Everything Wrong With Bionicle

[Toa Smoke Monster]

Bonesii, "In case you are just a little"? I've set up my browser to censor profanity, but this forum already does that...

 

I'm really rusty with my knowledge of the early years of Bionicle, so trust me, these will start getting way better around 2006. (When I tried to play the MNOG, I got stuck, literally. I was unable to move or do anything.)

 

2002: The Bohrok Swarms

 

19. The story of 2001 starts with Takua getting thrown into the air by an explosion and landing on a Ta-Wahi beach. The story of 2002 starts with...Takua getting thrown into the air by an explosion and landing on a Ta-Wahi beach. I thought the Bionicle story was supposed to be innovative.

20. Kapura is driven insane by the Bohrok's attack on Ta-Koro. Except his personality in the story is already established as eccentric. You can't drive someone crazier, and if you can, it's not temporary. Right? I want a Matoran psychiatrist on this right now.

21. I don't see how the Toa ever had trouble defeating the Bohrok, since they had Golden Kanohi at the time.

22. There is, apparently, only one way in or out of Po-Koro. Whose idea was this? And in a whole village of stonecarvers, surely a new path wouldn't be more than a few months' effort.

23. We meet Nuparu during the Gahlok siege of Onu-Koro. (You know what, I'm going to add this sentence as a sin for sounding incomprehensible to anyone but Bionicle fans. I won't do this again, I promise.)

24. As I was saying, Nuparu. His character development begins and ends with "engineer".

25. The Bohrok want the island of Mata Nui to be like it was "in the before-time". I guess that would be...non-existence? This incarnation of Mata Nui was never barren. But the Bohrok don't aim to destroy the island, just to cleanse it.

26. How convenient that after the deaths of the Bahrag, all the other Bohrok are killed by the formation of the Nuva symbols.

27. How convenient that the Toa were able to defeat the Bahrag!

 

19. But at least he still had his memory the second time. (Because he did lose his memory the first time, right?)

20. A bunch of robotic insects destroying your home for the last thousand years could drive anyone insane. Kapura may not been the only one.

21. The Toa were outnumbered six to hundreds of thousands. Not to mention that each Bohrok had elemental powers as well. So even with Golden Kanohi and Matoran to back them up, its not hard to see how the Toa had trouble dealing with them.

22. I really need to play the MNOG games one of these days to learn all of these interesting facts. *prepares to be attacked by angry Bionicle fans because he hasn't played those games yet.*

23. I thought he was introduced into the story in 2001. Again, I really need to play those games.

24. Don'y worry. He get more development later on.

25. Well, they just wanted to make the island a little easier for Mata Nui's giant head to break through. Nothing wrong with that.

26. But they didn't kill the Bahrag; they simply trapped them in a cage with their combined powers.

27. Nothing can defeat a team of six Toa!

[bonesiii]

Bonesii, "In case you are just a little"? I've set up my browser to censor profanity, but this forum already does that...

I have no idea what this means... ? Why do you mention profanity? O_O

 

It would be helpful if you could answer if indeed you are being a little serious or if this is all meant as humor. Anyways, I suppose it's good to reply to any apparent misconceptions even if you aren't being at all serious, in case anybody reading along had those misconceptions for real. So... to the latest:

 

19. The story of 2001 starts with Takua getting thrown into the air by an explosion and landing on a Ta-Wahi beach. The story of 2002 starts with...Takua getting thrown into the air by an explosion and landing on a Ta-Wahi beach. I thought the Bionicle story was supposed to be innovative.

(Lines like this make me think you actually are joking... but hey, let's run with it. ) It was clearly meant to be an intentional echoing of the former event. The second instance wasn't supposed to be innovative, but nostalgic. (You were supposed to notice, and find it ironic, etc.) In-story it can even be chalked up to destiny plausibly. It's similar to how LOST will have similar things happen to the same character repeatedly, like Locke having issues with his legs. (And those things opened and closed the same game, BTW; it was actually 2001 both opening and closing with these things, and specifically MNOG doing that.)

 

Actually the big problem here IMO is his somehow surviving that first flight (the second was easy though). MNOG doesn't actually involve that (though it's implied), though, so that isn't those gamemakers' fault.

 

20. Kapura is driven insane by the Bohrok's attack on Ta-Koro. Except his personality in the story is already established as eccentric. You can't drive someone crazier, and if you can, it's not temporary. Right? I want a Matoran psychiatrist on this right now.

One word answers this: Monk.

 

Except... he wasn't really insane, in either case.

 

21. I don't see how the Toa ever had trouble defeating the Bohrok, since they had Golden Kanohi at the time.

At least on an individual basis (one Toa against one Bohrok, or two Toa against two, etc.) this is probably a reasonable criticism. Of course, in this case the reason is more out-story; fans don't really want battles to be constantly using one power after another. Especially the same sequence of powers and the like. It would get a little boring pretty fast. But we've seen Toa do that, such as Kopaka's MNOG fight with the Muaka, so they're capable. (Well, admittedly, the game is semi-canon. Anywho.) In-story.... I dunno man. I'm sure we could come up with something if we thought hard enough about it. (Well part of it is probably just standard caution and the fact that Bohrok had comparable powers too.)

 

In terms of six Toa against the entire army, though, Golden Kanohi make very little difference.

 

22. There is, apparently, only one way in or out of Po-Koro. Whose idea was this? And in a whole village of stonecarvers, surely a new path wouldn't be more than a few months' effort.

That's actually pretty common for castles, which Po-Koro essentially is, though carved into natural rock primarily. But I'm not sure if we know if that's actually the case. MNOG Ta-Koro, an actual castle, seems to have only one way in or out, but in MOL we saw at least one extra way out when Jaller went looking for Takua at the start. And just in principle, not seeing another way out doesn't prove there isn't one. Castles in fact usually have hidden extra passageways, but since they're hidden, you're not likely to notice them casually.

 

23. We meet Nuparu during the Gahlok siege of Onu-Koro. (You know what, I'm going to add this sentence as a sin for sounding incomprehensible to anyone but Bionicle fans. I won't do this again, I promise.)

I presume this is about the Bionicle-language overload of words. Which is fair. Although in principle, references to just about any such thing in any franchise will be incomprehensible to anybody that doesn't follow that franchise. And the made-up language thing should not be taken as automatically a bad thing; it would please people who like that (as obviously many Bionicle fans do), and it's more realistic, which greatly helps.

 

24. As I was saying, Nuparu. His character development begins and ends with "engineer".

"Inventor", really. Any old engineer isn't likely to think of what he did think of.

 

25. The Bohrok want the island of Mata Nui to be like it was "in the before-time". I guess that would be...non-existence? This incarnation of Mata Nui was never barren. But the Bohrok don't aim to destroy the island, just to cleanse it.

I really didn't plan to quote every single line here this time. But quoting this anyways because it's confusing what you mean is the problem. You know about the whole camouflage island system thing? They do indeed intend to destroy the island (the part that is on top of the face), but in cooperation with the giant robot; they don't do all the work. They clean the island of things like vegetation that would make the earth harder to push through, and break up the artificial bedrock, so the giant can easily push through it. They have to do their part before he can finish the island's destruction (every time he stands up).

 

If you meant something that this doesn't answer, perhaps you could clarify?

 

26. How convenient that after the deaths of the Bahrag, all the other Bohrok are killed by the formation of the Nuva symbols.

Neither the Bahrag nor all Bohrok were killed. The Bahrag are alive in story-present on Spherus Magna. They were captured in a protocage, and almost released by the Bohrok-Kal (the elite Bohrok, and those robots WERE destroyed -- well mostly -- though their Krana were not killed, and the robots were not "truly alive"), then later released by the Nuva when the Matoran were out of the way to finish their work so the giant could stand up (though the Nuva didn't know that part).

 

Some other Bohrok were disabled during the Bohrok War (mainly the ones used to make Boxor), but the vast majority were not. They just returned to their nests at one point, then later when the Bahrag were freed, came back out, cleaned the island, and went back to the nests again.

 

The appearance of the Nuva symbols (they were teleported there, not formed there) did disable all Bohrok on the island, but this was not by killing, or really even actual disabling; instead it simply switched off the Krana's ability to control the Bohrok. They were shown shortly afterward (the Bohrok) now responding instead to voice commands by Matoran [edit: or hand signals or something], so I'm not sure how you could think they were destroyed.

 

And that wasn't really about the Nuva Symbols, but the protocaging of their controllers, the Bahrag (which happened because the Toa, in a desperate situation, decided to use their brains, the theme of Bionicle, and thought of combining their powers into one beam to see what would happen). Of course, it is rather convenient that the result happened to be just what they needed.

 

Smoke Monster:

(Because [Takua] did lose his memory the first time, right?)

That's correct. (Astounding he didn't die... but yeah...)

 

23. I thought [Nuparu] was introduced into the story in 2001.

Nope; 02.

Edited May 21, 2014 by bonesiii

[WhereFMF]

Bonesii, it's half-serious and half-humorous, just like CinemaSins.

25. One year, one chapter of the story. Easy to follow and makes sense. Oh, wait. There are two unrelated chapters told in 2003. Bad Greg! Bad!

2003a: The Bohrok-Kal Strike

26. Vakama tells Tahu to use the Mask of Time only in an emergency. We do not know why the thousand years of being menaced by Rahi, and the month or so of organically controlled robots trying to render the island barren, do not count as emergencies.

27. Also, Vakama, a being with a lifespan of tens of thousands of years, gives a priceless and dangerous artifact to someone whom he has known for a few months at most.

27. The foreshadowing of Metru Nui we get in the carvings inside Gali's cavern and in Vakama's challenge to the Rahi Nui. More on this in the 2004 sins.

I actually really like the idea of the 2003a story, not a lot of sins to find here. Except...

28. The deaths of the Bohrok-Kal. These were probably the greatest villains in Bionicle. They were more powerful than the Toa, they had taken away most of the Toa's powers, and they were seconds away from victory. And how are they beaten? By greed, and the very powers they sought. Greatest reverse plot armour ever.

29-32. I'm tacking on a total of five sins for that one.

32. But I'm taking off one for the supremely cool ways in which the Bohrok-Kal were killed. Particularly Nuhvok-Kal. Black holes, heck yeah!

33. Naming Day. Not just because of that Maori thing, but because it shows that the Matoran don't use a phonetic writing system.

2003b: The Mask of Light

34. I am tacking on one sin for how bad Bionicle: Mask of Light was. If I actually reviewed the quality of the movie, Bionicle's sin count would shoot through the roof.

35-38. While we're at it, let's just add sins for Legends of Metru Nui, Web of Shadows, and The Legend Reborn.

39. The Mask of Light is not a legendary mask, so all the hype over it is totally undeserved.

40. I don't care how powerful it is; if a mask falls into lava it should be destroyed. If you're going to argue that protodermis is too powerful to be destroyed by lava, then no one in the Matoran Universe (say, Takua right here or Jaller in 2006) should be afraid to fall into lava, because they are all made of protodermis.

41. How did anyone fall for Takua's attempt to turn Jaller into the Herald of the Seventh Toa when it clearly shone on him first?

42. Turaga Vakama says that the seventh Toa "will bring light to the shadows and awaken Mata Nui". When the time actually comes to awaken Mata Nui in 2008, Takanuva does no such thing. Instead, Mata Nui is awakened by an entirely different Toa, completely unforetold in legend, who wears an even more powerful mask. And Takanuva is reduced to little more than a messenger.

43. Bionicle goes whole-hog on the bizarre names; we already knew that. But Rakhshhii is a right mess to spell. For this reason, I will spell it a different, incorrect way every time it appears.

44. Why does Makuta only create six Raakshi? As far as we know, there are no limits on his Kraata-creating powers.

45. Also, he calls the newly created Raki "my sons". There's just something a little freaky about that.

46. Forget it, I have to include this sin from Mask of Light. Why in Bitil's (for lack of a better character) name does Kopaka perform his scan on the Ko-Koro gate? He knows the gate of his own village, and the scan is giving him completely useless information! (The Matoran letters inside his mask read "PC Ussalcrab", "PC Nuirama", and "PC Tarakava".)

47. Oh, and another thing. In Mask of Light, Pohatu and Onua are acting like Pohatu hasn't seen Onua for a long time, but other media tell us that's not the case.

48. Pohatu wears a Mask of Speed, wields twin claws, and has control over stone (not to mention he is IN A MINE). What is his reaction to seeing his friend fall in battle? Run at normal speed towards the foes, who have already shown their ability to fire projectiles, making no effort to protect himself.

49. Onua, who has control over Earth and is IN A MINE, is unable to stop the ceiling from collapsing on him, destroying his village and probably killing a few Matoran.

50. While we're at it, what's the difference between the elements of Stone and Earth anyway? Don't say colour. Do NOT say colour.

51. Why did Jaller and Takua need to travel through Ta-, Le-, Onu-, and Ko-Koro before getting to Kini-Nui, which is supposedly in the centre of the island? It should be right next to Ta-Koro, or what's left of it.

People can actually be "scared to death", so no sin for Jaller's death. And Takua's transformation is pretty cool, too.

 

51. But why did Takua/Takanuva need to rename himself? And why does everyone accept that renaming?

 

52. Takua becoming Takanuva shows that you can wear one Kanohi on top of another. Why don't Toa do this? Double the powers!

53. The Ussanui must be the shortest-lived thing in the Bionicle Universe to get a set. Not even the Bohrok-Kal or Gadunka lasted less than five minutes!

54. Hahli's promises of awakening Mata Nui immediately are totally false, as evidenced by the five more years of storyline required to do so.

55. We never saw what happened to Jaller's body, but if it wasn't destroyed (e.g. cremated by Tahu), there's a sin. When Takutanuva—

56. That name is a sin in itself. Anyway, when Takutanuva revives Jaller, he says "that mask needs life". So the idea is that Jaller's essence left an imprint on the mask, and Takutanuva is using that to revive Jaller. But if Jaller's body wasn't destroyed, Takutanuva is teleporting Jaller's body from elsewhere and reviving it, making his statement false.

57. Makuta Teridax, the great and powerful supreme antagonist of all of Bionicle, has his armor crushed and is thus rendered mostly helpless until 2007...by a door. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

58. Takanuva's revival makes no sense. What power brought him back to life?

59. Also, two revivals within two minutes of each other.

Edited June 1, 2014 by WhereFMF

[Yagami Kumi]

26. I don't think Turaga were capable of using that Mask, it takes a lot of control- even Vakama as a Toa could not control it.

 

27. Well, in hindsight, when you look at it, Lhikan did show similar trust in the Toa Metru, getting six random novice Toa to save all of Metru Nui, despite probably knowing them less well than Vakama knew Tahu.

 

50. From what I've seen around here, they control different-sized particles or something along those lines.

 

51. I think that's a case of trying to conceal the plot- back in 2003 there was all this mysterious Seventh Toa thing and they didn't want anyone to find out until a certain media release- not sure if the movie or comics were first on that. Labelling him "Toa Takua" would've given away the secret.

[Master Inika]

26. I don't think Turaga were capable of using that Mask, it takes a lot of control- even Vakama as a Toa could not control it.

 

27. Well, in hindsight, when you look at it, Lhikan did show similar trust in the Toa Metru, getting six random novice Toa to save all of Metru Nui, despite probably knowing them less well than Vakama knew Tahu.

 

50. From what I've seen around here, they control different-sized particles or something along those lines.

 

51. I think that's a case of trying to conceal the plot- back in 2003 there was all this mysterious Seventh Toa thing and they didn't want anyone to find out until a certain media release- not sure if the movie or comics were first on that. Labelling him "Toa Takua" would've given away the secret.

The comic doesn't even tell us that Takanuva is Takua. He just seems to randomly appear out of nowhere.

[WhereFMF]

27. Well, in hindsight, when you look at it, Lhikan did show similar trust in the Toa Metru, getting six random novice Toa to save all of Metru Nui, despite probably knowing them less well than Vakama knew Tahu.

 

Lhikan had information from Mata Nui, the most trustworthy of all, that these Matoran were the destined ones. I think his choice was justified.

[Master Inika]

 

27. Well, in hindsight, when you look at it, Lhikan did show similar trust in the Toa Metru, getting six random novice Toa to save all of Metru Nui, despite probably knowing them less well than Vakama knew Tahu.

 

Lhikan had information from Mata Nui, the most trustworthy of all, that these Matoran were the destined ones. I think his choice was justified.

 

But remember that Makuta changed the stars to say that the Great Disk Matoran were destined to be Toa. Lhikan just chose Vakama and the rest on a gut feeling (which he did receive from Mata Nui, but he didn't know that).

[bonesiii]

Thanks for answering the question about it being at least a little serious. Some more replies, then:

Vakama tells Tahu to use the Mask of Time only in an emergency. We do not know why the thousand years of being menaced by Rahi, and the month or so of organically controlled robots trying to render the island barren, do not count as emergencies.

First, there were no Toa over those thousand years, and Turaga can't use Legendary Masks. That said, even if they could have, I'd say we do indeed know why.

At least in hindsight we know that Teridax was purposefully only "menacing", not actually trying to conquer. And since 2004 in Time Trap, at least, we knew that part of it was in fact about the Vahi; Vakama threatened to destroy the mask if Makuta ever went for it. Vakama believed that the reason for the Rahi attacks being somewhat half-hearted was about this. It also seems that they did know Teridax was guarding the way back to Metru Nui too, so they believed that conquering the Matoran was not high on his priority list. Now we know that was in part because he needed the Toa to play along with the Plan; part of that required the Matoran to repair Metru Nui. Matoran wearing infected masks could do this, of course, but then the Toa would be less likely to play along.

Anyways, if you're asking why didn't Vakama give the mask to Tahu as a precaution for the battle against Teridax that brought the end to the Rahi attacks, the answer is that the Turaga didn't know if they could trust these Toa. They had, after all, personal reasons to not blindly trust Toa.

And the Bohrok were like the Borg -- in some situations, leave them alone, and they leave you alone. (But if you try to defend a plot of land they're trying to clean, then they get nasty.) Also, was there really a situation in either case where the Vahi would have even been useful? Slowing down the unlocking of a cage makes sense, but I'm not sure the previous two showdowns really fit that mask. But maybe if combining beams against the Bahrag hadn't worked Tahu might have tried it (although I forget now off the top of my head, if Vakama gave it to him before or after that battle... >_>).

Also, Vakama, a being with a lifespan of tens of thousands of years, gives a priceless and dangerous artifact to someone whom he has known for a few months at most.

Well, this is why he didn't give it to him to deal with the Rahi. But time doesn't really compare well like that. If you need somebody to prove that they can be trusted to ride an expensive bicycle, seeing them ride a few times to ensure they know how should be sufficient. Once you know how to ride a bike, generally it doesn't matter how much older you then get. Beating (or seeming to beat) the Makuta once was taken as strong evidence the Toa were trustworthy, and delaying out of stubbornness of age could be far riskier, since the mask does no actual good in Vakama's hands.

Also, this is the same guy who was apparently willing to actually destroy that artifact, unleashing time-chaos, so this isn't really a surprising move for him anyways.

The Mask of Light is not a legendary mask, so all the hype over it is totally undeserved.

Non sequitur; it does not follow that only Legendary Masks are valuable. This appears to be power level fallacy; the assumption that what or who wins in a battle depends simply on a simple linear spectrum of "power level", and more powerful equals win. Actually it's all about the circumstances and strengths versus weaknesses. In this case, the main enemy and his servants are beings of the Shadow Element, which is especially vulnerable to the Light element.

This particular Mask of Light, as well, has the added benefits of being charged with Toa Energy, so it could make an actual Toa of Light; normal Great Masks don't have that (not even Legendaries -- actually because of this alone it is far MORE valuable than Legendaries, since it isn't actually safe to use Legendaries anyways usually*), being the only one known to exist (though we could justifiably call this a problem -- it might be more realistic that they'd make many of them, but that's a whole 'nother discussion), and having some knowledge programmed into it that downloads into the Toa's mind to help him achieve victory. (Plus that poem etched on the inner side to help out a bit.)

 

*Although the Mask of Life, admittedly, could make a Toa if it wanted. But you wouldn't want to wear it!

I don't care how powerful it is; if a mask falls into lava it should be destroyed.

That lava's heat comes from the automated furnaces of Ta-Metru, then is pumped underground, under an ocean (cool water sinks, and would cool the seafloor, and likely affect the pipes), then up along the dome, to the center top, and then up even more through rock, then comes out the artificial volcano, and along a lava river, and when it reaches Ta-Koro it's even almost at the very END of the lava river! Really it's amazing it's still molten after all that opportunity for heat to gradually dissipate. No reason to assume the lava at that point would instantly melt every metallic object; many metals and other substances have very high melting points, including apparently the rock the lava was flowing over, etc.

 

Besides, to even get the lava up there in the first place you have to have at least one type of protodermis that isn't affected even at the most extreme side of the heat.

And masks and such are made of purified protodermis. We even see lavaboards being made of another type of protodermis (it's really the same substance, just somehow behaving differently to imitate different types of matter) and not melting at all. So purified protodermis could simply have that trait or close enough that it would have to stay in the lava a long time to melt. Which would make sense -- you wouldn't really want masks to be more like ice cubes, right?

Plus, it was encased in rock for part of the time it was in the lava, which took the brunt of the heat, and Takua quickly pulled it out.

BTW, what does "how powerful it is" have to do with it? A mask's power isn't going to be activated (other than the Ignika, or a slightly cracked Mask of Time and presumably Mask of Creation) unless it's on a Toa's face [or Turaga in case of Nobles] and they will it to be. And Light doesn't seem relevant to surviving lava. But powers can indeed help; those pipes for example might have a cold power (even the lava surfboard might possibly have an always-on one, but we don't know that). We do know that Ta-Matoran have an always-on heat resistance power. But this is presumably not the case for Kanohi.

If you're going to argue that protodermis is too powerful to be destroyed by lava, then no one in the Matoran Universe (say, Takua right here or Jaller in 2006) should be afraid to fall into lava, because they are all made of protodermis.

Here again, this is an odd take. Why would a mere power level even seem to apply in this case? Wouldn't it be more normal to expect people to argue about higher versus lower melting points than "powerful"? The material that industrial vats are made of, that contain molten metal, etc. in the real world aren't "more powerful" than other materials, they just have a higher melting point. Anywho, the real problem with this argument is it seems to assume that all protodermis is the same, but we know that's not at all the case. After all, rock and ice are both protodermis (in Metru Nui, not Mata Nui), and the ice will melt at room temperature while the rock will not. And the people have organic protodermis which is surely much more vulnerable than their metal components or masks.

How did anyone fall for Takua's attempt to turn Jaller into the Herald of the Seventh Toa when it clearly shone on him first?

Things like this happen in real life all the time. People aren't always paying Sherlock Holmes levels of attention to everything.

Turaga Vakama says that the seventh Toa "will bring light to the shadows and awaken Mata Nui". When the time actually comes to awaken Mata Nui in 2008, Takanuva does no such thing.

There was a genuine miscommunication on this one, in fact. The movie producers thought that the light shining through the Hau-shaped decoration around that giant door at the very end was Mata Nui awakening (according to people who have some sort of special feature, or so I heard back in the day... don't think I ever got to see that myself). Thankfully they kept this claim out of the movie itself and just left it implied that Mata Nui had just awoken, so the canon story could salvage this. (This created untold numbers of questions in S&T over the years as people soon foundd out that bit of their commentary didn't match the continuing story that said he was still asleep.)

Vakama's statement still works fine, as Takanuva did do the necessary work in opening back up the way for the Matoran to return to Metru Nui, which was one of the prerequisites for awakening Mata Nui. And we already knew that awakening Mata Nui was the Toa Mata's destiny, not Takanuva's, so virtually everybody has taken Vakama's statement as obviously intended in an indirect sense; that Takanuva would help the Toa Mata awaken him, which is indeed what happened (both here, helping them move toward that, and he actually fought alongside them in Karda Nui later).

But Rakhshhii is a right mess to spell.

Actually Rahkshi is one of the better ones. It has the "ah" sound, and actually uses "ah" in the spelling. And usually "i" is "ee" in Bionicle words. It's spelled just how it's pronounced.

Why does Makuta only create six Raakshi? As far as we know, there are no limits on his Kraata-creating powers.

Sure we know of limits; he can only make one Kraata at a time, and had very little time to do that, plus they have to "soak" a while (and he has to make six more Kraata to control the suits that the first six turn into). Of course, we could fault him for not thinking of the necessity at some point in those thousand years, but then again, we know now that he wasn't actually trying very hard to stop the good guys since he needed them for the Plan.

But we shouldn't really need to know of limits to accept that he only made six; that's an argument from ignorance fallacy. Only if we had positive knowledge that he didn't have any limits would this argument work, and it doesn't seem likely anyways that it would be unlimited.

Forget it, I have to include this sin from Mask of Light. Why in Bitil's (for lack of a better character) name does Kopaka perform his scan on the Ko-Koro gate? He knows the gate of his own village

That was just artistic license, but isn't really the problem here. As Greg might put it, in the "movie universe" that's just how the power would work automatically, and since he was using it to see if Ko-Koro had been attacked, it would display any information about what is in its field of vision. But canonically it does not seem to display information in a HUD type way anyways -- so the problem is that it is deviating from canon just to look cool, really. But canonically, he wouldn't fail to be able to read the gate. Basically, you're misinterpreting what he's looking for; he's trying to look inside the village to see whether it's been attacked, not trying to find out what the gate says.

Onua, who has control over Earth and is IN A MINE, is unable to stop the ceiling from collapsing on him, destroying his village and probably killing a few Matoran.

No real objection to most of this, but just for the record, no Matoran died on Mata Nui island except Jaller. I always thought that scene was odd too (though not odd when you consider these things were choices made by the movie people, not storyline experts lol). Although, he did want the Rahkshi stopped/slowed down, and that probably helped. It seems implied he then used his power over Earth to dig free.

While we're at it, what's the difference between the elements of Stone and Earth anyway?

To use Greg's stock answer, have somebody throw a clump of dirt at your head. Then a rock. Feel the difference?

(Do not try this at home. )

The more technical answer: Earth is loose particles smaller than grains of sand, stone is cemented material of generally the same type but with particles larger than sand (Sand is a separate element, albeit only an SM one). Earth will flow something like a liquid under the right conditions, while stone will not (not necessarily, anyways; pebbles could, but you could have a tall tower made of a single stone for example). Earth can also grow plants in it and so forth.

Why did Jaller and Takua need to travel through Ta-, Le-, Onu-, and Ko-Koro before getting to Kini-Nui, which is supposedly in the centre of the island? It should be right next to Ta-Koro, or what's left of it.

They were searching for a Seventh Toa, not making a journey to a set destination.

But why did Takua/Takanuva need to rename himself?

Set had to be marketed before movie was released, and calling it "Toa Takua" would have given the big spoiler away.

In-story, he didn't have to, but that's what I call Need Fallacy (applied in a somewhat unusual way, though). People do things both because they want to and need to, not just need. I guess he thought it was more fitting. We know that it basically means "new Takua" -- it was a poetic way of saying "I'm putting the old irresponsible me aside now -- the me that tried to deny my destiny and got my best friend killed because of it" etc.

Takua becoming Takanuva shows that you can wear one Kanohi on top of another. Why don't Toa do this? Double the powers!

The magnetic connection surely has limits, and there are other obvious problems. The same logic would lead to absurd results -- why not fifty masks sticking off your face so you could have fifty powers with no need for even one Suva?

He wasn't doing it to double powers; he was doing it to accept a transformation that removed the Matoran mask in the process. But we did see Vakama do this with the Vahi. So it is done, it's just that it should be temporary and it's best not to.

BTW, they still can only use one power at a time, but it does have a time advantage.

Also, this is basically what Golden Kanohi are.

We never saw what happened to Jaller's body, but if it wasn't destroyed (e.g. cremated by Tahu), there's a sin. When Takutanuva... revives Jaller, he says "that mask needs life". So the idea is that Jaller's essence left an imprint on the mask, and Takutanuva is using that to revive Jaller. But if Jaller's body wasn't destroyed, Takutanuva is teleporting Jaller's body from elsewhere and reviving it, making his statement false.

I'm not really following.. what statement is made false? And why? But we don't know exactly how it worked yet. We're still learning about the revival process in the LMB topic; new light has been shed on it recently. For example, we now know that the RS Bringup teleporter doesn't work on Mata Nui, so we can rule out that the old body was teleported up there. So, no second Jaller.

It sounds like you're assuming that if the old body wasn't destroyed, for some reason it absolutely had to be teleported there? Makuta does have a teleportation power, so that's one option, seemingly, but why would it be the only option? He could simply materialize a new body. That's what I always assumed was happening.

In the case of Takanuva's revival moments later that is probably what's happening; his dead body was probably still in the rubble, not teleported there in smashed form (ew... ) then put back together. On the other hand, that would mean the body was still there when the Piraka came to inspect the rubble, so still ew lol.

Makuta Teridax, the great and powerful supreme antagonist of all of Bionicle, has his armor crushed and is thus rendered mostly helpless until 2007...by a door.

Actually I thought that was one of the high points of Bionicle. Realistic antagonists make mistakes, even embarrassing ones. (Although the mistake was really the falling in the EP. We don't know that Makuta wasn't somehow subconsciously manipulating the fusion to fake a defeat there too. It certainly didn't actually harm him in any way injurious to the Plan. And Takanuva in fact speculates along these lines at one point.)

Takanuva's revival makes no sense. What power brought him back to life?

It was definitely bad that this wasn't explained, but it's pretty easy to deduce what the answer must be. Makuta, who obviously knows how to revive somebody, has been living next to that machine for a thousand years. Since that machine clearly has the power of revival (incidentally, why do you need to ask? You saw it in action, so you know the power...), it makes sense that his study of this while he was there led to his knowledge of how to do it by himself, and the fusion used that knowledge while it was unable to reach that device to revive Jaller.

Really Takanuva's revival is the one that makes more sense when you think about it; that machine actually naturally has the power (we just don't know who put it there or why, or why Vakama figured it out, but obvious possibilities to all of these can be theorized; Great Beings, another RS-like contingency, and visions or deduction or maybe ancient legends), but revival is not listed among Makuta powers. But the presence of this machine makes Jaller's revival end up making sense, because now we can understand that Makuta must have found out a way to imitate its effects.

Also, two revivals within two minutes of each other.

At first glance and from a superficial perspective yes, but considering the above, that's actually one of the strong points of the scene. The problem was how it was handled, as it's unrealistic that all the characters there would act just as they did. The Toa for example would realistically have had a conversation about what Vakama was deducing or remembering from a vision or whatever, rather than just lining up like paper cutout figures. But IMO it's mostly forgiveable, because it would be anticlimactic for the emotion of the movie scene to end a dramatic, emotional climax with "Wow, Vakama, what is this thing under the floor? How's it work? Why did the Great Beings make it? How did you figure it out?" and then get a series of answers. More realistic but nearly all modern television/movie climaxes avoid strict realism for emotionally uplifting finishes. (Kind of a pet peeve of mine, but you can get why they do it.)

 

 

Lhikan had information from Mata Nui, the most trustworthy of all, that these Matoran were the destined ones. I think his choice was justified.

Plus he would have had time to get to know them, though we don't know that he did. Anywho, there a legend about those Toa coming. I'm not sure how the Turaga knew about that, but Vakama's visions might be the answer. The Matoran clearly expected them. It wasn't like they just showed up as a total surprise.

Edited June 2, 2014 by bonesiii

[fishers64]

 

Makuta Teridax, the great and powerful supreme antagonist of all of Bionicle, has his armor crushed and is thus rendered mostly helpless until 2007...by a door.

Actually I thought that was one of the high points of Bionicle. Realistic antagonists make mistakes, even embarrassing ones. (Although the mistake was really the falling in the EP. We don't know that Makuta wasn't somehow subconsciously manipulating the fusion to fake a defeat there too. It certainly didn't actually harm him in any way injurious to the Plan. And Takanuva in fact speculates along these lines at one point.)

 

For some reason I think this Greg quote is related (I just randomly found it when searching for other things ):

 

1. Did [Teridax]'s defeat by Takanuva hinder his plan at all? I ask this because when Takanuva defeated Makuta, he was like what, a one day novice, and Makuta had thousands of years of experience. Makuta's 42 rahkshi powers, mask power, weapons, and experience, to me, would crush a novice Toa of Light anytime. It is like him battling a super experienced Toa of Fire.

 

 

1) Makuta threw the fight with Takanuva. He was up against a Toa of Light, and Makuta are especially vulerable to light. He knew he PROBABLY would beat Takanuva, but if he didn't -- especially if the other six Toa Nuva joined in the battle -- it would be a setback. So he pretended to lose so that the Toa would think they had stopped his plans and not pay attention to what he was really up to. What WAS a setback was having his armor crushed.

 

Not quite defeat by the door, as much as defeat by EP, plus Takanuva, plus the door. And it wasn't an embarrassing mistake - if the Toa thought Takanuva couldn't do the job they could have protocaged him a la Bahrag or the way a certain other group of Toa did it in 2004.

Edited June 2, 2014 by fishers64

[Master Inika]

And the Bohrok were like the Borg -- in some situations, leave them alone, and they leave you alone. (But if you try to defend a plot of land they're trying to clean, then they get nasty.) Also, was there really a situation in either case where the Vahi would have even been useful? Slowing down the unlocking of a cage makes sense, but I'm not sure the previous two showdowns really fit that mask. But maybe if combining beams against the Bahrag hadn't worked Tahu might have tried it (although I forget now off the top of my head, if Vakama gave it to him before or after that battle... >_>).

Vakama did indeed give it to Tahu after the defeat of the Bohrok and the Nuva transformation. It was in Makuta's Revenge.

[Toa Smoke Monster]

Bonesii, it's half-serious and half-humorous, just like CinemaSins.

 

25. One year, one chapter of the story. Easy to follow and makes sense. Oh, wait. There are two unrelated chapters told in 2003. Bad Greg! Bad!

 

2003a: The Bohrok-Kal Strike

 

26. Vakama tells Tahu to use the Mask of Time only in an emergency. We do not know why the thousand years of being menaced by Rahi, and the month or so of organically controlled robots trying to render the island barren, do not count as emergencies.

27. Also, Vakama, a being with a lifespan of tens of thousands of years, gives a priceless and dangerous artifact to someone whom he has known for a few months at most.

27. The foreshadowing of Metru Nui we get in the carvings inside Gali's cavern and in Vakama's challenge to the Rahi Nui. More on this in the 2004 sins.

 

I actually really like the idea of the 2003a story, not a lot of sins to find here. Except...

 

28. The deaths of the Bohrok-Kal. These were probably the greatest villains in Bionicle. They were more powerful than the Toa, they had taken away most of the Toa's powers, and they were seconds away from victory. And how are they beaten? By greed, and the very powers they sought. Greatest reverse plot armour ever.

29-32. I'm tacking on a total of five sins for that one.

32. But I'm taking off one for the supremely cool ways in which the Bohrok-Kal were killed. Particularly Nuhvok-Kal. Black holes, heck yeah!

33. Naming Day. Not just because of that Maori thing, but because it shows that the Matoran don't use a phonetic writing system.

 

2003b: The Mask of Light

 

34. I am tacking on one sin for how bad Bionicle: Mask of Light was. If I actually reviewed the quality of the movie, Bionicle's sin count would shoot through the roof.

35-38. While we're at it, let's just add sins for Legends of Metru Nui, Web of Shadows, and The Legend Reborn.

39. The Mask of Light is not a legendary mask, so all the hype over it is totally undeserved.

40. I don't care how powerful it is; if a mask falls into lava it should be destroyed. If you're going to argue that protodermis is too powerful to be destroyed by lava, then no one in the Matoran Universe (say, Takua right here or Jaller in 2006) should be afraid to fall into lava, because they are all made of protodermis.

41. How did anyone fall for Takua's attempt to turn Jaller into the Herald of the Seventh Toa when it clearly shone on him first?

42. Turaga Vakama says that the seventh Toa "will bring light to the shadows and awaken Mata Nui". When the time actually comes to awaken Mata Nui in 2008, Takanuva does no such thing. Instead, Mata Nui is awakened by an entirely different Toa, completely unforetold in legend, who wears an even more powerful mask. And Takanuva is reduced to little more than a messenger.

43. Bionicle goes whole-hog on the bizarre names; we already knew that. But Rakhshhii is a right mess to spell. For this reason, I will spell it a different, incorrect way every time it appears.

44. Why does Makuta only create six Raakshi? As far as we know, there are no limits on his Kraata-creating powers.

45. Also, he calls the newly created Raki "my sons". There's just something a little freaky about that.

46. Forget it, I have to include this sin from Mask of Light. Why in Bitil's (for lack of a better character) name does Kopaka perform his scan on the Ko-Koro gate? He knows the gate of his own village, and the scan is giving him completely useless information! (The Matoran letters inside his mask read "PC Ussalcrab", "PC Nuirama", and "PC Tarakava".)

47. Oh, and another thing. In Mask of Light, Pohatu and Onua are acting like Pohatu hasn't seen Onua for a long time, but other media tell us that's not the case.

48. Pohatu wears a Mask of Speed, wields twin claws, and has control over stone (not to mention he is IN A MINE). What is his reaction to seeing his friend fall in battle? Run at normal speed towards the foes, who have already shown their ability to fire projectiles, making no effort to protect himself.

49. Onua, who has control over Earth and is IN A MINE, is unable to stop the ceiling from collapsing on him, destroying his village and probably killing a few Matoran.

50. While we're at it, what's the difference between the elements of Stone and Earth anyway? Don't say colour. Do NOT say colour.

51. Why did Jaller and Takua need to travel through Ta-, Le-, Onu-, and Ko-Koro before getting to Kini-Nui, which is supposedly in the centre of the island? It should be right next to Ta-Koro, or what's left of it.

 

People can actually be "scared to death", so no sin for Jaller's death. And Takua's transformation is pretty cool, too.

 

51. But why did Takua/Takanuva need to rename himself? And why does everyone accept that renaming?

52. Takua becoming Takanuva shows that you can wear one Kanohi on top of another. Why don't Toa do this? Double the powers!

53. The Ussanui must be the shortest-lived thing in the Bionicle Universe to get a set. Not even the Bohrok-Kal or Gadunka lasted less than five minutes!

54. Hahli's promises of awakening Mata Nui immediately are totally false, as evidenced by the five more years of storyline required to do so.

55. We never saw what happened to Jaller's body, but if it wasn't destroyed (e.g. cremated by Tahu), there's a sin. When Takutanuva—

56. That name is a sin in itself. Anyway, when Takutanuva revives Jaller, he says "that mask needs life". So the idea is that Jaller's essence left an imprint on the mask, and Takutanuva is using that to revive Jaller. But if Jaller's body wasn't destroyed, Takutanuva is teleporting Jaller's body from elsewhere and reviving it, making his statement false.

57. Makuta Teridax, the great and powerful supreme antagonist of all of Bionicle, has his armor crushed and is thus rendered mostly helpless until 2007...by a door. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

58. Takanuva's revival makes no sense. What power brought him back to life?

59. Also, two revivals within two minutes of each other.

 

25. True, but it still led to that year having some really cool sets.

26. Well, I think Vakama knew that Makuta wouldn't use his Rahi to destroy the Matoran. He just used them to keep them off balance. As for the Bohrok, maybe Vakama thought the Toa Mata weren't strong enough to use the Vahi?

27. Someone who had a hand in saving the island twice by that point in the story. And maybe Vakama thought a Toa Nuva would have better control over it than a regular Toa.

27. The only sin I see here is that there are two '27' sins.

28. Power can corrupt all, my friend. Even awesome Bohrok rip offs.

32. Their deaths were pretty cool.

34. I haven't seen the movie in forever, but I don't remember it being the best movie to ever exist. Maybe we can ask the Nostalgia Critic to review it. I'd love to see his opinion on it.

35-38. Hey, let's count the sins of these movies when we get to them in the years they were released. (Except for Web of Shadows, because I actually liked that one.)

39. Agreed.

40. Maybe the Mask has something in it that makes it lava proof. Maybe the Toa power in it did this. Who knows?

41. Because everyone there liked Jaller more.

42. Even though Vakama is a wise Turaga, he can still be wrong about some things.

43. I always did have trouble spelling that name.

44. Because there were only able to make six sets for them.

45. Agreed. That is kind of freaky.

46. Maybe Kopaka likes to play the Metroid Prime games, and wanted to scan every single thing in his land, just like you have to do in the games!

47. Maybe a short while for us is a long time for them?

48. We all still like Pohatu though.

49. He is still cool as well.

50. This could be answered by people a lot smarted than I am, so I'll just say no comment.

51.A: Because they had to show multiple locations in the movie.

51.B: Maybe Takanuva wanted a cooler name? And since everyone thought that he would save them from Makuta, they just let him change it. Or maybe they all hated the name 'Takua.'

52. But wasn't Takanuva's powerless mask, like, incinerated or something when he put on the Mask of Light? Because it vanished when he put it on.

53. I have only one name to say for a response to this: The yellow Jetrax T6.

54. Like Vakama, she can be wrong about things too.

55. And the Red Star messes with the story even before we truly know what it is. To the Pit with that thing.

56. That name is a sin. Its like the Story Team ran out of ideas for names and were like "lets just put 'Nuva' at the end of 'Takua.' Brilliant!"

57. That door, the real hero of the end of the 2003 Bionicle storyline!

58. In the book, I believe Takanuva just pulled himself from out of the rubble. I accept this as the canon way that he survived.

59. Well, they had to give us something to hint about 2004.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Toa Smoke Monster

[bonesiii]

That name is a sin. Its like the Story Team ran out of ideas for names and were like "lets just put 'Nuva' at the end of 'Takua.' Brillant!"

He was talking about Takutanuva, not Takanuva. (The fusion of Makuta and Takanuva.) But your confusion just goes to show why he's right on that one lol. (Although, let's remember what might seem silly to an English-speaking culture may carry no such connotation at all in a Matoran-language culture. Plus, we do stuff like that ourselves even in English, like ligers.)

[Toa Smoke Monster]

 

That name is a sin. Its like the Story Team ran out of ideas for names and were like "lets just put 'Nuva' at the end of 'Takua.' Brillant!"

He was talking about Takutanuva, not Takanuva. (The fusion of Makuta and Takanuva.) But your confusion just goes to show why he's right on that one lol. (Although, let's remember what might seem silly to an English-speaking culture may carry no such connotation at all in a Matoran-language culture. Plus, we do stuff like that ourselves even in English, like ligers.)

 

I've never noticed that. I always thought it was 'Takuanuva.' 'facepalm' It just goes to show that one learns things everyday.

[Katuko]

Regarding the temperature of the lava on Mata Nui (which has been brought up before): The rock shell around the Avohkii takes a few seconds to actually melt. Takua is very quick to pull the mask out once it appears, and still has trouble holding it at first. Just a few seconds of exposure to the lava apparently makes it scalding hot. The Matoran are also visibly afraid to touch the lava, despite their heat resistance. I find it likely that yes, the lava is indeed hot enough to melt both Kanohi and Matoran in maybe 10 or 15 seconds total. Lava Surfing Boards must be somehow prepped to withstand the heat.

 

That said, the stone bridge of Ta-Koro never seems to "erode" while it is submerged in lava, and it cools quickly enough for people to walk across soon after. I'd chalk the lava up sci-fi writing, as it appears to have different temperatures depending on what is touching it.

[bonesiii]

I find it likely that yes, the lava is indeed hot enough to melt both Kanohi and Matoran in maybe 10 or 15 seconds total. Lava Surfing Boards must be somehow prepped to withstand the heat.

Well hold on a sec -- the Matoran has organic parts, the mask doesn't. Plus, it would make sense that the Great Beings designed purified protodermis to have a stronger resistance to heat -- like I said before, why would you want masks to be more like ice cubes? In the case of Matoran, consciousness depends on them. So it makes sense to make them less vulnerable to various kinds of damage.

 

BTW, the surfboards and lava bridge aren't the only thing -- there's also the lava pipes and pump in Onu-Wahi (at the lightstone mine). I really don't see why we need to chalk it up to such a thing -- the things that don't melt have a higher melting temperature than the material the lava is made of. It works in real life so why shouldn't it in fiction? (The same principle is why you can store room temperature water in a water bottle; that's just way more on the cold side than this.)

 

Whether masks are one of those things or not we don't know, but either way the scene is plausible (since he did take it out very fast).

Edited June 5, 2014 by bonesiii

[N.S.M.8]

The biggest problem with the Bionicle story is the repetition.

2001: collect six toa stones, 30 great kanohi (the toa start with one each), 36 noble kanohi (for a total of 7 of each, as the turaga start with one each. The number of noble knohi was discussed in other topics), the various items of Quest for the Toa (including 6 badges of office and six toa stones), and 6 Makoki stone fragments. MNOG is itself a giant fetch quest.
2002: collect 96 krana.
2003: collect 30 Kanohi Nuva, 1 great Kanohi, and attempt to capture the krana-kal and the kraata. MNOG2 is an even bigger fetch quest, including 15 charm and 6 crystals among it's items.

 

from 2004 onward, it gets a little bit better.

2004: collect 6 great disks.
2005: collect 6 Makoki stone fragments, 1 great kanohi, and various airship parts.

2006 and 2007: collect 1 great kanohi.

2008: collect 6 keystones, find and destroy Energized Protodermis pools.

2009: collect 1 Book of Certavus. There was also the Lego Network fetch quest.
2010: collect 6 pieces of Golden Armor.

I'm sick of collecting things!

Edited June 6, 2014 by N.S.M.8

[WhereFMF]

And now, a brief digression.

 

Everything Wrong With the Narrator

 

1. He's probably not qualified to do a criticism of Bionicle.

2. He said he wouldn't do a part 2 and he did.

3. He accidentally listed two sins as #51.

4. Most of his sins have been refuted by other forum members, but he hasn't adjusted the sin count accordingly.

5. His username comes from an obscure song lyric that you will never guess.

6. He's goading you into guessing it with these two sins.

7. He has other obligations and ways he could spend his time, but he chooses to spend it writing a criticism of a story that accompanied a now-cancelled toy line.

8. He has not really accomplished anything with his life yet.

9. He has many other things he doesn't like about himself, having low self-esteem, but he doesn't wish to share them with this forum.

10. He is going to make more mistakes in this criticism.

 

Narrator Sin Tally: 10

Sentence: A slap on the wrist (to be performed by the defendant)

 

Back to Bionicle.

 

2004: Legends of Metru Nui

61. (adjusted for the two 51 sins) The Turaga lying to the Matoran about Metru Nui all these years. Why would they ever do this? Forum user Artakha's Nephew recently proposed an explanation: all the Matoran's memories had been erased, and a simple explanation of their origins was necessary. But once they have a reasonable mental capacity, how come you couldn't have shared the full story with them? Surely they were able to handle Metru Nui in significantly less time than a thousand years.
62. The tales of Metru Nui are described as taking place "a thousand years ago", and they, but the Matoran Universe has been in existence for about 100,000 years. So it's not nearly as significant as it's made to seem.
63. Why does everything in this universe have to be an island? Why don't we learn of the existence of continents until, like, 2008?
64. Metru Nui is a civilization that has invented flight and autonomous robot police, but not the wheel.
65. The Vahki. They got way more characterization than they deserved. I don't think their sets sold too well, either. I remember Lego Magazine auctioning them off at lowered prices month after month.
66. Lhikan sacrifices his power to create the Toa Metru. To do that, he must have fulfilled his destiny. Which is...um...help me out here.
67. The very idea of destiny.
68. Also, thank goodness for the plot that Toa need to fulfill their destiny in order to create new Toa. If not, they could simply turn every Matoran into a Toa and have safety forever.
69. Metru Nui is a civilization that has invented flight and autonomous robot police, but not weed killer.
70. Let's talk about the relationship between Kanoka and Kanohi. There are 52 known Kanohi. Of these, seven cannot be made with Kanoka. There are eight Kanoka powers, and up to three Kanoka can be combined to create a mask. So there are 45 forgeable Kanohi, and only 8C1 + 8C2 + 8C3 = 92 Kanoka combinations to create them! Oh, wait. That actually works. So this isn't a sin. Moving on.
70. How did the six Matoran come know the locations of the Great Disks? Why are we never told this? And why did they not use this knowledge sooner?
71. If Makuta sent the Morbuzakh, I'm not sure what he gained from it, since it just destroyed and didn't help him conquer the city. Besides, he was already impersonating Turaga Dume at this point, so his major plan was in effect.
72. Why did the Vahki not know that Lhikan was imprisoned in the same cell as Nuju, Onewa, and Whenua? Or did it not occur to them that he might train the Toa?
73. It's in this year that we learn of the Matoran-Toa-Turaga life cycle. There are a few things wrong with this. First, it violates the first law of thermodynamics. New energy cannot be created nor destroyed, yet each Toa is capable of creating six new Toa. This means that more Toa power must be coming into being.
74. Second, just because you become a Turaga doesn't automatically make you wise. Yet Turaga always act wise and experienced. Heck, Lhikan's acting wise and experienced and he's only been a Turaga for a few days or weeks! Why the sudden personality change from Toa to Turaga?
75. Legends of Metru Nui—heck, all of 2004 media—gives us no clue of what Makuta is actually doing in the Great Cataclysm besides causing a big storm.
76. We later learn that it's a crash-landing by a robot the diameter of Earth. I assert that this would cause far more damage to the universe than it actually did.
77. Lhikan is proud of Vakama. I'm not. The man just made you sacrifice your life for him and has shown himself to be a terrible leader!
78. Vakama's visions of the future. The cause of these is never explained.

Commenters, you are welcome to add more sins. I will accept any you add as canonical, and add them to the tally, since I have skipped over vast swathes of the Metru Nui story.

Edited June 10, 2014 by WhereFMF

[Master Inika]

72. If Makuta sent the Morbuzakh, I'm not sure what he gained from it, since it just destroyed and didn't help him conquer the city. Besides, he was already impersonating Turaga Dume at this point, so his major plan was in effect.

Makuta's original plan was for the Morbuzakh to force the Matoran into the center of the island, where the Vahki would force them into Stasis Pods, Makuta would use the Vahi to speed up the mind-wipe function, and then awake them and fabricate a story about rescuing them all. He modified the plan after the Toa defeated the Morbuzakh and when he realized he might not get the Vahi.

[fishers64]

62. The tales of Metru Nui are described as taking place "a thousand years ago", and they, but the Matoran Universe has been in existence for about 100,000 years. So it's not nearly as significant as it's made to seem.

Yes, but we didn't know that the universe was 100,000 years old then, and neither did they. The Turaga might have known, if they had lived long enough.

66. Lhikan sacrifices his power to create the Toa Metru. To do that, he must have fulfilled his destiny. Which is...um...help me out here.

According to Greg quotes, it's "to save the city". He chose to create the Toa in order to do that, and they did save the city...

 

71. How did the six Matoran come know the locations of the Great Disks? Why are we never told this? And why did they not use this knowledge sooner?

There was a riddle on the wall of the Great Temple, which was open to the public. Anyone could have figured it out - these Matoran were just irritated enough that they thought that getting the disk would make their lives better, etc.

 

As for why they didn't act on the knowledge, for one thing Vahki were around to ensure that they were at their jobs, plus just getting to the disk as a Matoran would be hard, considering the obstacles.

 

74. It's in this year that we learn of the Matoran-Toa-Turaga life cycle. There are a few things wrong with this. First, it violates the first law of thermodynamics. New energy cannot be created nor destroyed, yet each Toa is capable of creating six new Toa. This means that more Toa power must be coming into being.

No it doesn't necessarily: http://www.bzpower.com/board/topic/3533-on-making-a-toa/

 

79. Vakama's visions of the future. The cause of these is never explained.

It's actually a convenient AI glitch.

[bonesiii]

Most of his sins have been refuted by other forum members, but he hasn't adjusted the sin count accordingly.

I wouldn't worry about this if I were you. They were things that confused you, and arguably that means LEGO probably could have made them (or most of them) clearer in how the story was portrayed. And going back and adjusting a count sounds boring.

 

Although I have to say, on the grounds of clarity, it's very arguable whether any "LEGO should" type of problem exists with the vast majority of these, since it was intended to require work and thought to understand. But a taste difference could still remain which is valid and you're allowed to express and explain such dislikes. (Helps inspire discussion too. )

 

The Turaga lying to the Matoran about Metru Nui all these years. Why would they ever do this? Forum user Artakha's Nephew recently proposed an explanation: all the Matoran's memories had been erased, and a simple explanation of their origins was necessary.

I read his theory as explaining why they kept it simple, not why they lied in the first place (as opposed to a complex lie, perhaps). Anyways, Greg told us they lied because they knew Makuta was guarding the way back and they worried that if the Matoran knew that where they came from was at the end of some long tunnel, some of them might leave the Koro and try to return, and then be killed or infected by the Makuta. Sure, the Turaga could have eventually convinced each of them of the danger, but it was simpler to just not tell them where their home really was, once their memories were gone.

 

The tales of Metru Nui are described as taking place "a thousand years ago", and they, but the Matoran Universe has been in existence for about 100,000 years. So it's not nearly as significant as it's made to seem.

This is true, but subjective. The idea that it's intended to seem significant in percentage with previous history is, so far as I know, just a fan assumption. I would assume that if they meant anything like that by it, it would only be to seem long compared to human lifespans, which it remains.

 

Why does everything in this universe have to be an island? Why don't we learn of the existence of continents until, like, 2008?

We learned that there was at least one continent before that. I forget exactly when, but I thought it was around 2004. Didn't one of the serials from 2007 or something involve the Tren Krom peninsula on the northern continent?

 

I'd guess this is a story practicality issue. It's easier to write stories that only last a year or so when the society you're establishing is simple. Telling stories taking place on either of the continents might have been difficult. True, Bara Magna society then flipped this on its head, but this was after they'd already introduced continents, so yeah.

 

Another part of it was surely nostalgia-based. If you followed the online fandom, Island = Bionicle, basically. There was even a strong assumption that space travel could never work, even though the story essentially began with canisters flying down from space (amazingly, somehow by 2008 this assumption disappeared, and the giant robot was largely accepted eagerly, probably due to in part how different it was from typical space stories). I forget if continents were ever mentioned by fans as something they felt it shouldn't do, but I got that vibe. You could partially invoke the same sort of feeling as the much-loved Mata Nui Island by having the rest of the story take place on islands. The first of the other islands was even in the same shape as Mata Nui!

 

Metru Nui is a civilization that has invented flight and autonomous robot police, but not the wheel.

Ah, but as was brought up in another topic recently, they had better than wheels, so it makes sense. Functional robotic legs have practical advantages wheels don't have; wheels DO perform better on a road you pour a ton of money and resources into keeping up, but a walking vehicle can just step around potholes, or anything else if you don't even bother with that sort of road. Live a long enough time with this as the norm and it makes sense the idea of wheels might be forgotten.

 

That said, we know wheels did exist in some poorer regions, esp. the southern continent. And I think we don't know if Metru Nui citizens were aware of them (that was also brought up but I forget if anything definite was concluded). The post-memory-wipe ignorance of them may be irrelevant, so before that, it's possible they knew about them but just never saw the need to bother with them.

 

The very idea of destiny.

Really? How so? I'd say it's been the big, interesting mystery that has remained throughout it, and I've seen a lot of interest in it over the years on here. Which is in part why I selected it as the main theme for my... well you know (you've said you don't want me to mention it and this is your topic so yeah... Let the reader understand lol.) I guess personal taste will mean there's somebody who won't like something for every possible choice (other than universal basics like motion and living beings etc.), so I won't overthink it. But I'm asking because there's been a few people over the years who seem to be operating on a misconception of what destiny is, and that could be behind it.

 

If it's just "because it's different from real life", I'd say that argument ends up being anti-imagination so it would actually be important never to argue such a thing.

 

If Makuta sent the Morbuzakh, I'm not sure what he gained from it

Herded the Matoran toward the center of the city where they would enter the spheres -- in other words, it provided psychology help for the impression that there was something seriously wrong in the universe (the Morby being a symptom, not the cause, since it was defeated before they entered the spheres), so they'd be more likely to obey the command to get in the spheres, presuming that because their trusted leader was giving that command it must be part of stopping whatever's wrong with the universe.

 

It also very nearly brought an end to the only Toa, which Makuta had been aware were about to be Toa-ized (or there was a risk of it). Remember a villain can have a goal and fail at that goal. You can't judge whether a goal made sense based on whether he actually DID gain something from it on that question. It didn't kill the Toa, but he couldn't know beforehand that it wouldn't, and it came close.

 

Note: The only part of this answer that Greg actually said to my knowledge was the herding to the center part. The rest is my interpretation/theories. The psychology for the pods seems obvious, but it may be he didn't necessarily want the Toa Metru dead. (Actually, he probably had a plan for either contingency. Even surviving the Morby did at least accomplish forcing their EE to be very low, so they would then be easier targets afterward. And even surviving aaall of that could influence them, too, psychologically, in ways he may have wanted. It definitely changed the whole tone of everything -- the entire city, practically, became dangerous, very different from their past life.)

 

Why did the Vahki not know that Lhikan was imprisoned in the same cell as Nuju, Onewa, and Whenua? Or did it not occur to them that he might train the Toa?

That's a valid point, except that it falls apart when you realize putting three Toa together is much worse. Separate cells would be the answer -- but that suggest a solution; Metru Nui isn't exactly an "imprison them" society (kudos for whoever gets the allusion ). I doubt they had cells. The one they were in was made by the DH... I... think...

 

On the other hand, they could have thrown them in an unused Archives room... but considering Whenua was an archivist they probably feared he might know some trick for getting out.

 

Still, you'd think they could improvise something.

 

Please note, however, that Lhikan was a Toa at the time he was imprisoned. It may be that's the only place they had designed to contain Toa (which wouldn't be so easy, you know). And FTR, this is one thing I do not recall anybody ever pointing out before, so you get points for original thinking (or posting ). (Although it's my memory so yeah...)

 

 

It's in this year that we learn of the Matoran-Toa-Turaga life cycle. There are a few things wrong with this. First, it violates the first law of thermodynamics.

Um... what? Sorry, honest physics-geek reaction. On thinking it through and skimming ahead, I guess it's not that surprising, but this wording is weird. Anyways, no, it doesn't, no more than a baby starting out small and ending up as a large adult does.

 

Also a nitpick -- it's not a lifecycle per se, but a potential for transformation (even a destined Matoran could theoretically die of old age without being Toa-ized; they have to actually get access to a source of Toa Energy to transform).

 

Incidentally, it has never (despite being discussed often) been confirmed that the first law even exists in the Bionicle universe. Much of Bionicle physics are intentionally different, and that's often brought up as one possibility for another that is. But it really isn't necessary.

 

New energy cannot be created nor destroyed, yet each Toa is capable of creating six new Toa. This means that more Toa power must be coming into being.

Now I see where you were going with it -- but that isn't about the Matoran-Toa-Turaga thing, it's about the math of one Toa makes six Toa. Better wording would have avoided my physics-geek surprise. Aaaanywho. This is actually a very old complaint, but it rests on one unproven assumption -- that energy is being created from nothing (or nothing within that universe, anyways), rather than other energy being transformed. Since the second is quite possible, and it's not actually confirmed that it isn't the case, there is no violation.

 

Even if there was a violation, the first law is not one of the absolute laws in physics. There are various ways to get around it. Your typical sci-fi story of a crossover event from a different universe (like Takanuva's journey, incidentally) technically is an exception to that "law"; the energy that makes up and heats the material crossing through is added to the destination universe. Although this doesn't really create new energy, it adds new energy to a universe. There are also many ways in a more quantum-based perspective to get new energy, and for all we know, given the transcendant apparent nature of protodermis, it's possible they are used in Bionicle. But I see no need for them; probably it's just other energy being converted into TE.

 

Second, just because you become a Turaga doesn't automatically make you wise.

Actually, I seem to recall Greg saying something like that the transformation does increase brain capacity in the 'wisdom' areas. I do know that when Matoran become Toa, the part of their brain that is needed to process mask powers increases by a lot, and shrinks a little when they become Turaga. I presume that this shrinkage is a reallocation in the latter case; some of the processing that previously enabled use of Great Masks is converted to general wisdom processing, increasing their intelligence somewhat (and the remaining mask processing only lets them use Nobles).

 

What conversion goes on with Matoran I don't know; I've always sort of thought of that as an actual increase in capacity so they don't actually lose anything from when they were Matoran, but I'm not sure. In any case, an "automatically made smarter" idea IS quite possible! But that's not the whole story either:

 

Heck, Lhikan's acting wise and experienced and he's only been a Turaga for a few days or weeks! Why the sudden personality change from Toa to Turaga?

How is there a personality change from Lhikan as Toa (late in his life) to Lhikan as Turaga? I don't recall anything other than "now I must walk feebly" type stuff that just comes with the body and lack of elemental power, etc. But anywho, to get to the main point -- when you've actually been a hero for a while, you DO get more experience and wisdom, and that will help during your time as Turaga.

 

But mainly it's just that now you CANNOT use elemental powers or Great-level mask powers to solve problems, so you have to use your brain more. It's sort of like if you break your leg, you have to either construct or obtain (from somebody else constructing) crutches or a wheelchair or something to help you get around somewhat easily. Previously you didn't need to apply your brain to such tasks -- your legs themselves could just do it (though you did need to learn to walk too just like Toa need to learn, except for Inika lol, to use their powers).

 

Legends of Metru Nui—heck, all of 2004 media—gives us no clue of what Makuta is actually doing in the Great Cataclysm besides causing a big storm.

Given past story it was pretty clear... I don't recall a single fan being confused about it. (And I'm not sure you are either... if you are, it was casting Mata Nui into slumber. ) And are you sure it wasn't stated? I don't recall it being a difficult thing to understand.

 

In any event, we were told when the Turaga began their tales that it took place a thousand years ago and we already knew that was when Mata Nui's slumber began and that it was done by Makuta. Arguably, not outright explaining it and allowing the reader to easily deduce it is a sign of quality. That allows the reader to feel smart.

 

If many readers fail to deduce something, then possibly an explanation should have been used, but it does not follow that not explaining everything explicitly equals a bad thing. That's always a tricky balance, and something authors have to use their intuition and experience on. (It's especially difficult since authors typically know the answer, so we can't always feel about it how the fans do. One of the advantages to Greg's "don't plan ahead (much)" strategy, incidentally.)

 

We later learn that it's a crash-landing by a robot the diameter of Earth. I assert that this would cause far more damage to the universe than it actually did.

Not if it has Star-Trek-style inertial dampeners which presumably no self-respecting Great Being would fail to think of (assuming they figured out how to program such a power, which should be pretty easy with protodermis).

 

Lhikan is proud of Vakama. I'm not. The man just made you sacrifice your life for him and has shown himself to be a terrible leader!

Don't confuse the fault of the hero for the fault of the villain. Unless you are saying that Vakama wasn't perfect, but then you have a Gary Stu. Who wants that? Lhikan is proud of Vakama for stepping up despite all his doubts and trying what he could, despite his mistakes. But it was Makuta who forced Lhikan to sacrifice his life, not Vakama. And how was he a terrible leader at that point? He would later blame himself (wrongly) for Lhikan's death, because that's what realistic characters do, and the Matoran being in the pods, and start failing as a leader for a while (culminating in the temporary, partially-Hordika-venom-induced betrayal), but when Lhikan said that, none of that had happened yet.

 

Besides, there is a "create it" rather than "wait for it to happen before I dare to say it" aspect to it. Lhikan's dying and he knows he won't be able to psychologically guide this newbie anymore. To try to wait until he sees Vakama become fully mature to praise him JUST out of some kind of obsessive perfectionism would be cruel and pointless. It's better to praise him for the progress he has made, since that will be more likely to steer Vakama out of depression and giving up.

 

Surely this sort of thing is actually what a good story SHOULD do, rather than be completely unrealistic and have the dying mentor go "Vakama, I'm disappointed you've made a few mistakes; you're not perfect." (Unless, of course, that were consistent with the mentor's personality. Dume might do that if he was dying lol, but not Lhikan.)

 

79. Vakama's visions of the future. The cause of these is never explained.

It's actually a convenient AI glitch.

Pet peeve, but that does not explain the visions, it only explains his access to them. The explanation of the visions is tied into destiny and other prophecies we've seen (it isn't just Vakama, after all), but I think here the argument that this is a bad thing is ludicrous, as this is the core mystery of Bionicle and you need some things to not be explained in order to keep some mystery around. Still, we know plenty to easily deduce a whole collection of candidate theories -- we have a Mask of Time, after all. Basically protodermis has the ability to see (apparently not necessarily perfectly accurately, though) the future.

 

For a fuller answer to the question behind this question (how destiny and visions of the future could work), see my... er... you know, the thing Where doesn't want me to mention. Of which a link currently immediately follows this sentence below.

Edited June 10, 2014 by bonesiii

[ALVIS]

 

Lhikan is proud of Vakama. I'm not. The man just made you sacrifice your life for him and has shown himself to be a terrible leader!

 

Surely this sort of thing is actually what a good story SHOULD do, rather than be completely unrealistic and have the dying mentor go "Vakama, I'm disappointed you've made a few mistakes; you're not perfect." (Unless, of course, that were consistent with the mentor's personality. Dume might do that if he was dying lol, but not Lhikan.)

 

I am having way too much fun imagining a Toa cradling a dying Dume in their arms and being berated for their various slip-ups and mistakes. XD

[Master Inika]

 

 

Lhikan is proud of Vakama. I'm not. The man just made you sacrifice your life for him and has shown himself to be a terrible leader!

 

Surely this sort of thing is actually what a good story SHOULD do, rather than be completely unrealistic and have the dying mentor go "Vakama, I'm disappointed you've made a few mistakes; you're not perfect." (Unless, of course, that were consistent with the mentor's personality. Dume might do that if he was dying lol, but not Lhikan.)

 

I am having way too much fun imagining a Toa cradling a dying Dume in their arms and being berated for their various slip-ups and mistakes. XD

 

"Turaga! I'm sorry, I've failed you."

"Well it's about time you've been right about something." *dies*

[Toa Smoke Monster]

2004: Legends of Metru Nui

61. (adjusted for the two 51 sins) The Turaga lying to the Matoran about Metru Nui all these years. Why would they ever do this? Forum user Artakha's Nephew recently proposed an explanation: all the Matoran's memories had been erased, and a simple explanation of their origins was necessary. But once they have a reasonable mental capacity, how come you couldn't have shared the full story with them? Surely they were able to handle Metru Nui in significantly less time than a thousand years.

62. The tales of Metru Nui are described as taking place "a thousand years ago", and they, but the Matoran Universe has been in existence for about 100,000 years. So it's not nearly as significant as it's made to seem.

63. Why does everything in this universe have to be an island? Why don't we learn of the existence of continents until, like, 2008?

64. Metru Nui is a civilization that has invented flight and autonomous robot police, but not the wheel.

65. The Vahki. They got way more characterization than they deserved. I don't think their sets sold too well, either. I remember Lego Magazine auctioning them off at lowered prices month after month.

66. Lhikan sacrifices his power to create the Toa Metru. To do that, he must have fulfilled his destiny. Which is...um...help me out here.

67. The very idea of destiny.

68. Also, thank goodness for the plot that Toa need to fulfill their destiny in order to create new Toa. If not, they could simply turn every Matoran into a Toa and have safety forever.

69. Metru Nui is a civilization that has invented flight and autonomous robot police, but not weed killer.

70. Let's talk about the relationship between Kanoka and Kanohi. There are 52 known Kanohi. Of these, seven cannot be made with Kanoka. There are eight Kanoka powers, and up to three Kanoka can be combined to create a mask. So there are 45 forgeable Kanohi, and only 8C1 + 8C2 + 8C3 = 92 Kanoka combinations to create them! Oh, wait. That actually works. So this isn't a sin. Moving on.

70. How did the six Matoran come know the locations of the Great Disks? Why are we never told this? And why did they not use this knowledge sooner?

71. If Makuta sent the Morbuzakh, I'm not sure what he gained from it, since it just destroyed and didn't help him conquer the city. Besides, he was already impersonating Turaga Dume at this point, so his major plan was in effect.

72. Why did the Vahki not know that Lhikan was imprisoned in the same cell as Nuju, Onewa, and Whenua? Or did it not occur to them that he might train the Toa?

73. It's in this year that we learn of the Matoran-Toa-Turaga life cycle. There are a few things wrong with this. First, it violates the first law of thermodynamics. New energy cannot be created nor destroyed, yet each Toa is capable of creating six new Toa. This means that more Toa power must be coming into being.

74. Second, just because you become a Turaga doesn't automatically make you wise. Yet Turaga always act wise and experienced. Heck, Lhikan's acting wise and experienced and he's only been a Turaga for a few days or weeks! Why the sudden personality change from Toa to Turaga?

75. Legends of Metru Nui—heck, all of 2004 media—gives us no clue of what Makuta is actually doing in the Great Cataclysm besides causing a big storm.

76. We later learn that it's a crash-landing by a robot the diameter of Earth. I assert that this would cause far more damage to the universe than it actually did.

77. Lhikan is proud of Vakama. I'm not. The man just made you sacrifice your life for him and has shown himself to be a terrible leader!

78. Vakama's visions of the future. The cause of these is never explained.

 

Commenters, you are welcome to add more sins. I will accept any you add as canonical, and add them to the tally, since I have skipped over vast swathes of the Metru Nui story.

 

61. As Bonesiii said, some of them probably would've tried to return to Metru Nui, only for Makuta to say 'Nope' before incinerating them.

62. True, but I don't think any of them said that it was a significant amount of time to begin with.

63. Because islands rule!

64. Well, a civilization can't invent everything, now can they?

65. True. I don't think even Greg liked them.

66-67. The only destinies I really cared about in Bionicle were the Nuvas. I just rolled with everyone elses.

68. I would loved to see a Metru Nui filled with a thousand Toa.

69. It would take more than weed killer to defeat the Morbuzakh.

70. Those six had to be important to the story somehow.

71. Also as Bonesiii said, the Morbuzakh was pushing the Matoran closer to the center of the city.

72. Maybe different Vahki put Lhikan in there. Or maybe they just didn't care.

73. Bionicle logic doesn't have to follow all the laws of earth. That would make it less exciting.

74. Simple. The loss of power is compensated with wisdom.

75. A big, scary, Dark Hunter killing storm.

76. The Mata Nui robot must have a really thick skull.

77. Maybe Lhikan knew Vakama would get there eventually. Or maybe him dying made him delusional.

78. You can join the Red Star in the Pit, al glitch. >

 

And I would like to add one sin to the counter: The Toa Metru and Lhikan not trying hard enough to awake Dume from the sphere. They basically found him and said 'He will be safe until we return.' They didn't even try to wake him up! I'm sure a lukewarm fireball to the face would've gotten him up real fast.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Toa Smoke Monster

[fishers64]

 

79. Vakama's visions of the future. The cause of these is never explained.

It's actually a convenient AI glitch.

Pet peeve, but that does not explain the visions, it only explains his access to them. The explanation of the visions is tied into destiny and other prophecies we've seen (it isn't just Vakama, after all), but I think here the argument that this is a bad thing is ludicrous, as this is the core mystery of Bionicle and you need some things to not be explained in order to keep some mystery around. Still, we know plenty to easily deduce a whole collection of candidate theories -- we have a Mask of Time, after all. Basically protodermis has the ability to see (apparently not necessarily perfectly accurately, though) the future.

 

For a fuller answer to the question behind this question (how destiny and visions of the future could work), see my... er... you know, the thing Where doesn't want me to mention. Of which a link currently immediately follows this sentence below.

I wasn't actually complaining about the AI glitch or it being tied into destiny, or about destiny, although I think that comment wasn't directed at me.

 

If I may pet peeve the pet peeve though, I hesitate to accept the idea that all clairvoyance in the Bionicle universe is the characters reading the destiny system which predicts things semi-accurately. I would rather (or prefer) to think of the visions as a time-based power (ie future states of molecules or systems or whatever transmitting back to present versions of things aforementioned) and use Krakua's Rule (the fact that the Future can only share so much information with the past) to explain the crypticness of the messages.

 

I welcome the idea that destiny could be why Krakua's Rule exists, however. It just seems that the vast majority of Vakama's visions were accurate, not the byproducts of a could-be-faulty computational algorithm.

 

Unless there's an explanation for why the computer was especially accurate in that one instance (I shall see). But if the Mask of Clairvoyance only worked accurately 80% of the time, you'd have thought that they would have ditched them by now.

 

 

 

The explanation of the visions is tied into destiny and other prophecies we've seen (it isn't just Vakama, after all), but I think here the argument that this is a bad thing is ludicrous, as this is the core mystery of Bionicle and you need some things to not be explained in order to keep some mystery around.

I'm not sure what this sentence means, but I don't think that the core mystery of Bionicle is Vakama's AI glitch nor is it destiny. *points to the 40 million foot tall giant robot towering over the discussion*

[bonesiii]

And I would like to add one sin to the counter: The Toa Metru and Lhikan not trying hard enough to awake Dume from the sphere. They basically found him and said 'He will be safe until we return.' They didn't even try to wake him up! I'm sure a lukewarm fireball to the face would've gotten him up real fast.

I wouldn't be so sure -- why, then, did Vakama waste his remaining Toa energy waking up the Matoran instead of just using fire? (The EE of which could then recharge.) Maybe they figured it was too early to be giving away TE, since it doesn't recharge.

 

If I may pet peeve the pet peeve though, I hesitate to accept the idea that all clairvoyance in the Bionicle universe is the characters reading the destiny system which predicts things semi-accurately. I would rather (or prefer) to think of the visions as a time-based power

Not sure who this is directed at, and I'm not going to define my idea here, but I don't see these things as mutually exclusive. If you got another impression from what I said, that wasn't the intent. (But seeing the future with a time-based can still have room for error; it's a common feature of visions in fiction for the future to be able to change. Since alternate timelines/futures are confirmed for Bionicle, we can't rule it out.)

 

if the Mask of Clairvoyance only worked accurately 80% of the time, you'd have thought that they would have ditched them by now.

That doesn't really follow, but I wasn't saying such a thing. (Doesn't follow, because 80% is pretty good. Plus, arguably it would be even better if you could change bad things you foresaw. They might use it all the more in order to attempt to study how to change the future.) Anyways, the possibility of predictions being wrong isn't mutually exclusive with a 100% Mask of Clairvoyance either. It could just share only visions that are definite, while other things it doesn't show could be up for grabs. Kinda like (except not necessarily JUST like; it's an analogy) a weather forecast of a massive storm heading for all regions around you, so guaranteed to hit, versus a small storm that might fizzle first or split or turn aside.

 

I'm not sure what this sentence means, but I don't think that the core mystery of Bionicle is Vakama's AI glitch nor is it destiny. *points to the 40 million foot tall giant robot towering over the discussion*

Except that was solved. I'm talking about the main thing that was present and mysterious from the start and was emphasized a lot and ended up remaining mysterious. (Actually, the giant robot was more of a "mystery we didn't (mostly) know was a mystery" -- more of a thrilling reveal. Although the appearance of Mata Nui was a mystery, sure, and that is the answer.)

 

 

BTW, I somehow didn't notice the thing in Where's latest list about Kanoka powers. A few corrections there:

 

Let's talk about the relationship between Kanoka and Kanohi. There are 52 known Kanohi. Of these, seven cannot be made with Kanoka. There are eight Kanoka powers, and up to three Kanoka can be combined to create a mask. So there are 45 forgeable Kanohi, and only 8C1 + 8C2 + 8C3 = 92 Kanoka combinations to create them! Oh, wait. That actually works. So this isn't a sin. Moving on.

At the risk of ending up making you not like it ( ), all Kanohi can be made, theoretically, with Kanoka. (Or could have, in the case of Ignika and Mask of Creation; Vahi was, so it's possible, it's just that you can only have one of each and those two were already made.) You just have to find the right mixture. I'm not sure offhand what the number is, so I'll just take your word on that, but I presume you're talking about things like the Mask of Light made by Artakha. He might know how to mix them, but just did it before Kanoka were invented (maybe...). Even if he didn't note the proto mixture, it's still theoretically possible to stumble upon the right mixture by experimenting.

 

Also, not sure what you mean by "up to three." Do you mean at a time? I'm not aware of such a limit. The Vahi was made by combining six, and Greg has confirmed you can keep adding more and more, so the total is functionally infinite.

 

And note that we do know that there are many more Kanohi/Kanoka/tool powers besides those we happen to have seen (though how many more, who knows).

 

 

Edit: Oh, and I was going to add something to the one about the islands, but forgot (twice now lol). Having more water than land allows for more efficient transportation, via boats, especially in the MU itself where Mata Nui is presumably preventing things like hurricanes.

 

Also, it seems to me that in all the places where there actually was even an opportunity for a continent (or larger in the case of Bara Magna), it was pretty much used, no? Mata Nui had to be an island... although that one is so huge it's really just semantics. Metru Nui and the vast majority of other MU locations have to be islands because they have to fit inside the head, arms, etc. In the torso where you can fit continents, there are two! That leaves Voya Nui, which is actually sort of portrayed as a continent (or at least a super-island) on the "official" map, but that was a mistake because if it was that large, the waterfall would pretty much instantly flood the whole robot. So it had to be an island.

 

Then Mahri Nui had to be even smaller by definition (though it wasn't really an island since it was entirely submerged). And Karda Nui was not an island, nor was the seafloor around Mahri Nui. The only other place I could imagine a continent is in the Great Sea, but considering most of Spherus Magna was land anyways (a far higher percentage than Earth), IMO no need (and having a planet with nothing but water and, for 1000 years, just one island, was a cool idea).

Edited June 11, 2014 by bonesiii

[Toa Smoke Monster]

 

And I would like to add one sin to the counter: The Toa Metru and Lhikan not trying hard enough to awake Dume from the sphere. They basically found him and said 'He will be safe until we return.' They didn't even try to wake him up! I'm sure a lukewarm fireball to the face would've gotten him up real fast.

I wouldn't be so sure -- why, then, did Vakama waste his remaining Toa energy waking up the Matoran instead of just using fire? (The EE of which could then recharge.) Maybe they figured it was too early to be giving away TE, since it doesn't recharge.

Oh, i forgot that the Toa used their Toa energy to awake the Matoran on Mata Nui. Silly me.

 

But the point I was trying to make was that they really didn't do anything to awake him. They just found him asleep in the sphere and left him there, which I think is a little out of character for the Toa and Lhikan. If they had at least tried to awaken him somehow, or at least hide his sphere somewhere safe, then I feel it would've been more justified leaving him there.

[Master Inika]

 

 

And I would like to add one sin to the counter: The Toa Metru and Lhikan not trying hard enough to awake Dume from the sphere. They basically found him and said 'He will be safe until we return.' They didn't even try to wake him up! I'm sure a lukewarm fireball to the face would've gotten him up real fast.

I wouldn't be so sure -- why, then, did Vakama waste his remaining Toa energy waking up the Matoran instead of just using fire? (The EE of which could then recharge.) Maybe they figured it was too early to be giving away TE, since it doesn't recharge.

Oh, i forgot that the Toa used their Toa energy to awake the Matoran on Mata Nui. Silly me.

 

But the point I was trying to make was that they really didn't do anything to awake him. They just found him asleep in the sphere and left him there, which I think is a little out of character for the Toa and Lhikan. If they had at least tried to awaken him somehow, or at least hide his sphere somewhere safe, then I feel it would've been more justified leaving him there.

 

I was about to ask why Makuta didn't just kill Dume, too. And then I realize Makuta's plan was to brainwash him, too. Just hit me ten years later. This is why I love BIONICLE.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Master Inika

[Tattorack]

Oh gods! A CinemaSins of Bionicle! XD

Here, I have a few:

 

1.There are no real-world physics in Bionicle. Yet fire still burns, ice still freezes and, well, gravity hurts when falling.

2. Characters have the personalities of their elements cliché

3. Makuta is a ^%&@ to nature.

4. Petty strife among apposing elements cliché.

5. Conveniently placed Kanohi masks are convenient.

6. Also, wouldn't it have saved time and lives if the Turaga, the wise men from the villages, given the Toa all the Kanohi in the beginning so they could do their job quicker?

7. The Bionicle story now pauses to give you Power Rangers.

8. Facing your dark-side cliché.

9. Makuta has no other reason for being evil other than being evil.

10. Conveniently placed teleporters are convenient.

 

(If you're well familliar with the 2001 storyline you should know to what I'm referring here).

[bonesiii]

Here, I have a few:

 

1.There are no real-world physics in Bionicle.

Not so. That's the fallacy of the absolute negative. Of course, had Greg ever said such a thing you could know it, but then the story wouldn't be recognizeable to humans at all. There's a huge difference between having some differences from real-world physics and being ALL different. Some confirmed real-world physics include that the matter of Spherus Magna (other than the energized protodermis) is normal matter. The star is a normal star, as well. And the things you mentioned in the next sentence also disprove your first sentence.

 

Also, wouldn't it have saved time and lives if the Turaga, the wise men from the villages, given the Toa all the Kanohi in the beginning so they could do their job quicker?

This doesn't answer the concerns they had which is why they did that, about whether new Toa could be trusted -- you can't ignore the rest of the story where we saw why they tend to distrust new Toa (because they themselves had such a problem with Vakama). And don't forget they didn't know when they hid the masks that it wouldn't be newbies searching for them. Also, it ended up working great once it was known that the Toa Mata had lost their memories. They needed to build up some new experiences in this new mental state before running right to the main villain. Of course, we know what none of them knew, that Makuta was going to fake a defeat anyways, but from their perspectives, going right in without any (consciously remembered) practice could be leading them to swift deaths. Or, for the people of the island, worse -- swift takeovers with infected masks.

 

Also, what do you mean by lives? None of them died... but just giving them the masks and sending them off to the Makuta might have resulted in deaths.

 

9. Makuta has no other reason for being evil other than being evil.

Sure he does -- it was stated he was jealous (as were the other Makuta) of Mata Nui for getting all the attention when he didn't even pay much attention to his insides, and the Makuta were the ones doing more noticeable work, like making the Rahi.

Edited June 24, 2014 by bonesiii

[Master Inika]

Oh gods! A CinemaSins of Bionicle! XD

Here, I have a few:

 

 

2. Characters have the personalities of their elements cliché

4. Petty strife among apposing elements cliché.

5. Conveniently placed Kanohi masks are convenient.

8. Facing your dark-side cliché.

Those are not clichés, those are tropes. They only become clichés when overused, which, as of 2001 at least, they were not. Also, how it a mask floating on a rock in the middle of a Lava Lagoon convenient?

[Manducus]

8. The names in the universe were based off Maori words in the beginning. After the Maori nation complained, they switched to Latin. The Vatican has made no objections to this.

 

 

This part always confuses me. Apparently Lego can't use the Maori language, but any other language is a-ok. Like whut?

 

Edited June 25, 2014 by Regicidal Kaiser Manducus

[Azani]

 

8. The names in the universe were based off Maori words in the beginning. After the Maori nation complained, they switched to Latin. The Vatican has made no objections to this.

 

This part always confuses me. Apparently Lego can't use the Maori language, but any other language is a-ok.

 

The important piece that you're missing is that the Maori language is a living language, spoken by real people who are alive today, while Latin is a dead language from the ancient period which hasn't been spoken outside of the Catholic Church in more than 1,500 years.

[Manducus]

 

 

8. The names in the universe were based off Maori words in the beginning. After the Maori nation complained, they switched to Latin. The Vatican has made no objections to this.

 

This part always confuses me. Apparently Lego can't use the Maori language, but any other language is a-ok.

 

The important piece that you're missing is that the Maori language is a living language, spoken by real people who are alive today, while Latin is a dead language from the ancient period which hasn't been spoken outside of the Catholic Church in more than 1,500 years.

 

 

Then what about every other language? Or are they not as important? Like Tahu, an Arabic name?

 

You don't see people who speak Arabic suing.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Regicidal Kaiser Manducus

[Azani]

 

 

 

8. The names in the universe were based off Maori words in the beginning. After the Maori nation complained, they switched to Latin. The Vatican has made no objections to this.

 

This part always confuses me. Apparently Lego can't use the Maori language, but any other language is a-ok.

 

The important piece that you're missing is that the Maori language is a living language, spoken by real people who are alive today, while Latin is a dead language from the ancient period which hasn't been spoken outside of the Catholic Church in more than 1,500 years.

 

 

Then what about every other language? Or are they not as important?

 

In the cases of languages such as Finnish and Swedish, from which names such as Jaatiko and Tiribomba were taken, it mainly trickles down to a lack of complaints from representatives of either. It's helpful to keep in mind also, that, to my knowledge, none of the words taken from living languages, save those from Maori, were ever used for anything other than names for Matoran introduced in the MNOLG 2. Very few of those characters ever had a significant role in the story, which probably discouraged Finnish or Swedish representatives from making allegations of unfair use of terms from their respective languages.

[Manducus]

 

In the cases of languages such as Finnish and Swedish, from which names such as Jaatiko and Tiribomba were taken, it mainly trickles down to a lack of complaints from representatives of either. It's helpful to keep in mind also, that, to my knowledge, none of the words taken from living languages, save those from Maori, were ever used for anything other than names for Matoran introduced in the MNOLG 2. Very few of those characters ever had a significant role in the story, which probably discouraged Finnish or Swedish representatives from making allegations of unfair use of terms from their respective languages.

 

 

Well that changes everything I guess.

[Tattorack]

 

Here, I have a few:

 

1.There are no real-world physics in Bionicle.

Not so. That's the fallacy of the absolute negative. Of course, had Greg ever said such a thing you could know it, but then the story wouldn't be recognizeable to humans at all. There's a huge difference between having some differences from real-world physics and being ALL different. Some confirmed real-world physics include that the matter of Spherus Magna (other than the energized protodermis) is normal matter. The star is a normal star, as well. And the things you mentioned in the next sentence also disprove your first sentence.

 

Also, wouldn't it have saved time and lives if the Turaga, the wise men from the villages, given the Toa all the Kanohi in the beginning so they could do their job quicker?

This doesn't answer the concerns they had which is why they did that, about whether new Toa could be trusted -- you can't ignore the rest of the story where we saw why they tend to distrust new Toa (because they themselves had such a problem with Vakama). And don't forget they didn't know when they hid the masks that it wouldn't be newbies searching for them. Also, it ended up working great once it was known that the Toa Mata had lost their memories. They needed to build up some new experiences in this new mental state before running right to the main villain. Of course, we know what none of them knew, that Makuta was going to fake a defeat anyways, but from their perspectives, going right in without any (consciously remembered) practice could be leading them to swift deaths. Or, for the people of the island, worse -- swift takeovers with infected masks.

 

Also, what do you mean by lives? None of them died... but just giving them the masks and sending them off to the Makuta might have resulted in deaths.

 

9. Makuta has no other reason for being evil other than being evil.

Sure he does -- it was stated he was jealous (as were the other Makuta) of Mata Nui for getting all the attention when he didn't even pay much attention to his insides, and the Makuta were the ones doing more noticeable work, like making the Rahi.

 

Well, for one, everytime somebody mentioned physics, including me, it was always said that it was totally useless to even mention it because Greg F said that no real-world physics apply.

 

Its rather strange they'd doubt the coming Toa, considering that they new Lihknan and his large team. Out of all those, only two betrayed them.

Also, didn't the Turaga give the quest to Takua to get the Toa in the first place, I presume they know something about the ones they called for.

 

At the time, the only reason the Makuta were given to be evil was because "everybody has darkness".

 

 

Oh gods! A CinemaSins of Bionicle! XD

Here, I have a few:

 

 

2. Characters have the personalities of their elements cliché

4. Petty strife among apposing elements cliché.

5. Conveniently placed Kanohi masks are convenient.

8. Facing your dark-side cliché.

Those are not clichés, those are tropes. They only become clichés when overused, which, as of 2001 at least, they were not. Also, how it a mask floating on a rock in the middle of a Lava Lagoon convenient?

 

Bionicle is not the only, or the first, story/show/movie to contain elemental characters. Almost always the characters have the personalities of their elements and almost always there's strife between Air and Earth, or Fire and Water, or Light and Darkness and for the more fancy things, Electricity and Eather etc.

 

Most of the Kanohi were very convenient.

A bit of rock climbing, lava hopping or digging and a mask was collected. Usually they got attacked right after a mask collected and always the mask power was perfect to get them out of that exact situation. With... the exception of Lewa though, but he doesn't count since bad luck sticks to him like mud on shoes.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Tattorack

[bonesiii]

Well, for one, everytime somebody mentioned physics, including me, it was always said that it was totally useless to even mention it because Greg F said that no real-world physics apply.

No, it wasn't said that no real-world physics apply, just that they're not exactly the same in all respects. Point is that you couldn't look at real world physics and just assume that those apply in Bionicle. But neither could you automatically assume they don't, since some of them obviously did. Basically, it isn't either/or -- doesn't have to be totally the same or totally different. Sense make?

 

And it was not always said that mentioning them was totally useless; I've been clarifying it for years and so have many others. Greg didn't usually say it with the clarification -- he would just summarize as "Earth physics aren't Bionicle physics" or something like that, but it was also Greg who confirmed the things I mentioned that are the same, and simple observation confirms many others, like basic kinetics. And Greg also said that protodermis is a molecule, and that everything is "science you don't necessarily understand" and so forth. So basically, you could theoretically build off of real-world physics to get Bionicle physics. It's just that none of us are smart enough to do it because it's fiction and if we were, we could make it in real life, which we can't.

 

Its rather strange they'd doubt the coming Toa, considering that they new Lihknan and his large team. Out of all those, only two betrayed them.

Lol, I forgot about them... Two out of just one Toa team doesn't really sound like an "only" -- does it? Certainly grounds to doubt -- as in not blindly trust. And you say 'large', but they weren't more than double the size of a normal six-Toa team, so either way you still get about one out of six Toa becoming a traitor. Of course, across the universe as a whole that is not the case. I guess being a Toa in Metru Nui is hazardous lol.

 

Basically, the Turaga wanted whoever would be the new Toa (whether from Matoran on the island finding their Toa stones as they falsely expected, or other Toa, as happened of course) to prove themselves, because that way you don't need to worry about whether you should or should not doubt them. Even if you don't doubt them, making them prove themselves will be good for them and the island anyways, and then you'll know.

 

Also, didn't the Turaga give the quest to Takua to get the Toa in the first place, I presume they know something about the ones they called for.

We were told that the Turaga assumed that the Toa Stones would make new Toa. They didn't understand the math of Toa Energy, that they'd used all theirs up, so those stones wouldn't make new Toa. And they had no way to know that a burst of Toa Energy would summon the malfunctioning canisters. Had they known that they probably would have sent somebody to find the stones and summon them long before.

 

It's possible that shortly before Takua gathered the stones, Vakama got a special vision telling him to make that happen (although the GBA game itself doesn't really fit this -- Vakama is very out of character there and basically seems to want Takua to fail), but this would be of no help for the point you're making which was about why they hid the masks. The masks were already hidden 1000 years before. Also, Vakama's visions don't seem to be very clear; it could have told him somebody needed to collect the stones now, because (though he wouldn't consciously understand this) Mata Nui was nearing death so things needed to get moving, but that wouldn't mean he would know he was summoning existing Toa. Collecting Toa Stones, from his experience, would imply Toa-izing Matoran.

 

At the time, the only reason the Makuta were given to be evil was because "everybody has darkness".

What do you mean by "at the time"? You used the plural there, so I'm thinking you don't mean the MNOG-end speech. I'm not sure exactly when it was revealed the reason they turned evil, but it wasn't long after we learned there were more than one. And it's normal in stories to unravel layers of mystery about main antagonists and their motives. Not being told all of the reasons right off the bat doesn't mean there are no reasons. And telling them all up front would ruin the mystery, so that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

Most of the Kanohi were very convenient.

No, they really weren't, but keep in mind they were hidden with the Turaga's mistaken theory about newbie islander Toa in mind, not ancient elite Toa trained by Hydraxon (even if their memories of that training were only subconscious). Even so, every mission to collect a mask (so far as I recall) was clearly shown as difficult. Some more than others, sure, but none of them easy.

 

BTW, this point contradicts your other argument about the Turaga just giving the masks to the Toa. If the collecting was easy, then isn't that just what they did, essentially? Or if they definitely didn't do anything like just handing them over, then they weren't easy to collect.

 

A bit of rock climbing, lava hopping or digging and a mask was collected.

If you wanna do a survey of the entirety of what was established, go ahead, but I can't think of any examples offhand that really qualify as convenient. Besides that "a bit" is way exaggerated (Kopaka's first collected mask, for example, was atop a mountain!), you also have to actually find them. Finding hidden things is almost never convenient. Plus, Makuta had Rahi guarding many of them -- sometimes a LOT of Rahi. One of Tahu's incidents with Kofo-Jaga comes to mind.

 

Usually they got attacked right after a mask collected and always the mask power was perfect to get them out of that exact situation.

That's pretty much the opposite of convenient, since if you failed to collect it, or it got smashed, you're in big trouble. Although I have to question the "always" there.

 

I'd have to see a complete list here too, but if they're about where it was hidden (as opposed to what Rahi might be guarding them), then this would make a lot of sense as the Turaga's senses of irony at play. Basically, people hid them, and people tend to realistically hide things in clever ways. If collecting the mask happened to be the perfect match against a particular Rahi that was protecting it I might agree there'd be a bit of a plausibility problem... then again, Makuta was trying to fake defeats, so he might set that up just to add to the Toa's pride at their success or something.

[Tattorack]

No, it wasn't said that no real-world physics apply, just that they're not exactly the same in all respects. Point is that you couldn't look at real world physics and just assume that those apply in Bionicle. But neither could you automatically assume they don't, since some of them obviously did. Basically, it isn't either/or -- doesn't have to be totally the same or totally different. Sense make?

 

And it was not always said that mentioning them was totally useless; I've been clarifying it for years and so have many others. Greg didn't usually say it with the clarification -- he would just summarize as "Earth physics aren't Bionicle physics" or something like that, but it was also Greg who confirmed the things I mentioned that are the same, and simple observation confirms many others, like basic kinetics. And Greg also said that protodermis is a molecule, and that everything is "science you don't necessarily understand" and so forth. So basically, you could theoretically build off of real-world physics to get Bionicle physics. It's just that none of us are smart enough to do it because it's fiction and if we were, we could make it in real life, which we can't.

 

Ha! I knew it! Its simply sci-fi physics (physics so advanced we don't understand them)!

Yet, everytime I brought it up I was silenced by "no physics".

 

Lol, I forgot about them... Two out of just one Toa team doesn't really sound like an "only" -- does it? Certainly grounds to doubt -- as in not blindly trust. And you say 'large', but they weren't more than double the size of a normal six-Toa team, so either way you still get about one out of six Toa becoming a traitor. Of course, across the universe as a whole that is not the case. I guess being a Toa in Metru Nui is hazardous lol.

 

Basically, the Turaga wanted whoever would be the new Toa (whether from Matoran on the island finding their Toa stones as they falsely expected, or other Toa, as happened of course) to prove themselves, because that way you don't need to worry about whether you should or should not doubt them. Even if you don't doubt them, making them prove themselves will be good for them and the island anyways, and then you'll know.

 

 

Oh? Didn't he at one point have a lot more than just 11 under his command?

From what I read (and I could be wrong) he was the commnder of a small Toa army garrison on Metru Nui during the Dark Hunter war.

 

What do you mean by "at the time"? You used the plural there, so I'm thinking you don't mean the MNOG-end speech. I'm not sure exactly when it was revealed the reason they turned evil, but it wasn't long after we learned there were more than one. And it's normal in stories to unravel layers of mystery about main antagonists and their motives. Not being told all of the reasons right off the bat doesn't mean there are no reasons. And telling them all up front would ruin the mystery, so that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

Oops, meant "the Makuta" singular here.

Though then it would mean instead of what I said, it would have to be changed to "Evil because jealousy cliché".

 

Despite the difficulty and trouble it takes for the hero(s) to collect, retrieve or develope something, if an enemy or an agressor pops up right at the moment that the project got completed, item got collected or artifact got found and the hero(s) would've been in terrible trouble had they not done that, then either the finding/completion of that thing is considered "very convenient" the the appearance of the enemy. Regardless of story. (Because down to the bottom line, that enemy appears so the hero(s) can show off whatever they didn't have a moment before).

If the Rahi were placed there prior to the Toa appearing to collect the masks, then another sin should be added;

 

"Enemy patiently waits till hero obtains his weapon in order to attack" (<- wich is probably one of the most reacurring sins in CinemaSins videos, besides one that I don't believe I'm allowed to mention here XD).

 

Well, more sins, this time 2002 (starting with the comic, with webanimations in between. Hope people can follow):

1.Bohrok are a @#$%^ to nature.

2. Lewa should be renamed Captain Obvious.

3. Vakama wishes he didn't have the knowledge that could help the Toa understand the Bohrok.

4. Rehash of last year's mask-collecting quest.

5. Le-Koro not just heavily under attack, but now very much destroyed. Warning signs should be posted before entering that realm.

6. Also, we are the Borg, prepair to me assimilated.

7. Tahnok are a @#$%^ to statues.

8. "Arrives sooner than expected" cliché.

9. The Tahnok, who have been seen burning down all sorts of stone things without much trouble, get stopped by statues blocking the village entrance.

10. A single Boxor can stand up against a small army of Gahlok. Sorry Toa, but you've been out-gunned.

11. Mind over matter cliché.

12. Wow, one Boxor can already stand up to a small army of Gahlok, 12 of them should wipe the threat right off the island. Usefulness of Toa effectively diminished.

13. Pohatu has time to admire memories.

14. One of the two elements that are the least effective in water are attacking Ga-Koro, instead of, say, Air, or Water.

15. Ga-Koro would've been effectively destroyed a lot sooner had the Bohrok decided to use Krana Vu a little sooner.

16. I don't know much about bamboo, but I know it doesn't work like that, unless it were magic. Sin; Magic bamboo.

17. Armour with "Power greater than ever known" renders the Toa useless against beating the main enemy.

 

(Oh, just as a note to people, this in no way means I dislike Bionicle in any way XD ).

[bonesiii]

Oh? Didn't he at one point have a lot more than just 11 under his command?

From what I read (and I could be wrong) he was the commnder of a small Toa army garrison on Metru Nui during the Dark Hunter war.

I see what you're saying. Well, those weren't really his Toa Team, though. And offhand I'm not sure if they called him leader of the army. I forgot to mention, though, that I'm pretty sure Greg did say they didn't tell the Matoran about Nidhiki. Which isn't directly relevant since Vakama's team found out later, but I bring it up as I'm unsure if they told them about Tuyet. Regardless, they knew about Vakama and their own troubles with the venom, and inexperience.

 

Oops, meant "the Makuta" singular here.

Though then it would mean instead of what I said, it would have to be changed to "Evil because jealousy cliché".

Lol fair enough. But there's only so many options in psychology. The specifics of the situation that led to the jealousy are pretty innovative. I'm sure there's some parallels in some fiction, but yeah. (There's that for just about anything.)

 

then either the finding/completion of that thing is considered "very convenient" the the appearance of the enemy.

I'll grant you that, but that didn't seem implied by the simple statement that mask finding is convenient. And it wouldn't always be the case -- say Tahu is collecting a Noble Mask, of Translation, for Vakama, and a Rahi comes up. What's he gonna do, talk it to death? Or a Mask of Water Breathing, nowhere near Water.

 

If the Rahi were placed there prior to the Toa appearing to collect the masks, then another sin should be added;

 

"Enemy patiently waits till hero obtains his weapon in order to attack" (<- wich is probably one of the most reacurring sins in CinemaSins videos

Actually for the reason I said above this isn't a problem in Bionicle, although we did have to wait to 2008's end to find out why -- Makuta wasn't trying to defeat the Toa, but just make it look like he was trying. (And again, did this actually happen in a statistically unlikely amount?) Even without that, the idea of an ambush makes sense; put the Rahi by the mask, and the Toa will eventually come there. Makes sense it might take a minute for the ambush to close as the Toa picks up the mask.

 

In most stories these sorts of pauses are unrealistic (though not always; sometimes there's a culture of honor in fighting involved), and maybe in some cases in Bionicle they are, but that doesn't apply to 2001 fights with infected Rahi.

 

Vakama wishes he didn't have the knowledge that could help the Toa understand the Bohrok.

I don't remember this, but it's probably just a way of saying the information includes some things he finds repulsive (like icky brain-throwing? ) or frightening (like now we're between a rock and a hard place; he doesn't trust the Toa yet enough to try to move back to Metru Nui, but they'll try to clean this entire island). Basically ignorance is bliss.

 

Le-Koro not just heavily under attack, but now very much destroyed. Warning signs should be posted before entering that realm.

I will assume you are kidding.

 

Also, we are the Borg, prepair to me assimilated.

Kudos for noticing. (This was almost certainly an intentional allusion.)

 

"Arrives sooner than expected" cliché.

Not sure where this is from, but that's not really fair to complain about. There's only three options and all three are done a lot ergo cliche -- arrive early, arrive on time, or arrive late.

 

Okay, I suppose there's four -- arrive but don't comment on the timing. But it's realistic to sometimes do that. (But I don't recall it, perhaps you could clarify.)

 

The Tahnok, who have been seen burning down all sorts of stone things without much trouble, get stopped by statues blocking the village entrance.

I can see why you might think that if you only watch that one episode, but it was clearly just meant to slow them down, since the entire village evacuated to Ga-Koro later. Obviously they needed to buy time to climb down the back wall of the village or something like that. Had the Bohrok gotten into the village at that moment, it would have basically been a kill box.

 

The real problem here (which I've fixed in my version ) is that whether the statues are resting on their necks or faces is irrelevant as shown; either way they could easily go around them.

 

A single Boxor can stand up against a small army of Gahlok. Sorry Toa, but you've been out-gunned.

This has been brought up before, and there were some theories about how that's possible related to their being made of the same beings they were fighting, probably giving it some sort of elemental resistance that was more "in tune" than the Toa's. Although that would only work with Gahlok-made Boxor against Gahlok, you'd think. Another possibility is that it employs psychology -- here's a harmless Matoran standing on this weird pedestal thingy, dear Bohrok, so it's not a time for elemental blasting (unlike versus Toa), it's a time to knock his mask off and Krana him... but when you try, PUNCH. Could have worked at least for a while, and if the Bahrag were too busy to catch on and send new instructions, might have worked for the whole time.

 

Wow, one Boxor can already stand up to a small army of Gahlok, 12 of them should wipe the threat right off the island. Usefulness of Toa effectively diminished.

But both the previous points could make their ratio of effectiveness go down in the later battles. (Also, that WAY underestimates the number of available Bohrok!)

 

One of the two elements that are the least effective in water are attacking Ga-Koro, instead of, say, Air, or Water.

But that's consistent with their not being an enemy focused on destroying villages so they don't arrange all their strategy around that, and instead the type that happened to be going by stumbled upon it and decided to clean it. Also, the village is designed to withstand storm waves, rain, and just naturally sitting in water, so the Bohrok/Va may have reasoned that something with more oomph was appropriate, and attacked then instead of delaying to send a Gahlok squad. (Also, there is no Air. It was Acid.) What matters isn't their effectiveness against water (they're not there to attack the ocean!), but against stuff.

 

Plus it made for a much more interesting battle. Besides, this contradicts the convenience line of thinking. This is an example of apparent inconvenience (other than against the stone blocking the way in originally). It's realistic that at least one of the six villages would get attacked by an army not ideally suited to it. In fact, the chances of such a thing happening here are five out of six.

 

Ga-Koro would've been effectively destroyed a lot sooner had the Bohrok decided to use Krana Vu a little sooner.

That's true, but the Bohrok didn't know it was needed at first. They're just like the Borg in that respect -- they adapt. Borg ships/drones usually could avoid any damage if they just had their shields turned all the way up, but they leave them up to a reasonable level for normal activity (energy efficiency you know ), and turn them up if necessary.

 

I don't know much about bamboo, but I know it doesn't work like that, unless it were magic. Sin; Magic bamboo.

 

[Edit: On first writing the following reply, I assumed you were talking about the elastic quality flinging Takua across the water, since you were talking about the Ga-Koro fight with Bohrok. In hindsight I notice you didn't actually explain it, so if you meant something else, pardon.]

 

Okay now see, if this is the way you have been using Earth physics (or materials knowledge in this case), this is why people have been bringing up that it's fiction to you. You are using the error I talked about -- assuming that something in Bionicle is identical to something in real life. Even in real life if you encounter an alien form of plant that looks similar to our bamboo, you cannot assume it has the same properties of our bamboo.

 

(Also, I don't have a lot of bamboo laying around to go test it, do you? A green enough stick might work like this, maybe bamboo of the right thin-ness would too. )

 

It's also anti-empiricism, a fallacy I've seen often in discussions of Bionicle but not often in other things. The fact that it was shown doing that should be taken as proof that it can do that (and they get extra points for showing one of the Matoran, I think Jaller, testing it out with a hand first, so we even have scientific repeatability here ), rather than a blind assumption that it cannot do that being taken as a given, when that really is just made up.

 

Armour with "Power greater than ever known" renders the Toa useless against beating the main enemy.

I'll grant you this although I think storywise it works, because it was imposed on the story as an excuse to get Exo-Toa out of the picture quickly; Greg said that one of the higher-ups didn't like Exo-Toa for some reason and didn't want them to get much story time. But the reasons I think it works are that you wouldn't want Toa to always go around in Exo-Toa then, which could get old fast (and quickly deviate from the sets, which wouldn't be including Exo-Toa again for newer fans that lacked them), and it was an interesting, unexpected twist.

 

 

Edit: I wasn't going to bring this up, but since one of the above points did involve Earth physics, I guess I will:

 

Ha! I knew it! Its simply sci-fi physics (physics so advanced we don't understand them)!

Yet, everytime I brought it up I was silenced by "no physics".

I'm not sure whether to take you literally here or not, but I wanna check, since I went out of my way to disagree with the "no" part but you said it once again. I don't think anybody was ever telling you there was NO Earth physics. I hope you're getting my point. Given that you once again contradicted it apparently in the bamboo point, I'm not sure it's getting across. What we're disagreeing with is the logic "Earth physics does this, therefore Bionicle should have done this." (And we can include materials properties in here under the loose umbrella-term sense of "physics"). It does not follow that we are then saying there are NO Earth physics.

 

Did anybody actually say "no"? I do not recall such a thing ever being said, though it's possible one or two people did misunderstand.

 

In any case, this isn't really a complaint against Bionicle but some Bionicle fans who either held a misconception or worded something in a way that didn't get across clearly to you. *shrugs* And I don't know how you could have missed the clarifications since any time it was brought up, I was pretty much there clarifying it. (Unless this wasn't on BZP. But you always gotta be careful with claims made outside S&T or BS01 or official story sources, etc.)

 

And it especially wasn't "no physics" (as in no physics at all!) -- but rather Bionicle physics are (sometimes) different. Bionicle does have some defined, fictional physics, quite a lot in fact. So much that on the old forums we had an official topic devoted to the subject.

Edited June 25, 2014 by bonesiii

[Azani]

Bionicle does have some defined, fictional physics, quite a lot in fact. So much that on the old forums we had an official topic devoted to the subject.

I would appreciate a new topic that lists and describes many of these physical laws, and I'm sure that others would also.