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Xboxtravis

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Everything posted by Xboxtravis

  1. Hafu had a black Ruru, so the mask did appear in a wide-release set in 2001. However it also seems that LEGO didn't always correspond the prototype masks to final set designs, like we saw in that Bionicle pitch video Faber posted recently that had every character wearing a Hau and sometimes of the wrong color to their respective elements.
  2. Oh my, I had forgotten that was a thing that totally happened in the story already. The books were wild. 😅
  3. It's a literary thing, people tend to like messianic figures to come back from the dead for literature reasons going back several thousand years. It's not like there aren't other heroic sacrifices in media recently that seem to be permanent and "not being reversed" like Tony Stark in the Avengers movies, but for the most part people tend to have big heroic figures who die like Matoro come back to life. Harry Potter does it at the end of the final book, Gandalf returns from falling down the Mines of Moria, Obi-Wan returns as a Force ghost after sacrificing himself in his duel against Vader, Spock is revived on the Genesis planet in a new body which eventually reunites with his original soul, Sherlock Holmes faked his death in his fight against Moriarty on Reichenbach Falls and eventually returned after some time assumed dead, etc. So Matoro is either the greatest subversion because it showcases the cost of heroic sacrifices in a realistic measure, or a constant frustrating plot choice that breaks a strong literature trope. I think the problem lies in the introduction of the Red Star, if all Bionicle characters were assumed dead then Matoro wouldn't feel to out of place. When we find out that Lhiikan, etc. have been chilling up on the Red Star very much alive since their "death" it makes Greg feel capricious and cruel towards Matoro, that in a massive sea of "alive again" characters that the one who by all literary expectations should be the one alive again is the one who is "very very very dead." The rules feel arbitrary and like Greg wanted to have his cake and eat it to by keeping Matoro dead while bringing everybody else back to life.
  4. Good camera filming lens and focus to see the detail of the machining lines left as mold marks on the prototype masks. I love how you can tell how rushed and unpolished those prototype molds were compared to the production versions by looking for those slight molding defects on the mask.
  5. I do not own it, but I will bring up I handled the Platinum Avohkii once. Cool, very heavy, very expensive and could never afford to own it but I will gladly say I have spent a few seconds with it. As for the rarest thing I actually own? Some of the European "Misprints" I guess. White and brown Matatus, and a blue Ruru (I also own a red Ruru but since that showed up in the clock it's not quite as rare as the other "misprints" are).
  6. I have seen this off switch. If you hit it hard enough the Turaga will move their right arm in response, and then it will snap back into place, as if pulled by a spring of some sort. 🤣
  7. Incorrect, Kopaka would just silently suffer with insomnia and never ask for help while silently judging Tahu. 🤣 Lewa would be begging for sleep help, Pohatu would appreciate it, Onua doesn't need it because he sleeps just fine, and Gali would say she prefers to read a book, watch ASMR videos and drink some herbal tea instead.
  8. I checked BioSector01, and sure enough there is a small footnote linking to a "Chat with Greg" saying Tahu did abandon the armor eventually which while I agree with you it was a major choice, it seems funny it's just another casual "Greg said on the forum chat" tidbit in the Bionicle lore.
  9. This summed up my thoughts as well. The active Bionicle fans are now leaning towards being in likely a median age of their late 20's and into early 30's. The "new fans" from G2 are probably now in their teens if not early 20's. It is the stage of life where people have real jobs and disposable income. Of course the Bionicle market I think is much wider than we often realize outside a few chase collectibles. It was at one point one of the largest toys in the world in terms of market share and models produced. However the condition of used toys and the large amount of toys that were either thrown out or held by their original owner who isn't selling them is what is also contributing to an over inflated sense of rarity. I do wish more collectors realized that though and refused to buy at some of the overinflated prices we are now seeing.
  10. Well, you got actual data from pulling Kraata packs which could maybe with enough samples suggest if they were actually statistically rarer for some reason. Even then we might never know the "why" of it at all. Think about the silver Nuva Masks also from 2003. Why were those so rare? Unlike the Gold masks the year prior there was no real advertisement of them, unlike the Vahi there was no push to "chase it" or any promotions like the copper masks or the Trans-neon green Miru had where they were handed out at specific locations. If anything the silver Nuva masks were overshadowed by all the metal Krana Kal promotions and chase sets! The silver Nuva masks are rare for reasons LEGO never really advertised, and were products I imagine many Bionicle fans (myself included) were not really aware existed until they began a serious deep dive into masks produced years after these masks were long off store shelves. 2003 is just a glut year in general for weird Bionicle collector's stuff (*cough* Platinum Avohkii *cough*) and the Kraata just sort of fit the trend that LEGO was tossing everything at the wall they could. As an aside the one time I got to see and handle the Platinum Avohkii in person, I later learned its owner had so little of the silver Nuva masks he couldn't sell any as spares... That is comical to imagine that plastic parts that were supposedly in mass produced sets have a rarity that somebody who paid five figures for a solid platinum mask regards the silver Nuva pieces with similar rarity; but something really was just messed up in how LEGO handled those that caused this artificial rarity we are now stuck with.
  11. It is in this Google Drive: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17hRhzagTGwiSroqkkpgHo8u1oHHnEy4t/edit#gid=667561492
  12. Well... I'll gladly dispute it. 🤣The Toa Metru dragged an entire city's population of people from Metru-Nui to Mata-Nui (while the Turaga probably hoped to return to Metru-Nui they had no guarantee it would happen either though and there was a possibility their trip to Mata-Nui was a one-way trip). They sacrificed their powers to revive all those people. They lead those people to rebuild their civilization (apparently well enough that even some skilled technical people such as Nuparu were able to re-learn hard skills such as engineering). In the process they lead that civilization to last for a constant siege nearly a millennia long, against hordes of Rahi without any Toa to protect them until the Toa Mata finally showed up ashore 1000 years late. I think a lot has been said about the Turaga "lying" to the population of Mata-Nui, but I don't see it as that. I would say their only notable lie was when they sent the Toa Nuva to Voya-Nui because the Great Spirit was dying, however that was in a much different situation at that point than the Matoran were living under the "Great War" before the Toa Mata arrived. Keeping secrets is not exactly the same as lying outright, and although elements of Matoran history like Lhikan were twisted into Lhii the Surfer and other things were not reveled to the Matoran, can you blame the Turaga? They never knew for sure if they would return to Metru-Nui, and the longer they spent on Mata-Nui without the Toa arriving probably made them more and more desperate in believing the promised Toa who would save them would never arrive. Every day passed on Mata-Nui was another day where it was likely the legends had failed, another day where it seemed likely that the Matoran who lived on the island were the last of their kind; a dying civilization holding onto whatever threads they could as their Great Spirit slowly died. Now if you were in the same situation, would you have done any differently? Told the Matoran about Metru-Nui and the technological paradise you used to call home? Or would you focus on building out your new society, and doing your best to make Mata-Nui as much of a paradise as you could under constant Rahi siege while clinging to a hope that old legends of the Toa Mata would eventually prove themselves true? The Turaga get to much flak for not disclosing everything they knew, when its pretty obvious their leadership role held together society for 1000 years. Again I will argue the key difference later with the Great Spirit dying was at that point the Matoran had returned to Metru-Nui, the Turaga had disclosed all their previous secrets (in a long story form); and then chose to lie at that point to hide the even worse truth they just discovered (plus Jaller et. al. were fated to become Toa anyways, so its likely in whatever techno-fate-programming thing was going on Jaller's anger and subsequent organized strike were just the start of his destined path to becoming a Toa Inika soon after). But again I sort of understand the Turaga, they were probably as shocked and traumatized by the idea that the Great Spirit could die as anybody; and were probably lying as some sort of traumatic protection; to avoid the truth that their god-universe robot guy was on the verge of death. What were we talking about, Su-Matoran? 🤣 To briefly comment on OP's topic, I just always assumed Su-Matoran were rarer by design. Maybe there was some sort of "expense" that made them harder to "make" than the more common Ta-Matoran. If a Ta-Matoran can do 99% of the fire related jobs in the Great Spirit Robot, and only 1% of those jobs need a Su-Matoran; you make the population match the needs of the 99% of work and just have a small portion of Su-Matoran around for the really really really hot stuff.
  13. I handled some prototype masks once from the early stages of Bionicle (ones with codes on the face), and there is one thing on them that is hard to capture without seeing them in person; is how rough they actually are. It is pretty simple really, LEGO in prototype phases probably uses quickly made molds using CNC machines, the result being notable lines which show where the CNC drill bit cut out material, flash from loose tolerances, and other imperfections which denote how rushed the part was. As this photo I have stolen from the internet demonstrates, note the flash on the bottom of the Pakari, or the prominent sprue cut on the Miru's nose: However, this is a good thing for fans looking to avoid fakes. Injection molding at home to imitate official masks would produce masks that look like the prototypes! Most amateur hobbyists would lack access to the funds required to create a true high quality mold, and while its possible somebody with a CNC machine and injection molder could create low quality molds similar to the prototype masks, it would be hard to create a truly polished high tolerance mold to get a 100% real LEGO feel. Of course it does mean prototype "numbers forward" masks could be more easily faked, but it lends credence to the idea that all authentic masks would have that distinct LEGO quality of polish and sheen (those in the Twitter post look very promising because of that along with the color matching to official LEGO parts). Yes a hobbyist CAN really make a somewhat convincing mask if they machined the mold for it properly, but its a very demanding process. By the way, just check out how CNC machining molds work; very cool process and yes the tech exists to get some high quality stuff now; although still not quite as solid as LEGO's official (and very expensive) methods: Now as for resin masks. As mentioned already, printed masks will always have printer lines. But molded resin can have a smoother finish. My guess is for a non-destructive test to tell the difference between resin and authentic LEGO plastic is to use the scientific theories of density (ala Archimedes measuring the density of the king's crown in legend). We could weigh suspect masks vs. known LEGO pieces to determine their weight, resin often weighs slightly more than ABS and other comparable plastics. Then using water displacement we can determine the volume of the piece, then finally calculate the density to compare the values of density with known resin and plastics. If it matches the density of official LEGO parts such as other Bionicle masks, it is a strong candidate for authenticity! Edit: In the case of the Twitter thread it should also be pointed out there is a known production list of masks which includes many masks not represented in publicly released sets. The masks from the Twitter post do match the identities of known masks combinations from that production list.
  14. Yeah I built the Netflix model (sans the 3D printed mask) and while it was impressive to hold, it was a pain to disassemble so many G2 sets just to get that one character. I would need to buy a ton of parts to have on hand to be able to make it without breaking down other sets, and it really diminishes the appeal of having Makuta built all the time.
  15. I do think there are a few missed opportunities, a few I disagree with though in OP's list. One I do agree with certainly, is the lack of any proper G2 Makuta set. The combiner model we got while cool, is expensive and flimsy. Even a plain "Mask Maker" version with the Mask of Ultimate Power would have been nice, even if the bigger titan was still a combiner model only; since at least it would be an easy way to have gotten Makuta in "plastic" in G2. I would have loved to have seen what was planned for Bionicle 2017, period. One I disagree with is the Sand Tarakava. Most evidence backs up now that it was not a unique "Sand Tarakava" retail set prototype, but just a prototype of the final Tarakava before the colors were finalized; so in all ways we DID get the Tarakava as a set. I like that the yellow sand version was made canon via Greg, and that we can Bricklink most of the yellow parts as fans; but the model had its roots in the Tarakava set we did get. Another set I wish we got, more mask packs! Collectibles really fell in quality in Bionicle and its a shame we never got a 2004 mask pack with either the Metru masks or the 2001 Noble Masks in Metru color blends; or even G2 Mask Packs in 2015 (if a full set of masks in all six colors was to much in 2015; even just some alternative colors like silver or gunmetal masks to chase would have been a nice variety from the gold masks). Bionicle collectibles are a sad story of genius start (Kanohi), rapid inflation and consumer overwhelming through overly broad lines (Krana and Kraata), fun but simple (Kanoka) and then finally increasingly absurd descents into being glorified ammo boxes (squid ammo box); and is something Bionicle really fumbled during its run.
  16. "We met other Bionicle fans on furry forums" My honest reaction to that information: 🤪 Honestly though I am not really one who finds Bionicle fans that often, its more that I am the one putting out bait for them to find me. Drop a Bionicle reference into a railroad fan group to see if how many people catch the joke. Etc.
  17. First off, I will preface this by recommending two videos from Christian Faber's YouTube channel which goes into behind the scenes concept art from Bionicle G2's early conception phase... and which are both required pieces of context for the rest of my thoughts. Okay so now that we got the idea in our heads that G2 was the result of a time traveling villain completing the upper half of the Mask of Time and using it to revert back to a different timeline where Makuta still had a chance of winning while also utilizing the portal through the Well of Time (the same Well of Time which took Mr. Makuro from his life as a Matoran/Toa/Turaga in the Bionicle universe to the Milky Way Galaxy where he would found Hero Factory by the way) oh and it all ties somehow into Slizer and Roboriders; and the whole Bionicle saga is a mythic arc where history mirrors and repeats itself due to the consequences wrought by time travel... Everything we know about Bionicle canon and lore is broken. Or maybe not, I don't know. I think a large aspect of the Bionicle fandom which has long dominated is our dogmatic adherence to canon. I do not think this is entirely in error or a mistake... LEGO hired author Greg Farshtey to present books and comics to the fandom, and not only that Greg was willing enough to sit down and listen to us all as 12 year olds in these very forums asking the most banal and detail attentive questions about the Bionicle world. Word of Greg is supreme, its the words we etch into stone and enshrine in the halls of BioSector01 articles. Kudos to Greg, he was always fair game to it and even returned when many of us were adults to declare canon some lucky MOCs that won contests. I wish him the best of luck in his new career since he was laid off by LEGO last year. The concept of canon itself predates of course modern internet nerdom, having roots in ancient debates over scripture. Religious elders would decide what books belong in compilations of scripture, and which were apocrypha. Its ironic then that such a concept has seeped into our pop-culture literature ideas, and anybody who wants to realize geeks can make as much fuss as any council on scripture only needs to look back to when Disney declared the old Star Wars Expanded Universe to be "Legends." But now in the Bionicle fandom we are presented with our own point of doctrinal schism. Word of Greg for as long as it has stood, is not compatible with the Word of Faber. Who ranks higher, the franchise co-creator who dreamed up so much of what made Bionicle unique? Or the author who worked hours to put word to paper, and spent decades patiently talking directly to fans? In a system of dogmatic canon Word of Greg and Word of Faber can never exist. One says "Love Isn't Canon", the other speaks of how has spent time asking how robots would love and create. One says the worlds of Hero Factory and Bionicle are apart, the other states that they were one in the same the whole time. One has a world populated with characters we the audience got to help create like Helyrx and the Toa Hagah, the other would likely declare them apocrypha, "Legends" so to speak. That is without mentioning of course the Word of Swinnerton. The Word of Templar Studios. The Word of Creative Capers. The Word of Saffire Studios. The Word of Ryder Windham. The Word of that Cool Guy on the Forums Who Seemed Really Smart. Etc. Voices of what we have called canon, clashing against each other; a confused sea of contradictory statements and ideas. But the truth is, it was always like this. Bionicle from its onset was a collaborative story, and the voices were never meant to be seen as at odds with each other. Bionicle as a work as to complicated to messy to have a clean canon, since the story group that lead it was more concerned with expressing big ideas than in detailing minutia. Men and women put time into creating for our silly toyline of plastic robots, a mythology a living breathing world (or at least it was in our imaginations) which despite its contradictions (or perhaps because of them) lived in our imaginations. The deeper we go into Bionicle's lore and origins the less makes sense, but it only makes the journey more rewarding. It makes one appreciate the human work of artists and authors in imagining this world more, for all its human quirks. Also a preemptive congratulations to whoever makes that cool MOC/art piece/short story of Turaga Makuro falling through the Well of Time to end up starting Hero Factory on the other end of it, I am sure that is going to be dope. 😜
  18. @Tohunga Premium, having built JTO Makuta myself I suspect had that figure ever been released as a set it would have been significantly altered. The current model as stands is pretty complicated and has some fragile assembly which limits how it can be displayed. My guess is JTO Makuta is much more similar to a concept model, and not so much a finished set proposal.
  19. Had Bionicle continued past 2010 we might have seen CCBS versions of the Glatorian arc characters eventually... so there is a strong element of "what might have been?" with this I like.
  20. Every now and then I still grab a bag of Bionicle parts from the local Bricks and Minifigures, but its pretty irregular. I do still have collection goals and sets I want, but my last big surge in collecting was 2020-2021 or so during the pandemic. Stuck in lockdown, living with my parents; I was outright splurging to buy Bionicle sets. I spent one Zoom class distracted by building the Tarakava I just bought off Bricklink, and I was rushing to fill in gaps in my collection that I never completed when I was a kid. The last few years though my place in life changed. I moved out from home, class resumed in person, and entering my senior levels of studying my focus began to shift towards paying rent and keeping on top of my homework so the long and grueling time I have spent in school to get my MechE degree can finally end (past ten years since I left high school now and entered college between shifting majors & transferring schools plus two years of religious service abroad, multiple repeat classes and surviving the ordeal the "Zoom years" were). Even with my hope to soon be done with school, I still have student loans, medical bills, the need to upgrade my computer, and a half dozen hobbies other than LEGO (travel goals, TTRPGs, vinyl record collecting, cartoon sketching, model railroading, etc.) all competing for time and shelf space which will continue to be a thing even once class is done. That's not to mention my constant feeling I need to get out and socialize more and that so many of my hobbies being solo activities can be sometimes self detrimental to my own mental state. As such my Bionicle (well all my LEGO collection to be honest) lives at my parent's home still, and while I still buy LEGO regularly its a much slower and more measured pace than it was during my splurge years in the pandemic. I also had an experience where I visited the Bionicle Archives in their old Harriman location before they moved out as well during those years. While it was literally The Dream™️ to see all the Bionicle sets plus replicas of the canonized Rahi/Dark Hunters and rare oddities like the Platinum Avohkii, metal Krana, Gold Hau, prototype parts, etc... it was also maybe a cap of sorts on my aspirations as a collector. I will never have anything the size of that collection, and in reality I don't really have a desire to with Bionicle. I certainly have gaps in my collection I want to fill out, and ideas aplenty I would love to try someday with MOCs if I developed my parts collection and skills. But I will never be the "peak" collector unless I somehow robbed the house of Andre, Duck Bricks or Eljay... and honestly I'm okay with that. There is something in collecting as a hobby where we often need to realize where we are content and can comfortably stop, and I am much closer to that for me than I often would care to admit. Even my own collection at my parent's house is a dusty unorganized mess that requires more time to fix it up than I care to put into it right now, and that tells me I need to figure out in the future how to collect smarter and not just focus on acquiring "MOAR." So am I still collecting? The basic answer is yes. But the complicated answer is life sure finds a way to get in-between me and just going out and buying old Bionicle sets on a whim. I don't think its a bad thing outright, life is supposed to be kind of like this and its okay.
  21. That is a pretty solid build idea. Admittedly with the new "Custom Lineage" rules in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything I am not sure if we would have to stick to a half-orc or orc, we could kitbash a Skakdi into the game easily now at least. A Warforged could also maybe work due to their biomechanical nature. Artificer does make sense as a class for the limited magic and tech stuff though.
  22. To be honest, I have no clue. But looking at it, all I can take a guess at is it was distributed in the random packs and maybe wasn't as common as the others? Could be the sand-blue makes it often confused for say the Disintegration Kraata, and maybe its sometimes hidden in Bricklink lots by people not aware of what each Kraata variant really is? Kraata are just so strange overall, really a moment of collector's glut from LEGO compounded by the Rahkshi design actually not SHOWING the Kraata once in the suit. I find both that (and the Krana-Kal) to be some of the weirder collector's items of classic Bionicle, by creating a rare item which is not actually visible in the finished set on display. Its cool how many Kraata variants we got, but strange to try and make sense of it.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. First Mate Delk featuring a 3D printed Varku mask I bought from Eden Sanders.
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