Aanchir

I still stand that Bright Orange is a weird color for stone sets. Yes, a stone can be orange, but when you ask people to name a stone color, do they say "orange"?

When you ask people to name an air color, do they say "green"?

The trans-orange Kaukau is a nice color but it's always bothered me within the context of Pohatu's masks.

 

I mean ... brown brown ORANGE! brown brown brown.

Yeah, but then again, Pohatu was always the odd duck out anyway. All the other Toa had such bright, pure colors... and then here's the brown guy.

 

Perhaps it's less that LEGO needed a closer transparent color to his primary color, and more that his masks should have been a brighter shade like Bright Orange or Dark Orange to begin with. Certainly could have saved LEGO some grief down the road when they finally realized the sets that looked like they crawled out of a mud puddle were consistently the worst sellers in their group.

I wish I had gotten Julie's minifigure/business card... I didn't think about the fact that some of the LEGO people there would have those. I don't have Peter Espersen's either. How am I ever going to collect all 16 at this rate?

 

I didn't make it out to the store opening either, but that's OK because I was exhausted from the day before, so I instead spent the day catching up with online communities like BZPower and answering people's questions.

I personally wouldn't mind that. It'd be pretty unique to have the most important figures in the year not be giant imposing titans or whatever. Just villagers, like the others. Maybe the two could come bundled in a set together?

That would be very cool. There could maybe be a separate set for Makuta's transformed state after he put on the Mask of Ultimate Power.

I almost think creating vectors would be easier working from the images on the BIONICLE.com character pages, which have transparent backgrounds. But maybe I'm wrong because this one is looking pretty good!

I think Ekimu and Makuta are dead.

Unlikely. According to the official press release...

 

The new storyline takes place on the mythical island of Okoto, where the forces of darkness are on the move and the evil Makuta is once again materializing. He is overcome by the desire for the three mythic masks that will cast the world into darkness - the Mask of Creation, the Mask of Control and the Mask of Ultimate Power.

 

The desperate island inhabitants enlist six heroes - each masters of a sacred element - called the Toa- to help save their beloved island. The Toa must embark on a quest for Okoto’s ancient power masks that will allow them to unlock the full potential of their elemental powers. Only when the heroes are united, will they be able to battle the forces of evil, defeat Makuta and save Okoto.

If Makuta is supposed to be dead, he's doing a very bad job of it. And since Makuta's fate and Ekimu's are described similarly in the legend, it would be rather surprising if one were dead and the other alive.

 

My personal preference has a lot to do with my depression. During the worst of it, I always felt happiest when I was laughing. It was an escape, and it was one that arguably I needed. So, yeah, I put up a mask of irreverence and silliness...

Are we talking a legendary mask of irreverence and silliness, made of solid gold and raw magic?

I mostly agree with what Lyichir posted. It was not the first year to have those faults, but it was a year that people really raised their expectations really high. Part of that was looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, of course — even though it had been a long time since the last sets of the Toa Mata/Nuva, and people wanted them to be exactly how they remembered them, and that's not what they got.

 

Some complaints always struck me as silly, though, like people who said Kopaka should have had avian wings instead of airplane wings — despite the Toa having ALWAYS relied more on mechanical motifs than the enemies they faced.

Are you going to leave spaces for the Skull Spiders like you did for the Protectors? We've seen four colors so far. The Fire and Earth sets have Spring Yellowish Green ones, the Stone and Jungle sets have Earth Blue ones, the Water and Ice sets have Silver Metallic ones, and the Lord of Skull Spiders has a Warm Gold one.

 

It's kind of strange that you list the Great Kanohi Rau twice when there's technically just one color for it. It's just that it was prone to discoloration in some years, much like how the Great Kanohi Komau and other parts in 217 Brown sometimes looked faded. Then again, I guess you also count the "Dark Purple Variant" Krana, so in that sense you're being consistent.

 

There will also apparently be one 14-karat gold mask that we haven't yet seen. So you could leave a space for that.

Admittedly the Megablocks comparison was probably a bit off the mark. The armor pieces just look so streamlined and so "clean", for lack of a better word, that my first thought was to their heavy use of specific molded pieces.

 

Maybe I'm just being a bit cynical, but the difference with those is that there was some versatility in them; the Toa Mata bodies had well over a dozen sockets to attach parts to on them, even if they only used about seven of them. The Bohrok body pieces only used five but had eight(There was also a functional purpose to their design, the ability to roll into a ball). As far as I've been able to tell up to this point, the new sets were exactly the same as the past few Toa sets that I just got bored with; a skinny technic skeleton with some molded armor pieces attached by a two-stud rod.

 

That said though, there's clearly some sort of gear function in the backs of them, though nobody has mentioned any of that until now so I have no idea what it is. There's also more complexity than the front suggests.

The Toa Mata torsos had 18 connection points, yes. The 7x9 Hero Factory torso beams used for most of the Toa have twelve, and the 9x9 ones like Onua uses have 14. It's not a huge difference all things considered — it's just that the Toa Mata torso used pin holes and axle holes, while the Hero Factory torso beams use pin holes and ball joints.

 

Have you really not figured out how the gear functions work? I'd think with as much extensive reporting and discussion as there's been you'd have seen it mentioned SOMEWHERE (or been able to discern it yourself from photos). But yes, the design of the gear functions is brilliant.

 

For starters, all the Toa use the type of 3x3 knob gears that were used for sets like the Ussanui or Boxor. The difference between the angle of one gear and the angle of the gear it meshes with is always exactly 45 degrees. This is in many cases a lot more convenient than the old gears that you had to carefully line up if you wanted the characters' shoulder joints to both have a vertical resting position.

 

In addition to all that, the shoulders themselves are attached via ball joints, so you can put them in any pose without having to remove the arms and change the position of the gears. Thanks to the ball joint with through hole (which was introduced during BIONICLE's run) and the 4M axle with end stop (which wasn't introduced until later), these ball joints won't pop off as easily as a ball joint without a through hole would back in the days when people were trying to increase the articulation of their Toa Metru.

 

The Toa use a new Technic beam piece rather than an enclosed gearbox. It's five modules wide, six modules tall, and two modules thick. Here is a render of it by a Eurobricks user. Like the 9x7 torso beam, it has twelve attachment points.

 

Another great thing about the new gear functions is they have friction, so any character who uses them can hold a pose with their arms raised without the arms falling right back down due to gravity. The same member who created the render above also created this mock-up of how many of them incorporate friction using small eight-tooth gears and friction pins. Lewa does it slightly different by incorporating the gears and friction pin between his shoulders and armpit, since the way his shoulders are raised would cause the design in this illustration to collide with the neck joint.

 

Also, Onua's giant hammer is too heavy for a mere friction pin to allow him to hold a pose, so in his case the small gears and friction pin are dropped entirely and he instead has Y-joints and ball joints with through holes attached to the 3M sides of the beam. Sort of like how the original Toa Kaita Akamai and Wairuha each used a ball joint on their crotch to add friction to the bottom gearbox, so their legs didn't just swing freely.

 

This picture I took during the event shows all six sets, and it's easy to see the gearboxes on a lot of the sets. Pohatu and Gali each only have one arm geared, while most of the others have both arms geared (except maybe Kopaka, I honestly forget whether both of his arms are geared).

 

A lot of the characters even include armor of some kind for their lower back. Lewa's is particularly clever, using one of these and one of the same talon pieces he uses on his shoulders. It provides good coverage and is nice and streamlined.

 

Feel free to ask me any other questions you might have! Not only was I actually there at the event, but since I was allowed to bring home a MOC built from the new pieces, I actually have those at my fingertips for reference, and once I'm home I'll even be able to take more pictures for you. You can also look at my photo gallery right here.

I had never seen or heard of this ad. o_O

Is that the original Lewa green from 2001 or so, or that lighter green used in that Green Lantern constraction set?

It's Bright Green (the one used in the Green Lantern set).

I want romance to be canon just because it adds another dimension to certain characters and their relationships, and also because even if it never comes up in the official storyline, a lot of fans like telling romance stories and it's stupid to tell them that those kinds of stories are fundamentally at odds with the characters and species of the series. Also, treating romance as a purely biological function is asinine.

 

I don't think BIONICLE will be ruined if romance isn't canon, but it just seems like an incredibly silly restriction and I'd hope the new writers are smart enough to know better.

Transparent Light Blue seems like the most color for Ekimu, considering that most of the bluish parts on his design are ones that exist in that color (the eyestalk, basic beams and shells, and the hammer which appears to be built from the "weapon barrel" piece. Besides that, the glowiness could be interpreted as visual shorthand for transparent parts.

 

Not sure what to think about Makuta, since if we were to get him as a set, there's no telling whether he'd be in this form. I think it'd be more likely for him to show up in the form he took after the Mask of Ultimate Power transformed him, which is a more typical villainous color scheme. But of course, I wouldn't complain about him showing up in this earlier form either. More Tr. Bright Bluish Violet shells and beams (or even a weapon barrel and an eyestalk) would be GRAND. Also, it'd be a shame not to get the Mask of Control in a set.

It's also worth noting that some of those names you mention like Vortixx and Skakdi were not created until a year or more after the characters in question were introduced. So not using names like that doesn't "dumb things down" any more than they were when those sorts of characters debuted.

 

Meanwhile, you also provided some examples of more generic names used even in the old BIONICLE such as the Great Beings and Dark Hunters. The Shadowed One is even a character who uses a generic name. If using generic names for groups like this was not a problem, why would using generic terms for Okoto's villagers or the evil Skull Spiders be seen as "dumbing things down"?

 

In general, I'm sure the new BIONICLE will accumulate more jargon and complexity as it goes on, and that seems to be a big reason behind the designers NOT using a lot of it in the theme's first year. BIONICLE's problem was not the use of specific terminology so much as the fact that it got more and more of this kind of terminology each year, so that towards the end it was practically drowning in it. Starting things off simple and using theme-specific terminology only where it's needed (like character names, or the term Toa, or the island name Okoto) will give the theme more room for growth without making things so very complicated so very quickly.

I've had no qualms with Hero Factory (though after the first two lines I dropped out of buying them), so the similarities don't bother me. I do kinda wish they were a bit more varied and true to Bionicle though. They look a bit too robotic. But eh, I'll buy them if I have the cash. X3

I don't see how they're more robotic-looking than classic BIONICLE. Just robotic in kind of a different way. A little less of the classic piston and framework motifs that characterized parts like the Toa Mata torso, and a little more smooth, solid plate armor.

 

I almost think that the CCBS works better for organic or biomechanical characters than BIONICLE parts did. In classic BIONICLE, few were the parts that DIDN'T look overtly mechanical (some of the most organic-looking parts were the armor shells and head pieces introduced for the Barraki in 2007). Many parts like the Piraka torso, Vahki lower leg beam, and Toa Hordika torso beam had gaps going all the way through them, making it hard to imagine an organic body underneath.

 

But with the CCBS, a lot of the parts are streamlined enough to resemble form-fitting clothing or armor on an organic body. This especially stands out when you look at what the designers did to set these sets apart from Hero Factory and make them more like classic BIONICLE. It wasn't organic shapes and details that they added, but rather mechanical details like hinges and pistons. Because that mechanical detail is what the CCBS had previously lacked.

Glad that you're giving the new theme a chance even though you're not totally comfortable with the idea of a reboot. I know you have been not just waiting but actively lobbying for BIONICLE to come back for a long time and I hope you're able to enjoy it even if it doesn't meet all your expectations!

apologies. In all the pics I saw they looked 100% trans yellow... why would they make them green?

I dunno, maybe to make his color scheme look less like something you'd find in a toilet (which is a criticism I heard quite a few times when people on other sites were still mulling over prelims).

 

I actually like the look, which surprised me a great deal. It feels like some kind of mineral veins you'd find embedded in a rock, and adds a lot of energy to his build. Plus, fluorescent colors are awesome. Tr. Yellow would be a lot closer to his classic Brick Yellow (Tan), but for some reason the Tr. Fluore. Green just... works.

Regarding all the characters being robots, that's the case with most of the Hero Factory media, to be honest. When there are exceptions, like the Invasion from Below beasts, or some of the semi-organic creatures from Savage Planet, or the humans occasionally mentioned in Hero Factory FM, it's treated as something strange and slightly alien, because it's not "life" in the sense that the wider population understands it.

 

There's not a lot of detail on where the non-hero robots come from, besides industrial robots like XT4. I almost want to think it's like in the DreamWorks movie Robots (yes I know it's cheesy, but it IS DreamWorks) where when a mommy robot and a daddy robot love each other very much... they order a baby robot from a catalog.

Well, in the very least I'm glad that you're not insisting "everybody wants a continuation" like I had seen some people claim while that whole debate was still going on.

 

You might enjoy the new story and you might not. At this point it's too early to know exactly what to expect. I do encourage you to give it a chance. Even if you don't like it, it would be good to have your voice be part of the conversation.

They did tell us that there were some easter eggs in the presentation, so I'm guessing that's one of them!

If you think the armor looks more like Mega Bloks than LEGO, I suspect you're a little fuzzy on the differences between Mega Bloks and LEGO.

 

Mega Bloks regularly introduces highly-detailed, limited-use new parts purely for freshness and aesthetics, rather than using more versatile parts that are designed for years and years of functional applications. LEGO is characterized by building things from much more basic existing parts, and when it DOES introduce new parts, they are usually designed to be useful for more than one application. Just compare the Mega Bloks Pirates of the Caribbean sets with the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean theme. The set with the water wheel is an example that stands out.

 

Mega Bloks parts also often have a matte finish, sometimes with a slightly oily consistency. LEGO parts, by contrast, tend to be very shiny and have a smooth consistency. This image is a good comparison. If anything, the new BIONICLE sets feel more like actual LEGO than BIONICLE sets ever have in the past.

 

Of course, you DO call the new sets "90% molded plastic pieces made specifically for that set which simplify the design", which is way more true of classic BIONICLE than it is of the new BIONICLE. Over 50% of the parts AND part designs in each Bohrok were custom-tailored for building Bohrok, and many of those parts like the frame pieces for the torso and head, the Krana holders, both new types of gear, and several of the shields were hardly ever used for building anything OTHER than Bohrok.

 

In contrast, the new Tahu includes just twelve new parts in six new designs, out of 89 parts total. Only the Kanohi Hau is not shared with any other character. And only the lavaboard pieces are shared with ONLY one other character. The other new parts — his head, eyes, gearbox, and piston detail element — are all used by between five and eleven other characters from this first wave alone. And these are not sets that come in groups of six identical sets like Bohrok, Bohrok Va, and Bohrok-Kal. These are sets that have more diverse proportions, armor, and equipment than most series of Toa and Matoran, and more "internal intricacy" than any series of Toa or Matoran has ever had.

 

Maybe my Flickr album will clear up some things. But it's also possible that the issue isn't just the images you've seen but how you're looking at them.

That name choice is pretty interesting IMO since it's pretty clearly derived from Latin (corusco can mean "I flash, glitter"). You never really think of Latin names showing up during pre-Umbra, but evidently TLG was taking some classical inspiration even in the early years (the only other example I know of is Ignalu from ignis "fire" and nalu, which is Hawaiian for "wave"). The form coruscant "they flash, glitter" is supposedly where Coruscant from Star Wars got its name as well (although apparently the word "coruscant" has made its way into English independently of the planet).

There was also at least one Latin name in the Mata Nui Online Game: Pelagia, a Ga-Matoran shipwright. The word pelagia means "of the sea" or "seafaring". Of course, the Mata Nui Online Game had Matoran names derived from languages all over the world. Other characters with names from classical languages included the Ga-Matoran Nireta (a Greek name meaning "from the sea") and the Le-Matoran Boreas (the name of the north wind in Greek and Roman mythology).

Had to go back well into BS01's history, but I found the Avohkii placeholder name: Korusca.

That's the one! A Google search for "Kanohi Korusca" brings up this BZPower news article from 2003 as well as this follow-up article. So I guess that resolves this mystery.

Hang on, maybe it was for the Avohkii...

In that case, might it have been in The Official Guide to BIONICLE? I can't find my copy right now, but if anyone else has a copy they could check the page for the Toa of Light.

Started with a K, I think. And it might have had a U in it. That's the best I can remember, and wouldn't know where to look it up.

 

I might even be getting mixed up and thinking of a placeholder name for the Avohkii, for all I know.