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Thoughts on Bionicle: Island of Lost Masks


Toa Smoke Monster

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This is the post I made in the Official Island of Lost Masks about latest Bionicle book. It sums up my thoughts on it, so I thought I would post it here too.

 

I've read through the whole book, and I will say that I enjoyed it. I really liked the first half of it, with the Toa working with their respective Protectors to obtain their Golden Masks. It was great to finally learn more about said Protectors, though I do think some of them weren't developed as well as some of the other ones. It was also good seeing how some of the other Toa besides Tahu got their masks. I'm really glad that this book didn't become a Tahu fest like a couple of the webisodes became. In fact, Tahu doesn't appear until page 39 of the book. (Yes, I noticed that. :P)

 

Learning more about Okoto's history, and how it was before Ekimu stopped Makuta, was also very interesting. I particularly liked that there are more than one destroyed city on the island. They could make for some great places to explore in the future.

 

But once the Toa meet up and go into the Ancient City, the book drops in quality IMO. The Lord of Skull Spiders is mentioned here and there in the first half of the book, but is beaten quickly by the Toa once he shows up. Just like in the webisode. The Skull villains are not given any real time to develop to anything more than 'bosses' for the Toa to face in the city. Only Skull Slicer and Skull Scorpio actually give the Toa any actual challenge when they appear. The Skull Warriors are beaten pretty quickly, and Skull Basher is only on three pages of the final chapter of the book. (Yes, I noticed that too.)

 

And then there is Ekimu and Skull Grinder. They both only appear in the last chapter, and Skull Grinder isn't even mentioned until then. Thus, there isn't any build up to him. He's just a villain who appears out of nowhere to suddenly try to destroy the Mask of Creation. Though he is shown to be quite a threat when he one-shots the Toa and destroys their masks. As for Ekimu, his story is told in the book, so his introduction isn't out of left field. What is odd to me, however, is the fact that he is ultimately the one who stops the Skull Grinder, not the Toa. I get that they wanted to show how powerful he was, but we had spent almost all the book with the Toa. I really wish that they had been the ones to defeat Skull Grinder, and not have Ekimu save the day at the last second.

 

This isn't to say that the second half of the book didn't have its good parts. The mentioned battles with the Skull Slicers and Skull Scorpios were good. There was also the 'Beware their Stinger Tails' quote which I thought was great reference to Gen 1 Bionicle. And Onua destroying parts of the city not going unnoticed by Ekimu. :)

 

Overall, I think that the fact that this book had to adopt its story from the webisodes hurt it. Especially the ending, which really felt rushed. But I also have remember that I'm an adult, one that is used to looking for and finding plot holes and errors in stories at that. Plus I'm used reading more complex stories. (Thanks, Gen 1 Bionicle. :P) What I'm saying is that this is a book that is not in my age range, and that even though I thought the ending could've been better, I still enjoyed the book overall. I really liked the first half of the book too. It did a good job of setting up the Gen 2 story with the history of Okoto and introducing the Toa and Protectors. The second half just doesn't have that same feeling. It feels too rushed. I really believe that the book would've benefited from having a few more pages added to its lengh, if only to help give the Skull villains a little more time in the spotlight.

 

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I thought I was joking earlier... but the book does indeed have two pages of filler between chapters. >.<

 

I wasn't very impressed with it, TBH.

 

:music:

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I thought I was joking earlier... but the book does indeed have two pages of filler between chapters. >.<

 

I wasn't very impressed with it, TBH.

 

:music:

You know, I didn't even realize that until you pointed it out. :o If those pages had been used for the story instead of filler, it could've been a better book!

 

I really wasn't either, but I still enjoyed parts of it. 

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