Alyska

Also, there are to be five years between now and Bionicle's 20th anniversary- same amount of time between G1 and 2, and definitely enough time to pull together a stronger reboot. For all we know, this run might have been mostly about keeping the IP valid.

The Pokemon Sycther looks a bit like Lewa Nuva (green, spiky head, twin blades, flying).

Well, I dunno if the respective fire or ground type form will be available in the wild, but my guess is that any transferred will remain as their original types and can be bred to produce more. It could be different for Exeggutor though, since we haven't seen a new form of Exeggcute.

No. G1 ended up with a really nasty case of continuity lockout that made it totally inaccessible to new fans, so there's not much point in picking that up again without some major changes. But what frustrates me is that it wasn't just the story content that locked people out, but the choices of media and format becoming less and less easy for the casual fan to come across. Worse, is that for G2, Lego didn't seem to learn much from the best bits of G1 in terms of multimedia storytelling and having lots of content accessible online for free. I'm all for having a Voltron-style remake next time that keeps the same concept of the characters and plot, but makes a few tweaks to keep it interesting, and has a decent enough budget and timeframe for good storytelling to happen. That's sorta what they were going for here, but the restrictions really hampered it. One of those "good idea, poor execution" kinda situations.

Wait, would there be a competitive team aspect? Because Valor and Mystic's relationship is pretty much already Tahu and Kopaka...

The trouble with Bionicle is that it's so tonally different from other Lego themes, and given the silly, lighthearted nature of the film, it'd be hard to work the characters in in a way that 1) didn't feel forced or out of place, 2) fit with the humour of the film and 3) was accessible to people who weren't familiar with the storyline. Bionicle's got plenty of humour of its own, but good luck coming up with something that non-fans will still enjoy. That said, I still hold onto an irrational hope that Finn's younger sister gets into Bionicle when she's older (which she will be at the time of the sequel) and steals her dad's and brother's sets at every opportunity to create adventures of her own.

What if the Rahi sometimes have infected masks that can be collected and purified, then equipped either onto the Rahi or the player character for various purposes? Some might have an in-battle function, such as the Kakama making the Rahi faster, while others have an overworld effect, such as the Akaku making Rahi visible from greater distances. (Yes I know Matoran and Rahi don't use mask powers, but it'd make the collecting masks aspect more valuable if there was an in-game use for them.)

It's probable that they have a tear-like lubricant, but they don't produce tears when they cry, according to Greg. (They can "cry", as shown by Hahli after Matoro's fakeout sacrifice, but it's more about sobbing, shortness of breath, etc.) Lewa winks in one of the Hapka books, iirc.

I notice we haven't had a character/song topic in a while (and I can't seem to access the old ones in the archive), so might as well ask: Do you have certain songs that always remind you of Bionicle characters? Or of particular moments in the story? I always think of Lewa when I hear "Crystals" by Of Monsters and Men. "Earth Intruders" by Bjork has a very Bohrok-esque feel (Bjohrok?) "Bring me to Life" by Evanescence is overly melodramatic and often the subject of memes and mockery these days, but I still stupidly love it since it reminds me of Mata Nui in the Ignition arc. "Never Let Me Go" by Florence + The Machine makes me think of Matoro's sacrifice, as does "The Last Day on Earth" by Kate Miller-Heidke. Any other ideas? If we get enough of these, we could even make playlists for various characters. Which songs remind you of Bionicle?

So, a few people have noted/complained that G2 has nowhere near the level of complexity and forethought that went into G1 . The media representation and marketing has been sparse, and interviews with Ryder Windham strongly imply that the story team is putting minimal effort into planning the story and fleshing out the characters or setting. I've thought about this a lot over the last year, and it got me thinking: At the start of G1, Lego was struggling financially, but they invested a lot of time and resources in Bionicle, and it paid off. So, now that they're absolutely rolling in money, why would they not see the value in making that sort of investment in Bionicle again? Did they not know why the first one took off? And then it hit me: Of course they know. How could they not? Lego has a team of marketing professionals analysing and advising their every move. They know what worked, and you can see them applying the most successful elements of Bionicle to great effect in their more recent work, like Ninjago. They knew that the multimedia marketing/storytelling approach and the depth of the story was a key part of the winning formula. Bionicle G2 was simply not set up for success the way that G1 and Ninjago were. There was a noticeable lack of marketing fanfare. To suggest it was "purposefully bad" would be silly, but it just wasn't brought in with the expectation that it would be a big seller and a huge pop cultural phenomenon. They still wanted to sell sets, of course, and have a sense of presence in the action figure department, but it was not going to be a staple theme like it once was. So, if they wanted to ditch Hero Factory and make a different line of buildable figures, why reboot Bionicle? Coulpa reasons: 1)Brand recognition is going to give you a slight edge with older fans, cash in on nostalgia. 2) Saves money on a legal team having to find new names if you can reuse trademarks you already own. 3)Certain trademarks associated with Bionicle, especially character names, may be lost if unused for long periods of time. My guess is, they're thinking about bringing back Bionicle in a big way one day. You don't let potential like that waste away, especially when you have the resources to make it happen and keep the momentum going to continually bring in new fans. Bionicle's been around for fifteen years now. In five years' time, it'll be its twentieth anniversary. We're getting to the point where there'll be a large number of adults who grew upon Bionicle, many of whom will have kids of their own, in addition to the younger generation ready for a new adventure. I like to think they're building up to something here. So they work to keep the trademark current for now, while they start planning it. What do you think? Do you find the lack of investment in G2 suspicious? Is it paving the way for greater things? Thoughts?

I guess those were kind of hands, but then Stars Tahu retroactively suggests that Mata were supposed to just have normal hands... At least one of the books refers to Gali Mata having hands, so it may just be a really stylised way of representing it. I tend to picture masks having some movement, but not being squishy like in MoL (apart from the Inika masks, of course.) I think of them having mouth gaps in most cases, or vents like the Kaukau. I picture the masks having an expressiveness that's not always humanlike in nature- for example, the fins on things like the Miru and Kakama Nuva might move in response to the environment for aerodynamic purposes, but could also be triggered by emotion, like a cat's ears, or the scopes on the Akaku might start to move in response to the user's curiosity (or retract in disgust) .

Interpretations of Bionicle characters' appearance has varied a lot across different media. Most media suggests that all Matoran and Toa have hands with fingers and thumbs, for example, but only the movies visually depict this. The comics tend to depict their masks always obscuring the mouth, the books suggest that they generally don't, and the movies have it about 50/50. Do masks move or flex to show emotion? Do the characters have much visible organic tissue, or is it all hidden under armour? Should Toa have humanoid proportions, or are gorilla arms okay? Are there any physical differences between male and female Matoran/Toa? In light of these variations, there have been a huge range of fan interpretations, so I thought I might as well ask: How do you imagine the characters? What sort of depictions do you enjoy the most? Are there any pet peeves or things you would change? What do Bionicle characters look like to you?

It's all a Mata of taste. I Nui was gonna do that. I'm going to crack my head open on a rock. Death by rocks would be in Po taste. And Agori mess.

The way I'd play it would be with the 01-03 story as a film trilogy, followed by the Metru Nui prequel saga as a TV show-The format of LOMN and WOS resulted in cutting out a lot of the story, and often failed to make it clear what was going on, so I feel like only a full series could really do justice to that story/setting. The other nice thing is that you don't strictly speaking need all of that information to enjoy the next arc, so casual fans who only liked the movies would still be able to understand it. Ignition arc could be either, but my money would be on another film trilogy, perhaps supplemented with webisodes or a miniseries that elaborated on certain aspects of the story. After that, things could really get interesting. We could have one animated TV series about the lives of Bara Magnans prior to Mata Nui's arrival, and a second, related but separate, series showing what was happening back in the Matoran Universe. The former would be designed for only one season and be followed directly by the next feature film- the first of the Melding arc/better version of TLR, while the MU series would continue until the MU arrived on Bara Magna. So, we could be looking at Star Wars-esque multimedia world-building. I like the idea of having multiple animated series that fit into the same continuity, since it allows for experimentation with different styles and genres, while keeping the movies more realistic-looking and uniform in style.

This seems somewhat different in style to the last two books- Windham doesn't often seem to focus much on characters' inner thoughts. I hope it's something he decides to do more often. Also, interesting confirmation that

It's all a Mata of taste. I Nui was gonna do that.

Greg has outright stated that one's destiny is inevitable in Bionicle (though it's possible he has stated otherwise at a different time). It means different things in other contexts, but this seems to be a "can't fight fate" scenario. Oddly enough, destiny can apparently be altered, though we haven't had a confirmed instance of this happening apart from in alternate timelines. I know that "destiny algorithm" is a fan-coined term, but it fits very well with what we know of destiny from the canon. We know that destiny influences a being's behaviour in order to drive them to fulfill it one way or another. When the Matoran acquired sapience, their personalities developed in a way that was still in accordance with their destiny, and perhaps, in fact, deliberately designed to facilitate it. If you think about how often the characters fight each other- in order for Destiny to work, there would need to be a way to ensure that all participants who would be needed later on didn't get killed in the fights. So Destiny has to work to ensure that certain attacks miss, that somebody dodges just at the right moment, that the opponent gets distracted right- now, that this person gets a good idea for a counter-attack now. It's not by sheer dumb luck that the Toa seem to survive so many insane situations, and if destiny left so many things to chance, half the Toa wouldn't survive long enough to carry out their purpose. So, even if a being has ostensibly completed "their" destiny, their behaviour must still be in accordance with allowing others to complete their own destinies, so the force of destiny still affects them. I realise it's a bit of an extreme extrapolation, but I think it's an idea worth considering.

So, in G1, if Destiny was really just a universe-wide algorithm controlling the behaviour of every being in the MU, there's a number of disturbing implications... 1. First up, nobody has free will. Many species became self aware and sapient, but their personalities and emotions are just a manifestation of the source code. All choices they make are predetermined, and nobody can successfully make the choice to refuse their destiny. 2. Even when groups of characters appeared to be in opposition/conflict with one another, their actions are ultimately working towards the same goal. The destiny algorithm behaves in such a way to make many beings into complete psychopaths who work towards the universe's unified goal by brutally slaughtering others. One would think there'd be more efficient ways to program a bunch of demi-robots to repair a big robot to repair a planet, but, nope, bloodbath it is. 3. The destiny algorithm would have to account for outside factors, such as if a being from outside the GSR got in and interfered with things. Thus, the behaviour of all the beings in the area would have to change in order to deal with the intruder and then carry on with the algorithm. We know that MU beings' programming can be altered remotely, such as when Mata Nui gave them the ability to speak Agori. So presumably something similar could happen if the algorithm needed to respond to external factors. They're basically a hivemind. So, what are the implications of our favourite characters not having free will? Does it diminish the value of heroic acts like Matoro's sacrifice, or acts of cruelty by the villains? Does the algorithm still operate on Sphereus Magna? Or have they now truly transcended their programming? Thoughts?

"What are you, the Master of Jungle?"

Well, Jaller's revival is canon and alluded to in the novels, it's just Takanuva's apparent resurrection that's ignored. But MoL also had Lewa seemingly controlling plant matter and Gali with psychic levitation powers, soooo...

So much for Unity...

Speaking of the Kanohi Faxon... Wanna clean up all those pesky Shadow Takanuvas? Give Hahli a megaphone and a jetpack! Being airborne allows her to use the Klakk scream, and a megaphone (or possibly the services of a Toa of Air or Sonics for amplification) makes sure that it will be heard for kios around. Alternatively, if a jetpack isn't an option, using the Rahi Nui's Kanoka powers on them would do the trick, at least until an actual Klakk is available. "HAHLI! Why is the freezer full of tiny evil frozen Takanuvas?" "Do you have any idea how much a stasis tube costs these days?"

Okay, now I'm really curious about how this would work. Which cultural aspects of romance/dating would be the most confusing or awkward for MU beings to figure out? (within BZP-appropriate subjects, of course) I imagine Kanohi masks would make kisses a bit difficult...

Are you a Makuta, but 40+ powers just isn't enough? Get a Kanohi Faxon! That way, when you want to do a thing but you can't do the thing, you make a thing that does the thing and then you do the thing like the thing!