Sir Kohran

Stan Lee did. Are there a lot of Scandinavians upset over this?

I'm not a comics expert so I can't judge this exactly, but I would at least point out that Norse mythology is quite prominent, so many people would probably know that names like Thor didn't begin with the comics. I don't think many people would know the same about the Maori words and culture, given that the Maori are from small islands on the edge of the known world and so not extremely prominent.

it's not something worth getting upset over, so I wouldn't expect Lego to even consider that the Maori would get mad

I would. If you're going to take something that another group considers theirs and pass it off as your own, a reaction to that isn't unlikely.

The fans would have to find out eventually, as a lot of us did.

Why would they have to? Bearing in mind most fans move on after just a few years, and those of us who stayed interested for many years are a minority of all those ever interested in Bionicle.

And I think it was only because of the Maori action that many people learnt that the 'Bionicle words' were actually Maori words.

Lego needed names for characters, ideas, and places, so they did what writers who also sell their work do all the time and turned to existing languages.

And swiped a load of words exactly as they were and applied them to fictional things apparently without caring how the people associated with the language felt about that.

It can if it's a deliberate sleight against them that's obviously meant to draw parallels. That's thankfully not common these days, but it's been done; old antisemitic political cartoons tend to depict Jews as "vermin" without explicitly naming them as such, for example.

Of course people can draw parallels if the people depicted are extremely similar to real world people - but when we're dealing with a bunch of rainbow-colored robot beings with big masks on their faces, it's surely going to be very hard for audiences to make any parallel with real world people.

Ripping off the Xenomorphs is profiting off of another artist, of something someone else deliberately created for a specific purpose in recent history, without crediting or compensating that artist. Languages don't exist in the same context.

But language is also deliberately created for a specific purpose, and Lego didn't credit or compensate the Maori for the use of their language.

Language cannot be owned because culture cannot be owned.

No, not owned in the legal sense (as I've said), but culture is owned in an associative sense by the people/area it originated in. I mean, are Samurai and Tengu not part of Japanese culture? Are Pegasus and the Cyclops not part of Greek culture?

If a Chinese toy company makes a line of action figures whose names are English words based on traits relevant to the characters, can the collective of the English-speaking world sue them?

I think this analogy doesn't work because the English language isn't spoken only by or associated with a specific group of people as the Maori language is; English is now too widespread for its use to be controversial or restricted.

If the usage of words and names from other cultures truly warranted a lawsuit, why don't cultural groups sue for that reason all the time? Because even the aforementioned angry Hindu minority didn't take Hi-Rez to court; if they tried, the clearly weren't able to.

Often they don't have the money or means to, plus the use of cultural terms probably isn't outright illegal anyway.

Did the Maori actually sue, BTW? They might have just contacted Lego and complained in the way customers do.

There's probably hundreds of works of fiction that lift names, ideas, and even specific folkloric/religious characters straight from other cultures, and yet those cultures don't bat an eye. There is nothing wrong with this. When you write fiction, you base it on what you know or what exists unless you're actively trying to make something hard to relate to. Tolkien ripped off Norse mythology openly and deliberately.

There's nothing wrong with basing a work on something already there, the problems start when you take things exactly as they are, as Lego did with the Maori words. Yes, Tolkien based things on real world mythology, but he didn't actually call his characters 'Odin' or 'Loki', did he?

t's easy to understand why there's so little opposition to this kind of thing when you ask one question: what is the consequence of cultural appropriation? What actually happens as a result, provided it's not done in a way that promotes bigotry or ethnocentrism? Lego and Templar either couldn't come up with really good names or they wanted to have names with meaning, so they turned to existing languages as a result. This is something writers do all the time.

I'm not saying it was wrong for Lego to refer to the Maori language at all, obviously you have to start somewhere when coming up with fictional names. I just think that, if they wanted to use the words exactly as they were, they should've (at least) spoken to the Maori about it first to see how they felt about it.

How did this really affect the Maori? The result was just that kids were exposed to foreign languages, and now us fans can, as adults, look into and appreciate the etymology of these names and terms. How horrible.

The problem is kids don't know the words are from a real language, they just think of 'Toa', 'Tohunga', 'Kanohi', 'Whenua' etc. as entirely Bionicle words and nothing else. This is what I think the Maori were angry about: their words being rebooted as the words of a fictional people/world for a company's commercial interests without any consideration for how they felt about it.

My point is that then they'd be a possible racist caricature, which is bad because it encourages ethnocentrism. It's the kind of portrayal of other cultures you see a lot in the early days of American animation, especially when trying to paint other countries as the bad guy.

But it can't be racist if the group of people portrayed are fictional (and not even human in this case).

Except Xenomorphs were created on purpose as art by a person for entertainment. They aren't a centuries- or even millennia-old cultural construct used for everyday matters that was not only created by people long dead, but which has changed so much over time that it's not even the original thing anymore.

The difference doesn't really matter, I was just using this to show the difference between 'taking inspiration from' and 'taking and using it exactly as it is' (as Lego did with the Maori words).

Xenomorphs are owned. The words "puku" and "kopaka" are not.

Not legally, but they are owned by the Maori in the cultural sense.

Why? A language is public domain.

Nobody owns culture, though. Nobody owns language unless it's copyrighted.

The Maori language may not be owned in the strict sense of copyright, but the Maoris own it in as much as they (or their ancestors) created it and it isn't spoken or used by any other bunch of people. And they were clearly bothered that their language (a big part of their cultural heritage) was being taken by a toy company for their plastic building products without any consultation.

what wouldn't be ok is if they did that and made the Matoran into skirt-wearing savages with broken speech or what have you. They didn't, though.

Well it would be okay actually, as Lego created and own the Matoran, and the Matoran aren't real beings, so Lego can portray them however they like.

They just took inspiration from another culture--something it's very hard not to do when creating worlds.

There's a difference between taking inspiration to create something clearly different, and taking something without changing it at all.

Lego probably took inspiration from the Aliens xenomorphs and facehuggers for the 2002 enemies, but they didn't actually call the 2002 enemies 'xenomorphs' and 'facehuggers', they called them 'Bohrok' and 'Krana'. They made them clearly different from the source of inspiration. That wasn't done with the 2001 names, Lego just took and used the Maori words exactly as they were.

To be honest, I find the whole Maori name thing to be rather ridiculous. Fiction uses foreign words for names all the time. Why is one language more sacred than all the others?

Well, I think Lego should at least have checked whether it was okay to use other people's words before they actually did.

And as this list points out, many were never phased out at all. Terms like “Mata Nui” were used all the way until the serials stopped in 2011, and terms like “Toa” were used as recently as 2016, and no one seems to have batted an eye.

I guess the terms were too established to be changed, apart from 'Tohunga', and the agreement with the Maori was probably that Lego wouldn't use more of their words in future.

 

 

Takua's name was introduced post-Maori intervention, so it's super unlikely they were drawing from Maori or any other language for him.

Are you sure it was? The name appears in MNOLG's last cutscene, and I think Greg said the character and him becoming a Toa was planned from the start.

 

Takua is first named in Quest for the Toa, which came out on October 3rd. Maui Solomon contacted Lego sometime before June.

 

The tricky part is that QftT does indeed use a few Maori, Fijian, and other cultures' words that hadn't cropped up in any media before. They might have been grandfathered in, since the game's development had already been rolling with them. But weirdly, we already see in the July version of the Legend of Mata Nui that they were actively scrubbing that game of appropriated words (only references to "villagers," Tamariki becomes Nobua). In any case, it's clear that from June onward, Lego was not taking new words from any cultures (again, MNOGII aside).

 

So it's a question of at what point and by whom "Takua" was conceived - and by extension, whether he was one of the grandfathered-in words. Which we don't have a concrete answer for. BUT: while MNOG had its protagonist from January, Templar internally called him George for what seems to have been most of development. This also appears to have been the case with Quest for the Toa, which has a cheat code (evilgeorge) that makes the player character all dark blue. Based on that, I would argue the name "Takua" (if not his role as a character, which is a whole matter of its own) was almost certainly coined after the Maori intervention. In which case, it would have been an original word created at Lego, even though it accompanies some appropriated words in the game it debuts.

 

And I also kind of think this just because we haven't found a convincing source for the name. But that could change!

 

You're probably right, like I said above, 'Takua' really doesn't seem to be a Maori word. Lego probably came up with it themselves.

If anything, it's the folks who sued Lego who are in the wrong here and not Templar, since they're kind of hypocritical for going after Lego but not Templar when both parties committed the same "offense" of cultural appropriation.

As I said before, the MNOLG 2 names weren't used to the same extent that the first Bionicle ones were (so I doubt anyone actually noticed the second time), plus it was just one or two names from a whole load of different languages rather than lots from just one, so there wasn't one group of people to get angry about it. That might've been intentional by Templar to avoid repeating what happened the first time.

Takua's name was introduced post-Maori intervention, so it's super unlikely they were drawing from Maori or any other language for him.

Are you sure it was? The name appears in MNOLG's last cutscene, and I think Greg said the character and him becoming a Toa was planned from the start.

It's kind of ridiculous Templar was not only allowed by Lego to pull the same stunt Lego got in trouble for in 2001 again in 2003, but that Lego went ahead and used a couple of the names for the 04 Matoran (even if they were made legally distinct through adjustments to the spelling.)

I don't think it was quite the same, as the MNOLG 2 names didn't appear outside the game (which only Bionicle fans knew about), whereas the 2001 words were used on physical products and paperwork.

 

For me, Google Translate gives 'ship' as 'kaipuke' in Maori.

 

I did it the other way around... put 'Takua' in, told google that it was (possibly) Maori, and it returned 'ship'. But, like I said, I don't always trust Google translate, so I can't guarantee it's correct.

 

Oddly, 'Takua' (not just 'takua') does produce 'Ship', but then 'ship' and 'Ship' into Maori both produce 'kaipuke' and 'Tuhinga', then maoridictionary.co.nz doesn't return anything for 'takua' and gives 'ship' as 'kaipuke'. So I'm fairly sure 'takua' doesn't have a clear or exact Maori meaning.

 

I'm curious that you didn't include Takua on the list. Apparently, his name means 'ship' in Maori (at least according to Google translate, which I... don't always trust), and can mean piety or devoutness in Swahili... though I'm not exactly seeing the connection in either of those cases. Maybe it has more meanings in other languages, but I didn't check further.

This is just a guess, but the word "ship" in Maori could have connotations of exploration or travel, which would fit Takua well.

 

For me, Google Translate gives 'ship' as 'kaipuke' in Maori.

Edit: I tried translating “matau” from Maori using Google Translate and got “right.” Remember what Turaga Matau said about going left?

Did he say that in the first few years? For that to have been the cause of Matau's name, it would have to have been thought up back at Bionicle's start as Matau was a 2001 character. Maybe it's just a big coincidence?

I feel like even the krana and facehugger similarities might be coincidental, as the krana were likely just the next step in the "collectibles" thing after infected Kanohi.

Unless somebody actually tells us, we may never know whether the Krana were actually derived from the facehuggers, but at the very least you have to admit it's pretty similar.

Don't forget that LEGO did have to produce the Revenge of the Sith sets on time, so they had some form of insider information.

Plus the internet was fairly established by 2004/5, so there would've been media and information released or leaked in the months before the film's release and so I hardly think the story was especially secret.

This just got me thinking, this isn’t the first time they used a famous person to promote the line. Anyone else remember circa 2002 when they did stuff with Andy Macdonald, the professional skateboarder? I think there was a BIONICLE skateboard released.

I think that was in the very first year when he skated with a Three Virtues logo on his board or something. I don't think it amounted to much.

For example, back in 2002, BZP's product reviews for the Bahrag and Exo-Toa mentioned the parallels between them and the Xenomorph queen/power loader mech fight in the film Aliens.

The Bohrok in general are quite similar to the Xenomorphs - they have both have nests, in which they curl up when not active, and are led by a queen (or queens) that is/are larger than the good guys. The Krana latching onto Matoran/Toa faces is also quite similar to the facehuggers latching onto human faces.

The shape of MoL's story borrows a lot from Lord of the Rings, which was concluding that year

The Avohkii is the equivalent of the Ring, Takua and Jaller are the equivalent of Frodo and Sam, and the Rahkshi are the equivalent of the Nazgul, just to spell it out.

I don’t feel that Templar presented Matoran as “mature” or “adult,” at least not entirely.

I think there's a clear difference between MNOLG Jala saying to Takua "It warms me that you have chosen to accept our trust" and MOL Jaller saying to him "Kohlii head, you coulda been lava bones!" One of the things I liked about early Bionicle in general was its more dark and mature tone, instead of the goofiness and immaturity there was in most other child-friendly media of the time and earlier. That's not to say there weren't any lighthearted moments at all, and I'm glad there were some, but they didn't change the generally serious atmosphere.

The MOL portrayals aren't fatally bad, but they do feel a bit different.

To keep my backstories simple.

Sorry if I sound like a snitch, but are we allowed to revive topics from more than six months ago?

I fail to see why so many insist on perpetuating the idea that this forum is dead. 

 

I wouldn't say it's outright dead, but I think it is in a retirement/old age kind of state.

The more I hear about it, the more it sounds like some wild, collective fever dream.

If only it had been.

Does anybody know/remember when the last serial update was? Wasn't it in 2011?

 

 

 

Just one thing:

 

"Bionicle was cancelled in 2010 and ended on a cliffhanger with multiple story threads left unfinished"

 

Yes, there were some other stories left to be continued in the serials, but surely the basic story did end with Makuta/Teridax's destruction.

Except those threads were all part of a larger pucture that involved planet-wide conflict and inevitable civil war.

 

Yes, I’m still bitter.

 

I'm not saying there wasn't anything to happen at all after Makuta's destruction, just that that was the end of Bionicle's central plot and so the line didn't overall "end on a cliffhanger".

 

And I’m saying it did.

 

Would you care to say why? What desperate situation was hanging in the balance after Journey's End?

The Bionicle story, right from 2001, was always about the threat from Makuta. That's why almost all the story media didn't continue past Makuta's destruction, and even the serials which were going to stopped only a little over a year after.

 

Just one thing:

 

"Bionicle was cancelled in 2010 and ended on a cliffhanger with multiple story threads left unfinished"

 

Yes, there were some other stories left to be continued in the serials, but surely the basic story did end with Makuta/Teridax's destruction.

Except those threads were all part of a larger pucture that involved planet-wide conflict and inevitable civil war.

 

Yes, I’m still bitter.

 

I'm not saying there wasn't anything to happen at all after Makuta's destruction, just that that was the end of Bionicle's central plot and so the line didn't overall "end on a cliffhanger".

>Kalama has a defining characteristic and an actual role in Matoran society.

 

>Tiribomba has a funny name.

Tiribomba's name trumps any characteristics or roles in society.

That was a great and informative read, I learned quite a bit I didn't know before. What an amazing story this game's has been.

Just one thing:

"Bionicle was cancelled in 2010 and ended on a cliffhanger with multiple story threads left unfinished"

Yes, there were some other stories left to be continued in the serials, but surely the basic story did end with Makuta/Teridax's destruction.

Tiribomba's name automatically makes him cooler than any other Matoran. This cannot be disagreed with.

Lego had the right idea to reboot Bionicle but at the wrong time. If Lego could jump onto this trend of reboots they could recapture the Bionicle charm. They could successfully retell the Bionicle story again and not get back lash for recycling the same plot points.

I don't really see how now is a far better time than 2014-16 was, people either connect with a line/story or they don't, they did with original Bionicle but they didn't with the second one. Whilst it might not be certain why they didn't, I don't think it was to do with 'recycling' the old story, bearing in mind most children of the last five years weren't even alive when the original Bionicle story was (therefore it shouldn't feel 'recycled' to them, even if it sort of was).

I just love how the thread proposing that BZP is dying is seeing so many replies.

Quite an irony.

Although the lack of other topics with this many replies in at least this forum (other than the Twitch Tuesday topic) does perhaps still tell you something.