Sir Keksalot

Well, it's not much, but it's enough to say it's still alive.

I feel like not letting the Matoran have mythology at all beyond their creation myth was just paranoid. Religion, sure, I at least understand that; but while it does sound like the Toa were more godlike early on, they could still have been part of a tradition like the Matter of Britain, with the Toa being similar to the Knights of the Round Table. It'd also be interesting to see what spirits and superstitions the Matoran believed in. Were they susceptible to disease, and did they blame it on a malicious being? What did they believe would happen when they died, since Artakha and Karzahni didn't seem to be considered afterlives? We saw they had one folk hero, Lhii; but that was an intentional lie from Vakama meant to preserve Lhikan's memory, so would they have had more? Vakama alludes to the importance of the "Bionicle," and we get some hints as to what the word really means, but what was the cultural significance of reciting parts of the Bionicle, how did it change over time, and what was the purpose of reciting it beyond taking lessons from its content? I love good worldbuilding and it just hurts that we never got a more believable culture from the Matoran. I have plans for my own G3 concept that I may or may not follow through with, and I made it a point to go into Matoran religion in detail, explaining what kinds of deities the Toa were viewed as and how this affected their relationship with the Matoran. I ditched the idea of having them start as Matoran who became Toa just so I could show the dynamic of gods among men who don't quite get that they're gods, and how the Toa view Matoran tradition serves to develop them here--something we could never get from G1. I don't know if this is the best way to go about incorporating religion into the worldbuilding and story, but at least I'm man enough to do it. That, and I'm also bitter and stubborn enough.

Crabity hurts Closer to Pewkuth I had a bunch of other puns but they don't really apply to Karda Nui so uh

So I wanna specify that the definition of "god" is sketchy, and whether or not the GBs count lies with what definition we settle on. The one I used in the OP--that is, worship defines godhood--makes them non-gods; but Loki, who doesn't appear to have been worshiped, is often considered a god, while some angels in Christianity have received some form of their own veneration at different times but are almost never considered outright gods. Then there's what qualifies as worship: the Vodou pantheon is mostly comprised of many spirits called Loa plus a supreme god named Bondye, with only Bondye actually being worshiped while the Loa beneath him are a medium between him and humanity. So do they count as gods because they are evoked for various purposes and receive praise, or not because they're just the middlemen? I don't know if we know enough about how the Matoran saw the GBs to really get to the bottom of whether they count. And I just wanna say this: as someone who has never been religious at any point in his life, everyone who's worried about being alienated by a fictional society having a fictional religion can cool it. Societies form religions. It's what they do. People want an explanation for things they don't understand, a purpose to pursue, a sense that there is meaning and order to life and the universe. Leaders seek means to keep their people in line and ways to impart ideas they consider important. The individuals behind promoting these traditions are wildly imaginative, and the story changes each time it is told, mutating into more and more spectacular tales. This is how we ended up with thousands of religions across our own species. Whether or not we agree with a fictional society's religious teachings, the only mature and sensible decision to be made is to accept that, yeah, those teachings would be around in this world. Worldbuilding is fun when it's believable, and this is all in the realm of fiction, so I really have to question if Lego's not just overestimating the power of the vocal soccer moms who also hate fun in general.

Post-'03, it was revealed that the creation myth told by the Turaga to the Matoran was a deliberately-crafted, fictional construct meant to explain the threat of the Makuta without revealing the true history of the Matoran species to them. Up to that point, the Turaga spoke of Mata Nui as if he was a god to them--which, in a sense, he kind of was, given that he created several races and ruled over his own miniature universe. Of course, the definition of "god" entails being worshiped as having power over the universe in some way. If Mata Nui was worshiped, even casually, by the Matoran, that would truly make him a god. And unquestionably real people can become gods--Guan Yu was deified post-mortem as a protection deity. But was Mata Nui worshiped? Did the Matoran have a monotheistic (or, perhaps, dualistic) religion? Vakama himself says "Mata Nui protect us" in MoL, much as a Christian may say "God have mercy." This is important for 2 reasons: first, Vakama was in on the whole plot to hide Metru Nui from the Matoran; second, the writers of MoL clearly knew about the great city because the narration refers to it at the end of the film. This would imply that the Matoran saw Mata Nui as divine in some way. However, there's no religion without certain behaviors in place. Deism--the metaphysical stance that there is a god--is not a religion because it is only belief, not worship. Without worship, there is no religion. (There are atheistic religions, like some forms of Buddhism, but worship still occurs, it's just not directed at one or more deities.) The Matoran certainly left signs of a religion--they built temples and shrines, and they engaged in certain rituals, like the Great Takara, which was "used as a form of praise to the Great Spirit." Matoran belief also relays social values in the form of the 3 Virtues and what they mean for Matoran life. Even if it's not strict like some real-world traditions, this is a religion, even if the Turaga didn't mean to start a cult. Thus, Mata Nui was worshiped, and so he was a god. The Matoran met all the criteria for having a religion. Even if Mata Nui counted as a god before, though, he doesn't anymore. Post-08, he got a little bit deposed, and he retired at the end of Journey's End. Not only did the Matoran leave their old universe and enter one where Mata Nui was not in control, but the former god gave up what power he had and retreated into the Ignika. The Matoran might still have continued in their beliefs, but they had no-one to worship anymore. With no god to praise, they had nothing to devote themselves to but their own ideals, and these themselves were never the object of worship for them. Faith alone does not make a religion, and so died Matoran monotheism, leaving them with questions. "Where do we go now?" "What is there to believe in?" "What is the true scope of reality?" Perhaps, even, "Why the is Kek up at 1:00 in the morning making this thread?" I don't know, little android dudes. I don't know.

I'm not the only one getting Gorm vibes, right?

If Lego can choose something as dark as a horror series to make into a set, this really opens up what they can do for licenses and maybe even their own IPs, especially knowing how AFOL-geared this probably is.

Then what was with all the 3IONICLE nonsense? If Faber just baited us to build hype for something totally different, he can just right off. Unless 3IONICLE is still going to happen, I got no interest in supporting the man.

Within the MU, any being who controls the universe might have a shot; but with the IG, Thanos is basically God. Haven't seen Endgame yet (all I know is Thanos doesn't get to eat breakfast, Thor mains Shugoki, and Bruce turns down Keetongu's help) but when you can snap your fingers and make whatever you want a reality, I'm pretty sure it's hard to find anyone who can stand up to you.

What is contrived about it? That's the whole reason OP's having his problem, there's no incentive within the G1 universe and lore as of current that necessitates Turaga Nuva. Anything that would prompt the Toa Nuva to become Turaga, then, must be something that's made-up out of the blue--thus, contrived. Making new Toa is the only logical reason I see in this thread, but does Spherus Magna really need more Toa, especially with the revelation that Glatorian can use elemental powers?

IN ENDGAME THANOS KILLS DUMBLEDORE AFTER TELLING LUKE HE'S HIS FATHER Ok, with that out of the way, wielding Mjolnir is apparently about having the right kind of power or fitting the enchantment. "Worthiness" is kind of subjective and hard to determine, so what exactly defines that is unclear. Oddly enough, Mjolnir's basically a Toa tool--it's a focus for Thor's elemental (Lightning, in his case) power, but the actual power exists within himself. "The sword is merely the focus," as Kopaka puts it. As such, it's possible that any Toa may be able to wield it. 'Course, that also depends on whether Toa can use one anothers' tools. It's also worth noting that Vision is an artificially-created being and he has the Soul Stone. As such, he's got 2 variables in place: the former is a status met by MU inhabitants, so if that affects it, then most of those beings might be able to use it; if the 2nd is the kicker, then you'd need some other super-powerful being, Artakha or some similar entity at the very least. It might be the same kind of power needed to wear the Ignika, so Mata Nui or Ignika himself might be able to hold it.

We all remember the '04 story arc, I'm sure. 18 months before the Great Cataclysm, Teridax took Dume's place and masqueraded as him until his defeat by the Toa Metru. Dume awoke during the Great Rescue, and we got to see him interact with the other Turaga starting with the '06 arc. We got some glimpses of his personality--he's stubborn, but protective of his people--but what even supplementary media doesn't specify is what exactly Metru Nui was like under his rule; at least in my memory. The kind of leader Dume is depends heavily on the nature of his regime. We know the Teridax regime was super oppressive, but I can't find anything detailing what the real Dume's politics were like. He's willing to hide things from the Matoran, but so were Vakama and co, so that doesn't seem to mean much. The only clue here is that the Vahki in operation long before Terry's Takeover; but even then, I'm not sure that says anything if they weren't always used for the Orwellian level of civil oppression they were in post-Teridax Metru Nui. So I guess what I want to know is whether Dume was an oppressive dictator or whether that harsh regime only began with Teridax, since that's going to give us a better image of his identity than the skimpy BS01 summary can.

The fact that you need to contrive some scenario for it probably means it might not be wise to even attempt.

Or maybe it's because it's just a bunch of fluff that reiterates everything we already know about the year and there's nothing really to say? I don't want to harsh anybody's mellow but why SHOULD anybody respond to that topic?

The title made me think this was gonna be about Lehvak-Kal getting exposed to radiation after being shot into space...

I wouldn't move the ankle, but the rest of that pretty much gets to what I was trying to say. With a hinge in the middle of the foot that would allow the front half to til upward, it would be easier to convey certain poses. 'Course, that's not necessary for the "monster" feet with poseable toes introduced during HF's run; those can just be bent to convey that. It'd work great for revamped Piraka feet done in CCBS style.

I think the freakin' dream would be to have all of the articulation of Maxilos plus 2-jointed fingers, a joint at the base of the neck, a hinge in the middle/towards the end of the foot, and a gearbox for a standard humanoid character. It would take a lot of new parts and engineering feats, but I think it's worth trying to design something that's at least close to this to see if it can be done. The foot thing would be easy, the hands would take some new, smaller parts, but getting a gearbox in there...that's the hard part. And it's also super important because it grants a lot of play value.

That's not really reasonable to surmise based on the images we have. Kopaka was shown awakening in the comics, so it's far more likely that we'll see him spawn first in this...thing. I don’t know. It’s like Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where Raphael is the leader of the Turtles instead of Leonardo. It doesn’t feel right. Kopaka just has a bad temper. I mean, he is a bit strict. Sometimes snotty. At least he's more intelligent than Tahu. But that's not actually true. He's more thoughtful and perceptive, but not necessarily smarter. What I am trying to say is that leaders should act less impulsively. By that measure, Kopaka is better. Ok but that's the point of Tahu's character arc. He needs to learn not to be impulsive and work with others. That's the thing.

Since when was brown not an appealing color? Is that why they removed it in late 2006? Brown sets consistently sold the worst out of every wave. My point is that you can still have a good brown set, you just need to use it right. OP proves this with this MOC. The tan and Mata brown, normally dull colors on their own, are used here with metallic highlights and arranged such that they generate a warm color scheme despite having no red or yellow and just a teeny bit or orange. Brown is a neutral color, so brown and tan aren't technically analogous colors because they're not on the color wheel; but the effect produced is the same here. The darker parts pop really nicely, though I feel like there should be something around this guy's abs to balance him out more around his middle. By contrast, Onua Metru looks like a poop golem. I know we have a "no potty humor" rule, but...come on, how else can I describe it? Pohatu Mata's better about it, but the orientation of his torso coupled with the somewhat restrictive color schemes of the Mata still leaves him looking similarly fecal, if not nearly as ugly. Metallic armor remedies this, but it can't truly make it go away. The best way to handle it is to use multiple, well-balanced shades of brown, ideally coupled with some other color to break it up. Though he could have more brown on him, Master Pohatu handles this pretty nicely, and I'd say he's the most visually appealing brown set to date (Vorox probs comes in second). By contrast, though not nearly as turd-like, Uniter Pohatu looks the most boring hallucination ever because he's just 14 million poorly-arranged shades of brown with some silver. Lego finally had it, and then they lost it for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend. Four things: 1. By Onua Metru, don't you mean Onewa Metru? 2. Why does he look like a "poop golem" to you? 3. Uniter Pohatu looks fine, but maybe I just have different color scheme preferences. 4. The only time I think that Uniter Pohatu looks strange is when he's wearing his Gold Mask of Unity. No, I mean the 2004 release of Onua Metru, who was inexplicably rendered in brown that year. /s He's a monochrome pile of brown with some grey thrown in. I look at that color scheme and I can only imagine a pile of something brown arranged in a humanoid shape. There are few other associations to make from there. Uniter Pohatu is, objectively, highly incongruous. It's like Lego couldn't decide what they wanted his color scheme to be, with the dark brown and the orange-brown and the dark tan all awkwardly and unevenly cobbled together.

That's not really reasonable to surmise based on the images we have. Kopaka was shown awakening in the comics, so it's far more likely that we'll see him spawn first in this...thing. I don’t know. It’s like Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where Raphael is the leader of the Turtles instead of Leonardo. It doesn’t feel right. Kopaka just has a bad temper. I mean, he is a bit strict. Sometimes snotty. At least he's more intelligent than Tahu. But that's not actually true. He's more thoughtful and perceptive, but not necessarily smarter.

Christ, you guys are slow. More to the point, there's some very interesting details here: Faber alludes to evolution, calling it a "game of chance," which it kind of is. This implies that 3IONICLE will address some subject that can only be dealt with by considering deep time, and may deal with themes of existence and a place in the natural world.He also asks if we're "ready for the surface." Surface of what? Is it a physical surface, or a metaphysical one?This canister is stuck in ice, unlike the last one, which washed up on a beach. This could mean that the Toa will spawn from their native elements rather than all coming from the same place.The canister is more detailed and has the current year written beneath Faber's signature, likely signifying that this is the final or near-final design for the canisters.

I totally agree with you here. You kinda misunderstood what I was getting at; perhaps I should have reworded it when I said "cinematic universe" but I didn't mean that as in literally being the same structure as the MCU. Hence the quotation marks, and why I referred to it as simply a "film series" in all other sentences. I do agree that Bionicle is a continuous story with a single endpoint, but the story was divided into arcs with each year of its run telling a different arc in the story, which would be fitting for a series of movies or a TV show. Similar to how the first four movies each covered a separate arc of the Bionicle storyline, but the idea here is if they were to tell the entire G1 storyline in a series of about 9 or 10 movies - not a total reboot of the franchise or creating a new storyline, rather, simply adapting the already established storyline into visual media. Alright, fair enough. However, G1 had a lot of flaws that would be pretty hard to directly translate to film and still work with. It needs to be heavily cleaned up and entirely reworked to be truly successful--and at that point, just make a new, distinct reboot, one that can get right everything G1 got wrong.

Since when was brown not an appealing color? Is that why they removed it in late 2006? Brown sets consistently sold the worst out of every wave. My point is that you can still have a good brown set, you just need to use it right. OP proves this with this MOC. The tan and Mata brown, normally dull colors on their own, are used here with metallic highlights and arranged such that they generate a warm color scheme despite having no red or yellow and just a teeny bit or orange. Brown is a neutral color, so brown and tan aren't technically analogous colors because they're not on the color wheel; but the effect produced is the same here. The darker parts pop really nicely, though I feel like there should be something around this guy's abs to balance him out more around his middle. By contrast, Onua Metru looks like a poop golem. I know we have a "no potty humor" rule, but...come on, how else can I describe it? Pohatu Mata's better about it, but the orientation of his torso coupled with the somewhat restrictive color schemes of the Mata still leaves him looking similarly fecal, if not nearly as ugly. Metallic armor remedies this, but it can't truly make it go away. The best way to handle it is to use multiple, well-balanced shades of brown, ideally coupled with some other color to break it up. Though he could have more brown on him, Master Pohatu handles this pretty nicely, and I'd say he's the most visually appealing brown set to date (Vorox probs comes in second). By contrast, though not nearly as turd-like, Uniter Pohatu looks the most boring hallucination ever because he's just 14 million poorly-arranged shades of brown with some silver. Lego finally had it, and then they lost it for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend.

Said it before, saying it again: the cinematic universe format doesn't work for Bionicle. To quote myself: "My vision is Lego giving Bionicle an animated series in the vein of TLA or TF:P. A cinematic universe makes no sense for Bonkle and Hollywood can keep its grubby, anti-art mitts away from my android wizards." A cinematic universe works for Marvel because the franchise is already designed for this sort of connected storytelling. Marvel and DC have their characters designed such that they can just have their own stories and crossover when needed. Bionicle was designed to deliver a continuous story with a single endpoint. This doesn't mean there's no potential for spinoffs, but a dedicated cinematic universe is overkill and doesn't have enough to back it up beyond the main series. Bionicle would best be handled as a cartoon, but a film franchise can work. It just needs to stay in the spirit of Bionicle, and forcing a square peg into a round hole will only serve to either pump out worthless shlock and/or deprive Bionicle of its identity. My vision is Lego giving Bionicle an animated series in the vein of TLA or TF:P. A cinematic universe makes no sense for Bonkle and Hollywood can keep its grubby, anti-art mitts away from my android wizards.

Gonna take back what I said earlier: the art Faber just posted is from a few years back, so unless he's wanted to do this since then, which isn't likely, the letter at the top is meaningless. I never got that, even as a kid. Always 6 villains, always with colors corresponding to the good guys. The '09 arc at least tried to mix it up by messing with the good guy:bad guy ratio. We haven't gotten any sets since 2016, and we haven't gotten any good sets since 2009.Speak for yourself. G2 had superior set design to G1 in every technical sense, and the sets looked mighty fine too, thank you very much. G2’s poseability was inferior to late G1, honestly, which is important to me. I can hardly move a G2 Toa’s head without removing their mask.I don't know how anyone has this problem. I just squeeze the head from the front and the back or hold it by the "skull" part, and I can move it just fine. Besides that, there's more articulation in the Uniters than any standard G1 set, with the only issues being pretty easy to mod out. EDIT: BTW, look at the latest image Faber posted. At the top of the canister, there's a Matoran letter--either E or M, depending on the orientation. Could stand for the occupant's name, which would mean new characters.That’s what I’m talking about: the “brain” is meant to be pushed on to knock off the mask. That was my first instinct, as that’s how I always moved the Metru heads, and it always launches the mask of. It’s kind difficult for me to grab the “skull” part without disrupting the “brain” or the mask. I don’t have the best dexterity. And more points of articulation does not inherently mean better poseability. (Am I spelling that right? Is it even a word?) With the 2015 sets in particular, I felt their armor often got in the way of poses. I only got one Uniter (Gali) and I don’t think I’ve actually opened her yet, so I can’t really speak to them. I’m particularly partial to the standard introduced with the Toa Inika, and people will probably criticize me on that for various reasons (“2006 was the year it got too dark and edgy!” or “They overused that body type and never did anything new!”). But it worked the best for me. It varies by Uniter. Lewa and Pohatu have really weirdly-designed shoulders, but the rest are pretty good. The waist hinge, in particular, adds a lot of expression to the poses you can make. I found various ways to mod their shoulders to fix them up pretty nicely, but that took a few generic parts from other sets.