Nostalgic Memories

[ankyfdarkness]

How you guys going? I just wanted to post this quick topic about your most nostalgic memories of Bionicle.For me, I miss the days where I would get my allowance and then go out and buy my new canister set for the week. I also miss role-playing with my brother. The Toa Inika were our favorites.Anyways, what fond memories do you have of Bionicle?EDIT: Just realized that this topic really wants to be in General Discussion.

Edited September 15, 2012 by ankyfdarkness

[Hahli Husky]

Tops, moved to LGD. :)My most nostalgically fond memory is stalking the Bionicle website for new flash updates. My siblings and I used to pretend we were the Toa a lot, and I really loved those days as well!

Edited September 17, 2012 by Hahli Husky

[Thunder on the Mountain]

MNOLG (especially minigames and animations) and the Bohrok animations. Seeing first previews of new sets in the BZPower gallery. The first two movies. The old website. Chilling with my brother, setting up massive battles with all of out sets in the basement.

[The Iron Toa]

Receiving my first set: Toa Onua. I haven't been 'with' Bionicle the whole time, I think I stopped paying attention sometime during the Voya Nui story and didn't regain interest until my brother got some Mistika sets, if I recall. I guess that counts as a nostalgic memory too. But it's still weird to think I was a little younger than he is now when it all started, and I'm still interested in it.Oh, also one more thing. Kind of funny actually. I remember reading the comics and wondering what a Toa's face looked like before I received the aforementioned first set and the mystery was ended.

Edited September 16, 2012 by The Iron Toa

[CarkaJack]

Getting my first toa set; Hahli Mahri. It was either her or Matoro, 'cuz he got some serious clawz and she's got some awesome angel wings.What's funny is I didn't know jack about BIONICLE back then. Everything I actually did know came from Mask of Light and those weird pamphlets that came with the Tohunga sets.I thought "Jala" and "Toa Jaller" where two different individuals! I was really surprised when I found out the truth. (I always thought it was weird they had such similar names)I can almost remember the days when I would have the Hahli set, which I thought was a male at the time, swim around and fight/study weird 'sea creatures'. Sometimes I wish I hadn't learned that much about the story, so that playing with these things would still be as enjoyable as they used to.The closest thing I've gotten to that in recent memory was when I stumbled across some Star Trek toys last year. Since even now I know absolutely nothing about it except for the names of the really famous characters...I had a field day...One of the most memorable was that freaky-looking dude from Deep Space 9. He became Lord Butthead of the planet Butthead. And he would brainwash people using the Staff of Butthead. His arch-nemesis was Kirk (Or was it Spok?), Who was a half-elf-half-monkey cyborg.Oh, and Scrat from Ice Age was there too for some reason.And I'm not even in to crude humor, that dude was just asking for it with a head like that.

Edited September 16, 2012 by CarkaJack

[Sumiki]

In early 2002, my grandmother spotted two Bohrok Va on the shelves of some store, thought that I might like them, and got them. (Coincidentally, that's why I'm here today, but that's not the point of the story.)Being six years old at the time, she helped with the construction of the two Va. This soon turned into her handing me the pieces and me assembling the Va themselves. It was all said and done ... we thought. The Krana was still unattached. Unfazed, we put the Krana on its back, thinking that was it.Well, the Krana proceeded to fall out, as anyone who has been around a Bohrok Va could tell you. We kept putting it back in, but it never ever wanted to stay. It simply kept falling out.My grandmother left the room, but soon came a-scurrying back, bearing a nice big bottle of Elmer's Glue. A few dabs later, the damage was done. This was eventually done to three different Va before we realized that maybe putting glue on the sets wasn't such a good idea.Up until a few years ago, I still found little translucent flakes in various parts bins that had housed parts of those three unfortunate Va. While they're gone now, I keep wondering when I'll see another.And to this day, my grandmother swears that we were supposed to glue 'em.

[Eeko]

My most nostalgic memory would be going to my friends house to read the comics.I didn't get LEGO Magazine, so we would schedule dates specifically when the magazine arrived, so we could read them at the same time. Then we would play the Bionicle board game for a few hours.

[Toa Smoke Monster]

I remember when I was looking for a Toa Lesovikk set back in 07 at Wal-Mart. When the day came that I found it...well, lets just say everyone in that part of the store heard my excitement. :PI also remember waiting for new chapters of the serials to be posted, as well as for new books to come out. Those were great days indeed.

[FrozenFlash]

The day I got interested in Bionicle by getting Tahu and Kopaka Mata. I knew from that point on, it was a great decision to be interested in such an awesome toyline.

[CHTrilogy]

Building the Toa Mata and hearing all about the cancelled PC game!

[Paleo]

Okay, this'll be a whole lot.When I was just a whee little lad…Okay. Gilbert and Sulivan jokes aside, one of my fondest memories is playing with a few small Chuck-e-Cheese-themed bricks. I thought they were the coolest thing in the world. I eventually convinced my parents to give me some of my Dad's old LEGO bricks. The pirate set "Forbidden Island" was the first of many. Lewa Nuva was my first Bionicle set, and I vividly remember looking at the packaging and posing him in his flying position. I also have really great memories of watching Bionicle: Mask of Light.For the next nostalgic memory, we jump to late 2005, when I first saw the Barraki. I thought they were the coolest sets ever with their organic, sea-creature themes. They looked almost like prototypes that just happened to have been packaged up and sent to the Target they were at. I bought Carapar, as well as Vezon-and-Kardas. I eventually bought all the Barraki, save Mantax, and I love them all dearly for their pieces.One of the greatest memories though, is reading the comics and knowing that a new bit of story was coming every 2 months. It was a lack of this story that led me to BS01, and then here.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Paleo

[Mare Tranquillitatis]

I can remember that I always waited with impatience Christmas, for it was almost sure, 99,9% sure, that I would have recieved a BIONICLE set, or the times I went with my parents to the toy shop to choose my "good scholastic results" present and then reading the whole catalog to find out the info about the other sets.Another great moment, of course, was building them, but among the most nostalgic moments, the times pieces started breaking and then definitely fall apart. Every time was like a funeral.

[Makuta_of_Oz]

Going to the local Toys 'r' Us every so often and buying a few Kanohi/Krana packs. Eventually I became the only one buying them, so they ended up lasting quite a while in store!

[Dralcax]

I remember seeing the Barraki Pridak and Mantax for the first time."ohcoollookmomnewbioniclestheyshootawesomefishthingsandthisonehaswaistarticulationandbloodonhismouthandswordandtheotheronehasthiscoolmonsterheadandtheseepicpincerspleasemomcanigetthempleasepleaseplease?"A couple hours later..."These suck. They're skinny and how the karz am I supposed to fire these stupid launchers?"This always happened, especially with the bubbles covering the business end of the squid launchers so I couldn't see how they worked and the false advertising for the Inika.

[WeatherDragon]

I remember moving into my new house and sitting in what was to be my new room, firing Cordak rockets across the floor and trying to fire them further than my brother. :lol:Good times...

[CeeCee]

I know it sounds really small, but going to get Vezon and Fenrakk is Argos with my Dad. It was for my Birthday. Also when me and my Dad both built the Collesium playset. I like those memories

[Gatanui]

Ah, yes, finding Turaga Matau under my pillow and building him in my bed. Or building Tahu and Pohatu on a rainy day, building Gahlok and Tahnok early in the morning after days of waiting...Good times. -Gata

[Bambi]

Gosh, I have no idea.. Playing MNOLG (obviously). Maybe that feeling of walking into the store and seeing all the new Bionicle sets on the shelves and being like "WANT".

[dee.3x3]

I remember what first got me into Bionicle: getting Jala at McDonalds. After that I kept going in to get the other Matoran. That was fun.Also getting my first proper Bionicle, Pohatu. I struggled building him though so my Dad would help me. I also remember getting the mask packs and being really excited to find a Trans-Neon Orange Kaukau. I thought it was so cool and showed it off to my friends.I also remember begging to get all the bigger sets like Nui-Jaga and the Exo-Toa, but my parents wouldn't get them for me.Those were the good times.

[Toa of Nerds]

I remember being really exited at each new line that came out.Also, a few months ago I got into DnD and built a minifig to represent my character. Digging through piles of LEGO Bricks to find the perfect piece brought up some fond memories.-don't touch my pocket protector

[The Legendary TNT]

BIONICLE:Mask of Light. Every time I watch it I get whisked back to my childhood .

[Aanchir]

Some of my fondest memories of the theme are of drawing the characters, perhaps because the continued existence of the drawings themselves has helped cement those instances in my memory. I drew Gali and Takanuva a long time ago, and put a lot of time into coloring them and creating a background, even if the time spent was not reflected well in the quality of the final piece. I believe that was one of my first BIONICLE drawings which I posted on BZPower. This sloppy "Birth of Venus" parody was my brother's and my first entry in a BZPower art contest. My Brickshelf is full of other examples, some of which I'm embarrassed by, others of which I'm still somewhat proud of.More recent drawings also stand out in my memory. My human Spiriah was the result of a spark of inspiration after or during a sleepless night, while my human Phantoka Toa Nuva were the product of many a day doodling during my high school lunch period. My human Vamprah highlights the fact that it is not just the drawings themselves that I remember, but also the many idle hours of thought that went into the ideas behind them.Sometimes when I am in a drought of inspiration I look at these drawings and become sad, because although many of them are not very good, they demonstrate a time when the ideas behind my art had lots of potential, and I was willing to explore that potential even without knowing how to execute them properly. Today, even when I am being artistically productive, my inhibitions tend to keep me from exploring such original interpretations of the subjects I intend to present. Drawing BIONICLE, Hero Factory, or Ninjago figures as humans today feels trite and commonplace, and doesn't usually do justice to the imaginative nature of their original designs. Or perhaps it is not my inhibitions alone. Perhaps in a way there was something about the older BIONICLE figures' awkwardness that is unmatched by today's more thoroughly refined set designs. There was definitely something magical about looking at a model as terrible as the Manutri and deciding, "alright, let me make this into as cute a well-armed penguin as possible." Or likewise in looking at two radically-different interpretations of a single character or species and trying to reconcile them.I don't want to go back to the days of BIONICLE by any means. Comparing my Ninjago and Hero Factory sets to my BIONICLE sets from years past, I have a much stronger feeling today that I'm getting my money's worth in terms of design quality and potential for reuse. And in retrospect some of my interpretations of BIONICLE characters feel like they were some kind of desperate effort to deny the faults of those characters by imagining them away and reducing the characters to what I felt were their most valuable motifs. It is no surprise that even to this day I tend to dislike many revamps, which in removing some sets' perceived faults also often tend to lose many of the motifs that made those sets unique or cohesive. My own drawings, alas, were guilty of this same crime, too often reducing unique detail for the sake of consistency.But perhaps this sort of creative challenge was what I needed back then as an artist. Perhaps there is something I miss about drawing things that are not already as brilliant or beautiful as they should be. Alas, just drawing BIONICLE characters today does not have the same appeal, because there is something uniquely magical about interpreting what you see before you for the very first time.

[Sir Kohran]

When the entire Bionicle story and universe consisted of a Flash game and a few comics.

[Geardirector]

A big nostalgic memory for me has to be when I got the first Bionicle videogame, it was oodles of fun back then.

[banana92]

the beginning, walking in to wal-mart, my 7 or 8 year old self, to see upon a shelf, toa tahu, the original, i was drawn and hooked, but like was said above, i lost most interest after the inika, i still collected them, but it was not, and has never been the same... this is just an idea, going with the nostalgia thing, but how great would it be if lego came back out with just even one thing, my thought is the mask packs from 2001-2003, but not just any mask pack, 5 or 6 different types, containing different masks in new colors like one for the 2001 kanohi in new colors like purple, yellow, dark orange, lime, and so on, for all the masks, the second could be an all metalic pack including gold, silver, gunmetal, platnium (the light silver) and dark gold masks from 2001, and the third could be like the fisrt, but with masks from 2004-2010, and the forth the same as that but metalic, the fifth, maybe blended masks like from the 2004 matoran, but including great masks and new colors again, and the sixth could be blended masks from 2004-2010. any thoughs of improvement, and would you buy them? i should make this a topic of my own, or make a patition for it, it could be a new movement lol

[Great Being Velika]

Let's see... oh! It would be when my friend came over with half of his sets and we would turn my dinner table into a war zone with awesome things like Toa Mata Nui getting killed by the Manas.

[Master Inika]

My first sets were at the Costco my grandma used to work at, when I'd see her every time my dad brought us there. I started collecting all the Bohrok and Rahkshi (that was all Costco had) except for Kohrak-Kal and Gahlok-Kal, and I also got Gahlok Va at the nearby Walgreens. It asn't until '04 that I realized you could buy other sets at other stores.I got into the story in '03 with the film, CDs, and comics. I fell in love with how massive and beautiful the island of Mata Nui was, and how much there was to explore. I also got the first four novels, and they were my first chapter books. Kopaka was and still is my favorite Toa.

[Wazdakka]

Two of my best friendships were made through bionicle - I liked bionicle, they liked bionicle. When we went to middle school, we had practically no classes together, as well as we didn't want to stand out, so bionicle died temporarily* there. In lower school, we'd walk together around the playground, talking about the latest bionicles and who was our favorite... Nothing like it. I also liked going to my local toysrus before it renovated, sometimes even buying bionicles alongside the aforementioned friends. *by temporarily, I mean that I went into transformers for the next few years, before spending 2 hrs of one of my evenings looking and checking out my old bionicles instead of doing homework. That reignited my love of bionicles, as well as the great nostalgia and memories of simpler, better, and more fun times.

[Vahima- The Toa of Time]

one of mine would be how totally ecstatic I was when I got Lesovikk for Christmas.I was speechless.entirely.

[Ta-metru_defender]

Waiting forever for the MNOLG to load while playing in the Netherlands while my parents were at a conference.Watching flash videos in an internet cafe in Tobago (or somewhere in the Caribbean)Watching MoL over and over and over and over and over and over and over againFinding sets in stores in general, like Latin America and all.

[NorikSigma]

Definitely running through Toys 'R Us to the Lego Section, or also browsing through the various Lego Catalogues to the Bionicle section on the coffee table. Maybe also spilling open the parts on the table, then getting scolded for being messy and being provided witha random spare box box to place the spare parts in, then having to enlist the help of my younger brother to fix the parts firmly in, while he fixed together his sets too as well kihjoytr.Hmm....... Let's see opening with and playing the six Toa Mata original in my grandmother's house and playing with them, then realising(as always) the legs that once I moved the legs in a walking fashion the torso started bending over. Digging through my Lego Boxes brought back those times...

[Lyichir]

Oh man, I have loads of nostalgic memories. One that springs to mind is putting together the Exo-Toa on the floor of a church while my dad worked on their sound system.

[Meiko]

Well, I barely remember the Bionicle storyline, so maybe something that Bionicle did for me in the real world. :PI was sitting in my 4th grade math class (I was in 3rd grade, but ahead in math), and I sat next to this kid named Yanni. He was cool, smart, etc like me, so I asked him if he liked LEGO. He was like "Yeah", so I said, "You should use BZPower. It's a cool site." (lol my noobish days there for you). He said "I have an account there". So yeah, we were friends for a good long time, but he's became inactive here.Nowadays, being a Bionicle fan back then has done a lot for me. I've gotten a ton of friends, and managed to launch two successful online LEGO communities with the help and guidance of some friends here.

[toa kopaka4372]

Being excited when I saw images of leaked sets, actually going to buy them, playing those old BIONICLE games (MNOG II, Piraka Attack etc.) buying new BIONICLE books, waiting for new storyline reveals (e.x. story serial updates) and more...Ah, I miss the good old days...

Edited November 29, 2012 by toa kopaka4372