Happy 10th anniversary, Bionicle 2010 storyline! :)

[Lenny7092]

This year, 2010, is the 10th anniversary of Bionicle’s 2010 storyline, the final storyline with Lego sets. It is about Mata Nui and Makuta Teridax using giant robot bodies to fight each other for the fate of Bara Magna while characters from past storylines or their counterparts participate and fight each other to help them. It’s because Mata Nui has to reform Spherus Magna, which was destroyed long ago and it is the primary purpose for Bionicle 2001-2010’s story, but Teridax is getting in his way. I know that Bionicle is not here, even that Faber was talking about it nowadays, but let’s be happy for Bionicle for something else. Think of the positives. I would love to have us celebrate this storyline’s 10th anniversary when I explain what it is about. 

 

First, let me say why the storyline happened. It happened when in late November 2009, Lego announced that Bionicle is going to be cancelled in early 2010 “for the foreseeable future”. That was emotionally devastating. We all went crazy about it. Originally, Bionicle was going to have more years to come, but this happened (well, we did get a script for the cancelled fifth Bionicle movie). In early 2010, we only got six small sets that have the Agori build in 2009 storyline. That was plain silly. It was very depressing for what happened, but it happened unbelievably. Bionicle got cancelled for the first time in 2010. 

 

Anyway, here’s what the storyline is about: 

It takes place after the 2009 storyline, when Mata Nui, who was exiled by Makuta Teridax in the 2008 storyline, was using a coin found by Berix in a hidden lab owned by the Great Beings long ago as a map to find something that could help him get the Matoran Universe back from Teridax. He was going with his friends, Ackar, Kiina, Gresh, and Berix, to go there, but a bunch of Skrall attacked the group and injured Berix, so Mata Nui decided to tell his friends to stay in the Mega-Village for their own sake. Mata Nui went alone, but he had Click coming along because Cluck can turn into a shield. The coin led Mata Nui to the Valley of the Maze, which is something that his friends, Tarduk and Crotesius, had been talking about (referencing the 2009 storyline’s podcast serial called Riddle of the Great Beings, where Tarduk couldn’t finish his quest to go to the Maze). Crotesius took Mata Nui to the Maze. Mata Nui went inside the maze, which inspired the symbol for the Skrall’s tribe called the Rock Tribe. He had to survive traps in there. When he got to the center of the maze, he found Tarduk. Both of them survived a deadly fake volcano. Mata Nui found a room in the volcano. When he accidentally activated a screen in there, it reminded him of his origins: 

 

About 100,000 years ago, people noticed the Energized Protodermis in Spherus Magna’s core. They had a war called the Core War over it, but this caused the substance to destroy the planet by splitting it into three pieces, Bara Magna, which is the desert planet, the main part of it, and its people were suffering in there, Aqua Magna, the water moon, which is where Mata Nui’s Great Spirit Robot body (the 40-million-foot-tall robot with god-like powers, the Matoran Universe inside it, and Makuta controlling it to do tyranny) is, and Bota Magna, the jungle moon. That’s called the Shattering, and this inspired the Three Virtues symbol in the Matoran Universe. People from Bara Magna hated the Great Beings for the Shattering. The Great Beings created Mata Nui and the Great Spirit Robot before SM was destroyed, and they did it to heal the planet. Before Mara Nui was created, there was a prototype of him being tested out, but something went wrong with it, so it exploded into many giant pieces, even though that Bara Magna’s people use the pieces to make their villages and then put them together to form the Mega-Village because of their unity in the end of the 2009 storyline. Mata Nui had to study many worlds in the galactic universe, which is required for him to heal the planet, so no one can make the same mistake again. About 1,001 years ago, when Mata Nui was done learning, he was ready to go to Bara Magna and glue the three pieces back into Spherus Magna, but Makuta caused the Great Cataclysm in the 2004 storyline, which stopped Mata Nui by putting in a come, and then Mata Nui crashed landed onto Aqua Magna. This caused all other storylines to happen in the first place, and made him forget about his mission. When the Toa Nuva woke him up in the 2008 storyline, Mata Nui was going to recover his lost memories, but Teridax took over the Great Spirit Robot and banished Mata Nui. Mata Nui landed on Bara Magna, which was his intended destination, but in a wrong way. Mata Nui needed his original body back or something similar to it, like the prototype robot, to restore the planet, he discovered something else. He learned that the Great Beings wanted to build another Mata Nui robot required for the mission, but they had the time because the Shattering happened. 

 

After learning about all of this, Mata Nui felt hopeless because he wanted to help Bara Magna’s people heal their planet, and the prototype robot was useless because it didn’t have a power source anymore. However, when he told Tarduk about his origins and impossible mission, Tarduk helped Mata Nui by finding a power source in the volcano for the prototype. 

 

Mata Nui and Tarduk came back to the Mega-Village with the power source, which is a cube containing a lot of power. Mata Nui told Raanu, who is the leader of the village’s people, about what he had learned and wanted to ask his permission to use the prototype to do his mission. Raanu and Mata Nui’s gang were surprised at first and Raanu was too reluctant to let Mata Nui use the prototype because they couldn’t believe Mata Nui’s story and the prototype made up the people’s new home, but this reminded him of a time when he noticed the Great Beings building the Great Spirit Robot while working for them, everyone wants the planet to be prosperous again, people respects Mata Nui for his heroism in the 2009 storyline, and Raanu would lose his honor, so he let Mata Nui use the prototype. Mata Nui also warned the people that he sensed that Teridax is coming and will use the Great Spirit Robot to destroy them. The Great Beings originally planned for Teridax to use the Robot and Mata Nui to use the prototype, so they can restore the planet, but Teridax didn’t know about this and only cared about tyranny. 

 

Teridax finished crushing the rebellion in the Great Spirit Robot, and then he sensed Mata Nui is still alive and worries that Mata Nui could try to find a way to defeat him, so he flew from Aqua Magna and was heading toward Bara Magna. He planned to use the Robot to take over the galactic universe, and he will use Bara Magna as a base of operations once he destroyed Mata Nui. Along the way, a creature in the Robot called Tren Krom gave a message to the Mask of Life, which Mata Nui’s spirit is in, in hopes of defeating Teridax. The rebellion couldn’t find a way to defeat Teridax. He allied with a blue Skakdi warlord named Nektann, who has water powers, and his Skakdi army, and he promised Nektann that he will give Nektann a place to conquer. Teridax formed an army of Rahkshi, most of them are Rahkshi of Heat Vision, which are yellow Rahkshi that use heat vision. 

 

After Raanu ordered his people to evacuate the Mega-Village, Mata Nui went to the prototype’s giant head. He still promised Kiina that he will find a new prosperous world for Kiina to live in, and Mata Nui was grateful that he learned about friendship and being a normal person when he arrived in Bara Magna, despite his rough experience with being a normal person, something he wouldn’t do when he was a giant robot. After Kiina left with Click for Click’s own protection, despite Kiina’s dislike on insects, Mata Nui inserted the power source into the prototype, so it could activate the prototype. Mata Nui removed the Mask of Life from his 7-foot-tall body, which caused his body to become sand again. He willed his spirit into the prototype, so he could control the prototype, like how he used to control the Great Spirit Robot. The prototype rose from the ground, and Mata Nui became extremely powerful again. He used the robot’s gravity powers to try to pull the moon back to Bara Magna, but Teridax’s arrival in Bara Magna interrupted the process. 

 

Mata Nui, instead of showing his anger to Teridax for overthrowing him, told him about their mission to restore Spherus Magna, but Teridax asked Mata Nui to join him in his conquest to take over the galactic universe. When Mata Nui declined, Teridax decided to fight and destroy him to get him out of the way, so an extremely huge battle began. 

 

However, the prototype is two-thirds the Great Spirit Robot’s size (around 27 million feet tall), weaker, and the power source is unstable, which caused Mata Nui to have some time to be able to use the prototype, so Mata Nui was kind of losing. His Glatorian friends were worried about him, so Ackar, Kiina, and Gresh came up with a plan. Ackar, Kiina, and their fellow Glatorian went to distract Teridax while Gresh, who wears new armor and uses two new blades that can use his air powers, find to get inside Teridax’s robot. The Glatorian’s Thornax Launchers couldn’t damage the robot because its shell is extremely super-tough. Teridax noticed this, so he unleashed his Rahkshi and Skakdi forces through a hatch on the robot’s foot onto the Glatorian when Gresh found the hatch. When Gresh noticed more people coming out, he attacked, but Takanuva and Tahu stopped him. They discovered that they are working on the same side for Mata Nui. The Toa told Gresh that it’s too dangerous to get inside the robot. Gresh decided to team up with them. 

 

The Mask of Life put Tahu in an illusion because the Mask got the message from Tren Krom. The message stated that Tahu must wear a magical set of armor called the Golden Armor that can be used to defeat Teridax. The Mask devolved Tahu from his Nuva form back to his original Mata form in 2001, even though that he keeps his Adaptive Armor. Tahu didn’t like that, but the Mask said that he needs his Mata form to wear the Golden Armor. After the illusion ended, the Mask used some sand to make the armor. It came in six pieces, one for a Kanohi Hau, one for chest armor, left shoulder armor, right shoulder armor, sword pummel, and shield. Tahu was going to get the armor, but Teridax noticed and blasted at the armor, scattering the pieces. 

 

A bunch of green-armored Skrall, led by Stronius, joined the fight to help the Matoran Universe villains fight the Glatorian while good-hearted people from the Matoran Universe also joined the fight against Teridax’s forces. Gresh got two pieces of the armor after defeating some Skrall who had one of the pieces. Takanuva, who changed his colors from gold to silver to avoid getting attention, was having a hard time fighting the Rahkshi of Heat Vision because they wore modified to wear thicker armor that is immune to elemental Light attacks. However, Takanuva defeated some Rahkshi that had one of the pieces, and he got two. Tahu fought and defeated Nektann to get a piece, and then Tahu got two, too. 

 

During Mata Nui’s and Teridax’s side of the fight, Teridax kept beating up MN, and then, when Mata Nui proved to be a nuisance to Teridax, Teridax was preparing to create a gravity blast that can destroy Bara Magna in one shot while saying that he claimed Bara Magna to be his. Mata Nui, who was trying to tell Makuta to stop this madness, but Teridax didn’t listen, stopped Teridax by redirecting the gravity blast to the moons, causing the moons to go back to Bara Magna. 

 

Meanwhile, Takanuva and Gresh gave Tahu the rest of the armor, so Tahu can have the whole set. Tahu put it on while the villains are coming to get the heroes. Tahu activated the armor’s power, which destroyed the whole Rahkshi army in one blast. That gave him the Rahkshi’s powers. When Teridax was trying to stomp on people, he stopped and the destruction of his Rahkshi army caught his attention because destroying the Rahkshi weakened him. When Mata Nui noticed a fragment of Aqua Magna heading towards Makuta, he took an advantage of this, as he pushed Teridax to the fragment’s direction. The fragment smashed the Great Spirit Robot’s head, destroying the Core Processor and Teridax inside, ending Teridax’s tyranny for good. 

 

The moons merged with the planet to become whole again, as they became Spherus Magna again finally. Mata Nui felt bad for Teridax because he wished that they could have worked together to accomplish their mission, but Teridax was a selfish tyrant, and Mata Nui had to destroy him for everyone’s good and Bara Magna’s sake. The Matoran Universe became uninhabitable because of the Great Spirit Robot’s destruction, so its inhabitants moved out and went to Spherus Magna. Mata Nui finished his job by using the last speck of the prototype robot’s energy and the Mask of Life’s power to make the planet flourish with planet to have it prosperous again, like it was before the Shattering. Everyone, both MU and SM people, were happy, and Kiina was happy that Mata Nui gave her a tolerable world to live in by bringing back Spherus Magna. Good-hearted people arrested their evil enemies, but some of the villains escaped into the wilderness. MU people who got mutated were changed back to their original selves by the mask’s power, even though that the underwater ones can breathe both air and underwater. The usage caused the prototype to be disintegrated. Everyone was worried, so they rushed to the robot. However, when Ackar and Kiina found the mask, which didn’t alter them when they touched it this time for some reason, Mata Nui revealed that he retreated into the Mask to survive the robot’s destruction. Tahu asked Mata Nui to lead people, but Mata Nui decided not to because he wants them to live their lives themselves without needing a leader or ruler to guide them, because of his experiences in his life. However, he told his friends that they have to find the Great Beings for him because the GBs left the planet when it was destroyed, and he wishes to see them and let them know about the planet being reformed. He then started sleeping, but in the healthy way this time rather the coma that Teridax caused in the 2004 storyline. Tahu agreed with Mata Nui, so he told everyone to have good and peaceful lives while people from both the MU and SM live together because their big adventures are finally over since the planet is restored. The End in that way. The G1 story actually still doesn’t have an ending, so it continued, though. 

 

That’s the story. Now for the sets: 

 

Basically, there are six small sets in smaller canisters than the medium sets’ from G1’s previous years. They are called Bionicle Stars, or just Stars. Each of them have the Agori building style in 2009, but with some new pieces and colors. They are ridiculously short, but they do make us look like giant robots to them. Lol. Plus, each of them are based on a character from one of the previous years. The sets are Tahu, Takanuva, Gresh, Piraka, Rahkshi, and Skrall. No more than that, ridiculously. Each set has a piece of the Golden Armor, and once you collected all six, you can put them on Tahu, so he can wear the armor completely. Tahu looks like his Mata self in 2001, beside from some differences because of the Adaptive Armor. His Hau has a plus connector rather than a circle connector. He looks very cool with his look, and he would look cooler with the Golden Armor on. He has the Golden version of the Hau. Takanuva, Gresh, and Piraka have three identical Golden Armor pieces that make up the chest and shoulder armor pieces. Rahkshi has the Golden shield. Skrall has the Golden pummel. Takanuva from 2003 has two new staffs, and he has silver and white armor. Too bad that he doesn’t have gold pieces. Gresh has new armor on his shoulder and chest. I wonder if he can combine his new blades to form a shield in the story? Piraka, aka Nektann, from 2006 has a new rubber piece that looks kind of like Vezok’s head skin can fit a Glatorian head while it has spines that connect to Nektann’s arms and back. Why not call him Nektann? His teeth are not white, which is weird. I heard that he was supposed to have two weapons, but his finalized set has one. Why? His weapon is cool, though. Rahkshi from 2003 is a Rahkshi of Heat Vision with bulkier armor than its fellow Rahkshi. It has two-toed feet. It has a piece that is its head and spine connected together. Its staff looks like Guurahk’s staff, but the staff’s heads are positioned vertically rather than horizontally for some reason. That’s lazy. It doesn’t include a Kraata. Why didn’t the Rahkshi and its Kraata have a name? The Skrall set looks a set disproportionate because of his arm blades, and I don’t know why he has green color for a secondary color. Overall, the sets are the best ones. I like Tahu the best, and it’s good to look back at the past, though. It would have been nice if Lego had continued the G1 toy line, so there would be more sets and sets aren’t that small. There are no sets for Mata Nui or Makuta. That’s cheap, sadly. It’s a silly way to end the G1 toy line. 

 

All six have a combiner, which looks like a mutated Tahu with four lengthened arms, four lengthened legs, and Gresh’s blades as wings. He looks very weird with his look, but he looks cool because of the multiple limbs and blades that he carries in his hands. A contest was held and it was where fans would make up a story about who this guy is. When the winner was announced, the combiner’s name is Gaardus, who was mutated by some Nynrah Ghosts and can teleport. He is only featured in a story serial called The Power That Be. 

 

Now, for the media. The storyline is told through several things. There is two comic book issues, one in January and one in March, which sadly never got their own graphic novel to be included in for some reason. There is a chapter book called Journey’s End. The Polish version was released as a book while the English version was divided into 11 segmented entries, where you have to use a Bio Code that come every two weeks to unlock each entry. Plus, there is an audio podcast called Mata Nui Saga, where Michael Dorn, who voiced Mata Nui in Bionicle: The Legend Reborn in 2009, was narrating as Mata Nui. There are 34 chapters that came every Monday and Thursday. There’s no movie for the story, sadly. There is a series of five stop motion short videos that centered on the Stars characters. There is an online game called Agori Defender, which is a Tower Defense online game. It sucks that it doesn’t have a save function when you stopped at one of its six levels. Those stuff aren’t the best, but they’re good. 

 

For how I feel about the story, well, here’s this: I feel that the story is rushed, but it is epic in some ways. The ending is heart-warming. I’m impressed that Mata Nui learned how to be a normal person, like the people of Bara Magna. It’s very cool that people from MU and SM get to work together and know each other. Restoring Spherus Magna is the primary purpose in the G1 story, and I’m glad that this is done and fulfilled. I’m very glad that MU people are free from Teridax’s tyranny finally because they suffered for over a year since the end of the 2008 storyline. I pity Tahu for turning back into a Toa Mata. He lost slme things in his life, like his Kanohi Nuva. When will he change back into a Toa Nuva, though? Nektann is cruel and fearsome, and he is not afraid to face a Toa without a weapon. I don’t know what are his other powers, though. I heard that Gresh is a veteran while Teridax gave the Skrall shadow powers in the Lego set descriptions, but they never happened in the story. Why? Teridax is a psychotic tyrant who wants to destroy his enemies to do his conquest, but it’s a good thing that he is stopped for good. I’m happy for the people to Bara Magna to have Spherus Magna back because they suffered Bara Magna as they had scarce amounts of resources. I was expecting Mata Nui to get the Great Spirit Robot back, but it happened something else, and I find it okay. I heard that if he tried, he would have doomed his own people because the Mask looked at the world as imbalanced because of Teridax’s tyranny, anyway. I feel bad that Mata Nui had to sacrificed his first body to do the greater good. There are a lot of references to G1’s past storylines. To be honest, it’s not the best storyline overall, but it does have some charm.  

 

So, how would you celebrate the storyline’s 10th anniversary? What are your best moments and memories of the storyline? What is your favorite set and character? What medium reminds you of  the storyline? Well, I could read Journey’s End, the comic books, and Mata Nui Saga again. I like these things the best. My favorite set is Tahu, and my favorite characters are Tahu, Takanuva, Nektann, Mata Nui, and Teridax. The things that remind me of the storyline are: 

1. The Marvel Cinematic Universe - Thanos was like Teridax when he came to ruin and take over the universe. That story made a lot of references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies before it. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor is like Mata Nui when he had to sacrifice his home world for the good of his people and then have them move to the planet Earth. In Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel is like Mata Nui when she re-learns something that she was forced to forget. 
2. Ninjago - The Overlord wore the Golden Armor in the 2014 storyline. In Day of the Departed, March of the Oni, and Prime Empire storylines, etc., there are a lot of references from past storylines. 
3. Transformers - Mata Nui’s and Teridax’s relationship is like Optimus Prime’s and Megatron’s relationship for how they used to respect each other, but they became enemies because Megatron turned evil and doesn’t want to listen to reason. Plus, the giant robot fight reminds me of Primus vs. Unicron. Plus, in Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, it made some references to the past films. 
4. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 - It made a lot of references from the past films. 
5. Pacific Rim movies - the giant mechs in the movies kind of remind me of the giant robots in Bionicle. 
6. Hero Factory - Thunder and Drilldozer use Tahu’s foot pieces for feet. 

 

A story serial called Reign of Shadows in 2009, which is about people fighting against Teridax and his forces when he ruled the Matoran Universe, continued from that year to early 2010, amazingly, as it has 14 chapters. No other serials went that far. I wonder when will Alternative Teridax come back to his dimension and Vultraz to return to the prime reality? That bothers me. In early 2010, there is a podcast serial called Sahmad’s Tale, which is about Sahmad finding the source of his tribe’s dreaming problem. That spanned from early 2010 to June 2010 with 7 chapters amazingly. In late 2010, there are two story serials that take place after the events of the 2010 storylines. One is called The Yesterday Quest, where Onua sends a group of three new Toa, with a Glatorian named Gela from the 2009 storyline as their guide, to go find the Great Beings (I wonder how when the Great Beings left the planet, though). The other serial is called The Power That Be, where Kopaka and Pohatu are investigating a strange thing going on. Sadly, each of those serials are unfinished with cliffhangers, leaving the G1 story unfinished. There are a lot of unresolved stuff in the story. Greg Farshtey hasn’t updated the story since late 2011. That is traumatic and terrible. In 2012-2017, Greg was kind enough to answer Bionicle fans’ many questions, but he never finished the story. When will he do that? That’s very unnatural. How can we live with ourselves? Since that day, everything is changed sadly. Things are never the same. Hero Factory came to sustain the constraction category for Bionicle from late 2010 to 2014 until Bionicle came back as G2 in 2015-2016. We suffered cancellations of these awesome themes (Bionicle ended twice while HF once, and then category disappeared since 2018). The 2010s was a disastrous decade for constraction. We expected a good future, but that didn’t happened, and we are now in a Great Depression without constraction. We can’t be completely without those things, you know. Bionicle is a huge part of its fans’ lives. It saved Lego from bankruptcy in 2001, so Lego should have respected Bionicle much more. There is a question or two that are always in our heads: when will the G1 story be continued and have an ending, and when will Bionicle come back again? I always pray that they can come true for the sake of me and the fans. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Lenny7092