OFFICIAL Bionicle 2015 Topic

[LewaLew]

Kopaka doesn't sound like Kopaka anymore, and neither does Lewa

 

Gali's mask isn't feminine enough like Toa of Water masks use to be.

 

Bulky golden armor is to bulky.

 

Designs on armor makes it look cheap.

 

Overall pieces don't look very Bionicle-ish.

 

Okoto's borders look weird.

 

Finished ranting.

 

Glad to see the Toa Mata are back, glad to see we're going back to tribal/island stuff.

 

"Kopaka is noble and reserved. Upholding his own strict moral code he strives to be perfect and always "do the right thing". A fact that often makes him appear formal and even cold in the eyes of others."

Sounds an awful lot like Kopaka to me. The clumsiness thing is likely just a minor alteration.

 

"Lewa is a true daredevil, a cunning rogue whose foolhardy manners have often gotten him into trouble. His rebel approach is a double-edged sword that the other heroes both love and hate. On one hand, Lewa finds new ways, on the other these ways sometimes lead to new trouble!"

Once again, this sounds like Lewa to me. Lewa's always been reckless--it's why Onua always has to help him break free of mind control. It does sound like a little bit of Matau has been tossed in, but I don't see why that's a bad thing.

 

Of the water Toa masks, only Nokama's comes close to being "feminine." The original Kaukau just looked like a snorkel with goggles, and the Kaukau Nuva in both its original and Mistika forms was notoriously unfeminine. Not to mention Hahli's Elda, which is perhaps the worst offender of all, with it's infamous mustache. The Faxon is pretty gender neutral, particularly since Lesovikk also used it. This new mask is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Can't help you on the bulky armor thing. It doesn't bother me much, though.

 

Armor designs are in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I'd rather have them there than not, but I'm fine either way.

 

The main reason the pieces don't look "BIONICLE-ish" is because we've never seen BIONICLE using the new system before. It was developed during Hero Factory's day, so of course it wouldn't look like BIONICLE did. However, as some of the comparison slides from NYCC show, they do add a BIONICLE vibe to some of the new parts with decorative pistons.

 

I have to agree that the mountain ranges on Okoto are odd. In fact, I think it's one of the main reasons people don't like the design that much. Mata Nui was always clearly divided into different climates, but the mountain range borders make it more obvious and awkward. 

 

I can totally agree about the new island.

Mata Nui was made to look very realistic, whethers this one looks like a kind of Cartoon Network thing...

 

Eh, Mata Nui was not realistic at all. There's no way you can have an arctic region, a lava-filled volcano region, a tropical rainforest, and a desert all on the same island. And as I mentioned above in response to Toa Kopaka TJByrum, Mata Nui always had the bizzare borders that Okoto has, except without the Mountain ranges to make the division even more glaringly obvious.

Edited October 12, 2014 by LewaLew

[Bfahome]

I love the Toa.

 

I love the masks in gold

 

I love the new parts.

 

And I love all the molds.

 

I love Okoto and all its mystery.

 

 

boom de yah da

 

boom de yah da

 

 

BOOM DE YAH DA

 

 

 

 

BOOM DE YAH DA

[Ektris]

 

Has anyone found official solicitation pictures for the Lord of Skull Spiders yet?

 

~|ET|~

*snip*

 

You know what? Since it's going to be incredibly shrunk for my purposes anyways, that'll actually do just fine. Thanks!

 

Can't believe that even Brickjournal posted both packaging and background-less images for everything... but the Lord of Skull Spiders. Man, LEGO really doesn't want to put that one up for some reason. :lol

 

The bios from there all sounds fine to me, for the record.

 

Still unsure of how many variants there are of the Skull Spiders, though. I think there's 6? So there's silver, dark blue, some sort of yellow-green, yellow, blue & silver, and gold. But is Gali's really a blend of silver and blue or is that just some weird effect applied to it?

 

~|ET|~

Edited October 12, 2014 by Electric Turahk

[Zeb]

I hope they tighten the masks a bit before release but COME ON TAHU IS SO COOL. I used to hate him, but seriously, his sword wings in the back make him look like an awesome Gundam. This is going to be a great comeback!

Hope I haven't already been Kapura'd, but it was confirmed that the mask connections would be tightnened in the 100% final retail sets, making the masks at the Lego New York Store VIP Event 99%-finalized prototypes. And yeah, as if storing extra swords on his back wasn't cool enough, the fact that you can POSE the swords on Tahu's back makes him even more awesome.

[Kuurai]

It seems they are trying unnecessarily hard to push the new functions, them being a bit exaggerated in the descriptions. I do understand why though. Gotta market to the target

[Zeb]

Do you think the transparent hau's will have any sort of story relevance, or Lego was just "what the heck, why not" when they thought up the idea.

 

They could make for a nice toa of crystal.

 

Also, do you fellows think we'll think we'll get masks in multiple colors? I'd love to see that but I'm thinking that it's not gonna be a thing.

I would love to see Kakamas (if they're even called that anymore) in every color. Especially blue & green. And silver.

The skull spiders do attach to the faces, so they might play a similar role as the Krana. I can see Lewa getting one stuck to his face, and Onua having to fight him..... for the nth time.

2001: Lewa gets an infected Miru on face and Onua has to save him.

2002: Lewa gets a Krana on his face and Onua saves him again.

2015: Lewa gets a Skull Spider on his head, and guess who comes to save him?

[Kuurai]

 

Do you think the transparent hau's will have any sort of story relevance, or Lego was just "what the heck, why not" when they thought up the idea.

 

They could make for a nice toa of crystal.

 

Also, do you fellows think we'll think we'll get masks in multiple colors? I'd love to see that but I'm thinking that it's not gonna be a thing.

 

I would love to see Kakamas (if they're even called that anymore) in every color. Especially blue & green. And silver.

Does this answer your question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/BZP_Tweets/media/grid?idx=6&tid=520354478932115456

(Can't properly post pictures; on my phone )

[bioniclepluslotr]

Do all the Toas have a pretty similar build again? Like if they all use the gearbox torso, won't they all have the same layout (minus the armor details)?

[fishers64]

 

 

Do you think the transparent hau's will have any sort of story relevance, or Lego was just "what the heck, why not" when they thought up the idea.

 

They could make for a nice toa of crystal.

 

Also, do you fellows think we'll think we'll get masks in multiple colors? I'd love to see that but I'm thinking that it's not gonna be a thing.

I would love to see Kakamas (if they're even called that anymore) in every color. Especially blue & green. And silver.

Does this answer your question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/BZP_Tweets/media/grid?idx=6&tid=520354478932115456

(Can't properly post pictures; on my phone )

 

^Aren't those bricks behind B6, not masks?

[Zeb]

And here's something interesting...

Please tell me you're going to give those out in contests. There's too many transparent Haus in that bag to not give out some.

 

 

 

Do you think the transparent hau's will have any sort of story relevance, or Lego was just "what the heck, why not" when they thought up the idea.

 

They could make for a nice toa of crystal.

 

Also, do you fellows think we'll think we'll get masks in multiple colors? I'd love to see that but I'm thinking that it's not gonna be a thing.

I would love to see Kakamas (if they're even called that anymore) in every color. Especially blue & green. And silver.

Does this answer your question?

https://mobile.twitter.com/BZP_Tweets/media/grid?idx=6&tid=520354478932115456

(Can't properly post pictures; on my phone )

 

^Aren't those bricks behind B6, not masks?

 

Yeah, isn't that just a standard Lego Store Pick-a-Brick wall? If only it was a Grab-a-Mask wall...  

[Bfahome]

So those new armor pieces look like they could potentially attach to the HF feed and act as Pohatu kickers.  Can anyone confirm/refute now that said pieces are now in the wild?

[dviddy]

 

 

Has anyone found official solicitation pictures for the Lord of Skull Spiders yet?

 

~|ET|~

*snip*

You know what? Since it's going to be incredibly shrunk for my purposes anyways, that'll actually do just fine. Thanks!

 

Can't believe that even Brickjournal posted both packaging and background-less images for everything... but the Lord of Skull Spiders. Man, LEGO really doesn't want to put that one up for some reason. :lol

 

The bios from there all sounds fine to me, for the record.

 

Still unsure of how many variants there are of the Skull Spiders, though. I think there's 6? So there's silver, dark blue, some sort of yellow-green, yellow, blue & silver, and gold. But is Gali's really a blend of silver and blue or is that just some weird effect applied to it?

 

~|ET|~

I have only seen four: silver, dark blue, the yellow green, and gold.

[Observance]

On the Protectors: I am kind of disappointed they all got the same masks. LEGO did a nice job of differentiating their body types, but giving them unique masks would've made them more reminiscent of the '01 Turaga, seeing as they're the village leaders. Plus if LEGO decided to do the whole "collect all the masks" thing again with mask packs it would be great for collectability.

 

Speaking of Turaga, what if the Protectors had Turaga names?

[Makaru]

The skull spiders do attach to the faces, so they might play a similar role as the Krana. I can see Lewa getting one stuck to his face, and Onua having to fight him..... for the nth time.

2001: Lewa gets an infected Miru on face and Onua has to save him.

2002: Lewa gets a Krana on his face and Onua saves him again.

2015: Lewa gets a Skull Spider on his head, and guess who comes to save him?

 

 

My 45-chapter fanfiction answers this question and more

[Zeb]

So those new armor pieces look like they could potentially attach to the HF feed and act as Pohatu kickers.  Can anyone confirm/refute now that said pieces are now in the wild?

I'm not sure how it looks, but I'm pretty sure the piece should be able to attach to the top of the feet on the little peg holes.

[Ektris]

 

 

 

Has anyone found official solicitation pictures for the Lord of Skull Spiders yet?

 

~|ET|~

*snip*

 

You know what? Since it's going to be incredibly shrunk for my purposes anyways, that'll actually do just fine. Thanks!

 

Can't believe that even Brickjournal posted both packaging and background-less images for everything... but the Lord of Skull Spiders. Man, LEGO really doesn't want to put that one up for some reason. :lol

 

The bios from there all sounds fine to me, for the record.

 

Still unsure of how many variants there are of the Skull Spiders, though. I think there's 6? So there's silver, dark blue, some sort of yellow-green, yellow, blue & silver, and gold. But is Gali's really a blend of silver and blue or is that just some weird effect applied to it?

 

~|ET|~

 

I have only seen four: silver, dark blue, the yellow green, and gold.

 

Ah, wasn't sure either if the yellow ones seen with Onua and Tahu were the same as those with the Protectors of Fire and Earth or not... I'm going to guess they are then and that it's just more Photoshop trickery. Thanks!

 

Kind of surprised that there aren't more though. Would be such an easy thing to do many colors in.

 

~|ET|~

[Nidhiki of the Shadows]

On the Protectors: I am kind of disappointed they all got the same masks. LEGO did a nice job of differentiating their body types, but giving them unique masks would've made them more reminiscent of the '01 Turaga, seeing as they're the village leaders. Plus if LEGO decided to do the whole "collect all the masks" thing again with mask packs it would be great for collectability.

 

Speaking of Turaga, what if the Protectors had Turaga names?

I feel like they might in the story, but since these are supposed to represent both generic villagers and their elders they opted not to include them on the packaging.

 

-NotS

[Jowm]

I'm annoyed personally that we won't see the traditional Turaga and Matoran the way they were before, but I'll have to settle for what we got. I am glad we have the original Toa with personalities at least very similar to what we remember and awesome new builds. 

[Pomegranate]

 

On the Protectors: I am kind of disappointed they all got the same masks. LEGO did a nice job of differentiating their body types, but giving them unique masks would've made them more reminiscent of the '01 Turaga, seeing as they're the village leaders. Plus if LEGO decided to do the whole "collect all the masks" thing again with mask packs it would be great for collectability.

 

Speaking of Turaga, what if the Protectors had Turaga names?

I feel like they might in the story, but since these are supposed to represent both generic villagers and their elders they opted not to include them on the packaging.

 

-NotS

 

At least the masks have those neat streaks of extra color, it'd be a bit more boring if they were all monocolored. Gives that extra little kick of diversity and looks fantastic! 

[CeeCee]

 

On the Protectors: I am kind of disappointed they all got the same masks. LEGO did a nice job of differentiating their body types, but giving them unique masks would've made them more reminiscent of the '01 Turaga, seeing as they're the village leaders. Plus if LEGO decided to do the whole "collect all the masks" thing again with mask packs it would be great for collectability.

 

Speaking of Turaga, what if the Protectors had Turaga names?

 

I feel like they might in the story, but since these are supposed to represent both generic villagers and their elders they opted not to include them on the packaging.

 

-NotS

The villagers actually are shorter but with the same masks. At least in the animation

[masterchirox580]

Something interesting I noticed about the early concept art for Tahu was that he has a round piece with a symbol on his chest, kinda like the hero cores, I wonder if it was an idea they had during development.

[Tea-rex]

Multi-coloured masks?

http://yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.com/

Mask packs retuning probably \0/

[CeeCee]

Multi-coloured masks?

http://yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.com/

Mask packs retuning probably \0/

Doubt it. Unless I'm missing something.

[cdrch]

Long ago in a distant land, I, Makuta, the shapeshifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil (mask).

 

But a foolish team of Toa warriors wielding magic tools stepped forth to oppose me.

 

Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time, and flung them into the future, where my evil is law.

 

Now the fools seek to return to the past and undo the future that is Makuta.

 

This made wading through all 30+ pages of this topic that I had missed worth it. 

 

 

I don't believe the TTV speculation because I was also at the panel and the phrase "It's a reboot" was used at least a dozen times, and all without the word "soft" in front of it. Also, the phrase was never uttered in our interviews with the same BIONICLE story and set and entire franchise employees either. There was a bit about the mask of time mentioned by a couple LEGO employees, and yes, references to it being the full mask were indeed used. TTV's "confirmed facts" list is a conflation of actual facts, and misconstrued LEGO comments.

 

It was a TTV podcast member who used the term "soft reboot" in an interview to get the employee to agree to it. The idea of these toa being the original ones is both right and wrong. They are not the same characters as the ones we had before- they are NOT going to be the original characters who we kept up with for ten years. They are new iterations of those characters, and that is what TLG meant when they mentioned "we're using the original toa". The Mask of Time reference was indeed used, but not in a way to imply the old characters moved to the new continuity via time travel- rather it seemed to us there to hear that discussion as well (since the TTV guys recorded it like three feet from us at the booth) that the reference was more like "we're using elements from the original, like you know how the original they had the character making the mask of time from the disks? And then you ended up with half a mask? We're going to have the full mask."

 

I can see where the confusion would come in, but I don't in the slightest believe this was a "it's a soft reboot" mention. Definitely seems like a conflation of terms mixed with some leading and confusing questions from TTV, and some speculation that has worked its way into their facts list.

 

Thank you very much for your insight, as always.

 

After reading most of this topic in one sitting - thank you for clearing that up, DeeVee. Every time I thought I understood, the next page would show how wrong I was. 

 

 

Can someone with the new parts please disprove my awful feeling of the mask's durability? I feel they'll snap apart after a few uses :|

*snipped incredibly useful and detailed information on the new masks and stuff*

 

 

While I am wavering back and forth on how much I like these sets (an internal war between curiosity and nostalgia continues to go on), it was nice to have that information. Thanks, Aanchir!

 

 

Okay, I'm just gonna be open to everything as to why I'm not happy with 2015.

 

It's all a big cop out.

Seriously.

I like the new builds, and the fact that Mata Nui and Makuta are brothers again, but it's all just... Meh.

The island is still MATA-######-NUI.

They've completely changed the characteristics of characters - Lewa's clumsiness onto Kopaka, Kopaka's dry humour onto Gali, Gali's wisdom and other things onto Onua, and they made Onua SLEEPY OF ALL THE ###### THINGS.

SLEEPY.

Plus, we haven't heard a thing about the spiders that are with all the sets, which are probably a main point, mainly due to the fact that they're getting a box of their own, unless they're just a generic bad guy, a la the brain slugs.

And the fact that some of the design choices are in very poor choice.

Generally, Lego has just made a company cash out to get some more money to work on things they know are working.

 

Lego, I am disappointed.

 

"dry humor" doesn't mean what you think it means. Gali isn't deadpan, she just sucks at telling jokes.

 

I can't say Lewa was ever clumsy; he was easily the most agile and fleet-footed of them. He was just careless and cocky, which IS demonstrated in this new personality. 

 

Onua was ALWAYS wise, perhaps wiser than Gali. They're just playing that up more this time than some cliche "BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH MAN POWER" tough guy like in MoL.

 

We don't know about the spiders, no, but we still have almost three months to go. What we learned was the legend, and some things about the setting, and the personalities of the Toa. We'll see more about the antagonists when it becomes more relevant.

 

I don't see how avoiding releasing the EXACT SAME TOYLINE is a bad thing. Change happens. In this case, I think it's definitely for the better.

 

 

 

What I'm thinking for the web shorts is that's the PERFECT way to show off a mask quest. make a little animation for each Toa locating and retrieving their masks and the hardships required. Episodic, yet also cohesive with the overall story.

 

While a lot of the collecting kanohi/krana/kanohi nuva/krana kal/magical kahu saddles/whatever quests from 2001-2003 were left untold at least in part to let fans fill in the blanks (plus to make it easier story-wise to avoid monotony), I'd love to see those smaller sub-tasks of a bigger quest shown off in more detail. Some of my favorite parts of those early years were those mostly-plot-inconsequential tales of finding items and the Toa crossing each others' paths, like Tahu learning acrobatics by fighting on an extremely narrow bridge, Nokama trapping Gali in a cave with a boulder to teach her how a new mask was different from before, and Lewa and Gali talking about the wetness and morality of a body of water. ...any other fans remember those events without checking BS01?   These all really gave the Toa character, and personally provided just as much enjoyment for me as having blank spots did.

 

On a related note, about the Toa's personalities being less flat this time than before (in posts other than the ones I quoted, don't want this post to be too long) - I have to disagree. True, the short summaries given for advertising were not particularly detailed, nor as long as these initial ones appear to be. However, regardless of whether one looks to the comics, the books, or whatever media (especially all in combination), I believe that distinct personalities emerged very quickly, and stayed fairly consistent (accounting for character growth, of course).

 

And on the topic of personalities, I'm simply going to be keeping in mind that these are not the same characters as in the original story. Still Kopaka, Toa of Ice, but rather than being the one to deal with the clumsiness of others gracefully yet irritably (such as having an avalanche of boulders knocked onto him), he's now the one who buries others in snow by accident.

 

So are the Toa the only 6 Toa in existence?

 

The original tribal-theme of BIONICLE didn't really give much in the way of a long story, which is why I think they ditched that tribal setting and went to that sci-fi type of thing with Metru Nui and opening everything up into the MU.

 

Something I noted about the new set design that I like is that they seem more elementally suited, particularly Onua and Pohatu. Onua very much looks one-of-a-kind in his ability to move the earth, and it seems, based on his design, that he may well be that; same goes for the other Toa to an extent. I would not complain to see these Toa remain the only Toa for quite some time (or even forever). Can anyone who saw these up close (or spent longer staring at the pictures than me) tell me about the differences between the new Toa besides weapons and masks?

 

There have been a number of topics on the fantasy/sci-fi dynamic in the last few weeks alone, thanks to the hype train trundling on. While a lot of the aspects of Mata Nui (the island) did go away, most of it stuck around in other forms. It set up a lot of the trends of the Matoran Universe in a simpler setting, and it also was excellent as a setting for mysteries (which Bionicle is/was full of). As you said, the science-fiction element proportion greatly increased in 2004 and on, but establishing that the setting was a mix of the two was quite important in my opinion.

 

And did I spy somewhere that a spider was packed in with each Toa set? Or did my tired brain misconstrue an advertisement as the contents of sets? If I did not imagine that, that would make for an amazing way to provide bulk amounts of enemies for Toa to fight. 

[dviddy]

 

So those new armor pieces look like they could potentially attach to the HF feed and act as Pohatu kickers.  Can anyone confirm/refute now that said pieces are now in the wild?

I'm not sure how it looks, but I'm pretty sure the piece should be able to attach to the top of the feet on the little peg holes.

 

It does attach, but it was very clearly not designed to look good on the foot.

[Chro]

That's too bad - but I'm sure there'll be some way to attach them, maybe with some Exo-Force robot-claw finagling, to make them look good

 

So are the Toa the only 6 Toa in existence?

There was nothing to indicate the existence of any other Toa in 2001, yet we soon found that they were an entire race with thousands of members...

 

My 45-chapter fanfiction answers this question and more

Thanks bonesiii Edited October 12, 2014 by Chro

[Tattorack]

2001: Lewa gets an infected Miru on face and Onua has to save him.

2002: Lewa gets a Krana on his face and Onua saves him again.

2015: Lewa gets a Skull Spider on his head, and guess who comes to save him?

 

 

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh........... Thats a good question actually....

I think I'm leaning more towards... Kopaka, but it could also be the Earth Protector... or even Onua.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Tattorack

[Bfahome]

 

 

So those new armor pieces look like they could potentially attach to the HF feed and act as Pohatu kickers.  Can anyone confirm/refute now that said pieces are now in the wild?

I'm not sure how it looks, but I'm pretty sure the piece should be able to attach to the top of the feet on the little peg holes.

 

It does attach, but it was very clearly not designed to look good on the foot.

 

I figured that might be the case.  Bit of a bummer, but I guess what's the fun of LEGO if you don't have to improvise occasionally?

[Ektris]

On the Protectors: I am kind of disappointed they all got the same masks. LEGO did a nice job of differentiating their body types, but giving them unique masks would've made them more reminiscent of the '01 Turaga, seeing as they're the village leaders. Plus if LEGO decided to do the whole "collect all the masks" thing again with mask packs it would be great for collectability.

 

Speaking of Turaga, what if the Protectors had Turaga names?

I'm actually really glad that that they do. Masks in multiple colors was a staple in the beginning and I was always incredibly disappointed that it was altogether dropped a few years later.

 

And at least the two colors to them still end up making them pretty unique.

 

~|ET|~

[CeeCee]

I wonder when/if we will see any more Toa. I cant see another team at least before the three years are up. But if we do go beyond that I think its going to get stale fast with the Toa Mata(or maybe Oktoko now). 

 

I would definitely like to see a completely new Toa Team. We are due one are we not? 

[Lyichir]

I wonder when/if we will see any more Toa. I cant see another team at least before the three years are up. But if we do go beyond that I think its going to get stale fast with the Toa Mata(or maybe Oktoko now). 

 

I would definitely like to see a completely new Toa Team. We are due one are we not?

I don't think so. One think Ninjago and Hero Factory have done that I view as an improvement over Bionicle's story is sticking with a core cast of characters. Changing the main characters up completely every few years can be confusing and I'd much rather see the new theme develop the six original Toa more instead of having to replace them so frequently.

[Uncle K.]

Are those shaped boxes on the brickjournal list or what is going on there? Front opens by tab? Am I just reading into a bad photoshop job? Canister-sized (or whatever) Toa in boxes would be beautiful, I've dreamed of it since 2002.

 

I think I'm the most excited for that little black and trans-purple "protector" with the gun for a chest. I'm not much of a fan for the Toa's masks but the spiders' body is great, and while the top of the mask of creation is pretty obviously uninspired (or should I say directly inspired..?) the bottom half is so shapely, I love it. Looking forward to the "full" Vahi someday.

 

It's going to be nice to retire the 2001 team to the highest shelf though, now that my daughter can have her own childhood instead of leeching off remnants of mine, muahaha! I can only hope, since she loves what she understands of the old saga (not much....sigh), that this will be just as magical and enduring for her as it was for me.

[Aanchir]

Still unsure of how many variants there are of the Skull Spiders, though. I think there's 6? So there's silver, dark blue, some sort of yellow-green, yellow, blue & silver, and gold. But is Gali's really a blend of silver and blue or is that just some weird effect applied to it?

 

~|ET|~

As DeeVee said, there are four variants. Warm Gold, Silver Metallic, Earth Blue, and Spring Yellowish Green. The effect on Gali's is probably a filter applied to make it look "underwater" which they then forgot to remove when they removed the background.

 

Do all the Toas have a pretty similar build again? Like if they all use the gearbox torso, won't they all have the same layout (minus the armor details)?

The builds are reasonably varied. This is most obvious with Onua, of course. But additionally, Lewa's shoulders are raised considerably higher than the other characters' shoulders. The sets definitely don't qualify as "clone sets", even though the gearbox structure and torso armor are fairly similar for most of them.

 

So those new armor pieces look like they could potentially attach to the HF feed and act as Pohatu kickers.  Can anyone confirm/refute now that said pieces are now in the wild?

They don't cover the front of the foot very much. But it's worth noting that actual soccer players generally don't kick with their toe anyway, so covering the front of the foot is not entirely necessary. They also look a bit odd (but then again, so did Pohatu's original foot attachments). You'll have to decide for yourself if you like the look. If it's any help, I used them like this on this MOC (mostly so I could bring home more of those armor pieces. ).

 

And did I spy somewhere that a spider was packed in with each Toa set? Or did my tired brain misconstrue an advertisement as the contents of sets? If I did not imagine that, that would make for an amazing way to provide bulk amounts of enemies for Toa to fight. 

Yep, every set includes a Skull Spider. Some people have thought these make rather pathetic enemies for the Toa, and that there should have been more dedicated villain SETS, but you have to keep in mind that the Skull Spiders can mind-control the characters they attach to. Since every set includes a Skull Spider, every set can be turned INTO a villain set just by switching out its mask for the included spider. Definitely boosts the potential for competitive play!

 

Are those shaped boxes on the brickjournal list or what is going on there? Front opens by tab? Am I just reading into a bad photoshop job? Canister-sized (or whatever) Toa in boxes would be beautiful, I've dreamed of it since 2002.

Yes, they're shaped boxes of some kind. I think they open from the bottom, not the front. I hope that they're as collapsible and reusable as the HF pouches, but that might be unrealistic since the top and bottom are both flat.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Aanchir

[Wazdakka]

I'm guessing someone has already noticed this, but the Protectors's masks look like Arthrons and Gali's Kaukau looks like Takadox's face. Just sayin'. 

[Boidoh]

I noticed that since the black and white display leak.

 

I think Gali's mask is great! It is probably my favorite one. It looks like a snorkeling mask, just like the 01' mask. *cough*unlikethe2008wafflemask*cough*

[Lyichir]

I'm guessing someone has already noticed this, but the Protectors's masks look like Arthrons and Gali's Kaukau looks like Takadox's face. Just sayin'.

Apart from having a pointed jawline (a rarity on past Bionicle masks), Gali's mask really doesn't look much like Takadox at all.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Lyichir

[CeeCee]

 

I wonder when/if we will see any more Toa. I cant see another team at least before the three years are up. But if we do go beyond that I think its going to get stale fast with the Toa Mata(or maybe Oktoko now). 

 

I would definitely like to see a completely new Toa Team. We are due one are we not?

I don't think so. One think Ninjago and Hero Factory have done that I view as an improvement over Bionicle's story is sticking with a core cast of characters. Changing the main characters up completely every few years can be confusing and I'd much rather see the new theme develop the six original Toa more instead of having to replace them so frequently.

 

Sorry man. I have to disagree with you. I like having characters for a few years because they can be fleshed out, but do you really think Bionicle would have lasted anywhere near as long with just the Toa Mata? Especially if they need a new iteration every year. Ninjago doesnt really need to worry about that too much and even HF added to its bunch of characters. I know it wasnt an entirely new team but still a 50% increase. Also HF was episodic so it could get away with it better IMO. Bionicle was an on going story just needed to evolve over time.

 

Besides. I think for kids who liked playing with the toys, what incentive do they have to go and buy Tahu 5.0 besides the fact he is Tahu and Bionicle. Hes just the same character. just looks different. Where as if a new team was introduced thats six new characters to spice things up and open up more possibilities. 

 

Just my opinion though

Edited October 12, 2014 by CeeCee

[believe victims]

Besides. I think for kids who liked playing with the toys, what incentive do they have to go and buy Tahu 5.0 besides the fact he is Tahu and Bionicle.

 

 

Furno was released in no fewer than 6 different forms over the course of Hero Factory (excluding the minifigure) and I guarantee you there were kids who bought every last one.

 

The point, besides kids having terrible taste in characters, is that if a kid has a favorite character, they'll want to buy them in whatever form they take.

 

LEGO has mastered the art of making a constraction figure that resembles the previous one while still bringing something new to the table, so I don't think we have to worry too much about designs getting stale.

[Boidoh]

And look where HF ended up.

[bioniclepluslotr]

Usually I pass on repeat characters unless they're several years apart. Like Toa Nuva to Phantoka/Mistaka was alright. But Mata to Nuva, and Metru to Hordika, eh. I passed on 'em.

 

 

 

 

Besides. I think for kids who liked playing with the toys, what incentive do they have to go and buy Tahu 5.0 besides the fact he is Tahu and Bionicle.

 

 

Furno was released in no fewer than 6 different forms over the course of Hero Factory (excluding the minifigure) and I guarantee you there were kids who bought every last one.

 

The point, besides kids having terrible taste in characters, is that if a kid has a favorite character, they'll want to buy them in whatever form they take.

 

LEGO has mastered the art of making a constraction figure that resembles the previous one while still bringing something new to the table, so I don't think we have to worry too much about designs getting stale.

 

It's not so much the design being the same as it's the character being the same.

Edited October 12, 2014 by bioniclepluslotr