Xboxtravis

Big Boy would certainly be a set I would love to see come to fruition, either via Ideas or a regular D2C release... but it would also highlight the current limits of the official Lego track system with its sharp curves. Still it would be along with the Maersk Train, Horizon Express, Crocodile and Emerald Night such a satisfying entry to large scale Lego train sets. I wish the project luck.

Its important to note: In the alternate model, Nuparu uses the normal left arm. So it makes me believe the main Boxor model is intentional. Why they included two disk arms and one punching arm instead of two punching arms and one disk arm is beyond me.

Yeah it was this set in particular, I guess it was great luck to get two Kaukaus in it. https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/4151848_BIONICLE_Trading_Card_Game_1:_Tahu_and_Kopaka

Do you mean BIONICLE: Quest for the Masks? I got a trans-red Kaukau and a trans-clear Kaukau for the Tahu and Kopaka packs when I was a kid from that game.

A counter argument to this, Bionicle failed financially once. From what we understand when the decision was made to sunset Bionicle in 2008 for G1, the line was still doing well financially but had begun to plateau. So rather than risk beginning to take on financial losses, Lego canned it while it was still near its peak fiscally speaking. So while I think it is fair to assume G2 flopped due to poor sales, I think its unfair to assume the same happened to G1 which ended as one of Lego's strongest themes in its history. We also can't assume G2 solely happened due to fan demand, its possible something else was a factor that lead to the start of G2 because if the Bionicle fan community is a small and vocal group now it was still a small and vocal group then as well. Hehehehe... you are not wrong. Another good point, and its kind of what I view whatever Faber's mystery posting to likely be. He is just, exploring Bionicle and what it means to him as one of the co-creators of the franchise; making it his own and sharing it with us, but don't expect it to be "ermagersh new canon new toys" type of Bionicle. Canon can be fun, but a slavish adherence to it is something all franchises seem to suffer through. Especially with were Bionicle is now, most of us were kids joining this forum and now almost the entire majority is adults... maybe in a way our imagination has ran a bit more dry and we want to apply "logic" to everything, IDK. I don't disparage people who try and create new canon, I even put an entry into the first Helyrx contest; but nitpicking over the canon of the line now we have to just remember that not everything in Bionicle makes sense and that is okay... and if we find some old thing in the canon that isn't fully fleshed out, well:

Yeah Huw's defense of it surprised me, and honestly has made me reconsider if I was too harsh in my initial opinion.

There is a method to get the battery out, that relies on an Exacto knife and some stressing of the plastic to pop it open. I have done it on all my Piraka... and while the stress marks aren't visible once they are put back on display and its great to get the battery light up eye effect again let me say... It was a lot harder than a Mata head is. The Mata heads I learned are easy to use the flat end of a modern style Lego Brick Separator to slide in-between the eye and the head and with a bit of leverage pop the eye off. Seeing how easy it is to get those brick separators now since they come in almost every higher cost set, I think its my favorite method to swapping eyes.

I don't know how many people will see this, but I feel like its worth sharing an opinion I have that is particularly directed towards the Bionicle fandom. As some of you may know, the Lego fansite Brickset has a "Random Set of the Day" feature were a bot selects random sets and shows them for a day on the website, of course Bionicle fans are more than happy to see a Bionicle set chosen. In part, this is because people enjoy sharing a bit of what they love about the characters and the settings; hopefully to encourage non-Bionicle fans who might see the comments to take up some researching into the theme themselves. However, lately going through RSotD feeds on Brickset the Bionicle fans tend to post entire BioSector01 length lore discussions, that are multiple paragraphs long and exceed Brickset comment lenght limits (I probably have been guilty of doing it once or twice myself I am sure if I dig far enough into my own comments there). This is becoming a repeated problem on these Brickset articles though, since the Bionicle fans are just creating walls of text. Some recent examples can be seen in the last few Bionicle RSotD selections: https://brickset.com/news/category-Random-set If the goal is to introduce non-Bionicle fans to Bionicle, then we are failing spectacularly. This would be the equivalent of somebody trying to introduce their friend to Lord of the Rings by handing them a copy of The Silmarillion, or by trying to get somebody into Star Wars by handing them the entire library of Canon and Legends books. We are creating walls of text that are unreadable, and discouraging people's natural curiosity to research the subject themselves. Please, while I would love to see the lore dumps continue on Brickset RSotD articles, we need to keep them brief and direct them to investigate on their own; not teach them the entire Bionicle story in one comment thread.

I'd argue in a biblical sense that the story of Samson and Delilah has more in common with Vakama and Roodaka. In a broader mythology sense there are plenty of other stories about seduction and temptations in Greek myth as well. But I argue Vakama and Roodaka share a lot with more modern film noir influences as well, with Vakama as a weary hero at his breaking point and Roodaka the seductive femme fatale manipulating him and stabbing him in the back. I am more familiar with western myth and religious beliefs than I am with Polynesian ones, but remember early MNOG had references to Maori demigods that were cut in later editions of the game... so I am sure some influence was definitely there in more than just the names.

Call me crazy, but I don't really see any need for Bionicle to be Star Wars levels of huge. Yes its strange Bionicle exists in the bubble of "popular enough everyone knows about it, obscure enough nobody knows what its about" but not everything that has ever existed in the history of ever needs to be Star Wars levels of big. I'd argue the fact Bionicle exists where it is now in that "cult hit" zone is half the fun of this fandom.

That is what I understand too. As for the noble masks though, that area is a little less defined. Did the Rahi steal the noble masks from the Turaga and hide them on the island? I see no reason for the Turaga to have hid masks that would have been useful for themselves. Then again I guess they were still Toa Metru when they went about hiding the Great Kanohi to be fair...

I don't know if it was used in Throwbots/Slizers, but the Competition Cannon has its origin in the Technic Competition subtheme in 1998-1999 in stuff like this: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=8233-1#T=S&O={"iconly":0} So not a ball joint ancestor of Bionicle, but kinda a proto-Rahi thing in terms of functions based on hitting targets and triggering four bar linkage mechanism.

On one hand, I worry after MNOG II that a Metru-NOG would have ended up similarly bloated and hard to play in the dial-up era with lots of meaningless fetch quests. BUT, if that MNOG I magic could have been captured, I really think Metru-Nui would have been a much more fleshed out environment. Its odd how cool of a concept Metru-Nui was, and how little of it we actually got to see compared to the really fleshed out world Mata-Nui was (unfortunately I think Voya/Karda/Mahri all suffer MORE from that, it feels like the new environments were skin deep in the later years). The one thing Metru-Nui had going for it lore-wise was the Metru-Nui: City of Legends book and the other books set in the city. But a couple books really lack the same visual power as a game like MNOG has. Although I really really really like the book we did get, and only wish there was more of it.

Although in all seriousness, I love anything Zamor based. So the original Zamor launchers, the Midak Skyblasters, the Thornax launchers, etc. I enjoy the disks too, especially the 2004 Kanoka designs, and the Rhotuka can be fun to see how far they go even though they have no accuracy... and Stud Shooters are easy to incorporate into builds. But I can leave everything else. Especially the squids those can be left behind.

Everything off The Killer's Pressure Machine. The album is full of vignettes based of life in rural Utah (the band's lead singer grew up in a small town only an hour and half away from where I grew up). So the album is having a strange impact on me in the sense it has a very strong local vibe to it in my mind's eye. Its definitely a lot more slower paced than most of their work musically compared to the arena/dance floor sound of stuff like "Mr. Brightside" from back in 2004, but the lyrics are more raw or "gritty" if it can be called that. The Killers just sort of leaning very hard into their Springsteen, Mellencamp, Seger, Cash, Willie Nelson and Jackson Browne influences with a dash of New Order thrown on top of it all. The second song off the album has this music video for it which gives me all the nostalgia feels for my own childhood while also thinking back on communal tragedies I remember from my own life: The final album track off Pressure Machine is another one hitting me with all the weird emotional feels, since the lyrics remind me of my grandfather who passed away several years back. I can almost picture the smell of fresh cut grass on my shoes after mowing his lawn and a fresh cold can of A&W in my mouth like I am a teenager again in my grandparent's house, and its strange to me how the song takes me back to that. Another recent album I have been listening to a lot that released earlier this year is Robert Finley's Sharecropper's Son which is a traditional blues & soul style affair produced by Dan Aurebach of The Black Keys. It actually shares a lot of the same recording personnel and performers as the Key's own latest album (Delta Kream also from earlier this year) so I kinda view the two as sister albums since both are very southern blues rock & soul affairs. I always have fun buying any album out of Aurebach's Easy Eye Sound company since all their vinyl's come in unique colors, Finley's album is pressed in yellow vinyl when bought online (my copy) but those who find it in record stores can get a copy pressed in green! My copy of Delta Kream was pressed in pinkish-purple (almost the shade of Onepu purple actually) with little gold flecks, so again just fun from the record collecting perspective itself. But the music is great to listen too as well.

Maybe not, but we do know the Rahi colors being different on prototypes is a thing thanks to the infamous Sand Tarakava! The "Sand Tarakava" was a prototype sent out to Saffire Studios, then used by both Saffire and Templar as the basis for the Tarakava models in their games (hence why the Tarakava Gali fights in MNOG is a "Sand Tarakava" model just colored blue to match the set release).

I don't know if its accurate to say the whole story bible was thrown out, but definitely with Bob Thompson's departure they followed the original story bible a lot more loosely from 2005 on out. We do know though when the Ignition trilogy was planned in Faber's original pitches (2005-ish after Bob left) did show they knew 2006 would be on Voya-Nui and 2007 would be their water year and 2008 their "swamp/air" year. So there was still some rough planning taking place years in advance, even if not Bob's original story beats.

While I agree with Whisper's point that G1 Toa powers were often "as the plot dictated" or otherwise arbitrarily assigned a numerical value that looked like a bad mimicry of D&D or baseball card stats (G1 Tahu has a strength of "12" and mind of "11", what does that even mean?); this point from OP's post is something I want to highlight as missed opportunity in G2. All mask powers with the exception of the Mask of Light and Mask of Shadow were otherwise secondary Toa abilities. Tahu could shield himself! Gali could breath underwater! Vakama could turn invisible! Nuju could float objects with his mind! Norik could shrink and grow like Ant-Man! It gave for some cool scenes were Toa used their mask powers in creative ways to perform feats that they couldn't do with just their normal elemental powers, and helped spice up G1's world. It also encouraged more creative play, by letting children imagine new scenarios with those mask powers in play (examples: what happens if Pohatu falls in water and doesn't have a Kaukau? What happens when Lewa gets an Akaku in the thick jungle brush and sees Nui-Rama in the distance?) There were only a few unique mask powers in G2, and pretty rare in story (Creation, Control, and what else... mask of Tree Tending or something?) As such it was a missed opportunity to showcase secondary powers and spice up the plot because those unique powers were shoved to the side. I think it would have been cooler if G2 stuck to the original Toa mask powers, since seeing Lewa levitate in G2 or Pohatu use his super speed would have helped G2 feel more faithful to G1, while also making it more action packed via providing some variety to the story pacing, and at least give their mask some more important story roles. The golden masks could have been extra elemental powers, along with a buff to their secondary powers such as shielding or x-ray vision as well; then 2016's masks could have functioned like the Nuva masks in addition to providing a way to unite with the Elemental Creatures. Its just, kinda fun from a writing and storytelling perspective to give the heroes diverse tools and powers and its shame G2 locked itself in with mask powers basically being "their existing element but MOAR."

I don't know if conditions were not favorable for Constraction when G2 launched, since Hero Factory had come off a five year run itself. I know its easy to knock on Hero Factory for not reaching the lengthy time that Bionicle G1 had... but 5 years is a long time for a non-licensed non-Ninjago/Bionicle theme to last at Lego so Constraction surely had some legs left. The problem though is Lego just, botched G2's marketing. While I have never verified the idea that Ninjago sudden cancellation than relaunch sucked marketing cash from G2, it certainly seems plausible that Lego sucked the budget for one theme to prop up the misguided cancellation of another. Or maybe Lego assumed G2 could be an automatic success on brand recognition alone? An odd choice seeing then most of the original G1 fans were either in their earlier 20's or mid to late teens in 2015 and certainly not the target demographic Lego needed to make G2 a hit. This though 100%, its clear G2 was not bringing in the cash and got axed due to that. A shame, but it is what it is; and we still got two more years of Bionicle sets out of it than we had when G1 ended so I honestly can't complain.

Its honestly considered a faux-paux on Wikipedia to make a claim like that without a reference. Again, hopefully the Bionicle Day events next month give us a more solid piece of information to clarify that since as it stands, that feels like a very unverified claim. Now I have heard the whole 7 Books of Bionicle thing before... so again hopefully Bob is willing to share some stuff on it.

Loss of resources (not enough pure protodermis and no Kanoka discs) is the main issue. Most Kanoka protodermis was sourced in liquid form and refined in Ga-Metru as outlined in the 2004 Metru-Nui guide, solid protodermis didn't seem to be used for it. Yes Vakama was a skilled mask maker, but he wasn't a skilled protodermis refiner or a Kanoka disk maker. We see on Mata-Nui the Matoran are using bamboo discs in-lieu of Kanoka for that reason. We see these parallels IRL too, all Damascus swords are imitation materials now made via folding metal since the original process to create Damascus steel is now lost, there are plenty of great blacksmiths around still but they don't have access to the original Damascus steel anymore. Kanoka production did not restart until back on Metru-Nui following the events of Mask of Life, so it made no difference that Vakama was the best mask maker around he simply lacked the equipment to actually make any new masks.

Mask making was not an active process on Mata-Nui, the lore pretty clearly establishes that the art was lost after the Great Cataclysm and never practiced on the new island. Since the silver highlights were a paint application the canon explanation for the loss of silver was due to weather chipping off the paint and revealing the bare mask below. Any mask worn on Mata-Nui is one kept from Metru-Nui, even the replacement unpowered masks we saw some characters wearing by the time of MNOG 2 or the Copper Masks of Victory which were once used for the Alkini championships in Metru-Nui and brought to Mata-Nui as a Kohli trophy.

Yeah that is the official explanation, but I call it a "fashion trend" since Metru-Nui is the only place we ever saw it in use. Mata-Nui, Voya-Nui, Karda-Nui, etc. never seemed to use a silver highlight on powerless masks. Again though, its a case of lore being built around a physical set feature that only existed in one year.

True, that is assuming the blueprint itself hadn't been altered and modified over time. They are made out of Lego after all.

Honestly, I would say the Av-Matoran are the best representation of the "Great Beings' as built Matoran" again due to the similarities to the Agori... but, did we ever really see a vanilla Matoran anywhere in the whole saga? 2001 Mutated shrunken Matoran 2003 Rebuilt Matoran 2004 Metru-Nui Matoran 2006 Mutated horribly rebuilt Matoran 2007 Mutated by pit mutagen Matoran 2008 Early prototype Matoran bigger in size due to Karda-Nui energy Sure there is no story of mutations in the Metru-Nui Matoran, but how do we know if that is actually the case? Metru-Nui was certainly advanced enough to probably do a rebuild similar to the 2003 Matoran's, so its possible over thousands of years of living in the city the Matoran were also tweaked and modified over the years both to keep up with the city's fashion sense (where else have we seen silver mask highlights on a Matoran?) and help improve them for work. The only thing that supports the Karda-Nui Matoran being the vanilla model over the Metru one is that Mazeka and the other ancillary Matoran in 2008 also share the Karda build. This gets more complicated when we consider the movie models of the Matoran only had unique models for the Karda-Nui style ones in Legend Reborn, and the Miramax trilogy used a base rig for all Matoran that had extra detail parts that were never available in set form or so highly modified from the set form they are unrecognizable in the film (like Hahli and Hewkii's chest plates). With that said, first all the story stuff about mutations and all that is just a thinly veiled way to try and handwave why Lego sets just look different from year to year. My guess is there is really no true "factory fresh" Matoran left in the whole Matoran Universe by the time the events of the story take place, and all Matoran populations are going to bear some mark of mutation, rebuilds, or even just aesthetic styling different from other populations.