ToM Dracone

Have I ever thanked you for taking such lovely clear photos of the mysterious parts of sets that everyone wonders about but so few people actually photograph? If not, thank you <3

And those upper limb pieces make me even sadder now.

Oh, there are axle holes underneath? That boosts them at least somewhat, in my mind. (since the Viking horn-sized holes are indeed scarcely versatile connection points, as I did indeed notice them.)

And I'm betting it's the Ben 10 label too. Maybe if I were a fan of the show and recognized these guys in the Lego aisle I'd be all over them too. But ... as I don't know the first thing about Ben 10 ... I can't even begin to relate.

Oh.

Then DEAR GODS -WHY-

I agree new limb pieces are welcome, but they're so ... plain, and then the upper limb pieces being -one piece- is just a horrific disappointment. And then almost every piece in there is so horrifically big and specialized and the majority of them not at all modular. Throw in that this is, what, 16 pieces for $16? and it becomes even more ghastly.

And I realize this is exactly what the AFOLs said to Bionicle back in 2001, but gods, Bionicle seems like pure, good-old-fashioned Technic, with axle and pin holes all over the place, compared to this. Even the Avotoran, whose molds were the most specialized Bionicle's ever gotten (aside from blasters, but those were one/two/three molds per group of six), were positively riddled with Technic connection points.

*hides*

DV, your photos make almost anything look wonderful, but I'm sorry, this looks just as bad and boring as ever. ;_;

Stop buying them; you'll make Lego think people want these abominations!

For the Matoran ability, I'm thinking along the lines of what DV said; they innately know how and where to strike a crystal so it breaks the way they want it to (instead of shattering into a million pieces). Though that's not to say that a certain unusual hardness in their armor and a degree of night vision wouldn't be present as well, the latter just from living underground all the time...

As for the Toa's power, they'd be able to conjure crystal out of thin air, and an expert Toa could make really complex and detailed objects with just a thought (I can't help but think of Dumbledore and his crystal goblets); then they could make crystal bend and warp without shattering; and I imagine that a Toa of Crystal's armor would itself be diamond-hard just by nature. And, of course, they'd use the ability to create crystal to make swords and stuff or hurl crystal daggers at an opponent and create blasts of crystal shards... and as BD said, from refraction it would make sense if they could do something with that ability of crystal. Maybe to conceal themselves or confuse opponents?

This idea just occured to me too – what if they could change solid objects into crystal? Maybe limited to stone objects, perhaps...

The idea of doing something with lasers is one I'm less fond of, just because I think lasers and Bionicle should never mix. Lasers are pretty much the standard for sci-fi weaponry, and once you bring them into a story it gets thrown into the science fiction camp, rather than walking the line between that and fantasy as Bionicle does. (Did. Should. Sigh.)

Perhaps we will see an MOC or story based of this?

MOCs, definitely. Story if an idea strikes me...

Pardon me for saying this, but your idea for the Crystal village sounds awfully like the Av-Toran village. Even some of the Matoran points, like them being few and far between, and being able to change color.

Who said anything about being able to change color? A Matoran's armor looking different colors from different angles and her being able to physically change her color are two completely different things. And is it so bad if they are a bit similar, even excluding that? The idea of an isolated village with few Matoran outside it is a given if the element is rare, and it's not like the Crystal Matoran in the outside world are in hiding like the Avo-Matoran are.

Also, trans-glitter-clear Avohkii. There's a thought.

A fabulous thought, dear, but there's technically supposed to be only one of those...

Where did you get this

I see nothing of the sort

(xccj, you owe me one)

I especially agree with you on Plantlife [though I am utterly confused as to why it is called The Green -- I saw that name a few weeks ago, and had no idea that it signified Plantlife]. I guess the blue could be in there 'cause plants need water [blue] to grow, but it still doesn't really make sense. Light greens and dark greens mixed together [kind of like Gresh] would be splendid, and then keep the Mata green and darker greens for Air.

It was originally called 'the Green,' then it became 'Plant Life,' and now I guess it's back to 'the Green' again. Not that I really mind either way. The idea is that these Toa control everything comprising the green sphere of things in the Bionicle world, which I guess is a little more poetic than just saying 'Plant Life'?

Nah, Psionics makes sense to me, if you assume that there's a natural telepathic field generated by living creatures.

That's all I can think of to rationalize it, which is a fair explanation, but still...

And what do they even MEAN by Psionics?

Telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, creating tangible illusions (by tricking the minds of those seeing them), mental guarding (of the sort the Order can do), et cetera. Everything in the realm of psychic powers.

Also, yum.

And thanks, guys. You're all awesome.

YES. Crystal is such a great element (I have a Toa of Crystal in my epics) and it is competely distinct from other elements. Although I don't agree on the female part, since I think all elements should have Toa of each gender, but that's another issue altogether.

Oh, well, duh, if we're talking about genders then of course all the elements have both instead of Lego's ridiculous gender balance. But if Crystal were an official element in canon as it is now it would be female.

I agree on all but Plant Life, which I think should be all greens/teal and all browns.

Browns would be good too. So long as they aren't blue.

*Raises hand slowly*

 

I want to say something here. The very reason I asked for these colours was because of your story ToM. IMO, those colours fit the element perfectly. I should have actually given you some credit when I asked him for the idea. I still can if you want.

Wow. Really? I ... I don't quite know what to say. Thank you enormously, I guess. Credit is always nice, yes, but nonetheless it's extremely flattering to know that it was based on something I wrote. I'm honored, seriously.

And I haven't read that (though I really should), but I should make it clear that I'm not claiming to have invented Crystal myself or anything. Alsru and I, I think, came up with it in talking one evening and then I saw several other references to it elsewhere...

I reject the element of Psionics, since that's hardly a force of the natural world.

Thank you for being a force for reason in this crazy world.

Aw, you're welcome. I might say the same to you, in fact.

In its place I would have established the element of Crystal. A rare element, I would say, also female, and distinct from Earth and Stone as Ice is from Water... hmm, I'm getting lots of ideas for this now; I should make a blog entry entirely about it.

DANGIT.

I noticed that earlier and wanted to make an MOC of it and take everyone by surprise but then you did this

DANG YOU.

GBG is pretty darn iconic, FYI. If you changed your name, how am I supposed to remember who you are? DV, Shan, Arpy, BD, ToM rarely, if ever, change their names.

 

Also, DV was Kopakashau before he changed to DV. Kopakashau is incredibly hard to remember and type. DV is not. DV has a ring to it.

Well, DV and Shan and I haven't been able to change our names for quite a while, and now Arpy can't either. Comes with being stafffolk. I'd have changed to Tiome by now if I were able to.

Also, I like you as GreenBioGuy. But when I saw the entry title, the first thing that came to my mind as an idea was 'BioGreen'. I'm not sure why.

Agreed -so- much on everything. Especially the scale of the robots and that ludicrous door and also the sudden cramping and technicization of the inside... Anyone standing anywhere near the two of them would have been obliterated in seconds.

Also, full-size Glatoriana fighting a horde of chibi Rahkshi? Pretty silly.

Though (and this is in reference to one of your previous entires), I think the 'heropose' poster is the only thing after the original Great Spirit rising video that captures his scale. Why? Because he's standing way above the clouds. He's mostly quite far above the atmosphere. The only part of him under them is about fifteen pixels or so between the cloud line and the sea. So I think that, at least, does capture the scale of him.

Definitely not the comic or movie, though. Atmospheric perspective, people.

Then there we have it. I agree that details are the thing that completes a new set's identity as an old character, but to my eyes, they're meaningless if the rest of the new set bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original. Why? Because, for a set to look like an old character, it has to, well, look like him or her. I need to look at the set and see the old character in it, not have to go on a treasure hunt for a few tiny details that might point to its identity in the absence of any larger, overall resemblances.

Basically, overall appearance (consisting of color scheme elements and body/mask shape) and details (like the features of a mask) are both things that two sets absolutely must have in common for the new one to appropriately capture the essence of the old. Neither one by itself will suffice, but I think the former outweighs the latter. Vezok vs. Nektann is a good example of the former standing alone; the adaptive armor Nuva vs. the original Nuva is generally true of the latter.

I think why I value overall appearances more than details is simply that they do a lot more in the way of visual resemblance, because aesthetic consistency simply depends on them. One might say that overall appearances are the first step of resemblance, and that details are a mandatory following to that. For example, a set with red as a primary color and orange as a secondary color automatically looks like Tahu, and then whether it really is him or not would be determined by the details; say, whether he has the iconic mouth and eyes or slits of the Hau, or a flamesword, or whatever.

I -understand- that you don't agree, but please tell me you at least get what I'm saying here. I might not have used the best examples to illustrate every point, but kindly just say whether you understand the gist of it or not, rather than picking through all my examples or trying to turn them against me as you

I'm not saying overall appearances are more important than details; I'm also NOT saying that the overall appearance must be exactly the same as before (look at my Tahu Mistika). I'm saying that, to my eyes, details alone might as well be meaningless if the overall appearances are completely different.

And hopefully that will be the end of this argument.

Aanchir. Seriously. That was a rhetorical question, given that we've been over this topic -extensively- before. Goodness knows we don't need to again.

The point being that, as DV quite exemplarily illustrated, the adaptive armor Nuva have far less in common with their 2002 counterparts than Vezok and Nektann do. With this fact in mind, you maintain that every single one of the 2008 Nuva is instantly identifiable as his or her former self; I assumed that the Stars' Piraka was Vezok.

Briefly, what the 2008 and 2002 Nuva have in common is a few details on a few masks, and about four colors kept the same on both versions out of all six, and a couple of their tools. Vezok and Nektann share almost the same color scheme and overall shape, though the details are different between the two. I know you differ in this matter, but most people (myself included) take overall shapes and colors, rather than minute, almost insignificant details, into account when assessing visual similarity – thus assuming that the Stars' Piraka was Vezok.

And for goodness' sakes, it's not like I'm insisting on calling Nektann Vezok when I know he's not. When I posted this entry I had seen a few people call him Nektann but never seen any confirmation that he was a different Piraka than Vezok, thus, I just called him what I assumed him to be. Further, as these are supposedly the stars of Bionicle, it only makes sense to see a blue Piraka next to a bunch of other characters I recognize and assume "Oh, they chose Vezok for the blue one. That's interesting."

I'm not objecting to his identity as Nektann; I'm merely explaining the fact that he looks an awful lot like Vezok and therefore it is entirely reasonable to assume he was.

Aaaand I'm not quite sure where the movies come into this at all. The point of this whole thing about original colors is that Hahli first existed in dark blue and light blue, so if a Star version of her Mahri form had light blue instead of lime, there would still be no question of her identity as Hahli. Nobody's saying that Star!Hahli should have light blue because that was her original color scheme – the idea is that because there are two Stars who use lime already, it's unlikely that Lego would give a third one lime as well, and so it makes sense to use her original color scheme.

Similarly, I don't think anyone would have complained if Vakama Hordika had had orange. Such a change from Metru to Hordika was hardly mandatory, but if it had happened, it would not at all have been illogical.

Anyway. Let's get back on track.

I still don't see where you see the slightest resemblance between the Stars Piraka and Vezok. I have yet to see an image where he's not distinctly different from any preexisting Piraka.

I might ask you the same question about, say ... Onua Mistika.

Do you see my point? I looked at the Piraka and saw Vezok simply by his identity as the blue Piraka. Seeing the Star Piraka in more detail now, I see that he has distinctly different features; the only thing specifically in common that I can point out is those bumps on his forehead, which Vezok had on his chin. The point being that drastic differences between a new set and a previous version have never stopped the new one from being the same character as the old one, and since Vezok and Nektann have far more in common than any 2008 Nuva and 2002 Nuva do (except maybe Kopaka), it's hardly illogical to have assumed this little blue Piraka was Vezok.

Dark blue primary color, muted secondary color, clawed feet, the spikes, a grey body where Vezok had silver – by Lego's standards that's more than enough to make two sets the same character, and you know it.

Piece-wise it would be fine, but plastic-wise 3 large weapons would be too generous IMO.

Skrall has the two ginormous blades and then a Kopaka sword. Hahli with two Mata Nui blades and a proper tool seems fine to me.

Dlakii, thank you so much! I wasn't exactly sure how they'd look, so this is very useful. I'll do some playing around with other pieces when I get home, but it's good to have a reference for the Mata Nui blades...

-IGNITION-, I used Photoshop.

I agree that it would've been a great set, but Hahli would need a sword as well (for playability and stuff), which would leave her with too many pieces for stardom.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that. I didn't know what to give her for a tool, but the 25 pieces include one for a tool, so she's good piece-count wise.

It's Nektann, not Vezok =P

 

And he was my favorite Star, personally. But that's kay.

 

My question is, why didn't you go for Lime green? The armor does come in that color for reals, and it is her original color scheme to boot.

One: did you read the entry? I explained that quite at length. And two, uh, dark blue and light blue is her original color scheme.

Gali or Hahli would not have been appropriate replacements in my eyes, since that would make a total of four good guy sets and only two bad guy sets.

A sacrifice I suspect the world would be willing to make. Plus, the Agori had two bad guys to four good guys (counting Metus among the good guys here), and the Legends only one bad guy to five good.

And while silver and dark grey do work very well together, they are nonetheless distinct colors, and Takanuva's arrangement of them only emphasizes that, because his mask's prominence draws attention to the fact that it's silver.

I've heard from a few people that the Rahkshi's head-spine assembly restricts its head movement considerably. Haven't heard about the Piraka's, though my imagination is that the spines on either side would force him to constantly face forward...

I liked the note as well! My dad scanned it and e-mailed it to me when the box got back home. I love you guys too.

And Brickthing, ever since the box got back I've been several hundred miles away from it. It would have been kind of hard for me to open it.

I agree so much. I just wish Lego had done with Voya and Mahri and Karda Nui (all -amazing- places when you think about it) what they did with Mata and Metru Nui and actually gone and explored the places... so much potential wasted. As usual.

By the way, the pun in your last entry's title is horrible.