transforms the surrounding area into a walmart warehouse

all of the characters around them suddenly gain two-dimensional personalities and become underdeveloped

(so, if we're talking later years of BIONICLE, practically nothing)

- Indigo Individual

I dunno, but his/her weakness would be slight dampness.

all of the characters around them suddenly gain two-dimensional personalities and become underdeveloped

(so, if we're talking later years of BIONICLE, practically nothing)

 

- Indigo Individual

So basically nothing would have changed from 01 - 10?

all of the characters around them suddenly gain two-dimensional personalities and become underdeveloped

(so, if we're talking later years of BIONICLE, practically nothing)

 

- Indigo Individual

~B~

all of the characters around them suddenly gain two-dimensional personalities and become underdeveloped

(so, if we're talking later years of BIONICLE, practically nothing)

 

- Indigo Individual

Later years? I don't think Bionicle's characterization was ever all that great, but I would consider it to have gotten BETTER as the theme progressed, not worse.

The Toa Mata were never much more than basic character archetypes and never really got any decent character development across Bionicle's entire ten-year run. The Turaga were slightly better... but solely because of their later development as Toa Metru, which gave them the clearest and strongest character arc of any characters in the series. And the Toa Inika/Mahri, while maybe not getting as much development as the Metru (due to the Metru starting from the end and then having to work their way there) at least had interesting relationship dynamics and conflicts that went beyond "Working together sucks, let's split up so we can start losing battles again."

As for villains, they only ever started getting ANY character development around 2005/2006—before that the only enemies who hadn't been mindless drones were Makuta (some hated his development into a chessmaster but it was better than his previous run as a generic overlord who could only ever win by sowing doubt in the hearts of his enemies and WOULD NOT DIE), the Bahrag (boring insect queens; zero character development), and the Bohrok Kal (who, despite having more personality than the Bohrok, all had the SAME personality and apart from their powers were more or less interchangeable). It wasn't until 2004 that we actually got a villain with any sort of convincing motivation, and later years like 2006 and 2007 at least gave their villains diversity on par with the heroes even if their character development was never as strong.

So basically, what I'm saying is that if you reduce the poor character development of Bionicle to the "later years" you're basically whitewashing the early story's even more terrible record. And I don't think that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

 

all of the characters around them suddenly gain two-dimensional personalities and become underdeveloped

(so, if we're talking later years of BIONICLE, practically nothing)

 

- Indigo Individual

So basically nothing would have changed from 01 - 10?

 

the fact that the cardboard cutouts were there from the beginning, gradually went out of style and then returned in force right at the end of the series actually only occurred to me again right before i read this again

so yeah, actually

scrap that

practically nothing happens anytime

- Indigo Individual

So basically, what I'm saying is that if you reduce the poor character development of Bionicle to the "later years" you're basically whitewashing the early story's even more terrible record. And I don't think that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

 

ever as strong.

Generally speaking there is very little to speak of as far as characterization in BIONICLE, but MNOG is a major exception that I think grants the early years more slack in the eyes of many.

 

So basically, what I'm saying is that if you reduce the poor character development of Bionicle to the "later years" you're basically whitewashing the early story's even more terrible record. And I don't think that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

 

 

ever as strong.

Generally speaking there is very little to speak of as far as characterization in BIONICLE, but MNOG is a major exception that I think grants the early years more slack in the eyes of many.

 

That's true. It at the very least had characters with interesting dimensions to them, particularly the Chronicler's Company. Unfortunately, not much of the story followed up on that.

That's actually part of why I'm excited about the new Toa. Even though the storyline in general seems simple, the Toa HAVE at least gotten character quirks or flaws somewhat like those of the Chronicler's Company, that make them more than just "the hotheaded one" or "the cold, distant one" from the very start. If the story can maintain things like that and expand on them and deal with them as the story goes on, it could have the potential to make the new Toa much more complex than the Toa Mata had been.

Also, back on the actual topic of the blog entry...

transforms the surrounding area into a walmart warehouse

Don't forget that they'd have to absorb a comparable amount of cardboard from the environment beforehand.

Like Toa of Fire and Ice, Toa of Cardboard and Dampness don't get along well.