emily

Thank you! I suppose there's no harm in saying where the next animation will be taking place - Onu-Koro. If things proceed as planned at the moment, there will be a bigger focus on character interactions, so expect some fun with Taipu, Onepu etc interacting with the cast thus far. As always, there's a very long time to go until the next animation is done, especially now that I've got college to work on. I couldn't give a potential time range for its completion, but it'll come eventually.

Really? Is it in the game files of the 2006 downloadable version or the BioMediaProject version? Is it on Youtube somewhere? The LEGO site downloadable version, yeah. Strange... I have the 2006 downloable version and I can only find the regular cutscene in the files. (I know I have that version of the game because I went on the Wayback Machine and went to Bionicle.Lego.com in 2006 to download it, because at the time I didn't know what BioMediaProject was.) There are ZIP files inside the matanui folder that contain the animations as EXE files. The Toa Kaita animation there shows Wairuha with a golden mask and their names mixed up. Neat, thanks for pointing this out. Turns out the WIP animation Makuta_of_Oz described is in Toa-Kaita-03.

If the story wins me over, I'll most likely go for them all. I'm a boring person who only uses his spending money for LEGO, so for me it is really only a question of 'which LEGO shall I buy?" not "Shall I buy LEGO?"

Templar has more or less given us the full lowdown on the canned Onu-Koro content, we have a good idea of what it would have been like.

Oooh, that's clever. I'll have to give the game another try using Cheat Engine to slow the framerate, it never occurred to me that modern computers might be playing the game faster than intended. I've never been able to complete the game without cheating. I literally upped Hahli's skills all to 100 and I still couldn't beat the Kolhii matches. I'm terrible at this game.

Well, that's just it; he does. Everything he does in in service of this grand, ultimate plan, which amounts to little more than self-delusion. He wants to be more important than he is. And all those mutterings about sparing Mata Nui pain are technically true; it's just omitting the detail that he, Makuta, is the one who caused him to be awake and suffering in the first place. I'm not sure where you're getting that MoL was supposed to be the end of the series. Much like TV shows, I'm sure they had to be prepared for an inevitable cancellation, and plenty of plans adapted and changed along the way, but MoL in particular was always the first part of a trilogy, which is why you have the ending leading directly into LoMN. And that's why Takutanuva had to be killed off; couldn't have a god-tier being just waltzing around =P. Then, in LoMN, you learn more about Makuta, and how he's the one who actually caused Mata Nui's downfall in the first place. This is all written under the assumption that there were significant plans to conclude BIONICLE in 2003. Naturally, were that to be false (which is entirely possible), this is a load of crazy gibberish. But I feel that there is a definite underlying pattern in Mask of Light that supports my theory to a degree. No way to know for sure, but it is nice to wonder.

Generally speaking there is very little to speak of as far as characterization in BIONICLE, but MNOG is a major exception that I think grants the early years more slack in the eyes of many.

QUOTE TAGS, I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU DON'T WORK, BUT PLEASE WORK After I posted this blog entry, I found myself frequently thinking about Makuta's role in Mask of Light. So here's another entry compiling my thoughts. A lot of what Makuta says in Mask of Light gets obfuscated by his demeanor. He has a deep, rumbling voice, an oily, patched-together appearance, and he hangs out in a cave filled with thick green smoke and pillars holding creatures in stasis. On top of it all, he is very clearly the designated villain in what is a kiddy, direct-to-video film made to sell toys. Literally everything sets our expectations to "he is a bad guy," and we don't question it. But look beyond this external layer, and we find something rather different through a few curious hints. It begins in Makuta's first appearance. Before he releases the Rahkshi, he contemplates, I'm not sure how to frame this in any way other than as remorse at the idea of what he is about to do. So what convinces him? It comes back to Mata Nui. Makuta will do whatever it takes to ensure his brother remains asleep. This isn't a ruthless, power-hungry maniac bent on world domination - if that were the case, he would have no qualms with unleashing the Rahkshi. So the Rahkshi set out and start to terrorize the island, and Makuta sits back and observes. But something goes wrong - Kopaka manages to freeze the beasts within a lake, incapacitating them. Makuta can no longer rely on the fact that his sons will halt the coming of the seventh Toa, so he goes to plan B. Even though Takua himself doesn't know it yet, Makuta knows that the Matoran is right smack in the center of this matter. So he makes him an offer: If you stand down, give me the Avohkii so that Mata Nui can never be awakened, I will leave you alone. Your friends, the entire island, will be free from my grasp. Takua, like us viewers, don't think twice about calling Mukau droppings on him. Yeah, right. If you give the McGuffin to the bad guy, he'll let you off scotch free. That's likely. But what happens after Takua departs, when Makuta is left to himself, with noone listening? What does he say? Unless Makuta is in the habit of lying through his teeth to himself for no reason, his offer was absolutely genuine. With his last resort, the Rahkshi, evidently unable to stand up to the Toa Nuva, his hand was forced and he tried the next best thing to victory: ensuring that his brother could, at least, remain asleep and be spared the pain of conciousness. But Takua has none of it, so he does the next best thing: more Rahkshi. So by now, you may be asking: why? Why are all of these hints dropped in Mask of Light, of all places? What about the myriad of other story media leading up to it, why isn't it hinted at in any of it, too? For the answer, we have to dig a little into the past. If you are a longtime fan, then you might recall the earliest press releases for Mask of Light in 2002. They had familiar elements: two friends on a quest, the fate of the island at stake. But something else was mentioned in these synopses meant to strip the story to its absolute core: the island is crumbling into the ocean. Obviously, this plot element does not survive into the final film. And with good reason, because it ties into another major element of the film that was canned: the awakening of Mata Nui. Throughout the conclusion, wierd things keep happening. Everyone insists that they are descending into the Mangaia to awaken the Great Spirit, only for the matter to be forgotten once they literally do something that is supposed to awaken him. Takanuva instructs for all of the island's inhabitants to be gathered, and later brought underground, but we only get the Turaga (in the novelization, the island's population does in fact show up). This all makes sense only in the context of a film where Mata Nui does awaken; the islanders would need to be safely underground before Mata Nui could stand up and destroy the island. This explains the early island-crumbling plot. In the days before his awakening, Mata Nui is stirring, rocking the island and breaking chunks of it off. Incidentally this explains a scene that does make it to the final film: Jaller and Takua's reuniting. Jaller ends up vulnerable thanks to an earthquake, which you don't really question until you look at is specifically. An earthquake? Natural disasters like that never happen on Mata Nui outside that instance. Its a really weird anomaly in the mythos that seems solely an excuse to have Jaller mistake Takua for an approaching Rahkshi until you consider that it was originally part of a very relevant, ongoing series of quakes on the island. That also explains Jaller's wry response to the event - earthquakes were common. Otherwise, he might have been expected to be more "wow! an earthquake!" like Vakama in the Kikanalo scene in LOMN. So that's why we get all of these hints dropped regarding Makuta's true nature. Originally, Mask of Light was the BIONICLE finale, and the climax was to be the revelation of Makuta's true nature. Eventually, Takanuva is born and travels to the Mangaia. Makuta's last ditch resort is to keep his cool and challenge Takanuva for his mask, as without the Toa of Light Mata Nui cannot be awakened. This, too fails, and we get to that all-important dialogue first highlighted by Lucina: Naturally, Takanuva reacts with shock, confusion and denial. And then Makuta responds with what seems like a really strange non-sequiter. But despite how little sense it makes, it has a powerful effect on Takanuva. Suddenly, he is confident. He knows what to do. {quote]Then let's take a closer look... behind that mask! I feel like the implication here is that Makuta's badness is somehow tied to his mask (the 'real' him is 'behind' it). Takutanuva isn't, in reality, all that important in the final movie. He lifts the gate for everyone. But if, say, Makuta had been incapacitated, it seems entirely within reason that the Toa Nuva could've opened it themselves somehow. But in our supposed original version of the film, Takutanuva is all-important. He is the merged conciousness of Takanuva and Makuta. Suddenly, both understand each other, and they know what must be done to set things right. Cue the awakening of Mata Nui. Fin. So there you have it. What Mask of Light could have been.

transforms the surrounding area into a walmart warehouse

The Temple of Time is seen in the top left of this image. It doesn't really look like the same building. All the same, it does look as if that building may have significance, given it is apparently at the center of the ruins that the Lord of Skull Spiders is guarding. Considering we know the islanders entombed Ekimu after he fell asleep, maybe it is his location/the location of the Mask of Creation.

The beef I have here is that Jaller's characterization in Mask of Light was itself a weird regression. He used to be stiff and formal, absorbed by his duties, determined. He was brought down to earth to make him a more relatable supporting lead in the film, but it came at the cost of his previous development. I've long felt that Matoro never got any real character development through the Ignition arc. Apropos of nothing Greg suddenly had him sacrifice his life on the path to the mask of life, with his also apropos of nothing and with no build up announcement that he felt really useless so it made sense for him to be the one to die. And then later on he still felt that way so he sacrificed himself again and actually did die. Maybe if we had been given a reason to care about Matoro, understand what he was feeling, it would have been some solid development. But it was just 'hey did I mention I feel useless? So I guess I should be the one to die huh.' It also contrasted weirdly with Matoro's collected, almost enlightened serenity given to him as a villager.

I lost it

Toa Chuck's got it. Aside from the Rahi, the objects in MNOG were built from assets that are often combined in ways that don't follow how real-life LEGO parts work. You'll have your work cut out for you in building them. Good luck!

I dunno. It would've left the player trapped in the Mangaia with nothing to do in the period between updates. I guess it is possible.

Ah, okay. Check the December 15 news post here. Takua was revealed in the final update.

One plays as Takua enters Mangaia, another was cut from the conversation with the Toa before they enter Mangaia, and the last plays when Taipu finishes the tunnel to Le-Wahi. I could be mistaken about the last one, though. I don't think the one with Takua was unused, rather I think it played when that animation was the last chapter released so far. The Takua one is unused. See it re-implemented here. EDIT: Whoa wait misread your post there, Gata. Are you saying you recall a time when the music did play? The cutscene is from the last chapter of the game, so while the music may have been edited out later it wouldn't have been with the rollout of a new chapter. As for the other tracks, the one at the Kini Nui does play, if you wait long enough. The standard time it takes to read through the dialogue usually doesn't allow for it to initiate or become noticeable. The Taipu one plays too, it's just quiet and hard to notice. As 2Tie said, every known thing unused in the game files is documented here in one convenient place.

The Rahi building feature was cut in the interest of timeliness. Same with the quest for Onua - it would've been a minigame, traveling through tunnels atop Ussal and using disks to fight off Kofo-Jaga, ending with a cutscene where the Tohunga arrive in a cavern to see Onua bash up a ton of Kofo-Jaga and seal their nest with a giant rock. It grew out of a survival-type game concept, where you were atop a tower and had to shoot down rat rahi (Kuma-Nui, presumably) as they climbed up toward you. When the game was scrapped, it seems that the idea was retooled into the Kahu game.

That has the potential to be a horror story. "It lurks in the night. It hungers for your soul. This summer, no-one is safe from...the Biodermis Smith!" That is a Biodermis (aka Protodermis) smithy. He would have helped you build Rahi from parts you collected around the island. The Onewa torso is in the mockup to represent a random Rahi bit that he is working on.

Or there's The SWF is online too, but I can't find it at the moment.

Whoever posted this on Facebook didn't cite the original source: me! (well actually some person on Youtube, but I was the person that first shared the video with the community, for whatever that is worth)

This was an interesting challenge, seeing as I kind of dislike BIONICLE stuff post 2003 (with the important exception of the promising reboot). I had to dig up some memories from when I was a more garden-variety collector. 2001: I don't think I could select a single set from this year, as so many of them are iconic on their own merits. At the moment of writing I have to say the Manas win me over for their advanced functionality and the super fun battling game you could play with them. Easily the best implementation of the concept where play functions knock masks loose. 2002: Exo-Toa! Sure, no knee articulation, but it is a really solid concept that isn't only really cool on its own, but builds on and supplements the already existing Toa sets. 2003: The Rahkshi were definitely the champions of this year. I'll go with Turahk because I like the flame motif he has going. These things were just so revolutionary at the time, you don't even know. 2004: This was a pretty bland year for me, to be honest. Let's go Ultimate Dume, his design was pretty innovative for its limitations as a combiner. 2005: Battle of Metru-Nui. That playset was packed to the brim with entertaining play features, and featured some interesting architecture constructed from bricks in the seldom-used dark red color. 2006: My gratitude goes out to the Piraka, who highlighted perfectly how silly BIONICLE had become with their yoyo totally hip advertising campaign and monstrous toothy grins. 2007: I liked Hydraxon a lot at the time. 2008: Axalara was technically impressive and visually appealing. 2009: The Thornatus V9 was the most iconic to me. It played an important role in TLR and a unique shape. 2010: Rahkshi was a pretty fair homage to the originals. And his BIO code was 'lolrat'.

Aw man, when I was a kid I got stuck in Po-Wahi for years. The directions for battling scorpions were given terribly, so I assumed they were impossible to defeat. I couldn't find that Pohatu stone anywhere. I spent hours scouring every corner of the level in the hopes of finding it. What a dreadful time it was.

US

I'm interested in all of the misprints. That would be £21.96?