was really impressed with it, compared to my view of what I saw before. It also gave us some backstory of the Great Beings and the history of Spherus Magna, which was quite interesting.

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I don't think that there's anything wrong with discussing the segments of Bionicle which disappointed us, as it is a topic which draws in many fans and helps us to decide what we would like Lego to focus on improving upon in the future

I wasn't saying that the disapointments topic is inherently a bad idea. But focusing on the negative does invariably have some negative effects, even if it may have positive ones as well. This topic is mainly a response to my impression that BZPower tends to focus more on the negative than the positive, which is something that disappoints me. This topic is intended to help alleviate that perceived tendency on my part.

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The end of 2008 is probably the biggest thing that exceeded my expectations; from the reveal of the Mata Nui robot to the ultimate victory of Makuta (well at least until 2010, anyway) the whole ending of the MU saga was pretty great.

 

If I sat here a lot longer I might be able to find some other things, but this is the biggest one for me.

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The ending, in so many ways.

 

First, I had always hoped there would be a big battle of titans after the reveal of Mata Nui's form. But I had in mind "titans of titans" -- a really big LEGO combiner set, and I was greatly worried since combiners are usually horribly ugly (not always but yeah...). I didn't dream Mata Nui's form would be a giant robot or that it would look so awesome. I didn't imagine that scale of a Makuta vs. Mata Nui battle.

 

And while part of that hope was fulfilled in 2008 with the amazing reveal, it then began to look like we wouldn't get the robot fight at all. Then, there were tantalizing clues -- was that a giant face on the map? Hey look, that looks like a knee joint! Etc. But it still seemed like, from Greg's answers and what was said in-story for the most part that Makuta was going to settle the internal troubles and then leave, and there would be no fight. He'd just go on to attack alien worlds or whatever and maybe if the prototype robot was involved at all it would just be to transport Toa-sized heroes there. (Which would still have been pretty cool.) But then suddenly Makuta is roaring away from Aqua Magna and slamming down on the desert and bam. Hope came true. :happydance:

 

I also loved the whole Shattering, Reforming plot, including the headshot (although there were disappointments in how it was visualized; the only canon image of the Aqua Magna fragment looks cheesy, and the other uses the wrong moon... and the comic decision for the next panel... no... just no... what were they thinking? But overall, great!).

 

And finally, I'd been hoping for a big ending war among the "little people" too and it delivered. (Not so keen on the Golden Armor but oh well. I am, admittedly, having fun with it in my version lol.)

 

I could go on but you get the idea. The ending of MNOG is the other main thing that very pleasantly surprised me and I suspect that would be near the top of most people's lists. Matoro's death (how it was handled) was another.

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Definitely the Mata Nui Reveal. It all made sense at that moment, but literally nobody was expecting it. The "work" the Matoran were doing on Metru Nui, the bizarre placement of the island of Mata Nui, the two suns, the Bohrok, all that came together in an incredibly unexpected twist that they somehow planned it from the beginning.

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Actually, as I mention in the opening post, the Mata Nui reveal was expected. In 2008, shortly before the revelation actually occurred, a BZPower member named Planetperson posted a topic presenting the theory that the Matoran Universe was a giant robot, using the clues that had been dropped in earlier years as evidence. That doesn't detract from the reveal, however, but rather enhances it, since LEGO successfully concealed the true nature of the MU from the beginning even while dropping just enough evidence to hint towards the truth without confirming it.

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The entirety of 2006, as the entire island of Voya Nui was surprisingly engaging and pretty awesome, I fell in love with it the way I had loved Mata Nui. The Matoran were great, the rahi blew up, the Piraka were amazing characters and very fun to read about, the Toa Nuva returned to kick butt (and get their butts kicked unfortunately), our favorite Mata Nui matoran became Toa, and boy were they great Toa, and the whole thing with the Ignika and Mata Nui dying and all these plot reveals and exploration of Kharzani and the MU as a whole just really, really exceeded my expectations. So much happened, and all of itwas awesome :D

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GIANT ROBOT FIGHT! :D

 

Well okay, I didn't have such anticipation of one being there (I wasn't a such great theorist back then if I ever was/am) but after the whole 2009 thing that was really lame, I had way low expectations for Bionicle. So logging into Bionicle.com sometime in early 2010 and seeing those two giant robots on the screen it was just like...awesome. (Granted, I was a little disappointed in the execution of said fight, and I thought the "little people" battle needed help, but Journey's End wasn't such a half-bad book. Lots of cool moments in there. :))

 

This was the capstone on a whole bunch of stuff, though:

 

1. The book Legends of Metru Nui - I didn't have high hopes after reading Web of the Visorak - figured it wouldn't be too good. It was so much better.

2. Time Trap. Just that whole story.

3. To an extent, Dark Destiny of the Legends series. There's a lot of book premises that I was "meh" about and the content delivered more than I expected.

4. 2007 "Toa Terrain Crawler" Bioniclestory.com...well, that's off topic-ish, but I liked the web serial introduction. It also was much better than the Barraki one.

5. 2008. The web serials for that year did much better than I thought at first. And while the flying thing didn't come completely out of the blue, I really enjoyed that and just the return of Pohatu, Lewa, and Kopaka and all the funny jokes. I thought it was going to be *yawn* Toa Nuva again...but it was not. Yay! :)

 

I guess I am/was a bit of a short-sighted pessimist, which leaves/left me pleasantly surprised often. :shrugs:

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Actually, as I mention in the opening post, the Mata Nui reveal was expected. In 2008, shortly before the revelation actually occurred, a BZPower member named Planetperson posted a topic presenting the theory that the Matoran Universe was a giant robot, using the clues that had been dropped in earlier years as evidence. That doesn't detract from the reveal, however, but rather enhances it, since LEGO successfully concealed the true nature of the MU from the beginning even while dropping just enough evidence to hint towards the truth without confirming it.

 

Where is this post? I'd really like to see how the hints were put together.

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Actually, as I mention in the opening post, the Mata Nui reveal was expected. In 2008, shortly before the revelation actually occurred, a BZPower member named Planetperson posted a topic presenting the theory that the Matoran Universe was a giant robot, using the clues that had been dropped in earlier years as evidence. That doesn't detract from the reveal, however, but rather enhances it, since LEGO successfully concealed the true nature of the MU from the beginning even while dropping just enough evidence to hint towards the truth without confirming it.

 

Where is this post? I'd really like to see how the hints were put together.

 

It's probably in the BZP forum archive which was destroyed/lost. You might be able to find it on the Wayback machine, but I doubt it.

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Wayback doesn't seem to do topic content; I've tried before, just forum indexes, unfortunately.

 

But basically it was the things LL mentioned. The island's similarity to a face, etc.

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The pocket dimensions. Tuyet's Toa empire is an amazing idea. Actually, the whole Lhikan/Tuyet/Nidhiki set of stories are very cool.

 

And the majority of the early years were just so wonderful. Certainly something new. Scary Rahkshi, infected masks and Rahi, swarms of Bohrok, the Makuta fights, all wonderful.

 

Oh, and Pohatu and Kopaka. They just seem to go so well together. Probably why they're my favourite Toa.

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The Mata Nui robot revelation and Teridax's takeover would be #1 on my list, but since they've been repeated so many times in this topic I'll mention other things as well.

 

Although at first skeptical about the whole Metru Nui city setting when it was introduced, I gradually grew very fond of it and learned to appreciate the different kind of story they were making there. I ended up loving Metru Nui as a location and as a story arc (2004 is my favourite year) so that definitely exceeded my expectations.

 

Another good thing was basically Teridax as a character: he became the star of the entire Bionicle story in a way by being featured almost every year and enjoying lots of character development and revelations about his past and ultimately the result of his successful plan. I thought in 2005 that we had seen the last of him, but he returned and managed to win against the Toa. I found that a really good thing and also something that sets him apart from any other villain of any other franchise.

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I'd have to say the ending. I kind of wish that Greg could have finished the post story serials, I felt happy and complete when I saw that image of Tahu majestically holding the Mask of Life and calling everyone to begin a new life together as friends. I loved the ending of the story and love imagining what happens to the Toa. (But I don't like Marendar, and I pretend that Velika gets caught and no more characters get killed.)

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I don't think that there's anything wrong with discussing the segments of Bionicle which disappointed us, as it is a topic which draws in many fans and helps us to decide what we would like Lego to focus on improving upon in the future

I wasn't saying that the disapointments topic is inherently a bad idea. But focusing on the negative does invariably have some negative effects, even if it may have positive ones as well. This topic is mainly a response to my impression that BZPower tends to focus more on the negative than the positive, which is something that disappoints me. This topic is intended to help alleviate that perceived tendency on my part.

 

I get it now. Apologies for having missed your point.

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Two things really exceeded my expectations in the storyline. (Well, one is something in the storyline, anyway):

 

1. The end of 2008. Teridax's takeover of the MU was a great twist in the storyline that I really enjoyed. I really liked that a villain actually won for once. :P

 

2. The web serials. Nearly all of them expanded the storyline in great ways and kept a lot of character relevant to it when otherwise they would've been pushed out of the story.

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I feel like everyone in here is just saying "the Mata Nui reveal," but really it can't be overstated how well that was handled. I was blown away then, and I'm even more impressed now that I've browsed the Faber Files and seen just how far back the premise went.

 

I was always heavily involved in those S&T topics about the nature of Mata Nui, and I remember decoding some of it just a few days before PlanetPerson, but not quite as completely. I remember theorizing that the Great Spirit Mata Nui was actually the island Mata Nui, based on my (pretty mindblowing) discovery that all of the place-names on the island were Maori words for facial features. I hadn't integrated the underground MU, though—but I was so close! I always wondered if PlanetPerson was influenced by my topic or if he created his own theory parallel to mine. The latter is entirely possible, given how much Mata Nui's nature had come to the forefront that year, with "Karda Nui" meaning "heart" and all that. It certainly explains why they never gave us any maps of the world until after the reveal!

 

(I'm getting all nostalgic now—S&T was really fun in those days. Even though I missed the Mata Nui twist by a hair, I am proud that I got one theory correct. I was the first one, as far as I know, to recognize the relationship between this symbol and the figure in the Ignika. If only I had realized what it represented!)

 

Seriously, though:

 

Considering how contrived the universe had to be to make the Big Twist work, it's a wonder that they managed to keep it secret for so long. Consider the fact that Metru Nui was inexplicably underground, in a dome, and lit by two suns that close like eyes! Those are such bizarre details, and yet they somehow managed to go for eight years pulling things like that, and nobody noticed. It's really a testament to the storytelling that went into what easily could have been a generic toyline about robots fighting each other. To answer the question posed by the topic, it's Bionicle itself that exceeded my expectations—there was no reason for it to be as good as it was.

 

 

 

Some footnotes from the Faber Files that really drive home how everything in the first eight years of Bionicle was based on one twist:

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Some footnotes from the Faber Files that really drive home how everything in the first eight years of Bionicle was based on one twist:

 

I think about these things a lot 'cause I will never get over how eight years of my childhood was a lie :P But seriously, those concept art things really blow my mind, 'cause imagine how things would've gone if they did go for the shorter, more obvious story. Sure we wouldn't have had such a great long epic story, but wow, some of those ideas were really really cool. I really like the idea of an alternate Bionicle, where the island was more organic and the Toa would make three islands just appear from under the water, and how they'd go underground and awaken the great spirit, and the giant robot would arise and it would be the coolest, most unexpected thing ever. I really like how it stayed mystical and jungle-themed and all, it was a very different atmosphere. I definitely would have loved to see that, it sounds just as amazing as what we got over our lovely decade. So I guess I'd have to say that the concept art and early ideas really exceeded my expectations, 'cause I always figured the MU Robot thing was an afterthought as were all the things that came after the 2001-2003 arc, but wow, everything was so amazingly thought out in advance and even the things that we never saw were amazing in their own right and gosh it just makes me so giddy :D

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Glad to see I'm spreading my enthusiasm!

 

BTW, does anybody know if there's a backup of the old BZP forums floating around out there? I seem to remember there was talk about making a downloadable archive at some point, but I don't know if it ever happened. I'd love to look through some of the old cosmological theories from S&T and see how close we all got without finding the truth. I feel like it would be hilarious.

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The end of the barraki storyline! For me, Downfall was absolutely awesome, and an amazing ending to the underwater part of that story :D .

I always thought that that storyline would fizzle out, mainly because it seemed as if the barraki would just wipe themselves out, and that would have been a bad ending to an awesome story... but, it easily exceeded any expectations I had of it!

Dont you just hate it when your in a shop then you turn off a power point because nothings plugged into it, then realise that it's actually a light switch.... yeah. :(

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Does anybody know if there's a backup of the old BZP forums floating around out there? I seem to remember there was talk about making a downloadable archive at some point, but I don't know if it ever happened. I'd love to look through some of the old cosmological theories from S&T and see how close we all got without finding the truth. I feel like it would be hilarious.

 

You'd be best off asking individual members if any bits of the Archives still exist. All copies that the Administration had, both online and offline, were corrupted.

 

On the point of the topic, I always admired the way that Greg was able to weave so much complexity and so many characters in the serials. They may not have been the greatest little pieces of fiction, but they were enjoyable to long-time fans such as myself.

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I'd actually say that it was the whole "Makuta has taken over the universe" thing at the end of 2008(?), and the fact that they, even just shortly, left it as a possible-ending cliffhanger.

 

It was awesome. When I saw the stars align into the Kraahkan, terror flooded me as I imagined the possible ramifications of Makuta's reign.

 

Also the scene where Matoro sacrifices himself. It was a very intense and mature thing that Bionicle did, there.

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Makuta taking over the universe blew my mind when it happened. I hadn't really been exposed to media where the bad guys won, so that pretty much put me into a state of shock.

 

Also, GIANT ROBOT FIGHT. I used to wonder how they would kill off the main villain of the series. Would it be sneaky and subtle? Or would it be large and up front? Suffice to say I did not expect the giant moon ending.

 

Now I just need the MU robot to fight Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann and my life will feel complete.

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Heh, I agree that the MU=Mata-Nui revelation was pretty good. When I first heard the theory, I thought "Mata-Nui being the entire Matoran Universe? What Nonsense!" :P It really got me when it turned out to be true.

 

Even the Metru-Nui revelation in the early years was surprising. After spending several years just on the island of Mata-Nui, the opening of a whole universe was monumental.

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The ending. Particularly displayed in the Mata Nui Saga serial back in 2010. The ending was so surprising (not meaning it was unexpected), yet everything fit.

 

Wayback doesn't seem to do topic content; I've tried before, just forum indexes, unfortunately.

Sometimes it does. You just have to keep looking. (For example, here's a link to the official 2008 sets discussion topic.)

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