Aanchir

 

YOUSA TINKIN YOUSA PEOPLE GONNA LOSE DA MASKS?!

Vakama Binks

More like Jar Jar Bingzak.

(And Wind - you definitely need to make it to BrickFair New Jersey!)

Especially since one of the Bionicle designers (Christian Vonsild) will be there this year!

I probably ought to attend more conventions, but it's hard for me to motivate myself. I tend to think of conventions as "treating myself", kind of like a vacation, and I already feel like I'm treating myself more than I should be seeing as I don't have an actual job.

It'd be fun to attend BrickFair New Jersey this year, but I dunno. I already got to hang out with Christian on the LEGO Inside Tour, after all.

So glad that BrickFair was such a good experience for you overall. I can tell you from experience that it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun for me if you hadn't been there!

As much as it made me worry those times you were feeling tired or anxious or overwhelmed, I still cherished every opportunity I had to hang out with you, whether it was talking and laughing over dinner or just relaxing behind the Bionicle table. And some of my own worries were ameliorated by knowing how many good friends you had taking care of you.

I hope the post-con blues don't hit you too hard, and that next time you're feeling down, you will be able to look back on this experience and smile!

Actually, I've seen a LOT of praise for the Toa Metru, both as characters and as sets. The characters are praised for getting much more character development than the Mata in a shorter span of time. The sets are praised for having better articulation than the Toa Mata and less exaggerated proportions than the Toa Inika (although their shoulders were exaggeratedly wide, and Nokama, Nuju, and Lhikan had arms that were disproportionately small compared to their elongated torsos). Some of them also had dual-function weapons just like the Toa Nuva, although some like Nuju's and Whenua's became a lot more abstract in terms of what they were supposed to be.

The biggest fault of the Toa Metru, in my opinion, was that they had fairly bland, repetitive builds and color schemes. And their mask designs, proportions, and color schemes had little in common with the Turaga versions of the characters from 2001 — without knowing the character names, it'd be almost impossible to recognize that they were different versions of the same character.

I'm glad you had a good time overall. And don't feel bad that it was a bit awkward for you at times. I've been going to BrickFair for over five years, and it wasn't until a couple years ago that I stopped feeling really awkward around the rest of the BZPower crew. Finding a place among a group of friends who already knows each other really well can be tough, but you can rest assured that we're generally a really nice bunch and want to help you feel welcome in any way we can.

Oh, and I think that was me and not Lyichir that you talked to, but people make that mistake all the time — it's not just you. XD

Sorry you weren't able to find us to say goodbye after the public hours ended. It was a bit hectic at that point trying to make sure I had all my MOCs packed up, since unlike a lot of the people at the Bionicle table I also had MOCs in some of the other categories like Space and Sculpture. Not to mention that during a lot of the convention I was sort of preoccupied with my own thoughts. This is one of my only chances each year to connect with a lot of my online friends in real life, and needless to say it can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster! I'm glad you got to enjoy the whole event this year, and I hope to see you again next year.

I'm glad you had a great time. I enjoyed getting to see and hang out with so many fellow Bionicle fans as well!

Shiiiiny!

Real cute!

Of course you're human, Pablo. Don't worry. We'll keep your secret as long as it takes for the rest of your planet's fleet to arrive.

new live-action Angry Birds movie looks great.

Well, we're in a better place than we were in many of the later years of G1, when we didn't have any alternate color options for most masks. This year's Bionicle sets are on a roll, with 32 masks to date (not counting event-exclusive masks). That's more than any year of Bionicle or Hero Factory since 2003!

I'd love more mask color options too, but I don't know if mask packs in the traditional sense are the right way to get them. Some AFOLs already complain about blind-packaged products like the collectible minifigures feeling like a shameless cash grab, and mask packs — which weren't even a complete toy in their own right — feel all the more shameless in hindsight.

Anyway, that's a really cool laser shield!

I mean, plenty of civilian characters had first names too (Akiyama Makuro, Nathaniel Zib, Daniela Capricorn, etc). It was probably to make them more relatable — showing that in this universe, despite being robots, they're also people like us.

The same could be said for other decisions made early in the theme. The heroes were given handwritten "signatures" and very human vulnerabilities, like Bulk's self-consciousness about his intelligence or Surge's doubt in his own heroic mettle, not to mention gags about the heroes doing product endorsements for Power Core or having their adventures depicted as TV shows and musicals. These, among other things, are part of why I think Hero Factory was a much smarter theme from the outset than many people give it credit for.

As for why the first names were dropped in later years, I'm guessing it's because the characters mostly referred to each other by their last names anyway, and because as the series got more and more characters the creators wanted to simplify the list of character and set names for fans to keep track of.

The Bionicle comparison doesn't quite work because the Bionicle theme's names were designed to make the characters and world seem as "exotic" as possible, rather than just a futuristic, robotic counterpart of our own western society.

Check out the Autistic Self Advocacy Network if you're looking for an organization that fights to support autistic people and erase the stigma against autism (and against disabilities in general). They're active on many social media channels and regularly share articles about current events that concern people with disabilities.

It's hard to say whether I prefer the 2002 or 2008 Kanohi Nuva. On the one hand, many of the 2002 versions felt more elegant and ornate (more like treasures than technology). On the other hand, several of the 2002 versions also had a weird, organic look that felt out-of-place on non-Nuva characters. And neither were consistently a recognizable likeness of the versions that came before them — the similarities were there, but they were subtle.

I think a lot of people's hate for the 2008 masks was nostalgia combined with the fact that they looked so different despite having the same power level and abilities (whereas the 2002 versions were different enough from the Mata versions from a story standpoint for people to tolerate the radical changes in appearance). Not to mention frustration with the other major changes in the character designs, like Onua suddenly being one of the tallest Toa, Kopaka no longer having a shield, and Pohatu's primary color becoming bright orange.

Maybe keep the beard but shave the mustache?

I never had any sockets break on me... before 2007. Since then, I've worn through a few of my older ones, but now I just buy a ton of replacements so it's not quite as heartbreaking anymore. I've stored a small collection of broken joints, but not quite as many as you've got there. Wow.

 

I had a fair amount of bad luck with the 7M double ball cup from the time it was introduced in 2005. I can't help but wonder if the removal of the holes in the sides of the Technic axle housings was a part of why that part (and all of the 2008 redesigns) were so fragile. Could be that they allowed the plastic to expand or contract more easily when parts were attached or detached.

Bohrok feet gave me some trouble too. I don't know when I first encountered one breaking but I know I had issues with them at least as early as 2005.

This is amazing, and I most definitely ship it. The only thing that bothers me is Kopaka being shorter than Pohatu, because in the sets at least, Pohatu has always been one of the shortest Toa (even more consistently than Onua, since Onua randomly shot up in height in 2008).

Hey, I'm about as stumped as you are. I've got a few ideas (official art of LEGO Bionicle or LEGO Elves characters, a cutie mark from My Little Pony, a LEGO Bionicle key visual, etc.), but haven't settled on anything.

 

Huh, I thought the bow could fit pretty well on the back, judging from this image, but looking at it again in more detail, they're clearly cheating with that connection. Not to mention I feel like some pieces might even be missing from that picture. :-/

 

EDIT: Then again, the starter of this topic clearly managed it somehow.

Where is that image from? It's not in the instructions for the set itself, which is why in my review I've mostly finished I haven't even attempted mounting it on the back.

 

The first image, you mean? It's the main image for the set on the online LEGO shop. It is also the image that appears on the back of the set's box, in the part that shows off the action feature.

Actually, connecting the bow to the back now seems pretty simple to me looking at the instructions. You just need to remove the three pieces that connect the bow to Skull Warrior's right hand (a #1 angle connector and two pins) and then it snaps to the back the same way the spear does.

 

^The atrocious spelling and grammar in that quote make the whole thing even funnier than it already is.

 

This is just. Wow. Beautiful. The internet really doesn't change.

I dunno... if anything, it seemed WORSE back then as far as spelling and grammar were concerned. Even if the internet as a whole doesn't change, BZPower at least has.

The difference might have something to do with the topic I saw from 2005 in which Windrider (yay people I recognize!) was celebrating the addition of a spell check feature to BZPower.

Huh, I thought the bow could fit pretty well on the back, judging from this image, but looking at it again in more detail, they're clearly cheating with that connection. Not to mention I feel like some pieces might even be missing from that picture. :-/

EDIT: Then again, the starter of this topic clearly managed it somehow.

Oh wow, I didn't realize that that topic was also full of people complaining that little kids were ruining BIONICLE! And just three years after the theme's introduction! Classic!

i tottaly understand ..i must agree with that..but i've met some peeple here that i just cause ther so clueless and just....baaaa!..bionicle should be a older thing..its just plain stupid that all these 5,6,7,8,9 yr olds are liking it and loving it when they probably don't understand diddly squat about the story line...and its fine if they mess around with peces i meen..ther kids...wat else r they supposed to do? but it is sort of lame when they post about there horrible color scheme mocs..and expect peoples to post..but think about it..were'nt we all like this when we were yung? we should just forget about it i meen everyonewill grow up so just help the "sterio types" out so they can eventually be like any other member...

That aside, the fact that teenagers were being teased for liking BIONICLE even back then does effectively put the final nail in the coffin for the argument that classic BIONICLE was aimed squarely at teenagers while the new BIONICLE is aimed at kids. Not that it was ever a really solid argument to begin with...

The topic in general offers me some great insights into the community back then since I wasn't active in the online fan community until around 2006.

The link isn't working for me... but yeah, this is good to keep in mind. If there's one thing the online BIONICLE fan community has always been good at, it's complaining. As such, online complaints are no reason to assume the theme is doomed to failure (especially since a lot of the things people online complain about are of little consequence to the actual target audience).

I'm still in the camp that believes that the Kolhii match between Takanuva and Makuta was way more meaningful and poetic than any violent, Transformers-style robot smackdown ever could have been. It's a bit like the "chess with death" trope as seen in works like the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia or the book Coraline. The villain is convinced the hero is no match for him, so to toy with him he proposes a competition on the hero's terms. Ultimately, though, Makuta was wrong about Takanuva, who was not the same hesitant, uncertain Matoran he had been at the beginning of the movie.

Technically, the old BIONICLE sets had shells too. It's just one of those terms like "constraction" that fans generally didn't use until the CCBS came about. Perhaps that's understandable, since back in the days of classic BIONICLE "shell" could describe parts from any part of the body with any number of different connection points, so for identification purposes it was more useful to refer to parts as "leg armor", "torso armor", "feet", "spines", "claws", etc.

Even today, "shell" is used to describe both the base armor elements that attach with a ball-snap or various add-on elements that attach via a pair of Ø3.2mm shafts, though fans mostly use it for the former.

Nice! Number six was my second or third favorite of the color combinations, so I'm happy with this result.

Once pre-orders open I'll make sure to tell all my friends so they have a chance to pre-order their own copies.