Wrinkledlion X

I remember your name, though no real details about you. It's certainly weird logging in here, seeing a name like Black Six in the four active users present, and then 60 or so "guests" who are probably all bots crawling over the corpse of the site, trying to absorb information for targeted ads. (What are they gonna sell to us anyways, with the franchise dead?) It's crazy that the site doesn't ever seem to fully die. Every time I visit, there are a few people present, often people who were very prominent in the community once. I wonder, are they posting, or sitting watch as moderators, or are they hanging around PMing each other? Or are they just locked into a habit of hanging out where they always have, attracted even more strongly to the site than I am, who only pops in a few times a year? All the same, it's comforting to see familiar names hanging out on here. It'll be a sad day when the site truly goes dark. I just wish all the threads from before the Dataclysm were still accessible-- there'd be a lot more to do here.

Ingenious! Love stuff like this. Where did you find this image, by the way? I don't recognize it.

On the most basic level, the exo toa launcher was the best. That thing REALLY worked. Among canister sets, the zamors were probably the best balance of aesthetic and function-- the only downside was how easily they fell out, but I'd always just add a piece on top so the ammo was secured. Rhotuka were also a lot of fun to play with, though somewhat gimmicky. Discs were just alright as projectiles, but the aesthetic was cool. Although I liked zamor launchers a lot, I think their success led later sets to rely too hard on launchers to the detriment of overall aesthetics. Especially with the cordak launchers and nynrah ghostblasters, you had these huge chunks of red and silver plastic that made cohesive color schemes impossible. Models like Jaller Mahri and Lesovikk stood out partly because they got to carry just a single weapon, and the simplicity made them look like noble figures. At that time I really missed the simplicity of design from the early years-- though 2009 did remedy this to some degree.

I know, it's such a shame! For me, MNOLG and the Templar flash animations were peak Bionicle. Nothing in the franchise ever captured the feeling of walking through an alien world quite like they did. That mood of unknown, ancient things lurking just below the surface and out of sight... so good. By contrast, the movies felt much more on-the-nose and lacking in subtlety-- so much of the appeal of MNOLG was in lingering on a particular screen for a while, soaking in the desolation of the desert or the grandeur of the Great Mines. The point-and-click nature of the game was brilliant for establishing mood, because there was no pressure to play the game quickly. The movies, in contrast, had to rush through plot points, and there wasn't much room for that meditative element. If Templar had kept making games, I can see the franchise retaining its mystical vibe for a lot longer. The supernatural and mysterious elements never truly left the storyline, after all-- the writing just got faster paced and more comic book-y, so those mysterious elements didn't have as much room to breathe. I bet Templar would have kept dropping hints about the Big Mystery, for one, like they did in Onu-Koro with the protodermis layer. Imagine-- standing atop a knowledge tower in Ko-Metru, hearing the sound of distant wind... watching the frost blow by in sparkling clouds. The feeling of stillness and mystery. You don't know it, but these crystal structures contain a fraction of the mind of Mata Nui. As you gaze into the crystal, you catch fragments of the great spirit's thoughts-- images of past and future flicker across the mirrorlike surface, rippling enigmas, offering nothing but more questions about the nature of this universe....... Also a variation of this would probably be playing:

I wonder if the ussal color scheme in the MNOLG was chosen with these prototypes in mind! Kids wanting to build Puku would have had just a bit more incentive to buy the Nui Rama.

I bought premier membership because I was a very strange child. I don't think they even had blogs yet, but there was a LEGO brick with "BZPower" printed on it which sealed the deal for me.

After Mata Nui leaves, so begins the transvaluation of all values. Without a god above, the task of the modern Matoran must be to find the god inside the individual-- to become a ruthless, Nietzschean Uber-matoran, unconstrained by morality, killing and conquering with the coldblooded beauty of a lion on the savannah .... Either that or hold out hope for an even BIGGER robot, maybe with the whole universe inside it this time. Different strokes.

What is contrived about it? That's the whole reason OP's having his problem, there's no incentive within the G1 universe and lore as of current that necessitates Turaga Nuva. Anything that would prompt the Toa Nuva to become Turaga, then, must be something that's made-up out of the blue--thus, contrived. Making new Toa is the only logical reason I see in this thread, but does Spherus Magna really need more Toa, especially with the revelation that Glatorian can use elemental powers? Can't they just retire?

Honestly if you told me that one of the Kal's powers was "UV Damage," I'd probably believe you. Not much weirder than "vacuum."

Ideally, I'd like a story that's vaguely in the same universe as G1 but doesn't attempt to touch all those messy loose ends at all. Set it eons in the future, Agori and Matoran have merged into a single race, the old Mata Nui robot is grown over and merely a part of the landscape, etc. A fresh start, but with a touch of uncanny mystery if the characters ever go underground and find the ruined, eons-dead cities in the domes... If you wanna bring back the original six Toa, make them either reincarnations of some kind, or hint at the idea that they've been in the wild elements doing their own thing for thousands of years. I don't imagine Christian Faber has any interest in getting tied up in whatever happened to Lewa after he got captured by those Jungle Agori in 2011.

So, this appears to depict a Toa canister drifting to shore....

Put this on when painting so you don't have to wait for it to dry.

Hohohoooo...

My favorite analogue that he gave is that the Toa literally show up in pill-shaped capsules. EDIT: The movies were heavily influenced by other film properties, moreso than the original 2001/02 media. The shape of MoL's story borrows a lot from Lord of the Rings, which was concluding that year, and the latter movies owe a lot of debt to Star Wars. Turaga Lhikan training the Toa with eye-masks is one example, Vakama turning to the dark side the same year as Return of the Sith is another.