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Switched eye colors in Bionicle 2015


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Hi, guys!:) Have you noticed that in the Legend video (aka Episode 0) where Ekimu has blue eyes while his set form has yellow eyes instead? I did, and I also noticed that this eye color switch happened to the Protector of Stone when in his set, his eyes are blue while in the webisodes, his eyes are yellow.

I wonder if there is a connection between these differences. Maybe that both of the characters had accidentally switched eye colors. I mean, each of the other Protectors in their sets have the same eye color as his or her respective Toa. Here how it is:

PoF and Tahu -> blue eyes

PoW and Gali -> yellow eyes

PoJ and Lewa -> yellow eyes

PoI and Kopaka -> blue eyes

PoE and Onua -> yellow eyes

 

For the Stone guys:

Sets: Pohatu's eyes are yellow while PoS's are blue.

Webisodes: Both of them' eyes are yellow.

 

This is quite strange. Does Ekimu meant to have blue or yellow eyes? What about the Protector of Stone? Did Lego make a mistake in the sets or the webisodes? (Well, since I already have the Protector of Stone set and when I get the Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder set, I could switch their eye pieces.) What do you guys think about this?

Edited by Lenny7092
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I like Lego, Bionicle, and Hero Factory!:)

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Hi, guys! :) Have you noticed that in the Legend video (aka Episode 0) where Ekimu has blue eyes while his set form has yellow eyes instead? I did, and I also noticed that this eye color switch happened to the Protector of Stone when in his set, his eyes are blue while in the webisodes, his eyes are yellow.

I wonder if there is a connection between these differences. Maybe that both of the characters had accidentally switched eye colors. I mean, each of the other Protectors in their sets have the same eye color as his or her respective Toa. Here how it is:

PoF and Tahu -> blue eyes

PoW and Gali -> yellow eyes

PoJ and Lewa -> yellow eyes

PoI and Kopaka -> blue eyes

PoE and Onua -> yellow eyes

 

For the Stone guys:

Sets: Pohatu's eyes are yellow while PoS's are blue.

Webisodes: Both of them' eyes are yellow.

 

This is quite strange. Does Ekimu meant to have blue or yellow eyes? What about the Protector of Stone? Did Lego make a mistake in the sets or the webisodes? (Well, since I already have the Protector of Stone set and when I get the Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder set, I could switch their eye pieces.) What do you guys think about this?

What I think is that this is not a new phenomenon, nor one that's a big deal. The classic Bionicle swapped eye colors of sets all the time—in the comics, in the movies, in the online animations and games... I think 2006 might have been the only year when characters' eye colors were consistent across all media, and I'm probably forgetting one or two miscolorations there, too.

 

But eye color has never been the most defining characteristic of any character, which is probably why the later years of Bionicle stopped giving every Toa in a team a different eye color; instead started selecting from just two or three eye colors, sometimes to indicate alignment (with heroic characters generally getting green or blue eyes and villainous characters generally getting reddish-orange eyes). And accordingly, the theme's plot has never been dependent on a characters eye color (though in some cases, like Web of Shadows, it has been used as a handy visual metaphor). So it doesn't really matter much whether Ekimu's eyes are supposed to be green or blue, because there's almost no chance of it ever becoming relevant to the story.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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I thought exactly the same thing when we first got pictures of Ekimu in set form.

 

Having both sets, I tried out switching the eyes to match how they are in the animations and it doesn't look too bad. However, the eyes don't stand out as much that way. (I'm pretty conflicted as to which way I like them. Usually I wouldn't deviate from how the instructions show a character, but seeing as the instructions for other sets contain some errors, I don't feel as bad viewing them as "less canon" in story terms...)

 

I think LEGO probably originally intended to have the eyes in the sets match the animations, but decided to swap them when they found that they didn't look as striking. Particularly, imagine PoS's box art if the eyes were yellow - it would have no focal point whatsoever, as everything would be yellow. Similarly, on an Ekimu set with blue eyes, the eyes would match his Protector mask and would look lifeless.

 

However, seeing as all promotional art of the Mask of Creation gives it blue eyes, I'm not sure the switch was a good idea... From a story standpoint, the "canon" eye colours may be confirmed by the upcoming books or, more likely, by the graphic novels.

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I guess it just happened late into the set development. To be fair, Pohatu should have blue eyes and so should Ekimu... no idea why they opted for green in both of them

 

-NotS

I loved Pohatu's early eye colors. They went so well with his color scheme. Set designers are always so finicky about eye colors. They rarely stay consistent and really should be a defining trait of certain elementally affiliated characters.

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I guess it just happened late into the set development. To be fair, Pohatu should have blue eyes and so should Ekimu... no idea why they opted for green in both of them

 

-NotS

I loved Pohatu's early eye colors. They went so well with his color scheme. Set designers are always so finicky about eye colors. They rarely stay consistent and really should be a defining trait of certain elementally affiliated characters.

 

I disagree on that. Characters already have the much more obvious main colors in their color schemes to indicate their element, so giving them elemental eye colors as well is a kind of pointless restriction. Also, since there generally aren't a whole lot of fluorescent eye colors to choose from, you could easily end up with one element getting a dull, lifeless eye color like all the Earth sets from 2001 to 2005. And there have been plenty of Bionicle characters and creatures without any elemental affiliation from the very beginning, so why define eye colors according to a system that won't even be applicable half the time?

 

If meaning has to be assigned to eye colors at all, I'm actually really fond of those sets that use eye colors to indicate who is good and who is evil, as has been done in the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2015 sets. Evil red eyes are a trope that's deeply ingrained in the pop culture consciousness, so if you don't play that up then you run the risk of kids who don't know the story assuming reddish-eyed characters like Toa Mata Tahu, Toa Hordika Matau, and Toa Mahri Hewkii are evil even when they actually aren't.

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I guess it just happened late into the set development. To be fair, Pohatu should have blue eyes and so should Ekimu... no idea why they opted for green in both of them

 

-NotS

I loved Pohatu's early eye colors. They went so well with his color scheme. Set designers are always so finicky about eye colors. They rarely stay consistent and really should be a defining trait of certain elementally affiliated characters.

I disagree on that. Characters already have the much more obvious main colors in their color schemes to indicate their element, so giving them elemental eye colors as well is a kind of pointless restriction. Also, since there generally aren't a whole lot of fluorescent eye colors to choose from, you could easily end up with one element getting a dull, lifeless eye color like all the Earth sets from 2001 to 2005. And there have been plenty of Bionicle characters and creatures without any elemental affiliation from the very beginning, so why define eye colors according to a system that won't even be applicable half the time?

 

If meaning has to be assigned to eye colors at all, I'm actually really fond of those sets that use eye colors to indicate who is good and who is evil, as has been done in the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2015 sets. Evil red eyes are a trope that's deeply ingrained in the pop culture consciousness, so if you don't play that up then you run the risk of kids who don't know the story assuming reddish-eyed characters like Toa Mata Tahu, Toa Hordika Matau, and Toa Mahri Hewkii are evil even when they actually aren't.

I'm not sure what you mean by dull. I LOVED the dark green eyes of Earth sets from 2001-2005. It just seemed to make sense. I also like the idea of elemental eye colors, since it kinda illustrates the concept that there are elemental powers within a character that radiate from them. The eyes seem like an excellent way to show that.

 

As far as good vs. evil eye colors go, it seems like a tired concept. Not every evil character has to drip evil from every pore to look evil. "Evil" eye colors should be reserved for the Big Bad pure evil Makuta kind of baddie in my opinion.

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I guess it just happened late into the set development. To be fair, Pohatu should have blue eyes and so should Ekimu... no idea why they opted for green in both of them

 

-NotS

I loved Pohatu's early eye colors. They went so well with his color scheme. Set designers are always so finicky about eye colors. They rarely stay consistent and really should be a defining trait of certain elementally affiliated characters.

I disagree on that. Characters already have the much more obvious main colors in their color schemes to indicate their element, so giving them elemental eye colors as well is a kind of pointless restriction. Also, since there generally aren't a whole lot of fluorescent eye colors to choose from, you could easily end up with one element getting a dull, lifeless eye color like all the Earth sets from 2001 to 2005. And there have been plenty of Bionicle characters and creatures without any elemental affiliation from the very beginning, so why define eye colors according to a system that won't even be applicable half the time?

 

If meaning has to be assigned to eye colors at all, I'm actually really fond of those sets that use eye colors to indicate who is good and who is evil, as has been done in the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2015 sets. Evil red eyes are a trope that's deeply ingrained in the pop culture consciousness, so if you don't play that up then you run the risk of kids who don't know the story assuming reddish-eyed characters like Toa Mata Tahu, Toa Hordika Matau, and Toa Mahri Hewkii are evil even when they actually aren't.

I'm not sure what you mean by dull. I LOVED the dark green eyes of Earth sets from 2001-2005. It just seemed to make sense.

I mean "dull" as in "Transparent Green eyes are terribly dark, barely even show up, and certainly don't glow unless lit from behind". Using it as an eye color for characters who wear masks is already a bad move, using it as an eye color for characters who already have the darkest-colored masks and inhabit the darkest settings in the story even more so. Prime example.

 

All of the other Toa Mata eye colors were much better, because all the other Toa Mata eye colors were fluorescent. Unfortunately, two of those — Transparent Fluorescent Red and Transparent Fluorescent Yellow, Tahu and Gali's eye colors — were discontinued years ago. There are two newer fluorescent colors now that didn't exist back then, Transparent Bright Orange and Transparent Bright Green, but that still means there are just five fluorescent colors to choose from.

Edited by Aanchir
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I mean "dull" as in [the] eyes are terribly dark, barely even show up, and certainly don't glow unless lit from behind". 

That description works very well for the most 2015 sets when the mask is on. However, I agree that dull eyes don't really ever look good behind a mask.

 

If meaning has to be assigned to eye colors at all, I'm actually really fond of those sets that use eye colors to indicate who is good and who is evil, as has been done in the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2015 sets. Evil red eyes are a trope that's deeply ingrained in the pop culture consciousness, so if you don't play that up then you run the risk of kids who don't know the story assuming reddish-eyed characters like Toa Mata Tahu, Toa Hordika Matau, and Toa Mahri Hewkii are evil even when they actually aren't.

 

Considering how the good characters all come in the same canister/box design with the same naming convention, I don't think eye colour would make new fans question whether or not a character is evil. The set design could be a bit more confusing, though, with sets like Hewkii Mahri looking a bit more ambiguous.

 

 

I guess it just happened late into the set development. To be fair, Pohatu should have blue eyes and so should Ekimu... no idea why they opted for green in both of them

 

-NotS

Pohatu's eyes are very, very dim even 5cm away from the light source if you use the blue eyestalk, so the green one is a better choice. It's odd how the mask design wasn't changed to improve the effectiveness of the already questionable eyestalk/head combination.

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