aldero

Well, this is definitely a rarity. I frankly don't know where to start with this... I guess if you have a question, ask the community! We are quite willing to welcome back a senior Bonkle fan.

"A duo of comparatively short lifetime friends accidentally stumble across an all-important, eponymous golden MacGuffin after a significant societal event that polarised most of the inhabitants and left them unsure about a certain person. After some counselling and exposition from a wise old man with a staff and robes, the duo head out with other friends who occasionally help them out and tag along to follow a prophecy relating to the all-important MacGuffin. But when a mysterious dark force who lurks in the shadows steps back into the light and detects that this duo hold the MacGuffin, he sends numerous fearsome, tall guardians who overshadow even the greatest heroes and only exist to serve the dark force's intentions, things speed up as the duo must pick up their pace and fulfil their mission as soon as possible before the dark force becomes too powerful..."

Okay, you probably all know it by now, it's the Lord of The Rings.

Additionally, there is a scene where one of the film's few female characters meditates harmoniously in a tranquil place punctuated by waterfalls and recollects the current events of the story only to stumble across some crucial plot-point relating to the further story of the film. Galadriel's meditation in Rivendell and Gali's meditation in Kini-Nui, anyone?

Ooh! Russell Brand as Vezon! We need that kind of manic, verbose lunacy for Vezon.

I will admit, I shrugged at first, but he is just the perfect lunatic for a insane character like Vezon. Brand always just has so much energy and wit that could be easily carried over to Bionicle's signature maniac. There would have to be a fair bit of vocal and manneristic differentiation between Russell Brand the-guy-who-sounds-like-a-radio-show-host and Russell Brand the Skakdi, but I'm up for it.

I really need minifigures of Ed and Edna Walker, so I'm gonna throw in a set of their caravan and snippets of the junkyard for good measure.

Master Chen's dojo. I know we just the got the Temple of Airjitzu, but I'm up for a set depicting the foyer, the individual bedrooms, balconies, announcement area and, of course, all of the trapdoors.

The Black Bounty, otherwise known as the corrupted ruins of the Destiny's Bounty operated by Lord Garmadon and the Serpentine.

The great beings. Thats what I say!

I personally blame the patriarchy... err... the Great Beings!

Am I the only one that would want Nolan North as Lewa? David Tennant is still an excellent choice, but I'm more prone to Nathan Drake as the Toa of Air. What else do we have here...

James Earl Jones as Teridax. I absolutely loathed the voice Teridax was given in Mask of Light and I desperately need a change. I like my Teridax methodical, smooth-talking and intimidating. I mean, who else could say this, "I am the ground you walk on ... the air you breathe. No longer must I fight you to rule a Universe. I AM the Universe!" more convincingly than James Earl Jones himself?

Bill Nighy as Vakama.

Cate Blanchett as Nokama.

Vincent Tong as Jaller, actually. 

Benedict Cumberbatch as Turaga Dume. I know it's a little off-topic from classical Bionicle, but he has to be somewhere.

Now, I just need a voice actor for Vezon... can't think of one right now...

If you ask me, I'd say that Karzahni would have picked up a clue from Hahli that they were travelling to Voya Nui to save the Toa Nuva. Even if Karzahni is reclusive and never leaves his realm, he would, at the very least, have a basic understanding of the Matoran Universe. All he needed was the motivation and reasoning to go to the Southern Continent and he's on his way.

Another explanation of mine would be a snippet from a vision projected by Karzahni himself. I'm 97% sure that the defeat of the Toa Nuva and the treacherous journey ahead would be included in a vision of delirium and nightmares witnessed by the Matoran.

But you're right that movie studios might consider the possibility of a theatrical Bionicle film provided that both the upcoming LEGO spin-off films and the upcoming LEGO Bionicle Netflix series prove successful. Bionicle has both a lot of nostalgic appeal (something Hollywood seems to love) and a very clear storytelling foundation. Still, I think it's probably safe to assume the Bionicle theme's popularity today is still far below its peak in 2002–2003, and it might take some real growth before the LEGO Group and filmmakers are willing to give a Bionicle theatrical film a shot.

That's a good point about nostalgia actually. If you're at all informed about theatre's latest trends, you'll know nostalgia has run rampant. The 90's have recently started leaking back into our culture once all of the 20-30 year olds started longing to return to a simpler time of Transformers cartoons and Poptarts. Twenty-or-so years later, we have utterly terrible Transformers movies and... yeah... Poptarts are still around. With that in mind, I'd predict a rapid resurgence in Bionicle's popularity in ten or so years once all of the millennials have grown up and have gone through the same nostalgic phase in their adulthood. 

But that's just regarding the factor of nostalgia. If Journey to One becomes as popular as we all want it to be, then LEGO would be out of their minds not to capitalise on this.

Any early storyline featuring Lewa:

 

Goshdarnit Lewa

Can you stop losing your mask?

With love, Onua

Ah, Lewa, Lewa

Is it Krana or Tren Krom?

Stop getting possessed

If we really want to get technical, the Legend Reborn had a theatrical release in Iceland, but that's beside the point. 

In terms of the effectiveness of a film covering the events of a year or arc, I don't think Bionicle would necessarily succeed in that category, simply because I don't think that justice would be done to the series. I know that this happened to countless other franchises that have way more background lore beyond the synopsis of a film, often times more so than Bionicle, but an ideal scenario would see the release of a television or web series alongside the obligatory serials and books. I just have a slight feeling that a Bionicle story arc should not be confined to a three act structure. I guess the only one that would work would be an Ignition trilogy, but even then, I would still want to witness the whole tension and confrontation between Lesovikk and Karzahni, the destruction of the Shadow Leech Hive, the entire book of Swamp of Secrets and the Piraka discovering Mangaia, just to name a few. 

My point is that a whole year should not be confined to a single movie. On the other hand, a Reign of Shadows movie would be amazing.

Perhaps they weren't really programmed to be that affectionate. The Great Beings would inevitably program a sense of altruism into the inhabitants of the Matoran Universe, but having them really love each other and making them inseparable wouldn't be good from an employer's standpoint. The inhabitants would know how to care for each other, but at the end of the day, they have to maintain the upkeep for the Great Spirit Robot.

That's probably why beings outside of the Matoran Universe like the Glatorian and Agori are capable of perceiving love in the aforementioned format. They don't have to be one of the billions of janitors inside the Robot; they can just live their lives.

As for the Hewkii x Macku (Hewku? Mackii?) issue, that would probably happen as a result of not working inside of the Robot for a thousand years. Their whole thought process and set of emotions would probably change dramatically.

 

Well

 

This just means Artakha's even more lazy than before, as he could have reset the universe to stop Makuta

 

 

Never said he KNEW about it.

 

But hey, that's just a theory... a Bionicle theory! Thanks for watching.

Seems like a pretty solid basis to me. The Matoran were made to look after and do maintenance on the Great Spirit Robot, live in the Robot and be governed by a consistent flow of time. There is a Great Mask assigned to those three fundamental parts of an ideal Matoran worker. But what I would like to know is what it is a failsafe for. Is it a failsafe for the event of total domination by an outside being that renders them slaves to a different being? 

Was it failsafe in the event that the Matoran aren't working for Mata Nui?

Good point. It was never really explained in the story why Artahka made the Six Great Disks with the intention of some cross-wired freak crafting it into one of the three Legendary Masks. I guess it would be reasonable to assume that the Vahi was made for the purpose of power rather than a last resort essential to the survival of the Great Spirit similar to the Ignika.

2003:

It's Takua's time

The Avohkii is here

He's a Toa now

2004:

In Vakama's day

City of Metru Nui

Screwed up by Vahki

2005:

Get the Matoran

Vakama is evil now

Should have been Matau

I would have liked more than that last comic where Mata Nui hits some Thornal Launchers and turns a corner filled with fire. I really wanted more mystery

That's the key word: mystery. There is an unbelievable amount of mystery surrounding the Great Beings that is just begging to be explored. If Mata Nui had ever stumbled across some ancient records of the Great Beings and uncovered their motives and hints of their culture, his journey of self-discovery and his development of perspective would have been made so much better. It definitely would have provided the theme with it's signature air of mystery that it admittedly lost in the later years. 

I'm picturing it right now... Mata Nui getting to the centre of the Maze and finding the blueprints of the Great Spirit Robot and the records following it's construction. Absolutely dripping with atmosphere and drenched in mystery.

Well, that's... indescribably amazing. I'd be more prone to a painting of the Ignika or the Mask of Creation hanging up on my wall, but it doesn't mean I don't want this like crazy.

Reading this .pdf file makes me realize there are still words I don't know. It's like reading A Princess of Mars all over again.

 

I am impressed by your work in building a language almost from scratch, albeit skeletal in depth. You should share this with your family.

"What have you done this week, my child?"

"Me? I just developed the framework for a fictional language out of several mismatched words, suggested linguistic patterns and mouth anatomy. How about you?"

In all seriousness, this is pretty flippin' amazing. I'll hopefully expand on this topic with some phrases and perhaps some sentences later on. Liberties may have to be taken, of course. Please continue blowing my mind in future.

I don't really have a favourite Glatorian. I never got to like any of them and their personalities. Doesn't mean I don't like Sahmad, though. In fact, I enjoy the Agori much, much more than the Glatorian themselves. One could say that Metus was a discount Ahkmou, but Metus comes across as a significantly more cynical character than the comparatively more innocent Ahkmou. 

Aside from the sudden introduction of existentialism in this thread, I will say that G1 was never really retconned or anything. It would have been retconned if a pre-established and understood consequence of an event is changed abruptly to suit the current story's story, but no solid or undoubtable connections have been made that would link the completely separate universes of G1 and G2. They exist separately and prosper independently. 

Good day.

It would've been nice to have more revealed about the Great Beings in the story rather than via Greg answering questions after the fact.

 

You lament the loss of the graphic novel, but they had originally planned two additional movies to follow the events of The Legend Reborn.  In the end, LEGO had largely lost interest in the story, and it was left to Greg to wrangle as many loose ends together as he could before time ran out.

The graphic novels were excellent and The Legend Reborn... is... infamous. I don't know if I really wanted to see anything about the Great Beings butchered by the films. I would frankly just want to see a pre-rendered mini-movie similar to the Barraki short, the bi-weekly Mata Nui blog narrated by Michael Dorn, a heaped helping of serials and an exclusive graphic novel. That, I don't ever want to see Berix ever again.

I'm sure that at least 100% of us have heard about the canceled tenth graphic novel made by Papercutz, the Power of the Great Beings. It has been stated that this novel would have gone more into depth about Mata Nui's journey into the Valley of the Maze, his path to self-discovery and the assembling of the Prototype Robot before the eventual reformation of Spherus Magna. 

This cancelation was made even more tragic when all we got out of the Valley of the Maze series was a short comic included with the LEGO Club magazine which glossed over... what? Everything? There is so much that could have been explored beyond the Valley of the Maze story arc, such as the elaborated-on origins of the Baterra, the construction of the Great Spirit Robot and more on what happened after the Shattering.

So, my question is: What did you want to see in this novel?

 

 

 

Characters with actual personalities.

Out of curiosity, how would this look to you? 'cuz having a goal, strength, and flaw is often enough to form the basis of a personality/character in writing and the character descriptions for Nexo have those elements.

Look to the flaws added to each G2 Toa to see an example of this yielding a bad result.

For a given value of "bad", maybe—I think the flaws added to the G2 Toa are excellent and give them better personalities than the G1 Toa, who barely had personality traits at all outside of their base archetypes.

 

That's... a really good point, actually. Sure, they might come across as much more comical to our cynical selves now, but it helps to give a better sense of identity to the Toa (and for that matter, Ninja). Nexo Knights definitely seems like the theme to sport some well-fleshed out, entertaining characters with their own completely separate identity. Yes, I'm seeing a lot of, say, Nya in Macy, so I hope LEGO shakes things up enough without stirring up the archetype of a witty, confident and deviant female character.

Characters with actual personalities.

I'd hate to be such a pessimist, but since this series seems to be following the same formula established by Ninjago, we might just get fleshed-out archetypes. My suggestion would be to wait for them to really develop their personalities. Even then, it's all just archetypes.

I'm sure that we've all at least heard of the newest original theme destined for Ninjago proportions, Nexo Knights. I've been craving some good ol' Western-style fantasy ever since the LEGO Kingdoms line ended (2013 Castle theme is utterly irrelevant) and as much as I'd love to see the return of the Fantasy Era style of Castle, I'm quite eager to see Nexo Knights go places. So, my question is: What do you want to see?

I'll kick off the discussion on the note of Merlok 2.0. I'll be honest, I love the concept of this guy. He puts a bit of a spin on the wise mentor character we've seen in every, I repeat, every original theme with a story by making him everyone's personal J.A.R.V.I.S. This is a pretty good example of what Nexo Knights should be in my opinion; the same tale with everything changed. With that, I'd love to see some spins on some fantasy archetypes such as dwarves, trolls, skeletons, wizards and, most importantly, dragons.