My thoughts and reactions about the Toy Fair summer set images. Note a lot of this is my own personal taste, along with some predictions on what most fans will like thus will sell well. (Entry on Taste Discrimination coming in just a few days this week.)

Before I begin, lemme point out that how I am defining "cool" IMT in this entry is shown in the Ruthless Elegance blog entry (see the linklist content block). It's what I personally like in Bionicle sets, but also what generally seems to be what most fans also like, so my reactions to some of this might be helpful in that way. I'm going to note some places where I differ too.

Nynrah Ghost Blasters


Awesome concept. I love anything involving ghosts. I don't even have a clue what it means and I love it already. This weapon is much cooler IMT than the style of the Cordak or the rear half of the Midak -- it's not quite up to Zamor or Kanoka launcher levels of coolness but it's an improvement.

Biggest thing is that there's at least something "cool" about the whole thing. The ammo itself is somewhat stylized in the front, and the accordion part is cool with its serrations in the back. The shape and side-swiping pieces is coherent (unlike the Cordak), and looks pretty good.

Plus it's yet another method of launching, one that reminds me of old-fashioned machinery and thus gets automatic kudos -- very innovative for a Bionicle weapon, yet bringing back a concept from past LEGO lines. Some worry LEGO will run out of ways to fire Bionicle weapons (I'm still hoping for bow and arrow weapons!), and maybe so, but we're definately not there yet!

And the "red" part on the Cordak seems to only be red with a set with red -- so we have color coordination back.

Only thing is it still could use a little more styling like Toa swords or the like get, including the ammo -- we really have yet to see truly styled ammo except for the rubber Squids which had other problems).

But overall, bravo!



Makuta Mistika

For a fan of "ruthless elegance", these are sheer perfection. I am frankly shocked at just how awesome Krika is -- the only problem is I won't even be able to coolify him at all. THAT is exactly the kind of thing I've been saying for a while I love and want more of. I don't even mind that he's white and red which aren't usually my favorite color combos.



Second fave is lime Gorast -- great mask (seems kinda Doomahlike, and also a lot like the MOL Kraakhan or however it's spelled lol), six limbs , great claws. The wings are pretty good too, though I could coolify 'em. They look like they could double as interesting Toa swords.



Bitil's body design and limb arrangement is still unclear to me so reserving total judgement. The weapons are some of the coolest I've seen in the whole three-year arc though. And that mask is awesome. BTW, is it just me or might there be a Hordika neck in those heads? Or something similar? Because those are the good old Bohrok eyes. Also, yellow and black works well for him.



Vehicles

Haaaaaaaa-HWOOOT!

Wow. I'm very impressed. Toa Ignika was a hint that Bionicle vehicles were getting more "ruthlessly elegant" but I didn't expect this. One possible concern is that Bionicle fans traditionally look at bigger sets as "Too 'Technic', not 'Bionicle' enough", and I see a lot of Technic design elements in this. This is a risky move that hopefully the minority fans on here will like, but we'll have to see how it plays with most fans.



Personally I love Jetrax's and Vultraz's vehicles best. Rockoh's is pretty cool too. Axalara's is a little blander and more "technicy", although I like the boldness of how freakin huge the front is with the tri-wing design behind it. It does resemble some spaceships I've designed before, lol.



But the silvery, knifelike designs on Jetrax's, with those awesome engines are the height of cool in vehicle design.



With the figures themselves, I did think the color schemes could have matched the vehicles much better. I'm really tired of red and green being combined, ever since one of the Vahki if memory serves. IMT it's really not a cool combo. It's Christmasy, I'll give you, but that isn't usually related to how it's used. Red figure with blue vehicle is unfortunate too. I never was that huge a fan of the old "Takua" coloring. Seems too "American wearing jeans" rather than Bionicle, if you will. Orange with green is okay though, but again better combos could be picked.



I'd personally put red with red on Axalara, orange with blue (okay, it's my blog colors so sue me), and green with green. Also, I'd keep Vultraz red but use less of it.

Overall, I hope this sells well, cuz it roxorz!


Takanuva

HANDZZZZZZ!



For many years past, Binkmeister would do a review of a Toa and he'd say something to the effect that he just didn't get the "Toa shoulder" pieces being used as hands. We've sortof gotten used to them since 2001 which did have some hands, but really, they're a copout IMT.

In recent years with titans Bionicle has been steadily improving some hand designs, such as Axonn and Hydraxon (Ironicles!). But we've yet to see one in a Toa. True, Takanuva is now a titan, but he's really not that much bigger than canister sets.

I'd like to see hands like that be migrated somehow to canister sets in the future.

Takanuva as a whole is rad cool, definately up to par and improved upon 2003. The shadow/light dichotomy is portrayed well in set form. He's got tons of ruthless elegance, especially the hands and mask. And he's really almost identical in the most visible features to his 2003 form so he's easily recognizeable, at least if you heard about the Shadow leech attack, heh.

THAT is what I would want in Toa, albeit sized down slightly and put in canisters.


Toa Mistika

Sigh.

Yeah, that's pretty much the chorus out there, I know, but... I dunno, I just keep wanting more out of the Toa Newva. If you'll pardon me, I'm going to begin with a huge con for once.

The masks.

And yes I know it's possible they're prototypes but I saw nothing on that either way, so it's wishful thinking at this point.

I defended the Nuva Phantoka's masks because in addition to looking "ruthlessly elegant", they bore a lot of resemblance to the 2001 and/or 2003 forms of the masks. The Kakama is the same basic shape, and even resembles the also-similar Vahi. The Miru looks very much like the Miru Nuva fused to a modified Miru Mata. The Akaku is admittedly weak and looks a little more like Toa Metru Nuju's mask, but the characteristic visor is of course similar.

But these? The closest similarity I found is the serrations on Tahu's knight-helmet-mask. His is also my favorite of these three, but really, it's Knight's quest more than something I would want on a Toa (that's me). And the facial expression of it looks... I dunno, timid, fearful? I could imagine plenty of similar but much more heroic designs.



On the plus side, I do have a fundamental difference with most fans here -- with the Hordika, I wanted more beast-like heroes, but they wanted more heroic looking ones. I think it's why I've begun to like the villain designs slightly better than the hero designs in recent years. And you gotta admit, a knight's mask, even with the facial expression, is the very symbol of heroism.

Onua's mask is fairly cool looking. I did want more resemblance to the Pakari Mata as that is one of the most "ruthlessly elegant" masks ever IMT and it was the one that got me looking at Bionicle in the first place, but I can buy this. There IS a sliiiight resemblance to the Pakari Nuva. I still say Onua should have purple in his color scheme though to be more eye-catching.



And Gali's mask. This frankly looks like a prototype more than a Kanohi you would actually buy. I can only hope. It's the most dissapointing, especially on a female. I didn't mind Hahli Inika's moustache, because the mask still looked feminine, but this is Krekka's face. Only reeeeeally simplified, minus anything "cool" as that means to me, and really not even that coherent.

Plus side is the "fins" on the sides of the mask. Those are pretty cool.



The "jet" things -- Eh, reasonable. I had been hoping for something unique to each one like the Phantoka though. They're nice quaint little pieces that I think I will love for System/Bionicle Fusion MOCs. I especially like how the fin things attach to them in Tahu. Choice of red for Onua is confusing and conflicts his green eyes (there that pesky combo is again).

The "claw-decorations" like on Tahu's back of legs are cool. This especially brings "adaptive armor" to mind. This is spikes sticking off -- this is what I describe often as an essential to ruthless elegance. Much like the Piraka.

Gali's shoulder armor is excellence in silver plastic form. Coherent, bold spikes. Not sure if it's feminine but hey.

I could have picked "cooler" limb armor for Tahu, frankly -- the Metru blocky ones are kind bleah. Onua's is my favorite one though, and I see Gali has that too.

Feet -- I like Gali's Metru foot, and Onua has my absolute favorite foot ever (as I say every time I see it lol). That foot is ruthless elegance incarnate. Tahu's foot is that awkward Hahli Inika foot though that I keep hoping will die. It's not that cool.

Tools.

The only one I can make out for sure (aside from the blaster) is Tahu's. This is basically a simpler version of an old prototype shape seen in a titan prototype from 2005 that I've been desperately hoping would finally be used in set form for years. (That was a prototype Rhotuka apparently.) Bravo!

The thing on Gali's back -- I can't quite make it out, but it looks cool enough.

Onua -- I'm not sure if he's holding a tool??? There's something but the pose in the pics is too awkward.

Armor -- Okay, I know sets come before story, but if the Nuva have adaptive armor, why do we still have no body armor? I fail to see how lack of body armor makes them look more heroic. Maybe it's just me though.

Poses

BTW, why is it that LEGO poses the sets so awkwardly every single year? At toyfair is not the exception -- it's the rule even in the main marketing images for the most part. In 2001, the poses were awesome, though they were deceptive -- since the sets can do that now, why not pose them in cool ways too? I think the pose is a huge part of successful marketing.

I know some of this is just the angles those photos happened to be taken in, but still. Some of those poses are just weird, mainly Gali and Onua, and Krika too. A heroic pose could help too couldn't it?

Tahu's pose is pretty good though, and admittedly the characters on the vehicles are pretty much forced into those poses.

Plastic's Higher Cost

The biggest risk to these sets, and even to Bionicle's future, is possibly going to be the increased prices that have been forced on LEGO due to rising petroleum costs, and recently rising steel prices. The newly higher cost of a Makuta Mistika was put off for a few years, and for that LEGo deserves gratitude, but it's getting unrealistic to continue that. At some point you have to try to keep making a profit or at least breaking even, or it's not worth it.

As said in the last blog entry, this might be related to the problem in Canada with Walmart -- now you can see the problem is in the US as well, and probably everywhere else. This pretty much confirms that this is a huge part of the whole Canada Walmart fiasco, though there hasn't been an official explanation I've seen. Let's all be careful not to take this out on LEGO unreasonably -- remember the hold-off.

That said, if this is a trend (and it might not be), LEGO may eventually have to abandon plastic altogether, just as it originally did not use plastic. But for now, we're probably a long ways off from that decision.

Prediction Time

These villains should explode the shelves, let alone fly off them. Krika might be very hard to find, heh. I expect these to sell like Piraka and Barraki, and possibly much better.

Takanuva is very, very "Bionicle" and heroic even despite the dichotomy of light and shadow, and should sell well for a titan. The results for him interest me especially.

The mixed hero and villain release schedule should work well as predicted for spring sets, because most fans are roleplayers and this allows instant roleplaying. This alone could make sales shoot through the roof.

The vehicles will definately sell better than the 2001 Rahi as they are still very Bionicle, but whether they'll sell like 2003 Ussanui and Takanuva considering that they're so huge (some anyways) remains to be seen. It's a big risk. I'm not confident enough to predict anything except that the smaller and well-color-comboed Vultraz should sell well.

The Toa are heroic (with possible exceptions in Tahu's expression and Gali's mask) and should sell well. That said, there's still room for more "coolifying" and I still think that this can be done in a heroic way that could improve their sales even more (like Takanuva 2008!!!). I predict they will sell sell, but possibly slightly less than the Nuva Phantoka prediction.

Comparing to the Inika/Mahri, they will either sell slightly worse, or better, depending on how much the fans see the "heroic" question and the coolness. I do not expect them to be either rocking successes or dismal failures.

A big problem for Bionicle recently has simply been that it needs to be marketed better to get the word out -- this hurt 2007 in some ways. Assuming these get marketed well, Bionicle 2008 should prove to be a strong year, probably around what it was in 2006, maybe even surpassing it!