What would you have changed?

[confused piraka]

8 minutes ago, Nektann said:

The masks they wear have no power I'm pretty sure.

thought Jaller had a powered hau

[Doctor Makuta]

I would have liked a Toa Team of "Evil" elements to have been the main villains for the year for one of the years.

Think about it a Toa Team created by the BoM with fake elements such as Radiation, Plague (disease), Pollution, etc. Even better a light drained Ahkmou as their Toa of Shadow leader.

[Lorentz]

On 11/7/2022 at 8:13 AM, confused piraka said:

 they never do much of any thing important

Takua summoned the Toa Mata to the island, then he did everything he did during MNOG. The Chronicler's Company kept Makuta's Rahi at bay while the Toa were attacking his lair. Jaller & Co did a ton of important things as Matoran, ranging from being military commanders, to inventing war machines, to traveling to Voya Nui without any back-up. Back in the 2004 storyline, the six Metru Nui Matoran all did something very important. 

Actually, almost every single Matoran that got a set did something pretty important. 
 

On 11/11/2022 at 3:29 AM, Doctor Makuta said:

Think about it a Toa Team created by the BoM with fake elements such as Radiation, Plague (disease), Pollution, etc. Even better a light drained Ahkmou as their Toa of Shadow leader.

We already have a Toa of Radiation in the story: Takanuva. Plague is basically just poison, and wouldn't really make sense as an "Element" in the way that other elements work. And what would Pollution even be, smoke? That's just Air but worse since it can only manipulate polluted air. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Lorentz

[confused piraka]

10 hours ago, Doctor Makuta said:

I would have liked a Toa Team of "Evil" elements to have been the main villains for the year for one of the years.

Think about it a Toa Team created by the BoM with fake elements such as Radiation, Plague (disease), Pollution, etc. Even better a light drained Ahkmou as their Toa of Shadow leader.

like hordika but evil?

[Lorentz]

I can't remember if I already mentioned this, but I would have had the Toa use more Kanohi, at least during the serials. For example, when the Toa Nuva snuck into Odina, why not give them all Hunas and/or Volitaks? It's kind of hard to believe that they managed to get in without being seen as-is.

[Doctor Makuta]

On 11/12/2022 at 9:04 AM, confused piraka said:

like hordika but evil?

No the BoM creating matoran and giving them artificial elements then brainwashing them and setting them loose somewhere.

[confused piraka]

7 hours ago, Doctor Makuta said:

No the BoM creating matoran and giving them artificial elements then brainwashing them and setting them loose somewhere.

is that even possible(but I would love to see a story based on this)

[(-Kopaka Toa of Ice-)]

 

On 11/7/2022 at 5:27 PM, Nektann said:

The masks they wear have no power I'm pretty sure.

They do have a purpose Toa Turaga and Matoran are all weaker without a mask on. Like a infinite battery.

I have a few more ideas of my own

-Finish all of the serials
-Revive Matoro as a favor for rescuing Mata Nui's life.

Edited January 6, 2023 by (-Kopaka Toa of Ice-)

[(-Kopaka Toa of Ice-)]

On 11/7/2022 at 5:27 PM, Nektann said:

The masks they wear have no power I'm pretty sure.

They do have a purpose Toa Turaga and Matoran are all weaker without a mask on. Like a infinite battery.

[Lorentz]

2 hours ago, (-Kopaka Toa of Ice-) said:

-Revive Matoro as a favor for rescuing Mata Nui's life.

It still absolutely baffles me how anyone actually wants this. First off, Matoro already sacrificed himself and got revived during the trials of the 777 steps. Second, it would completely invalidate the impact of his sacrifice. Finally, that already sort of happened with both Jaller and Takanuva back in Mask of Light, and everybody hated it. The whole point was that Matoro gave up his own life to save his world. Why would you want to undermine that?

[Nato G]

5 hours ago, Lorentz said:

It still absolutely baffles me how anyone actually wants this. The whole point was that Matoro gave up his own life to save his world. Why would you want to undermine that?

Ditto. You can just about count on one hand the number of times heroes die in Bionicle, and with the Red Star retcon, Matoro's is pretty much the only death that actually stuck. A story has no stakes if there's no cost or consequences. 

[Xboxtravis]

On 1/6/2023 at 9:18 AM, Lorentz said:

It still absolutely baffles me how anyone actually wants this. First off, Matoro already sacrificed himself and got revived during the trials of the 777 steps. Second, it would completely invalidate the impact of his sacrifice. Finally, that already sort of happened with both Jaller and Takanuva back in Mask of Light, and everybody hated it. The whole point was that Matoro gave up his own life to save his world. Why would you want to undermine that?

I would much rather have Matoro back (in a literary sense it feels fitting as a sort of Messianic figure in the Bionicle lore) than what we did get with the Red Star where "EVERYBODY IS BACK! (*Except Matoro and Sidorak for some reason. Some of the people back may also be zombies. Plot terms and conditions may apply.)"

Its just sort of a literary/religious/mythological trope that the hero who gives up their life for the whole universe comes back. Jesus. Gandalf. Osiris. I know its not always applied, Iron Man certainly had a similar sacrifice to Matoro in the MCU during Endgame (but a deleted scene at least showed Tony Stark reaching a sort of afterlife and seeing a vision of his adult daughter in the Soul Stone Realm). Its just sort of expected in literature that when a hero of such status dies, they come back... somehow and Bionicle is really strange as a hard aversion where Matoro is the Messianic figure who is Dead with a capital "D" and not only that but EVERYBODY ELSE who died in the story is actually back through the Red Star. It feels subversive, and not exactly in a way I really think sits well with a lot of people. (Likewise I think the Jaller and Takanuva revivals in Mask of Light sit weird with people because of how unearned it is in a mythological sense. If Matoro died to save a universe, Takanuva died to open a door and Jaller died getting hit with a magic fear stick... its not really any sacrifice weighted the same in the audience's mind). 

Either LEGO & Greg made the most brilliant trope subversion ever, or they handled resurrection and revival in Bionicle in the most backwards way possible. Just depends on how you view it. 

Also to add Matoro died in a really voluntary sense, it was a chosen and willing sacrifice and not an accidental one like Jaller, Takanuva or Lhikan. Without violating forum rules on really deep dives into religious and literary discussion; the voluntary aspect of Matoro's death is part of why I think people want him back more-so than other deaths in story. Very much a "Mata-Nui thy will not mine" situation which has a lot of parallels to stuff which make people expect a resurrection afterwards. 

I mean, Mata-Nui himself gets in a giant robot punching match, sacrifices his life energy to reform a world... but then gets to tell the audience he is going to enjoy his retirement sitting in contemplation inside the Mask of Life and that he is not "really dead" just "out of the picture." Again a really good example at how Bionicle handled its revival after death rules so goofily.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Xboxtravis

[Nato G]

4 hours ago, Xboxtravis said:

Either LEGO & Greg made the most brilliant trope subversion ever, or they handled resurrection and revival in Bionicle in the most backwards way possible. Just depends on how you view it. 

That's wholly on Greg. The Red Star being a resurrection station was a retcon that was tacked on after the story was ended because, by his own admission, Greg just wanted to do a "zombies in space" story. But weird as the Red Star resurrection reveal was, it still had clear rules for who could be resurrected and how, and the nature of Matoro's death meant there was nothing left of him to resurrect. 

Even in a universe where death is cheap, sacrifices should still have meaning. Matoro's death wouldn't be the tragic, bittersweet gut-punch it is if he got to just come back afterwards. 

[Xboxtravis]

On 1/7/2023 at 2:44 PM, Nato G said:

That's wholly on Greg. The Red Star being a resurrection station was a retcon that was tacked on after the story was ended because, by his own admission, Greg just wanted to do a "zombies in space" story. But weird as the Red Star resurrection reveal was, it still had clear rules for who could be resurrected and how, and the nature of Matoro's death meant there was nothing left of him to resurrect. 

Even in a universe where death is cheap, sacrifices should still have meaning. Matoro's death wouldn't be the tragic, bittersweet gut-punch it is if he got to just come back afterwards. 

Yeah, its the way the Red Star made death cheap that makes Matoro's perma-death weirder. Like had Lhikan, etc. and all those stayed dead as well; Matoro being dead would not be anything out of the ordinary. Its just the sudden "zombies in space" door that opened with the Red Star that makes things get weird, and the weird backwards logic of having Matoro dead but characters like Mavrah are alive again. 

Even then we'd still have the Takanuva/Jaller/Mata-Nui instances, but those would seem like exceptions to the rule and not the norm. 

[Nato G]

3 hours ago, Xboxtravis said:

...the weird backwards logic of having Matoro dead...

There's nothing backwards about it. The Red Star rules are pretty clear about requiring a body to resurrect. Even whatever happened with Jaller in Mask Of Light still required using a part of his physical form. It's very much in line with the way resurrection is treated in a lot of other franchises, with some remnant of the victim being required for the process to work. 

Matoro was essentially disintegrated. Him being unable to be resurrected due to having no physical remains is pretty logical (insofar as anything in Bionicle is logical). Besides, someone having to sacrifice their life to resurrect the Great Spirit wouldn't be as big of a deal if Mata Nui could just immediately resurrect them in turn. Especially in Matoro's case, since he already had a fake-out sacrifice in the 2006 storyline. Having him die and come back twice in two years would've completely undercut any stakes the story had. 

3 hours ago, Xboxtravis said:

...but characters like Mavrah are alive again. 

This is admittedly more anecdotal, but Mavrah's fate was so ambiguous in the book that I spent years thinking he'd survived and would show up again at some future point in the story. A well-intentioned Matoran villain was such a cool concept that the story never really revisited.

As cool as it was to see him again, the Red Star revealing he actually had died was honestly kind of disappointing for me.