Wrinkledlion X

Wow cool alright. wait wat ??

I feel so powerful

WOWzers

I like this idea. I've been hoping for a continuation where it doesn't actually matter that it's a continuation, so working in a little ambiguity could be cool.

I don't think it's the main priority, but I would love to have duel-gender tribes. As a kid, I just assumed it was coincidence that all the female characters were water-based, and I always played as though each tribe had male and female Matoran. Even if LEGO wants to produce mostly male toys, I think they ought to get rid of the arbitrary story rules about gender. Give the kids a little freedom in their play.

To be fair, the Nuva masks aren't nearly as popular as the originals either. I'd take the Mata designs over the Nuva designs any day. Yeah, but Greg says one thing and then writes something completely different. We all know love isn't canon, but that didn't stop him from writing in a bunch of sexual tension between Matau and Nokama. "Nesting," anybody?

I really don't. It almost gives the impression that he doesn't care about the story, and a lot of incredibly trivial things have come about by this canonization process. Not saying that fan theory canonizations aren't good, but canonizing any fan theory that doesn't contradict established canon is not the way to run a fictional universe. Thisthisthisthisthis so much this If fan stuff is going to be integrated into canon, I would prefer it to be an extremely rare occurrence, such as "hey you won this story writing contest run by Lego, congrats, see you in four years for the next one" I agree 100%, though I can't blame Greg for not caring about this instance. The character's been dead for ten years, and it's an eight-year-old promo set that all of ten people ever bought. Has Greg canonized any actual story content lately or just stuff like this?

I've mentioned this before, but I think that a big problem with the story was an overcrowding of plot points. 2001 to 2003 were very "modular" stories. They revolved around the Toa collecting a bunch of items, and took place over indeterminate lengths of time. Though the beginning and end of each story arc was spelled out in some detail, the bulk of each year was left up to our imaginations; the story had a TON of breathing room because we only ever saw the Toa collect a couple of masks/krana/etc. Most of the focus was on world-building rather than story, because that was more important as a backdrop for creative play. In 2004, the books introduced a far more detailed story. Things didn't feel too cramped yet because there were six books in one year, but the plot itself was more concrete--you couldn't really dream up a big adventure for the Toa Metru to insert into the middle of that year, because that would conflict with canon. With each following year there were fewer books, and by 2006, Greg decided to write them as a fast-paced thriller set over just a couple of weeks. The density and speed of the story was up exponentially from the early years, and there wasn't any wiggle room in the story. Canon had become very rigid and oppressive. I think the existence of canon was a blessing that turned into a curse. Minor contradictions in the early story weren't a big deal because the plot was so open-ended, but a slight inconsistency in a tightly-plotted year like 2007 could unravel the whole thing. It should never have reached that point of story complexity. One of my favorite books by Greg is Tales of the Masks from 2003, because it's basically a collection of adventures that are only tangentially related to the main story arc. I hope that 2015 returns to that kind of open-ended story. Something like this each year: Introduce Main Conflict >>> Assorted adventures, not too tightly plotted >>> Resolve Main Conflict

I want things to start over in the distant future—Spherus Magna has been settled by Matoran, and they have perhaps merged in some way with the Agori. (I dunno, just hand-wave it.) Point is, it's been long enough that things are kind of settled into a new normal and we don't have to dwell on tying up a bunch of loose ends. The six Toa are still around, and they've just been doing their thing out in the wilderness of SM for a few thousand years—lava surfing, tunneling, swimming, etc. SUDDENLY A NEW THREAT ARRIVES OH NO 2015

Ha, well it's definitely pretty unwieldy. I think I had the L in "Lion" capitalized at some point, but that fell by the wayside years ago. To be fair, there are a lot of people whose names I'll never pronounce correctly on here. Bfahome is "Baffahome," Bonesiii is "Bones-y," and BZPower itself will forever be "BzzzPower" to me.

Retcons could be used to get around that, but they have their own share of problems, and to be honest, a lot of older fans would probably not be any more open to major retcons than to a complete reboot. I don't know, couldn't we just decide not to care about that sort of thing? I tend to ignore all that anyway, especially now that I have some distance from the story. I don't think it would be that big a deal, especially since a big time skip could have changed things in the interim. We wouldn't have to explain the Toa's current appearance, for example, if there are thousands of years of story between 2010 and 2015. For all we know, their Nuva transformation just wore off over time.

No clue. I remember browsing it around 2002, and I have a vague recollection of seeing its forerunners back in 2001, but my specific memories don't start until January 2003, when I joined. Most of that month was just me dealing with technical problems, since I had no idea at all about how to use an internet forum.

I recall that the Insectoids were originally intended as enemies for the Rock Raiders, but for whatever reason that never panned out. So a lot of this permeability seems to have trickled down from the Space line... I wonder if the Slizer planet was meant to vaguely coexist with the Space universe? And another big parallel to consider: the plot to Roboriders revolved around a virus being released, and six elemental robots being created to stop it.

I agree with Adventurer that it's a spectrum. Personally, I'm hoping for a soft reboot: a few thousand years have gone by and all the characters are established in their new homes, so we don't have to address the past story. (I like the idea that the Toa Nuva/Mata have just been doing their thing now for a few thousand years--lava surfing, tunneling, swimming, etc.)

I saw this when you first posted it, but didn't respond until now. Probably the best Toa Mata revamp I've ever seen. I wonder, are you keeping these guys intact until you have the full team together? I'd love to see a group photo when you're done.

I wrote a post in my blog about this quite some time ago, and I know other people have brought up the parallels. I'm not sure how old the story concept of The Shattering is, but it's certainly possible that it was inspired by Slizer. I think that LEGO themes were more "permeable" in the 90s/early 2000s than they are now, since there used to be a lot of concepts that existed across multiple themes. Everybody seemed to be collecting energy crystals, of which Bionicle's lightstones and heatstones were just one example. And the Vatuka certainly looks a lot like a Rock Monster from Rock Raiders: So who knows? They were pretty lax about borrowing ideas at the time.

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here. I just feel like it was a huge development that nobody's really taken any notice of (I actually find the way Greg drops stuff on that chat forum kind of annoying, since a lot of the SM canon feels only half-there), and since we were talking about the elemental tribes I thought it fitted. It's not really worth a whole topic. I think the main reason it felt half-there was because it only really had a year/year and a half to develop and he was trying to basically establish a new lore/sub-lore. In comparison to the later MU years, the first two years of Bionicle's law would have probably felt half-there too, but over time it accumulated, changing our expectations. That being said though, MNOG really helped flesh out and realise the world though, in a way the 2009 movie couldn't. As for the Earth tribe thing, it was probably something he mentioned as a potential story tool for later use but of course never had a chance to have a need to use it. Yeah, as far as I'm aware, the Earth Tribe was scheduled to be a major part of the Bota Magna story year. Remnants of that made it into the serials in the form of a bunch of nature-loving Agori, but that story was never completed (and I personally can hardly remember it).

Yessss I do! I was just talking about you the other day with a friend; I used to horribly mispronounce Wrinkledlion and it was an amusing anecdote Oooooh how did you pronounce it

*cough cough* They were. (Possibly one of my proudest achievements in canonization...) Man, what am I reading here

There's a really good short story by GSR about Akamai & Wairuha, and it delves into some of the stuff we're talking about here. I love the idea that the Kaita exist in a kind of netherworld until they're called into existence.

Ah man, I found mine on Brickset. Christmas 1997, first LEGO set ever: http://brickset.com/sets/4128-1/XL-Value-Bucket

Like others, I kinda believed this website was real as a kid. Thanks for firing up my first-grade imagination, Bink.

Hey y'all, I've been semi-active for the last couple weeks, ever since I heard Bionicle was coming back. I'm probably not gonna stick around indefinitely, since I'm busy and don't want to get sucked back into a fandom, but I'm on a nostalgia trip right now. Anyone remember me from the old days?

I like what you're saying. Akamai and Wairuha definitely had a mystique to them, and I don't know that it could have been maintained in later years when the story became less mythic. If they focused more on the merging of minds, and possibly the idea that only those who are in perfect unity can combine, they might have laid a better groundwork for using Kaita in later years.

If that were true I wouldn't mind, but per BS01: The Kanohi Mahiki is the Mask of Illusion. The Great version allows its user to shapeshift to a limited degree or to cast optical illusions. The user can shapeshift into forms of similar mass and imitate voices, but cannot copy any powers the original has. Isn't that exactly what I said? No, because it's not an illusion. It literally allows a user to shift their shape.