Sir Kohran

Connecting a desert to the earth element is easy enough, but a snowy mountain really doesn't fit with water at all. It wouldn't have been better to have a huge number of Toa sets, because most people don't have infinite money to spend on them all. Too many sets might cause Lego to lose money from spending so much making them all then not making enough back to cover all the cost. I think this sort of happened in the first year; the Rahi sets weren't bought not just because they were expensive but because most people had already spent a lot getting the six Toa. It's a balancing act between having enough sets to make a lot of money but not having so many that a lot aren't bought.

Yeah, when I first saw this topic I thought it was going to be about specific points in the story that are disliked, but the first post and most of the following have focused on disliked things in general. If I'm to pick an actual moment I strongly dislike, it's be when Lewa uses the word 'buddy' in one of the Kal animations. That word is so out of place in Bionicle (as we knew it up until then) that it's just painful.

If these people were also willing to buy all six Toa for the sake of collection completion, as I'm sure plenty did, then that's still a third of income that Lego would miss out on. Well, each of the six environments belonged to a specific Toa who spent most of their time there, so it wouldn't make sense to have 'empty' environments that belonged to no Toa, unless new Toa were introduced for them later. Couldn't Matoro simply have belonged to a different element? A character's existence doesn't depend solely on their element.

I'd say yes to both, though I feel that actual cases of Gali controlling ice would've been very few. On the negative side, reducing the number of sets by a third potentially reduces sales and income by a third as well.

I'm not trying to excuse the failings, just to provide some explanation for them - they resulted from their story segment being filler. When something is put together quickly and for a minor purpose (in this case to keep the story active between one major section and another) it usually tends to be of lower quality, yes? The Vahi slowed the Kal down long enough for the Toa to come up with and carry out their solution. You're right that it was an interesting way to defeat them, if a little convenient. Who had great sets but no personality and were effectively a more organised and imposing re-run of the Rahi. Which had no significance beyond giving them armour and more/bigger tools, and didn't change their position in the story from what it had been before. They were still six heroes with tools, masks and elemental powers guarding their villages. Not sure what was different, it still had comics and online animation, the difference being that the first was the primary storyteller and the second the supporting whereas in the first year it was the other way round. It was filler in that it had no bearing on the Mask of Light story that brought the first book of the story to its end. All it did was allow the story to stay on Mata-Nui a bit longer and establish the main cast a bit better. All we were told was that they needed to clean the island and return it to the 'before time'; nothing about that screams "giant robot under the island" to me. The connection is only apparent once you know there's a robot set to arise (which we obviously didn't know at the time). The MNOLG's impenetrable rock layer and the island names being Maori for facial features were more relevant clues, IMO.

But that's exactly why they're so disliked. They were filler, and nothing more. There was no redeeming value. The dislike goes beyond that - the sets were simply recoloured Bohrok with different claws, plus the Toa losing their powers and only winning through a trick of the Vahi made for a pretty unheroic story, and there was the third use of the 'going underground to face the enemy then returning to the surface' as an ending. Something being filler doesn't automatically make it bad. If you think about it, the Bohrok in general were filler between Bionicle's first year and the Mask of Light story.

It might've been nice for the Turaga other than Vakama (particularly Dume) to have appeared more in the story following the return to Metru-Nui.

I understand the dislike for the Kal, but bear in mind they were only ever meant to be filler between the Bohrok and Mask of Light stories.

I found it in 2001 through an issue of the Lego Magazine that focused on the (then new) line, and from that I found the website. Pretty simple really. Are you sure that wasn't a glitch? IIRC each new release was a complete chapter of each location, so it wouldn't make sense for the game to stop in the middle of the Le-Koro story.

In this topic it was claimed (with some evidence) that Hardcastle composed the 'Bionicle Music', and if that's so I wouldn't be surprised if he also made those other two tracks.

But surely the story was wrapped around the sets, not vice versa? I appreciate that LEGO wanted to concentrate its promotional efforts for 2003 on the latter half of the year, but it seems implausible that they had no plans whatsoever for Spring 2003 other than "Bohrok remix! Let's hope the originals are popular enough!" Well, as Pereki says they were a bit disorganised in this time and they hadn't done anything like Bionicle before. Another factor was that the Mask of Light movie wasn't going to be released until the second half of 2003, and there was only one wave of canister sets to go with it (the Rahkshi), so that story couldn't be stretched over the whole of its year. Something had to bridge the early 2003 gap between the end of the Bohrok story and the start of the Rahkshi/Mask of Light one. This gap wasn't long enough to introduce a completely new threat, so they decided to extend the Bohrok story with the Kal to cover it. Greg once said they "almost singlehandedly sank Bionicle" and that Rahkshi sales were the only thing that got Bionicle through 2003. The Kal were let down by having identical bodies to the Bohrok, and the overused silver robbed them of a lot of visual appeal.

I haven't heard that the Kal were replacements for anything more interesting. As far as I can tell, it was just that the Bohrok story wasn't long enough to be stretched over the whole of 2002, but the Rahkshi/Mask of Light story wasn't long enough to start in late 2002 then last for all of 2003 because it only had one wave of canister sets. So they extended the Bohrok story into early 2003 with the Kal.

Clickbait, mainly. As for the "golden age" I don't know, never been much for the YouTube-centric side of things. But I guarantee it wasn't as perfect as you remember, because you're going to remember the good or significant parts more than the less interesting parts. Like how the new BIONICLE reboot was supposedly the biggest rift between BIONICLE fans ever created. Yeah, no, I remember the Mistika. And that's just my point of reference, because while I've been a fan since the beginning I was late to the internet party and only joined BZPower at the beginning of 2008, so I don't doubt there were many more stretching back across the entire run before I ever got around to seeing them. I suppose it's a big rift in terms of the fans now being either veterans of the first run, or those who can't or can barely remember that and only know the reboot. If the bigness of the rift means how controversial it is, then it's difficult to say because there's so many other rifts to judge - whether the Piraka Rap and Free the Band were appropriate, whether it was right the Nuva were replaced, whether it was right the Inika torso became the default, whether The Legend Reborn sucked, whether Bionicle should've ended, whether the Stars and the climax were a good sendoff, whether Hero Factory was worth anything...

Does the gender ratio of the cast need to reflect that of the fanbase? The Harry Potter series is enjoyed by as many or even more females as/than males, yet the main cast of that is still mostly male. The reboot is actually worse when it comes to female numbers, because there are no longer any clearly female villager characters as there was in the first series with Nokama, Maku and Hahli. This leaves Gali as the only female character in the whole reboot, unless the Protector of Water is ever confirmed as female.

The Toa Mata sets actually cost a dollar more than all the main Throwbots/Roboriders sets (with the exception of Blaster, Millennium and the Boss, which were larger).

I find this perplexing considering I've read/watched the story materials from 2001-2003 repeatedly and found nothing to suggest Kopaka having any kind of strong feelings towards Gali. They just... weren't characters that interacted much, much less had the kind of interactions that would suggest Kopaka held her in any higher regard than, say, Onua. Did you read Tale of the Toa? 'I had a vision,' Kopaka said. (he describes the vision) Tahu snorted. 'And when exactly were you going to let us in on this secret?' 'He just did, Tahu,' Gali pointed out quietly. 'And that's fine. There was no need of knowing it until now.' Kopaka gazed at her, touched that she'd come to his defence. "touched that she'd come to his defense" doesn't necessarily equal "totally obsessing over her friendship". There are many times I've been grateful for someone defending me; that doesn't mean I hold them in higher regards than my other friends. Obviously it's not 'totally obsessing', but he clearly holds her in some regard, certainly more than the others whom he spends most of the book being irritated at.

I find this perplexing considering I've read/watched the story materials from 2001-2003 repeatedly and found nothing to suggest Kopaka having any kind of strong feelings towards Gali. They just... weren't characters that interacted much, much less had the kind of interactions that would suggest Kopaka held her in any higher regard than, say, Onua. Did you read Tale of the Toa? 'I had a vision,' Kopaka said. (he describes the vision) Tahu snorted. 'And when exactly were you going to let us in on this secret?' 'He just did, Tahu,' Gali pointed out quietly. 'And that's fine. There was no need of knowing it until now.' Kopaka gazed at her, touched that she'd come to his defence.

The sets in the Bohrok and Rahkshi waves had no differences outside their colour and weapon pieces, yet they still sold well.

We know it from Templar's own words on their Tumblr. Regarding the Matoran with the Comet: That first link is an unused scene of a Tohunga making infected Kohli balls, the Comets that were being sold in the Po-Koro bazaar. After helping Pohatu destroy the Nui-Jaga nest, Takua was supposed to find a clue and discover a sweat shop of mind-controlled captives he sets free. The idea was once floated about of a 7th secret Tohungan tribe, worshipers of the cult of Makuta that insidiously undermined the efforts of the Toa to awake Mata Nui. Originally the Kohli ball merchant was supposed to be one of their agents. This was eventually scrapped by LEGO, and so the real identity of the merchant and his motives remain a mystery... Regarding the Kuma-Nui/Kofo-Jaga: Some may have noticed references in last week’s post to a minigame featuring Onua that never made it into Program 5, wherein the player discovers the village of Onu-Koro. Here’s a few storyboards and sketches from the game that never was. Originally featuring “wolf rats” (later changed to “fire scorpions”), the game let players save the hard-working Onu-Korans from yet another calamity, and also behold Onua for the first time...Onu-Koro, however, was the biggest environment yet, and by the time the cave systems and other puzzles were completed the minigame remained undone and had to be scrapped.

Bionicle 2015 isn't a continuation of the old line in which everything would have to be kept the same, but a reboot in which certain things can be and have been changed. Therefore I'd be okay with previously male Toa being female. It's harder to decide which Toa should actually be female, though. I think that depends on whether you can accept stereotypically male traits like physical strength and aggression belonging to female characters. I think the reason Lewa has pretty much always been the most likely candidate for being female is because agility and lightness are more compatible with the stereotypical slender female body.

I think most of it would've been cut simply because they didn't have time to fully implement it.

The problem is that the map portrays Ko-Wahi as a flat region covered in ice, like Greenland or Antarctica, rather than as mountainous.

A planet divided into seven equal-size segments each right up next to two others but each consisting of a completely different environment was admittedly pretty silly. BIONICLE did basically the same thing at a smaller scale, though, with jungle transitioning to ice transitioning to desert with no visible divisions all on a single island. The different environments of Mata Nui could mostly co-exist. Africa is mostly desert in the north whilst the middle has areas of jungle, which accounts for Po-Wahi and Le-Wahi being on the same landmass. Ga-Wahi could be between these two areas. The presence of a volcano takes care of Ta-Wahi, whilst Onu-Wahi is the underground rather than a distinct area of the island. The big problem is Ko-Wahi. It's impossible for an area of permanently cold climate to be right in the middle of a landmass that would need very hot temperatures to have desert and jungle.

BIONICLE had an actual virus. What do you think put Mata Nui to sleep? But the characters weren't fighting that itself, they fought the being responsible for it.

A planet divided into seven equal-size segments each right up next to two others but each consisting of a completely different environment was admittedly pretty silly. With Bionicle the threat was from beings symbolic of a virus, rather than a literal virus as it was in Roboriders.