Disciple

Well, as predictable as this might be, I'm gonna say the giant robot twist was the most mind-blowing moment for me. Not surprising since it was designed to be the ultimate plot twist! The fact that the story team kept it a secret for eight years, and that they were dropping hints all along the way, made it pretty dang impressive. I know that a few people guessed the twist ahead of time, and there was a leaked video back in early 2008 that spoiled it a bit, but neither of those factors did anything to lessen the moment for me. Since a lot of people will probably give the same answer I did, I offer a runner-up moment as well: the part in the Toa Nuva Blog when Roodaka was forced to turn the Rahaga back into Toa Hagah. I remember that being a pretty unexpected development that got everyone excited.

I would take it with a grain of salt. Last year during the Hero Pack promotion, I had a LEGO Store employee tell me something like, "LEGO had to cancel BIONICLE because they lost the rights to it, but they got them back this year." Not to say that all sales reps are misinformed, just that it's not unheard of.

Evening, BZP'ers. Simple question (OR IS IT??): Which BIONICLE set is the coolest of them all? Since I'm posting first, I'm gonna be cheap and go with a very obvious choice: Brutaka. Just look at the guy! Back in 2006, he was nothing like we'd ever seen in a BIONICLE villain. He was totally wicked in appearance, with an evil-looking mask design, giant weapon, tons of gold pieces, and spikes covering his body. Oh, and he was friggin' huge and towered over most sets of that time. Inika aside, he made every other Toa up until then look absolutely puny in comparison. Feel free to share your picks, and judge by whatever Coolness categories you may (Spikiness, Evilness, etc.).

Lenny, what's your opinion on Gaardus? I always thought he was a pretty strange combiner, and maybe should've been split into two separate ones. Maybe Tahu + Takanuva + Gresh could have been an OoMN agent, and Skrall + Rahkshi + Nektann could have been some kind of Makuta minion? Totally forgot about him! I'm fine with that. I like the idea of Hahli + Kongu as a potential Toa of Plant Life. Not sure about those Hagah combiners either. I think the popular opinion would be that they should all have unique masks like every other Toa team. Although I guess they could have just worn those shapes to honor the same Toa that Norik/Iruini did. I like the idea of the Tahu/PoF/Kulta combiner, too. In that case, I suppose the "counterpart" match-ups would be: Tahu vs Skull Grinder Pohatu vs Skull Scorpio Onua vs Skull Basher Lewa vs Skull Slicer Kopaka vs Skull Warrior Gali vs Lord of Skull Spiders Poor Gali has to face the baddie it took all six to defeat.

Haha, thanks. I've heard of the show, although it had no influence on these designs. But it might be interesting to try and design an actual monkey-like mech one of these days. Maybe it could be a sort of Voltron combiner... five monkey mechs coming together to make one big monkey robot.... Hmm... Thanks for the comments!

Voted Gali. I dig the blue/orange color scheme, the asymmetry, and the spear. Lewa is a close second, though.

Don't know about Phantom, but I used to picture the Recorder as being a Matoran-sized being. Don't remember if it was ever explicitly stated, but it makes sense in my mind. He only appeared once so I think he can get away without a combiner model, but if anything, I could see him being a third Rahaga combiner. This could be cool (I think Matau Hordika's Fang Blades would work well as her poison-tipped daggers), but I think I still prefer her being a Sidorak/Roodaka combo. Red/black is a pretty awesome color scheme for a Dark Hunter, and I think some of those blue/green Hordika pieces would have looked a bit too wonky on a Titan-size combiner. Besides, this hypothetical combiner would have existed in 2005, way before they decided she was blue/green. I guess we could just MOC both and see which is cooler. I tend to prefer 3-set combiners because there's more parts to work with. Anything less and I find you usually end up with a color-swap at best (like the "Twotoa" from this year... kinda boring). Who knows, there might be some way to make a decent-looking OoMN member out of Jaller/Kongu/Matoro. I think it would at least be cooler than trying to combine three Toa into a single Toa, which is what Jovan was. And I don't recall him being a very popular combiner... That works for me. I thought the "always-invisible" gimmick was kind of strange anyway. Let's just say it finally wore off. I'm sticking with Tridax 'cause it's been in my headcanon so long, but I do think Icarax/Mutran could have been a great Makuta of Stelt combiner. He would just need a name and a description. And maybe a slightly bigger role than just "guy who got eaten." I also think Gorast/Krika/Bitil could have made a much better Spiriah than the one we we got, but I understand the set designers were working with certain constraints when they designed him out of Lewa/Tanma + Antroz/Radiak. I always thought of Tren Krom as a weird, organic, non-MOCable blob. But ditch Tahu and I think this would serve as a decent representation of him. You would just have to make a big, crimson blob with lots of tentacles and spikes. Maybe a Tridax pod could serve as one of his big, glowing eyeballs. The Helryx sounds interesting. You could always throw Gavla in and use her mask, since it was never assigned any name/power. I'm not sure what their reasoning behind that was, but yes, I have noticed that there were less of the 3-canister combiners in later years. Those "cross-set" combiners from 2007-2010 (Manutri, Niazesk, Sand Stalker) never stood out as much to me. Didn't really feel like taking apart my cool Toa/Glatorian sets to build some random animal. Good for world-building, though. As for G2 combiners, I'll try and think of some good ones

These are pretty awesome. I downloaded all six and made it so my desktop wallpaper shuffles between them every 30 seconds. Right now it's Lewa Tahu. Thanks for sharing.

That looks so much cooler than the actual Kopaka 2016 set. The colors are better distributed and he really gives off a "medieval warrior" vibe. Love it.

I built these a long time ago and forgot to share them here. Together, they are... EXO MONKEY-FORCE. Monkey Assault Mech - Little more than a walking set of cannons, there's no wall-- or enemy mech-- the MAM can't break through. Monkey Fire Mech - The MFM's twin napalm cannons frighten enemies and allies alike! Watch out for friendly fire! Monkey Jungle Mech - Outfitted with cloaking technology, the MJM lurks near enemy patrols and ambushes them with a deadly missile barrage. Monkey Police Mech - When the Monkey Force realized they had a surplus of unused military gear, they invented this crime-busting mech. And I threw in one more just as a "what-if-these-were-actually-produced" gag. Monkey Battle Pack - These monkeys are locked, loaded, and ready to engage! Add them to your Monkey Army today. Comments appreciated.

As a fellow lover of combiner models, I've had many of these same ideas myself. I get why LEGO never got around to doing this (trying to make a combiner for everything you listed would be exhausting), but as Lyichir mentioned, the concepts are still good fodder for the imagination and for MOCing. How about Lariska? (Had this idea before they decided she was blue/green). Back in 2006, I thought it would be cool if this combiner had been the first Toa who wore the Mask of Life. But then I tried to design him, and trust me-- it looks horrible. Too many clashing colors. The only way to get a decent color scheme out of this would be to stick to one or two colors and have 90% of the other parts left over. Unless you really want a red/orange/gold/green/silver/white/blue Toa. No idea what element that would be. Had the same idea. Can't remember who I wanted it to be, I'm sure there's some OoMN agent out there who could use a physical representation. The idea of another Rahi is interesting, but I would have liked this combiner to be Makuta Tridax. (I think he's purple in the story, but as you may remember, purple was seriously lacking in BIONICLE back in 2008). Gotta say, this one's kinda puzzling. I get that Antroz/Radiak have some good parts for it, but wouldn't this combiner be a bit small for Tren Krom? I think my favorite part was your idea for the Element Lord combiners. It's too bad that joints were so brittle back in 2009. I would never have taken my sets apart to build them. Oh well, guess there's always LDD. Anyway, cool ideas. Hope to see you come up with more.

Is that Pearl Gold Mask of Life still available by any chance?

Good to see combiners are sticking around through 2016. I think these two could use a bit more creativity though, because as some others pointed out, they resemble more of a "power-up" mode than a new character. I thought that last year's Skull combiners-- while odd-looking as sets and irrelevant in the storyline-- were at least able to give the impression that you were looking at a brand-new character. It seems like the set designers might by shying away from that approach in favor of these "power-ups," which is too bad in my opinion. I understand the desire not to repeat G1's mistake by flooding G2 with new characters, but done in the right measures, I think combiners are a great way to world-build. These models aren't bad for what they are, but I hope we see something a little more fresh in the next batch of combiners. Poor Akida. He's gotta combine with that Umarak creep.

This is just pie in the sky, but I think a CCBS Gundam theme would be awesome. I know people MOC Gundam stuff using System all the time, so in order to set these ones apart, the sets could be a fusion between CCBS and more traditional parts. Frankly, I don't know how some MOCists out there are able to design such amazing Gundam MOC's, so to spare myself the pain of trying to create one myself I'd happily pay a few bucks to buy a cool-looking CCBS model designed by LEGO.

Happy to see we're finally getting Yoshimitsu (Soul Calibur) and Goro (Mortal Kombat) minifigures. Also, as weird as G1 BIONICLE got sometimes, nothing compares to the weirdness that is Dogshank... That is one odd-looking bigfig. All in all, a strange batch of characters, but interesting nonetheless.

Wow, they didn't just bring back set functions in G2... they completely re-defined them. Those Beast functions are way more complex than anything we got in a standard-price G1 set. I'm impressed. That said, I'm not all that wild about the 2016 sets in general. The Beasts have some good parts to buy second-hand, but I can't say that any one of them is a must-have. Their designs are just too gappy and chaotic. The image of Quake Beasts' back left me wondering just what the heck I was looking at... Talk about a jumbled appearance. Ekimu is interesting, but I think they went a little overboard with the transparent blue, and overall he seems a little bit plain. I think Umarak the Hunter is the best set this year in terms of overall appearance, so if anything I'll probably buy that. Thanks for the coverage. These BZPower updates are a big help in deciding which sets to buy each year.

Before Hero Factory came out in 2010, we didn't have much detail on this mysterious new constraction theme. I was imagining a series where the heroes would be humans wearing some kind of power-suits, like in Power Rangers or Kamen Rider. I know almost nothing about either series, but I think constraction sets that took inspiration from them could be pretty cool.

Very cool. The 3D character models combined with the more "cartoony" backgrounds and effects reminds me of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games. Looking forward to seeing more of this stuff.

Cool video-- thanks for sharing! Man, I hadn't seen a lot of those old CD-ROM videos in a long time. I enjoyed watching them again. I thought it was funny how they chose to close out the video with a rapid montage of all the toothbrushes, watches, clothing, etc. Even as a kid, I always considered that merchandise a little excessive and worried it would do more harm to the brand than good. I'm glad that LEGO has kept G2 restrained to sets and books for now. Personally, I'd be OK if we never got any more BIONICLE shoes.

Gali is the best of the bunch this time around, in my opinion-- though still not as good as 2015 Gali. The blue and orange complement each other well, and I find her spear weapon a fitting choice for a diver. Of all the Toa, her design and "power-up" mode seem to be the least cluttered. The fish tail and shoulder-launchers flow really well with her appearance, as opposed to say, Pohatu and Ketar, who are just a mess. As noted in most of the Uniter reviews, I would agree that the overall BIONICLE aesthetic has gotten surprisingly cluttered in 2016. The Nuva symbols are a nice throwback, but I think the "tribal" printing has gotten a little out of hand, as well as the amount of pistons molded into the Uniter's chest armor. I'd have preferred single-color masks as well, simply because they're easier to MOC with, but these new masks aren't bad for what they are. At least they're recognizable as belonging to their characters-- something most transformations in G1 did not achieve. I guess I'm just a little confused as to what design motif these Uniters are going for. It might have been better for the set designers to just stick to "animals" as the theme (think "Savage Planet" from Hero Factory), and save the crystal armor for another year. On top of their already-cluttered appearance (see: Tahu), they just look like they're trying to be too many things at once.

Keep in mind that the Protector mask is the first BIONICLE mask we've gotten in all six elemental colors since 2003. That's a huge boon for MOCists like you and I. And although the web animations depict ALL villagers as wearing the Protector mask-- which I believe was one of your other critiques-- the graphic novel "Gathering of the Toa" makes it pretty clear that only the Protectors wear those shapes. The other villagers in the comic clearly wear masks with designs that are similar, but with notable differences. Still, I hear you loud and clear on the need for more mask molds-- I'd certainly like to get my hands on some generic, non-Protector villager masks in the future. It's not my intention to be an "apologist" for G2 BIONICLE. Like you, I think the story could use some more meat, but I'm withholding that judgment until I see the Netflix series this year. I've been a fan since 2001, and I'm grateful for what LEGO has provided with G2 so far. And as with any LEGO property, keep in mind that you can always ditch the official story and make up your own. I know plenty of people did that in G1, and it seemed to increase their enjoyment.

Wow, I remember following this topic over a year ago! Glad to see you're back. That style guide is just awesome. It has everything that I always loved about the BIONICLE aesthetic. Such a simple, minimalist layout, but with so much detail put into the fonts and the images. I also like the way the box opens up, with the weird cut-outs that remind me of the 2002 Nuva Cube (or 2016 Uniter symbols, whichever you prefer). Please do share that video when you get a chance. I'd love to see what strange and forbidden BIONICLE knowledge it contains.

Ah, yes. The "Secret Stomache Meassage." There are still those among us who remember it well.

I love polybags and I still haven't gotten my hands on the Mask of Creation, so this is some pretty cool news for me. I like the cloth covering-- the look of that pattern isn't like anything we've ever really seen before in BIONICLE. Makes the MoC seem like it really is a precious artifact that needs to be kept "under wraps."

Yes! I've been waiting patiently ever since it was announced. Thanks for the update.