emily

I wish I could help you out here, but I scarcely ever visited the main BIONICLE site until 2002. At the same time, though, my very ignorance here is what made me excited enough to post. I just want to say I'm eager to see the results of your work, as it would be a delight to be able to browse the 2001 site.

I don't think it came in a promo packet. I wasn't there, but I believe they were just given out as they were during the Tribal Quest at LEGOLAND California in 2001.

Screenguy scanned all of the QFTM cards and uploaded them here. Like you said, most of the images are from Advance, like the ones in the clip animations. There are a few that are exclusive to the cards, and if I'm not mistaken the majority of them are visible on the first page of that gallery (the Bonus and Penalty ones, minus the first Lewa one). Comparing this Tahu to this Tahu, they definitely seem pretty different to me. The most notable difference is the fireswords.

But given that these clips were made whole years after 2001, would Templar or whoever else made them really have to rely on a cancelled game for artwork, especially when they already had plenty of their own? I don't know. The Advance artwork that makes up the majority of the clips doesn't cover the ground that two of the clips of dubious origin do, seeing as one of them shows the confrontation with the Makuta and another shows villagers being attacked by Rahi. The first is an event critical to the story (and so important to include), but aside from the Mata Nui online game there weren't any released depictions of it. Since the art style of MNOG stands in such contrast to the Advance art, maybe they just went through the game files they had access to to find some scenes that would do reasonably well fitting in with the rest of the clips. Just to throw something else in, the villagers (in the image of them being chased by the Nui Rama) are completely grey, like the ones in DeepBrick's walkthrough. To be fair though, they do seem to be different models - based on the prototype design that the villagers in MNOLG were also based on as opposed to the finalized design implemented in DeepBrick's copy of TLOMN.

I didn't mean to imply that the images were directly from a disk - just that, presumably, if the disks contain all of the content that Saffire produced, the images serve to show some of what would be there. I do know that the Makuta image is from the 2001 story summary clip from 2004. Even so, I feel reasonably confident in assuming that it came from The Legend of Mata Nui because the animation it appeared in bears the marks of having been created by Templar. We know they had access to at least some aspects of TLOMN and so it seemed likely to me that they took the Makuta image and the others from what they had. The Nui Jaga here reminds me strongly of the one at least as far as its coloring (it is difficult to see much else of it in the video). The translucent eyepieces for the 'heads' holding the Pakari claws seem to be light blue in the video, which would match the picture and is also unique, as the official set and other media featured trans-yellow as the color. I could be wrong, definitely. But I think it's possible the images are from the game.

Assuming the disc contains all of Saffire's work on the game up to the point of cancellation, there should at least be something playable for Gali and Tahu, if not finished levels for them. I don't think we've seen any images from Lewa or Pohatu's levels, but there was this, so they were at least working on the mechanics of the Pakari's Kane-Ra riding function with Pohatu. It's a safe bet there was some Kopaka stuff, too, with this picture of him from an early console version. I'm not sure how much can be inferred from this image presumably from the game. It could be some form of concept art or maybe a screenshot from a WIP cutscene, but it doesn't look to be an actual in-game screenshot.

Last I heard, RedQuark had essentially given up on his plan to obtain the rights to the game so as to distribute it, and fell out of contact after that. DeepBrick only ever communicated through RedQuark, and so we haven't heard from him either. At present, I fear that there really isn't much possibility that The Legend of Mata Nui will ever see the light of day. At least we were fortunate enough to get the cutscenes and a walkthrough of the first level from DeepBrick.

Try here. The Biomedia Project has a lot of stuff like this, but unfortunately it isn't currently linked to on their main site.

That wouldn't be a set - if I'm remembering correctly, it is a special box that was sent to retailers to encourage them to stock BIONICLE sets in their stores. Someone here sold one a few years ago, I think.

This is just excellent. I was actually thinking of throwing an entry into the contest with a similar theme of "Johnny Thunder in a scene largely unrelated to the rest of the movie that focuses on how great he is," but I'm frankly quite glad I didn't as this is far better than anything I would have written up. It was a fun, retrospective adventure reliving late 90s/early 2000s LEGO themes that is definitely more rewarding to people that have a specific interest in those themes - which, in reality, isn't that many people. But seeing as I am one of those people, I was able to enjoy this immensely. There were too many moments to count where I was happily surprised by an inventive reference to something or another, made to fit nicely into the flow of the narrative (if the reader is already super familiar with the source material, at least). Now that is funny. Not the "ha ha" kind of funny, but the "gee, that's interesting" kind of funny. Funny because the script was able to elicit plenty of laughs from me. "life is like a skateboard... because you can grind it beneath your feet!" I do agree with Aanchir that the resolution did feel a little anticlimactic - I get that it was done with the comedic value of cutting the climax short in mind, but I was disappointed to realize that the ending of the story would basically be a mystery. I guess I became invested in the narrative, despite it's absurdity. Really, though, it was just great to see something as clever as this made in homage to some of my favorite LEGO themes. And it had Johnny Thunder, which automatically made it awesome. Thanks!

I'm still holding out on the possibility that it exists, however unlikely it may be. If it was just a series of shorts that aired during commercial breaks, a la the Exo-Force special in 2006, I think there's a good possibility that it has just been forgotten. Especially since the magazine didn't specify the time the show was supposed to be airing, which I imagine would have deterred a lot of people from trying to watch it. The magazine is from January 1998, so it would have had to have been a very late cancellation if that was the case. I imagine that it would be a situation reminiscent of BIONICLE's The Legend of Mata Nui, where the content is there for the most part but doesn't exist in a fully polished, publishable form.

Hello everyone! Recently I found this curious scan in a folder on Brickshelf. It is probably from the January February 1998 issue of LEGO Bricks and Pieces magazine, from the United Kingdom, and as you can see it advertises a LEGO Adventurers themed cartoon. Unfortunately, I don't know anything more - and neither does the rest of the internet, as best as I can tell. So, I'm here today to ask you if you might happen to know anything more about this cartoon. Any new information at all would be greatly appreciated.

Not too terribly long ago in 2011, a contest was hosted on the LEGO Universe website challenging entrants to design their own car based on the standard chassis used in the game. Being a fan of the original LEGO Racers game, I had the idea to build an adaption of Basil the Batlord's car from it to fit the LEGO Universe car chassis. The result didn't win the contest, but I had such fun building it that I resolved to build the rest of the LEGO Racers circuit leaders' cars on the Universe chassis. Some of the results turned out better than others, and when I reached the final car, Rocket Racer's, I decided that it wouldn't be viable for me to construct a reasonable facsimile of the the original with my collection. So I skipped it. Recently I decided on a whim to try anyway. The result was not nearly so terrible as I had imagined, although I still feel that the sloping portion at the front is perhaps just a little too long. More images: Another angle Front Side Back Back Angle Top The modular pieces: The chassis. I cheated a little and altered it from the standard form to make the finished design possible.

I posted my thoughts so far elsewhere, and they remain largely the same. I guess I'll quote myself:

This definitely came from Tales of the Tohunga/Quest for the Toa. As Aanchir suggested, it is one of the many random facts that villagers relate.

That's sort of what I meant. I think I have confused my own thoughts a little, so I'm just going to put everything below in an attempt at clarity. In-story, I do believe that there was some way in which Takua's opening of the sundial allowed the Onu-Koronans to reach new areas to mine under the rock layer. Everyone thanks him for finding a way through, which always implied to me there was more to it than the chamber with the Hau. Of course, it still didn't make sense - if Takua had made a way through, where was it exactly? And why were the miners still mining above the layer, as if somehow creating an opening helped them to find more seams above it? What I was trying to propose in my initial post is that originally there would have been something, like a tunnel, leading to rock to mine, in the chamber that would have explained things. But, in an effort to insert the Hau for the Quest for the Gold Masks Sweepstakes, Templar abandoned their original plans. The result was the plot hole. So to summarize, as I understand it is implied that Takua did find a path through the layer, but due to the sweepstakes it was never visually depicted. Later, when Templar decided to make the sundial an entrance to the Mangaia, it made things make even less sense because it demonstrated that there was really no way the chamber could have led to more rock to mine.

What do you mean? Unlocking the sundial lets you through the layer. (To the Hau, and then later you can get through that too.) It's a fancy door plus elevator. I'm sure the stuff you're talking about does mean more was planned, but that part, if I understood you right, is in the final game. It goes through the layer, but I never got the impression that the Onu-Koronans could activate the elevator - I'm assuming they didn't, as if they did they would have ended up in the Mangaia. I always assumed that, until Takua went to follow the Toa, all anyone knew was that it was a small chamber inside the layer, that in reality wouldn't have done the Onu-Koronans any good as it didn't allow them to access anything else. Based on the apparent original plans for something else in the chamber, I guessed that the logical error in everyone suddenly being able to mine again was just the sacrifice of a small plot element for the sake of the contest.

He did indeed; Sammy Cyborg.

To add to what Aanchir said, based on a text file from the game it can be inferred that Templar originally had something more story-relevant in mind for the interior of the sundial than the contest clue (the sundial supposedly provided a passageway through the unimpenetrable rock layer, but in the final game there is no apparent way in which it accomplishes this). Here are the lines from the file, they were intended for the prospector who stands by the sundial: "The mining guilds will long remember you, stranger! That portal opened a way through this rock layer." "I'm not sure what the ancient machines inside are, but they're rich in protodermis." Supposedly the machines, along with the manner in which the chamber provided a way through the rock layer, were replaced by the clue. No way to know for certain, though.

The yellow Huna is apparently a prototype - so while its exact origin may not be known, it can be safely deducted that someone involved in BIONICLE's early production gave it away to a fan or otherwise parted with it so that it could find its way into the community. I haven't heard of a red Huna, though. I think there was a dark red one among the prototypes that were given to BZPower, but that's the closest thing I can think of. The white Huna actually came from calendar bags in a European country (possibly the Netherlands, if I am remembering correctly. Unfortunately, I can't check since the archive is gone), alongside the brown Komau. So their origin is known, although how they ended up in the calendar bags is a complete mystery.

It is certainly possible, although I am not at all certain how involved he would have been in the decisions leading to the minifigure confusion.

I guess I already shared all of my thoughts on the primary subject back in the original Rock Raiders United topic. However: It strikes me as bizarre how easily the parts can be rearranged to have the characters better match their earlier appearances. It almost implies that it was a conscious choice to confuse the characters - but certainly that cannot be? It wouldn't surprise me if Gearbox was supposed to be the android. The idea had never occurred to me before, but Gearbox is certainly a name appropriate for a mechanical being. It even makes sense that they would bother to identify the robot as different from TeeVee; after all, it was a humanoid, and not a walking television set as the original TeeVee was. I would theorize that it was due to the internal turmoil LEGO was undergoing at the time. Perhaps people in the story development positions were getting moved around or laid off, with the result being a team of people removed from the original Alpha Team theme enough that they confused the characters and had little desire to follow the aesthetic of the original two lines. That is just a random conjecture based on essentially nothing, though, so it is more likely wrong then right. Thank you! I see that the concept sketches show an earlier version of the Crunch minigame. It looks like air bubbles were still a major aspect of the gameplay, but that Crunch was perhaps shooting them at Evil Orbs to disable them, rather than the bubbles acting as a hindrance. Oliver Wallington sure seems to have been jumping around to a lot of different parts of the LEGO group. It would appear as if, in addition to these games, he was involved in developing the Slizer/Throwbots line and the DUPLO Mybot. These seem like quite varied projects, making me wonder how it came about that he participated in all of them. Maybe he had a more general position in which he oversaw a number of LEGO projects, and these are the ones that he ended up contributing to the most.

I just wanted to throw in a few points of clarification regarding what is said in Mata Nui Online Game. The clip of the attack that plays in the Maku conversation has a bit that seems to suggest they had some warning: In the cutscene, it is implied that the Ga-Koronans are trapped in the hut by the Tarakava (it cuts to Nokama and several Tohunga already inside after the Tarakava emerges, and a final Tohunga is flung in on her back), but Maku contradicts this herself by saying that "Nokama and the others barricaded themselves into a hut to hide..." It is difficult to say what Templar intended to be the correct story. Kongu does show up to take out a Nui-Rama. Other fliers don't appear, but there's no reason to doubt they were there or arrived soon after him (Takua doesn't see the entire battle). To add to this, Kongu does say "Rahi disappear, and Matau confused. Thought: Rahi fallback here, to destroy Kini-Nui. So fastfly we come, to aid!” The impression I had always gotten was that the Makuta had drawn back his impending attacks on the villages in order to coalesce all of his Rahi at the Kini-Nui, to overwhelm the Company and ensure that the Toa would never escape his lair. His plans were thwarted when the villages united to face him, a conclusion alluded to early in the game, when Jala exclaims, "But we cannot confront the enemy alone, and I do not have faith in the other cities of Mata Nui. If they do not join with us in the defense, we will all perish, Toa or not!"

The whole discussion over whether the game is "girly" reminds me of Templar's testing with children to determine whether or not they should identify Hahli's bag as a purse in the final game. I always found the concept of the charms and crystals, and their link to the virtues and values of the villages, to be very intriguing and without a doubt the most interesting aspect of the game. The problem I have with them, though, as with the rest of the game, is that I do not think that they are explored nearly enough. These charms come out of nowhere, and little is done to adequately explain them, their history, or their purpose. Obviously, revealing everything about them is not necessary; that would spoil the air of mystery around them. But when it comes to the end of the game, we still have been given only vague ideas of what exactly the crystals and charms are. Placing them about the shrine on the Ta-Wahi beach somehow moves Hahli forward in time to the final battle with the Rahkshi at the Kini-Nui, which works well for keeping the game along the same timeline as Mask of Light, but is in most other ways confusing (what is worse, nothing actually happens once this occurs. We could have had some sort of conclusion to the story of the game if we could have seen what Hahli does at the Kini-Nui once she arrives there, but since Templar couldn't integrate scenes directly from the film the ending of the game feels confusing and unsatisfactory). Nokama claims that Hahli has dispelled the mystery of the crystals, but we are left frustratingly in the dark as to what it is we have apparently uncovered. The crystals' purpose did not need to be fully explained (and indeed I would prefer if it were not), but I feel that the way Templar presented them was somewhat too unexpected and inexplicable. A part of this may have been how late they were introduced. Having not only the charms and crystals, but great temples dedicated to them on the island, felt like something of a contradiction to the already established society on Mata Nui, to me at least. The crystal temples were something of a disappointment to me as well. I feel that Templar had them going in a good direction with the Temple of Purity: once Hahli had reached the temple, she had to solve a puzzle in connection to the crystal's virtue in order to obtain it. Beyond that temple, though, this concept seems to have been dropped, allowing Hahli to simply enter into the chambers and claim the crystals. As interesting as the charms and crystals (and in particular the Matoran concepts on which they were based) were, I believe that they just fell victim to time constraints and perhaps reprioritization on Templar’s part in regards to what things they were focusing on in the game. As a result, I feel that they weren't explored enough to justify their existence.

Thank you. It is unfortunate that the wait between episodes has to be reminicent of 2002 as well, except much worse. Thanks. I am pleased to see that everyone has found the animation to be authentic!