Cheesy Mac n Cheese

Ding Ding Ding! Both of Dooku’s, two of Grievous’s, Anakin’s remaining organic hand, Mace Windu’s saber hand, and apparently a Clone Trooper loses an arm to Yoda outside the Temple, so at least seven in one movie.

“I believe enough hands have been removed this year.”

Batman and Iron Man both existed long before 2008, so technically they could have been inspired by them, but trying to claim it as evidence that Lego was just hopping onto every Hollywood trend is ridiculous. But don’t forget that they DID reference a 2005 movie in the 2005 storyline…

Greg said the Barraki were conceptualized before Dead Man’s Chest came out.

The way I see it, Bionicle is based on a little bit of everything. The Polynesian thing really only influenced the first and maybe second years, before it started going heavier on sci-fi, at which point they started bringing in more influences as 2006 started bringing more fantasy back to balance things out. It also brings in the Ignika as a MacGuffin; Bionicle had other MacGuffins before (Avohkii, Makoki Stones to a lesser extent), but this one stayed in the limelight until the end. This mirrors a whole number of other powerful objects sought by multiple factions in other franchises (Silmarils and One Ring from Tolkien for example), and even stuff like the Ark of the Covenant, Holy Grail, etc. Greg outright said he was influenced by Star Trek, Lovecraft, etc. We got a lot packed into this children’s franchise. (I’ve also always viewed the Matoro-Jesus thing as an edgy joke that I never believed anybody took seriously). By the way, does anybody remember the weird things BZP members used to compare Bionicle to? People assumed the Barraki were inspired by Davy Jones and his crew from Pirates of the Caribbean and (for some reason) compared Zaktan’s protodites to Horcruxes.

They have temples, shrines, and “Great Spirit” is a term used in several real world religions to describe their deities. Any reasonable person would make the parallel to religion. Not to mention Lego commissioned the song “Bye Bye Babylon,” which is FULL of biblical allusions, including the very title, contradicting company policy, but BZPower really isn’t the place to discuss this. Edit: read this in a rush. Addressing your later point, it was never stated there wasn’t no higher religion, just they were not allowed to address it as per company policy (as I previously alluded to). And in a roundabout way, it wasn’t a lie. The system the Matoran followed was basically objective truth, as the Great Beings and Mata Nui were demonstrably real people (just not immortal, omniscient higher entities). Anyway, I thought this was against the rules.

Journey’s End was intended to be the definitive ending (as of the actual ending, as we know two more years beyond what we ended up getting were actually discussed before they looked at the profit margins in 2008 and thought pulling the plug by early 2010 so the series ended while it was still popular was a good move). However, because there were still a ton of active fans who weren’t ready to say goodbye, they allowed Greg to keep writing the serials. But they also gave Greg a bunch of work that left him no time to write the serials (well okay, he had a small child at the time too), because he wrote them in his spare time and for nothing in return, so they remain unfinished. Then, of course, by 2014, he was explicitly not allowed to finish them because they wanted a reboot instead of that. In retrospect, those serials probably never should have been written at all. They bring more pain than they do enjoyment by ending on cliffhangers. If it had ended with “Tahu emerges triumphant” instead of “Lewa is captured, Pohatu and Kopaka are stranded on the red star and being hunted by Kestora, the Toa Mahri are mind slaves, and a Toa killing robot has escaped, and a whole bunch of new guys go on a quest that never ends” we’d probably all be a lot happier (or at least less depressed).

I would love for the unfinished serials to be finished, because it’s no fun never finding out if the characters you’d been following for ten years live to see the united Spherus Magna society or die aboard the Red Star. But the only way this would ever happen at this point would be if some extremely rich entity managed to buy the franchise and then hired Greg. And that would be a lot of trouble over a franchise that was already brought back once and did so poorly they ended it a year early. I wouldn’t trust Lego to revive it at this point anyway, and they seem content to profit from little, tiny nostalgic acknowledgements of Tahu and no one else instead of giving us a proper anniversary tribute or anything (seriously, it’s a quarter century old this year).

You appear to be missing that little super deformed Tahu from that Classic set. Then again, so am I, and I don’t have Stars Tahu either, so you’re still doing better than me…

Greg said it was “a glitch.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense, because a glitch wouldn’t cause you to see future events that are objectively going to happen, you’d be hallucinating random scenarios that probably won’t happen, but that’s the canonical reasoning. If you insist on there being a deeper reason, you can also remember that the Great Beings planted ideas into Mata Nui’s head. They planned for him to transfer to the prototype robot and for Teridax to take over his body to reform Spherus Magna. Therefore, Teridax needed to exist, and they planted his specific name and personality into Mata Nui’s subconscious in order to ensure Mata Nui created him, which he did, and he was completely unaware that this was someone else’s idea. Therefore, it’s not that much of a stretch to think that maybe the Great Beings foresaw that a great leader with visions of the future might be necessary someday, and given how consequential to the overall story that Vakama, like Teridax, was, well, you get the idea (I hope).

It just isn’t really Bionicle when it uses System parts. Bionicle was almost its own brand, and Lego purists actually dismissed it. And I don’t think modern Technic parts are suited to posable characters (that was never really the point of them anyway, the Rahi using mostly standard parts took a lot of creativity, though they were lacking in the posability department). Also, Lego sadly gets most of its visibility from licensed properties now, I think. I haven’t really been closely following them as an adult, but just walking through the toy aisle says a lot. Some Creator sets, but a ton of Star Wars, Mario, Sonic, Wicked, whatever. And a third to a half of the aisle is for adults anyway, never thought I’d see that when I was a kid. (Rant: adult collectors and investors have ruined the toy market. You can almost never just go to the store and buy a toy anymore, scalpers take anything popular. I say this as an adult who occasionally buys a toy as a collector’s piece and as an uncle who buys toys for the kids in his family.)

It would be nice to get more stuff, but it’s sad we’ll never get another constraction set.

My sister’s fiance just found him for me at Walmart. Just in case anyone here doesn’t know this already: don’t trust walmart.com’s availability for toys.

I think the answer is that it would look kind of awkward just putting a tentacle at the end of a vertebrate arm, so they designed it to make it look like he was gripping some kind of tentacular weapon in the middle (even though it makes no sense from a biological standpoint).

Echoing what others just said, Lego is just not that interested in constraction anymore (I don’t even regularly buy Lego anymore but I browse the toy aisle often enough to see this). We will never see another Technic Bionicle set, let alone the more unique system that developed after it was promoted to its own line rather than a subline of Technic. And as much as I’d like some closure for those specific storylines (particularly because the survival of very important characters hinges on them), I simply don’t trust Lego to revive the storyline in a way that does the franchise justice. If it comes back I’m afraid they’ll do some incredibly corporate, mainstream, Hollywood-friendly MCU/Nu Wars style thing when it should be a self-contained science-fantasy world written specifically for fans. Again, even if they hired Greg again I sincerely doubt he’d be given nearly as much freedom as he had before. He only got the freedom he had because he proved his worth to them, and remember that they recently laid him off, so that should say a lot what they think of him now.

I haven’t seen that, and all the shelf mylars and such still display the last wave (and where I work, ALL blind boxes are linked in the system, so it says we have one of these, but it’s really the F1 set or something).

This was preserved, I think it’s just broken due to being dependent on a live server (this will be the fate of most video games from here on out, be warned).

And I’d be afraid of what a “G3” would look like even if it was a continuation. Even if they brought Greg and some of the other story guys back, I’m not sure it would have the same tone due to shifts in the company’s strategy and priorities. They gave them a lot of creative freedom, and the current culture of most big companies is to consolidate and retain strict control over properties.

Couldn’t find any at WLmart, what section ate they in?

Is there any code printed on the packaging that might indicate the contents?

I work retail and we have a place for these minifig packs in the toy aisle, MAYBE I can somehow get one… (then again, the peg has been empty for months and we never seem to get them in)

I’d be more focused on sets, getting masks or kraata is a pipe dream. Then again, so is getting Takutanuva or Toa Mata Nui.

Also: am I really the only one who kept canisters? They’re literally meant to be permanent (Mahri notwithstanding), and I know that some sets didn’t fit inside once built, but that was the primary purpose. Finding a canister set with the canister actually included can double the price.

I bought all six Vahki a couple years ago at a garage sale, in canisters. I can’t remember if they were 100% complete with instructions, or the exact price, but it was $20 at most. The best way to do this seems to be garage sales, church sales, maybe some independent thrift or antique stores that don’t care too much about market value. I have historically been a completionist but I don’t think there’s any rational justification for that anymore. It’s really sad for me personally because I had a really rotten high school period where I was sent away from my family and Bionicle was really the only thing keeping me alive, particularly in 2008. To see this thing I was so passionate about be forever out of reach is depressing.

Just...go on eBay and look at those prices. It's utterly insulting. I know these are old toys and collectors items now, but I mean, really. I've read COVID made a lot of people go nuts and buy sets on eBay and this demand drove prices up and the market still hasn't recovered from this. It's artificial. Investment buyers are totally driving actual longtime fans out of the franchise.