Why did Nuparu Replace Onepu?

[Sir Kohran]

I don't see how that (to the part I bolded) is possible to think. Not every kid's memory only goes back three years or less... Where is this coming from?

 

Your argument's largely relied on upon the assumption that the prominence of a character in 2002 has influence on how well they'd take to that character in 2006. I'm questioning it because I don't think the vast majority of kids in 2006 had been following Bionicle for that long, and even if they had, the fact that the two characters in question played no role in three whole years' worth of story before then left them both with virtually no prominence at all.

 

Given that they did pick Nuparu, what's the point of doing that? Do you think it was just a random choice?

 

I explained why I thought they chose him: I'd say it was simply because they didn't want a third military commander in the mix. I also think they didn't want them all to be Turaga's right hand Matoran (as four of them are).

 

The problem there was that they had made the mistake of "solving" fan dislike with the unrealistic convenience of the Nuva transformation just at the time the story needed them transformed, so they promised not to transform them again. They thought they were pleasing fans by leaving the Nuva untransformed, and featuring them more than in the past two years via the books. That was clearly a miscalculation

 

Interesting assessment, and certainly some truth to it. But I think that by 2006 they simply wanted something of a fresh start - new setting, new Toa, new villains, new style, new plot angle, rather than having to pick up a whole host of characters they hadn't worked with for two whole years by that point, and who would be unfamiliar to many fans joining that year or who'd only known the Metru Nui segment (this ties in with what I said about about new fans not knowing the earlier story).

 

Problem was, they had a whole load of fans who expected the story and cast to pick up directly from where it had been at the end of 2003 with the Nuva and Takanuva at the helm, and of course Bionicle overall was supposed to be a continuing story. So they tried to go down the middle and keep the established fans happy by wedging the Nuva into some of the books and making the new Toa from Matoran we'd already known. 

 

In theory this sounds reasonable enough, but it didn't work all that well. It disappointed those who'd been expecting a return of their established heroes, whilst the 'Matoran you know' element fell flat because fans had gotten to know those characters as Matoran with roles in Matoran society, not as high-powered Toa. It also left us with two sets of main characters and Takanuva to juggle all at once in the years that followed.

 

Looking back, I think I would’ve preferred it if they’d either just brought the Nuva and Takanuva back in full, or removed them completely and focused completely on a new team.

 

But more to the point, there was also a large segment of the fanbase who was excited by the possibility of favorite Matoran becoming Toa. It was that group LEGO chose to appeal to in 2006's story.

 

(By the way "no-one" seems to be a common mistake of overlaying your own tastes (apparently?) onto everybody else. I notice this mistake often; when somebody says "everybody" or the like, often they really just mean "me, but it's powerful to me." Which is okay in a poetic sense I guess but best avoided as it can be misleading.

 

There was widespread disappointment on BZPower because we'd been led to believe 2006 would return to Bionicle's main heroes, but that didn't happen. I don't remember anyone saying "the Nuva suck, let's have a bunch of new Toa instead", however.

 

Also, that humiliating defeat was, to a lot of people, one of the story's strongest points. It gets boring (and unrealistic, unsuspenseful), when the good guys always win.

 

What's hard to swallow about it is that Toa who've fought all kinds of Rahi, Shadow Toa, Manas, swarms of Bohrok and menacing Rahkshi get pulverised by foes who can then be overcome by a group of Toa with no experience of Toa combat or non-Rahi opponents at all. 

 

It also removed the Nuva from the story almost as soon as they'd entered it, making their appearance a bit of a letdown.

 

It also made a lot of in-story sense -- the Nuva tried to take on somebody else's destiny, and failed. They were supposed to awaken Mata Nui, not save his life.

 

He needs to be alive to be awakened.

 

If they're enjoying what they've got now, it's natural to be curious about what came before (since it was made by the same people, so to be expected to probably also be fun, and it is relevant to the now).

 

That largely depends on how hungry they were for more content and how far they'd go to find it. This would probably vary a lot.

 

And often older story was somewhat still easily available at that point online, and this was the online generation.

 

Let's see - the MNOLGs were taken offline when the site was redesigned at the start of 2004 (and didn't reappear until early 2006). MOL was probably still on store shelves, though it wouldn't have been advertised by then. I don't recall if the comics were still available, or what happened to the Bohrok episodes.

 

Besides, lots of people on here have attested to becoming fans in later years and reviewing old story.

 

People on here are still a minority of the overall buyer base. Also, whilst I don't know exactly when you mean by 'later years', let's not forget the rise of YouTube and the Wikis in making story content much easier to access from around 2006/7. Those weren't available back in 2004. That might've actually been a good thing, because the sheer amount of story they presented new fans with likely puzzled not all but many away from Bionicle.

 

2006 took place, and made frequent references back to, 2003 plot.

 

What are you thinking of here? The central plot in 2003 was Takua's journey and transformation into the seventh Toa - who was written out of the 2006 story. The only other plot point was the discovery and return to Metru Nui, but that's not necessary to understanding the 2006 story.

 

Close -- but again, romance was never canonized in the first place. The web team and movie people often did things without getting approval from the story team.

 

Well, back then there wasn't this manic drive to determine whether every last thing was canon or not. 

 

at least one quote from 2003 states that romances can't go anywhere canonically, so it seems to imply it's only semi-canon at best

 

I think he just meant the relationships couldn't go as far as human ones can, mainly with regard to the lack of biological reproduction.

 

Oh yeah! Forgot about that. The main villains of 2004, second half. A LOT of 2006 kids would recall that.

 

Firstly, how would kids know that detail at all? From one Greg quote on a forum and maybe a BS01 page? Only the handful of hardcore fans would've known such obscure information.

 

Secondly, I question your 'main villains' bit. 2004's biggest piece of media was the movie, in which the 'main villains' are undoubtedly Nidhiki, Krekka, and Dume/Makuta. The Vahki appear in just a couple of scenes, and only in the Kikanalo one do they get more than a moment or so. Note also that the Vahki sold underwhelmingly, reducing their memorability.

 

Nuparu was my choice because I felt he was a more interesting character than the alternatives.

 

Ah, so we have an answer. I'm glad one's been found.

 

Many of these are consistent with what I and others here have said, and that one about "more interesting" does basically confirm what I'm saying about story role.

 

What you've said has been said that Nuparu was chosen because he 'replaced' Onepu in the story, ie, that he became the more prominent character. But the last quote you singled out says he was chosen because he was more 'interesting', not that he'd become more prominent.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Sir Kohran

[Quisoves Potoo]

What's hard to swallow about it is that Toa who've fought all kinds of Rahi, Shadow Toa, Manas, swarms of Bohrok and menacing Rahkshi get pulverised by foes who can then be overcome by a group of Toa with no experience of Toa combat or non-Rahi opponents at all. 

Ah, but the Toa Inika never defeated the Piraka, not even when they were Mahri and the Piraka were sea-snakes. If you don't believe me, check BS01. The Toa Nuva actually came much closer to defeating the Piraka. Had it not been for Brutaka, they might have succeeded the second time round.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Quisoves Pugnat

[bonesiii]

I'm questioning it because I don't think the vast majority of kids in 2006 had been following Bionicle for that long

I've covered this already:

 

You seem to be missing the point -- nobody's saying everybody buying sets in 2006 remembered any of them, but the fact that some remembered nothing is irrelevant to the question which was why Nuparu was chosen over Onepu. To those kids, the 2006 Toa could have been completely new characters. But LEGO chose to appeal somewhat to some of their more longlasting fans. The point is that Nuparu is more likely to be remembered by more kids in 2006.

And fishers added:

 

You're assuming that the people who joined the line in 2004 wouldn't read the 2001-03 story. Why would that be the case? People naturally want to know what happens next in a story, and if it's already out there and published, why wouldn't you read it?

Having those connections ready and waiting when they do review makes sense.

 

And as far as the exact number, I said:

 

We don't need to know exact numbers or percentages

Combine these points, and others, and clearly we cannot really judge just how vast a majority didn't care, or really whether it was a majority at all considering what they liked after reviewing, and all of this misses the point that an unknowing majority didn't need appealed to with old characters at all, and the older minority has other value to LEGO that they wanted to reward (loyalty). Plus, even among older fans, it seems there was little push for Onepu to be a Toa, so far as we have recorded in the main surviving source from BZP's archives, the Greg files. (As far as I found.) But there was some of it singling out Nuparu.

 

We seem to be agreed that it's still somewhat of a tossup (and major agreement with tk4372's post BTW!), but clear logical reasons for picking Nuparu over Onepu are there, so IMO it was the right decision.

 

Now our posts on this seem to be getting longer and longer even though the core points have already been conclusively supported, so I won't be quoting every detail in the rest of your post this time. I stand by what I've said, and can we please not go in circles endlessly about the same points? You said it's not a big deal to you, so why must we nitpick every detail of it in this kind of detail? O_o

 

A few standout points, though:

 

the fact that the two characters in question played no role in three whole years' worth of story before then

I disproved this for Nuparu; see esp. the Greg quotes. Also, not mentioned there, was Nuparu's theory about the Bohrok in Metru Nui.

 

 

I explained why I thought they chose him: I'd say it was simply because they didn't want a third military commander in the mix. I also think they didn't want them all to be Turaga's right hand Matoran (as four of them are).

Alright, those are good reasons, but why do you have to defend only those as reasons when I've shown some others that clearly make sense too? Nuparu's major roles clearly are more recent, and a fadeout effect of more kids remembering more recent things clearly does exist -- neither of these things are deniable and they lead simply and clearly to my conclusion, so why in the world question it? Unless you can show somebody from LEGO saying "No, that never occurred to any of us at all"... even then, they might be wrong about what subconsciously occurred to them.

 

Looking back, I think I would’ve preferred it if they’d either just brought the Nuva and Takanuva back in full, or removed them completely and focused completely on a new team.

I think they just should have brought back the Nuva as Toa, doing something like the adaptive armor in 2006, for one year, as sets, and have them play through the whole 2006 storyline, and maybe set the Ignika moving (but with one of them cursed, or just have them help along the Matoran who would become Inika at that point), but something like have it warn them they will fail to awaken Mata Nui as it's not their destiny. Then in 2007, do Toa Inika (or whatever the name) as our "yay favorite old Matoran become Toa!" Admittedly, minor problem with this is those Matoran would then presumably need sets, but that's possible as Karzahni could "rebuild" them before they escape, and given new masks -- the Voyatoran could have been used.

 

And admittedly, that would be bad as we wouldn't get Velika. But we wouldn't have known what we were missing, so yeah.

 

Then maybe continue the new Toa for one year, or not, I dunno, but get back to Nuva with new adapted forms for the awakening. And maybe do sets in the Reign... but I digress.

 

Ah, hindsight.

 

There was widespread disappointment on BZPower

You always have to keep in mind the "BZP whines" rule -- that is, specifically, the displeased are usually more vocal than the pleased, especially at first, and they're usually represented much more highly on BZPower than in the general fanbase. Remember we have always been a tiny minority, and our tastes tend to be fairly different from the majority, as a side effect of our unusual tendency to be active online-discussion fans (which itself stems from an unusual preference, which logically is to be expected to affect other preferences, in a possibly unpredictable way).

 

Note too that I wasn't seeing such "widespread disappointment" indicated by the record in the Greg archives. To use BZPower, as I've mentioned on here often throughout the years, as closer to an accurate indicator, you have to use more careful means, like waiting for a while after initial "complain about everything new" topics fade away and look at actual polls, etc. Unfortunately, I don't recall what actual polls on this at the time said, and we can't check, but just remember not to trust your own memory based on initial "widespread disappointment", as honestly that could be said for nearly everything LEGO did, even some of its most popular things, on BZPower. (Especially because you shared that disappointment, apparently somewhat strongly; that could make others saying similar things resonate more noticeably to you and tilt your perception of just how much it really was.)

 

Anyways, I agree that some aspects of the return to present time, as I mentioned, were mistakes, but my point was, don't discount the factor that LEGO was counting on and may very well have carried the day in overall success, of fans who were eager for favorite old Matoran to become Toa.

 

(FTR, one major way BZPower was measurably different was we had a disproportionate amount of 2001ers -- but we've agreed that the fanbase as a whole, among those buying sets in 2006, was not likely to share that trait. By the way, that does affect percentage of desire for the Toa Nuva to return too, though I still think they should have used them due to the strength of that emotion in many and suchnot. Likeisay, I think LEGO misinterpreted the meaning of the dislike of the Nuva transformation; they thought this was representative of 2001 fans, but it wasn't, probably barely at all -- not in the way LEGO interpreted it as not wanting Nuva back anyways.)

 

What's hard to swallow about it is that Toa who've fought all kinds of Rahi, Shadow Toa, Manas, swarms of Bohrok and menacing Rahkshi get pulverised by foes who can then be overcome by a group of Toa with no experience of Toa combat or non-Rahi opponents at all.

Nah, that's "power level fallacy". The Inika were given the right tools for the situation, the Nuva weren't. Also, several of those Matoran had a much longer conscious memory of battle experience, even the translator! The Toa had a subconscious memory of many of their skills, but even they never had close to a thousand years of any experience at all, except dreaming.

 

(And this is getting somewhat off-topic. To be clear, I'm not saying that factor makes the use of the Inika in 2006 a wise choice in hindsight over a Nuva set return. Although, I should mention it's a little unfair of us to expect LEGO to even think of the adaptive armor solution to their promise. Really they shouldn't have made that promise at all, but even if they hadn't, it's fair to give them some slack here as they still would want to try to avoid an unlikely transformation, and maybe they just had no way to think of a good method for one yet.)

 

It also removed the Nuva from the story almost as soon as they'd entered it, making their appearance a bit of a letdown.

Be careful to avoid exaggeration here. It kept them (mostly) out of the comics, but in book plot, they actually had about as much story in 2006 as they did in the half-year of 2001. But yes, a whole year and front-and-center would have made more sense. Anyways, we're supposed to be discussing Onepu vs. Nuparu, not Nuva vs. Inika.

 

Firstly, how would kids know that detail at all? From one Greg quote on a forum and maybe a BS01 page? Only the handful of hardcore fans would've known such obscure information.

Fishers' point covered this. See above. Keep in mind Bionicle was meant to take work to understand, and fans were meant to be rewarded for doing that (getting the books, etc.).

 

Secondly, I question your 'main villains' bit. 2004's biggest piece of media was the movie, in which the 'main villains' are undoubtedly Nidhiki, Krekka, and Dume/Makuta.

Canisters.

 

But the last quote you singled out says he was chosen because he was more 'interesting', not that he'd become more prominent.

I figured you'd try that. But why? It's clear that we wouldn't expect Greg to use the exact same wording I did. They mean essentially the same thing. Why quibble about exact word choice?

 

 

By the way, another factor I don't recall being mentioned here is that there may have been some desire for the Mctoran to remain Matoran forever. I've mentioned often how I have that kind of preference in a lot of cases. Personally, not really specific to those characters, but I can empathize with it. LEGO may have felt the compromise with some who wanted the Mctoran to be Toa and those who wanted Hahli and Nuparu also served the extra purpose of pleasing those who wanted some of the major original Matoran to stay Matoran. (For example, then it feels more reasonable to use those sets to keep roleplaying imagined roles of theirs during later story years. Like, we can have Macku still play a major role as a Matoran on Spherus Magna, as I did in my story The Islander.)

 

 

Edit:

 

Ah, but the Toa Inika never defeated the Piraka, not even when they were Mahri and the Piraka were sea-snakes.

Technically this is accurate. However, not one of the Toa Nuva defeated any one of the Piraka, but temporary defeats by the Inika did happen (like Nuparu's inventive trick against Zaktan mentioned earlier), and the Inika had an advantage to hold their own (versus defeat per se) of the lightning that made them immune to antidermis. And I would say that objectively the Inika did defeat the Piraka in the end, just not through direct battle; they beat them to the object of the "race to the treasure" competition they had going on. (And Vezon was technically a Piraka for a while. )

Edited August 17, 2014 by bonesiii