Wrinkledlion X

I like Tohunga because of the alliteration, and because I like the sound those Polynesian names have. Nonetheless, I think LEGO was right to listen to the Maori complaints. 

"Miru" is a great word—interesting combination of sounds.

"Kakama" is also great, and sounds fast to me somehow.

"Hau" is great in its solidness and simplicity.

"Rua" is pretty

and "Vahi" sounds very regal, as fishers64 said up above. It also sounds simple and basic, which is appropriate considering it's the first Kanohi designed.

Though I don't like the naming conventions of later years, I'll give an honorary mention to "Faxon." It seems oddly fitting, and it's one of the few Kanohi names from later years that I can ever remember. 

I can't say much that hasn't been said already, but the color schemes and weapons are near-perfect.

Plus, the iconic mask designs can't be understated. They're simple but full of personality and each has an instantly recognizable silhouette. I can't remember any subsequent wave of masks that had such consistently good design—who really remembers the Great Ruru or Great Matatu with any fondness? From 2003 to 2008, there are actually very few memorable masks with any personality. I'd really only argue that a few (Avokhii, Kraakhan, Kualsi, Rode, Arthron and Faxon) came close to the quality of the 2001 masks. 

Tohunga, because they're so cute and appealing. You just want to collect them in all the different colors, like jellybeans.

Voyatoran are a close second, but I wish they'd had more vibrant colors.

Personally, I think Bionicle's biggest flaw was that it lost its sense of playfulness and worldbuilding midway through its run. I'd place the blame on 2006, when the plot started accelerating way too fast for Greg to handle.

'06 actually had a lot of great stuff in its first half; the first two books of that year are some of my favorite Bionicle stories ever published. They introduced a lot of relatable characters and quality world-building—the Matoran were charming, the Piraka were charismatic villains, and the whole Karzahni sequence was wonderfully mythological. Though darker in tone than what came before, it felt a lot like the story was going back to its mythic roots, and the plot was unfolding organically. About halfway through the year, though, it degenerated into a frenetic mess of action scenes.

I feel a bit bad blaming Greg here, because I think he's a stand-up guy who's very capable of good writing, but things got substantially worse when he became the sole head of story. 2006 and on had good moments, but he complicated the story too much and refused to give the characters a moment of rest. It still blows my mind that 2006-2008 were meant to take place over a couple weeks. That was a terrible decision, and I feel it probably would have been nixed had Greg been working as a part of story team instead of on his own. The story became so rushed that it felt very little like his 2004-2005 novels, which were spacious and well-paced. Where his older novels bring to mind characters exploring new locations and interacting with each other, his 2006+ novels mostly bring to mind a lot of wisecracks in the middle of battles.

I think it's this weird time dilation that screwed with the story. 2001 to 2003 weren't very plot-heavy, but they hit some good dramatic beats and left a lot of the action implied—we know the Toa spent a lot of time collecting masks, krana, etc., but we only saw a few instances of each. This left the plot leisurely and open-ended, unlike the overcrowded years that came later. In 2007 or so, they established that the whole decade of Bionicle's story took place in less than a year, but I always interpreted those early story years as taking place over a pretty long time. I would have guessed that the Toa Nuva spent at least a year or two just on Mata Nui before leaving.

Agreed with the posters above, but neat all the same. Any other unused music available?

 

In many cases, people don't like the name Teridax simply because it isn't Makuta.

 

In my opinion, the name reflects the feel of Bionicle at the given time. "Makuta" was the dark and mysterious spirit that plagued the tropical island of Mata Nui with destruction and disease. The Makuta of Metru Nui was the "guardian" of the City of Legends who had turned on the city, putting all the inhabitants into comas then invading it with hordes of soldiers. Teridax was the makuta who sent his brethren to die in the core of the universe while he made his way to the "control room" to... manipulate it as he sees fit and travel from planet to planet expressing his ultimate power.

 

People don't like it because it doesn't hold nostalgia and feels different, which reflects the time period that it was introduced in.

I don't like it because 1) teridax sounds like a contrived name that is a staple of poorly done science fiction. He sounds like a stock villain, a stupid evil mastermind with a laser cannon aimed at Earth. Makuta sounds tribal, and pervasive. It's like you're uttering the name of the enemy, not just a villain, but the opposite of your guardians and protectors, the opposite of your patron spirit. It evokes the Polynesian tribalism and the spiritual duality reminiscent of faiths like Zoroastrianism and stuff like that. I didn't like the establishment of the Makuta as a species. It, to me, diminished the title. You create a species of sentient virus for the prime purpose of populating a giant robotic body with bio-mechanical animals and you give them all negative characteristics? It's absurd. There could have been a better way. There WAS a better way. Makuta, before he was Teridax, was on par with Angra Mainyu, to Mata Nui's Ahura Mazda. After "Teridax", he's almost like Robotnik.

 

^ Lovin' this post ^

This is pretty cool, but I've found that measurements of the MU are notoriously inconsistent. What's the official size listed for the islands of Mata Nui and Metru Nui? I believe there's a pretty big difference between them that throws the proportions of this map into question.

Holy wow! That telescope theme in high quality! oooooooooo

(favorite piece of bionicle music)

OOOH AND THE LIGHTSTONE CAVE

MLP is Greg's secret brainchild, and it will be Hero Factory's replacement. Mark my words.

Glad to see I'm spreading my enthusiasm!

BTW, does anybody know if there's a backup of the old BZP forums floating around out there? I seem to remember there was talk about making a downloadable archive at some point, but I don't know if it ever happened. I'd love to look through some of the old cosmological theories from S&T and see how close we all got without finding the truth. I feel like it would be hilarious.

I think this goes beyond the scope of Bionicle to a broader philosophical discussion on meaning and purpose in the universe, but that's a bit of a conversation-killer. Anyway, unless the Great Beings are truly gods, I don't think they can have complete control over the destinies of their subjects, because that would mean they've mastered chance altogether. (I'm personally willing to accept them as gods, but Greg seems to have been taking them in a less and less metaphysical direction, so I don't think the Matoran concept of destiny really holds true.)

Though energized protodermis poses a lot of questions. Perhaps its effects are determined by the Great Beings' will, or at least some complicated system within the MU, as there's no way that EP's transformations are truly random. Perhaps this system (the subconscious of sleeping Mata Nui?) knows what EP is coming into contact with and adjusts its effects based on what the system needs at that moment—we can't let these Toa die, they're needed! Let's just give them new armor. Other times, when the thing it contacts is less important, it randomizes completely and kills the victim, or it changes them into a random object based on an arbitrary impulse. (Maybe whatever Mata Nui is dreaming about at that moment?)

That's just pulled out of a hat, but it kind of turned into an interesting theory. Hmmmmmmm

I feel like everyone in here is just saying "the Mata Nui reveal," but really it can't be overstated how well that was handled. I was blown away then, and I'm even more impressed now that I've browsed the Faber Files and seen just how far back the premise went.

I was always heavily involved in those S&T topics about the nature of Mata Nui, and I remember decoding some of it just a few days before PlanetPerson, but not quite as completely. I remember theorizing that the Great Spirit Mata Nui was actually the island Mata Nui, based on my (pretty mindblowing) discovery that all of the place-names on the island were Maori words for facial features. I hadn't integrated the underground MU, though—but I was so close! I always wondered if PlanetPerson was influenced by my topic or if he created his own theory parallel to mine. The latter is entirely possible, given how much Mata Nui's nature had come to the forefront that year, with "Karda Nui" meaning "heart" and all that. It certainly explains why they never gave us any maps of the world until after the reveal!

(I'm getting all nostalgic now—S&T was really fun in those days. Even though I missed the Mata Nui twist by a hair, I am proud that I got one theory correct. I was the first one, as far as I know, to recognize the relationship between this symbol and the figure in the Ignika. If only I had realized what it represented!)

Seriously, though:

Considering how contrived the universe had to be to make the Big Twist work, it's a wonder that they managed to keep it secret for so long. Consider the fact that Metru Nui was inexplicably underground, in a dome, and lit by two suns that close like eyes! Those are such bizarre details, and yet they somehow managed to go for eight years pulling things like that, and nobody noticed. It's really a testament to the storytelling that went into what easily could have been a generic toyline about robots fighting each other. To answer the question posed by the topic, it's Bionicle itself that exceeded my expectations—there was no reason for it to be as good as it was.

Some footnotes from the Faber Files that really drive home how everything in the first eight years of Bionicle was based on one twist:

• Toa canisters were shaped like pills, to cure a very large patient.
• The name "Biological Chronicle," which people complained about for years until the big reveal
• Initial Mata Nui concept art: http://faberfiles.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-sketch-that-made-difference.html, http://faberfiles.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-lies-beneath.html
• An unused story concept that would have probably tipped us off to the twist a lot earlier
• Concept environments that show 2001 plants based off of cells
• The designs aren't too old, but it's not clear whether the ideas are recent or not: either way, I love the idea of Mata Nui rolling up into a ball to fly through space... Feels very consistent with his Bohrok "cells" doing the same
• Again, not early concept art, but I admire the attention paid to detail: http://faberfiles.blogspot.com/2012/05/karda-nui-heart-of-legend.html
• And the earliest piece of concept art in this post: Mata Nui in 1999, when the toy series was still super-cartoonish and referred to as "Boneheads on Voodoo Island." It just goes to show how fundamental the "Polynesian paradise" theme was to the Bionicle story—at this stage, the big twist was rendered in the form of a big scary skull island. It looks like LEGO Pirates are just as likely to land on that beach as the Toa!

I feel like Heir of the Chronicler and some others I don't know by name are very important for their uploads of old media to YouTube. It goes unsung, but it goes a long way in keeping Bionicle available to old fans.

(feels good to be able to reference youtube)

Also, I'm throwing in another vote for Toa of Art. That guy was a powerhouse back in the day, and I remember how excited we all were when he showed up in 2006 with a drawing of Matoro. I wonder what he's up to these days.

EDIT: Oh, and how about Jinzo? I'm surprised I've only seen one mention of him in here. Don't people remember Riotfleas? Everyone was making those for a while.

 

their adaptive masks remind me more masks or faces of OoMN's members, for example.

For whatever it's worth, they did get them as a result of getting instructions from the Order. In a sense they kind of were unofficial Order members in a way, at that time. (Still, overall I agree. The basic shapes of the 08 masks could have been much cooler IMO if they were blended more with obvious similarities to the originals. Ah well.)

 

To be fair, I thought there was a resemblance among some of their masks. Kopaka's is obvious, as is Pohatu's in his vehicle form. But contrary to popular opinion, I thought the silhouettes on Onua and Tahu's masks were quite reminiscent of their Mata forms—Tahu remained a dome, and Onua remained a diamond.

...It's just a shame about their bodies.

I voted other, in the hopes that the commission would be for the Mata Nui robot, under Teridax's control. That would be awesome.

I voted for 2003 Makuta, but I'd change my vote to the Mata Nui robot if that was an option. We could really use a 2001-style illustration of that.

Actually, IIRC (and I have a pretty good memory for these things), Greg said at least once or twice that he pictured Matoran as being spoken like the clicking noises in the Bohrok animations.

I'd love to see a quote for this, because I really like the idea. I've always thought the idea of Toa and Matoran talking was a little weird, visually speaking.

Though we do know that Matoran are capable of "chattering and shrieking," according to 2001 media. So we can't really say, I guess.

Oh, that's what you meant by a base. I thought you meant a motif that had to be shared in all characters of an alphabet, not a reference point for the floating dots' positions.

Those dots are adapted from Roman lettering though, because the dot subs in for the negative space in the letters A, B, C, D, H, P, R, S, U, V, and W*. So even though the language's real-world (LEGO-employed) designers erased the lines that define those dots' positions, the dots are based off of a linear, human alphabet. I don't mean to suggest that the Agori alphabet looks just like English, but I do want to point out that, both in real life and in the story, the Matoran language is a constructed language based off of another language. Even though the Agori characters have been reduced to dots floating in circles, it's entirely possible that the position of the dots was once determined by actual lines rather than negative space.

Whoo, that's difficult to read. This is very visual stuff, so I'm sorry if it's is too confusing to put into words.

I wasn't aware that the automatons-thing was a misconception, but then I haven't been active on BZP in a really long time. Still, the fact that I've always heard Matoran referred to as a "programming language" makes me think that I'm right about the basic nature of the language—that it's constructed with efficiency in mind foremost, but not as a standard vernacular. It wouldn't be practical in real life for us to write in binary every day, even if it is very efficient at what it's used for. Same deal here, I think, though obviously it's fiction and there's no real answer to this question. (I know I'm grilling you on this, but just so it's clear, I think it's really cool that you're trying to design an Agori language. I really like this type of stuff, and I'm always reading about Indo-European roots and whatnot, so I'm just going on like this for the fun of it.)

As for the Kal thing, I believe that was a burst of plasma or electricity that carved those. (And if I'm thinking of the same scene as you, didn't they write their name in Roman characters? So that's non-canon... or is it??)

*There are a couple other letters that use dots, but arguably not as negative space-fillers (J, L, Q).

It wasn't meant to be carved into rocks in caves, that's just where it ended up.

Where are you getting that? I'm not aware that we know any such thing. Why wouldn't they?

 

I mean to say that the Matoran were intended to be automatons laboring in Metru Nui, and wouldn't have used it as a vernacular writing system the way we use English, seeing as they weren't even meant to have free will. Not to mention that in a technological environment, there's no need to carve your words with a hammer and chisel. They would either have digital readouts or manufactured signage that presented the language with perfect density and uniformity.

I'm sure the GBs never imagined their creations would be living in mud huts on the surface of Mata Nui, though, because it isn't a language that's well-suited to carving by hand.

 

 

I thought of two main directions to go based on the fact that Bomonga was able to translate Agori to Matoran; first, get rid of the circles and use the interior shapes of Matoran. But for that to work there would still need to be some kind of a base, so it doesn't really make sense.

What do you mean by a base? The base for me is the character within the circle—take away the circle, and the letters are still clearly identifiable. In fact, most languages in the real world don't have a "base" common to all letters. Maybe ancient Ogham script, but that's the only example that comes to mind.

Generally, having one constant motif is a sign that the language is artificially constructed. That's appropriate for Matoran, since the GBs designed it, but not for a naturally-occurring language. Take away the artificially-imposed circle motifs of Matoran, and it makes sense that you'd be left with something closer to its ancestor. (Because this is a real-world toyline, you get letters that are actually based on English. Canonically, that's probably closer to Agori, and it actually makes sense for their culture to have a language that resembles Roman characters to some extent.)

 

 

I'm not at all suggesting that Bionicle be resold without supplementary products, including but not limited to toys. Due to its popularity and success over a variety of media, the Star Wars films have given rise to a lot of Star Wars toys; the only difference between the two in terms of marketing strategies is that Star Wars was planned with films to be the main focal point and source of revenue, and diversified from there, while Bionicle planned for toys to be the main focal point and source of revenue, and diversified from there. It's entirely feasible that, in the hands of a company which is established in working in a variety of media, that Bionicle could be a series of films, or books, or television episodes with toys that were supplementary to the other media.

 

However, Aanchir, I disagree that a line of toys, supplementary or vital to its existence, is necessary for Bionicle to be exciting and innovative. The concept of collectability is by no means unique to toys, and in fact most collectible items are not toys or items to be played with. Today, certain books, comic books, cars, paintings, baseball cards, other sports memorabilia, and many other items are collectible. Not one of those items have their roots in toys, and many have been collectible since long before 2001. Many of these items also sell better and are more marketable now than they were before they were considered collectible.

 

It's a well-accepted convention in the world of visual design that audiences desire brightly colored characters and environments in science-fiction or fantasy settings, and that rule has formed the basis for much of the visual style of those genres since the usage of colored film became widespread. Our mental image of science-fantasy movies or television contains vivid colors almost by default. Even before then, vividly colored landscapes, costumes, and characters were extremely common in comic books and pulp magazines as far back as the late nineteenth century. When the tone of the work is more somber or threatening in tone, then the color palette will often be darkened and mellowed out to match that; not only is the standard for most science-fantasy, but it was used by Bionicle in 2006, 2007, and 2008 to indicate the more dangerous and somber tone of the story during those years.

 

The same can be said for the novel designs of tools or weapons that was and remains eye-catching to the toy-buying public; moviegoers, television watchers, and comic book readers desire the same innovation in tool/weapon design, and have for many decades. And one needs to go back nearly two thousand years, when much of the literature which we today consider to be “classical” was composed in Greece and Rome, to record the start of our cultural interest in the natural elements and character who can control them. That one is older than dirt, Aanchir.

 

In terms of short characters, do you really think that Bionicle would not make use of characters of sub-human height if it had not begun as a toyline? Elves, dwarves, goblins, gremlins, fairies, and countless species of aliens have been shorter than humans in very well known literature for centuries.

BIONICLE could have used any of those ideas without toys. I'm not arguing against that. However, its foundation as a toy line is the reason it used those ideas the way it did.

 

Because so many of its basic conventions, such as the ones which you mentioned, are often found in a wide variety of successful media, I don't believe that Bionicle would suffer or be forced to change any of its qualities that make it unique if it were primarily a book series, or movie series, or television series. That's the point that I was trying to make. This is all, of course, hypothetical; Lego hasn't announced any intentions to license or sell the Bionicle brand. However, do you think that there is a chance that Lego would consider selling it even if the company was not in financial trouble, if offered the right price?

 

It wouldn't have to change its qualities that have already been established, but it would lose some of the creative restrictions that forced them to think outside-the-box when creating Bionicle. Most of the core elements of Bionicle are derived from its nature as a toy line—the masks, the elemental tribes, the different-sized characters, etc. If you want a really concrete example, look at the canisters the Toa washed up in. Christian Faber simply wanted the toy's packaging to have some play value, and one of the most iconic images of the series was born. I'm not saying that Bionicle would be bad if it weren't tied to a toy line, but if it hadn't started that way, it wouldn't have arrived at its most interesting ideas. Take away the toy-inspired aspects of the series, and it's reduced to a pretty generic fantasy.

Also, while people rightly criticize Bionicle for getting far too self-serious, I think this is a problem that only started in earnest around 2003 and 2004. The Templar stuff from before then, while much more dramatic than most LEGO properties, actually had a lot of light-hearted humor and playfulness to it. There were dark elements, but full-on darkness didn't really kick in until around 2005, which I don't believe was a very popular year anyways. The Mata Nui setting the line was based in was always a sunny paradise, aside from the villains who occasionally attacked it. To reference the Faber Files again, you can see that the initial plans for Mata Nui were even more cartoony and playful than what we did get. (And the decade-spanning secret about Mata Nui's identity was originally a pretty hokey gimmick, seeing as the island was clearly shaped like a skull.)

Anyway, all this is to say that Bionicle's greatness came from the fact that it so wholeheartedly embraced its toy nature, while at the same time reaching higher than most toylines every attempt. It unfortunately lost track of this sense of fun in its later years, but all of that mystery and symbology was still based in a sense of fun, early on.

(I don't know if this conversation is still ongoing, but I find language really interesting, soooo)

I love the idea of creating an Agori language by "back-dating" Matoran script, but you seem to be treating Matoran script as a natural evolution of its ancestral language when in fact it's a constructed programming language. This fact can explain a lot of its less practical design elements—I'd imagine those circles were put in place by the Great Beings so that they could pack symbols together with perfect density and uniformity. Matoran weren't even meant to be truly sentient beings, so the original intent of the language may have been more like a barcode, communicating a lot of information very quickly and systematically. It wasn't meant to be carved into rocks in caves, that's just where it ended up.

We know that there IS a relationship between the Agori and Matoran languages, but I'd imagine that Agori would be a lot more organic and irregular, with lots of different shapes and silhouettes that the GBs "tamed" with circles. In fact there are probably not many round shapes at all, since, like Runes and Old Italic script, Agori was carved mostly into stone (though correct me if I'm wrong on that). I think the best approach to developing it would be to back-date fishers64's Matoran Shorthand, which presents a Matoran language unbound from its contrived circular template. (It's uncomfortably close to English when you get rid of the circles, but we can try to make that look like a coincidence.)

Bonesiii, your artistic style tends to be really baroque, and I've always dug that. But I think that in this case, your love of aesthetics makes your Agori feel like a constructed language rather than a natural one.

Yeah man, I got an OC. His name is Krahiki and I wrote two epics about him:

Unfortunately those topics are gone now, but if you click my banner, you can read some very exciting word documents. Krahiki lives!

 

 

Also, I'm not a big fan of the whole Velika twist. Velika was one of my favorite 2006 characters, and it was because he and his friends reminded me of the oddball Matoran characters we saw back in the MNOLG, like Kapura and all them. I wish Greg didn't see eccentricity as evidence that a character is secretly a villain.

Odd, I've always heard people wish that Greg didn't see eccentricity as evidence that a character is secretly a Great Being (who just so happened to have been a villain).

 

Well, that's what I'm complaining about, isn't it? Not sure what you're getting at.

 

 

I've gone on about this elsewhere, but here's my idea for Bionicle's return: Don't make it a return of Bionicle, make it a sequel to Bionicle. The fact that it takes place in the same world as Bionicle is something that's only ever hinted at, because this is a new LEGO constraction line that just happens to have easter eggs for older fans.

 

So, our hidden background: Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Mata Nui robot crash-landed on what was once called Spherus Magna, and its camouflage activated, creating an enormous mountain range. (For the purpose of this series, let's say he landed face-up instead of face-down.) One end of the mountain range resembles the island of Mata Nui, in the form of a vast plateau, but it's never spelled out explicitly. Possibly, the Matoran and Agori merged together into a single race over time, and those can be our protagonists—LEGO can handle that however they like.

 

With this as a backdrop, you can tell whatever new stories you want with your main characters. On the rare occasion that characters go deep underground beneath the mountains, perhaps you can find ruins of dead cities and islands, but you don't have to explain it other than to say that those who lived there once are gone now. I think this approach would embrace the mysterious spirit of classic Bionicle, but it would allow for completely different stories to be told in a setting that's basically new. We wouldn't have to worry about young fans getting confused the way they did with Bionicle's crazy-complex story, but it would still be built on a solid foundation.

That's...that's genius.

 

If it weren't for the fact that the Mata Nui robot is being disassembled on Spherus Magna.

 

(It's still a great story idea though.)

 

Eeeh, we can ignore that like we ignore Mata Nui being face-down. I think that ending is rife with elements that are just waiting to be de-canonized!

Also, the fact that (some) Bohrok are just mutated, reprogrammed Av-Matoran. That's just stupid. They have barely anything in common, they're almost polar opposites. Matoran are living beings, creators, while Bohrok are cold, mechanical destroyers.

I do think the choice of Av-Matoran specifically was pretty bizarre, but I was glad they finally addressed the relationship between Bohrok and Matoran. There was a great post on the Faber Files recently that shows how far back their kinship goes in the development of Bionicle.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the whole Velika twist. Velika was one of my favorite 2006 characters, and it was because he and his friends reminded me of the oddball Matoran characters we saw back in the MNOLG, like Kapura and all them. I wish Greg didn't see eccentricity as evidence that a character is secretly a villain.