ZeldaTheSwordsman

Ah ha ha ha ha ha so much of what you said was wrong. 1. There is a difference between "watered down" and "divided viewpoint." Mask of Light doesn't show the events you mentioned because it's mostly from the viewpoint of Takua and Jaller. If MoL is "watered down" for not showing those then "Rise of the Rahkshi" and "At Last -- Takanuva!" are watered down for not showing much of Takua and Jaller's journey or the actual final battle. MoL is the main story that covers the final leg of Takua's journey to heroism and the big showdown, while the comics are a complementary story that fills in more of the Toa's offscreen adventures. (Also, if they're anything like other Bionicle comics, the exposition is mostly infodumped rather than integrated smoothly. Which would be even more graceless in a movie than it is in a comic.) Oh, and given the publication timeframe the comics were quite possibly written AFTER the movie was; it's not like the 2004 and pre-Time Trap 2005 storylines where things were plotted out (somewhat) more cohesively. Heck, "Shadows and Secrets" came out after the movie. 2. The Toa encounter six Rahkshi either way. No more, no less. 3. I'll grant you have something of a point about characterization being spotty, but really the one who suffers IMO is Onua. Most of the humor with Jaller comes from him being exasperated by Takua, which makes sense in the context of him also being Takua's more responsible friend. Really the worst he gets is not being able to solo an ash-bear, and that's honestly not too bad. And you know, he's shown as being quick to arms in times of danger, and bold enough to take on a Rahkshi head-on... Takua's characterization also makes sense in context - blowing the Kolhii match brought forth a lot of self-doubt, quite possibly mixing with subconscious fear of change. And his having a foolish side isn't something the movie made up; it was established in the games that his antics actually got him temporarily exiled from Ta-Koro! Frankly, I find the omission of the Chronicler's Tool (which is what the Staff of Light is obviously supposed to be a transformed version of; you only have to put them together to see that) more of an annoying oversight. The Metru Nui movies are decidedly weaker for me. LoMN forgets about the Toa's elemental powers until the final battle, and WoS doesn't have (a) transition(s) to give space for the comics like LoMN does.

Would have posted this in the tracker, except the tracker seems to be busted. Frankly I think the topic revival time limits are kind of a joke right now because of the evident overall low activity level of the forum. We have threads from months or even years ago still on the front pages of individual boards, and the second pages even further back. Arbitrarily cutting those off from further posts even though they're front-page or close to it feels excessive in the current climate, and seems like it'd make it harder to get things going again.

There are two problems with the tracker. First, the link to the tracker at the top of the QA main page - the one that says "Improvement suggestions go in the Tracker, not here" in big mostly-red letters- actually points back to the QA main page; same for the link that's supposed to point to the Compendium. Second, after finding a link that actually points to the Tracker in the Compendium thread... the Tracker seems to be currently out of order.

Which would be the most appropriate place to post custom-made parts? For instance, I have a Ta-Koro Guard bident and a couple of Kolhii Goalie Shields that I made using printed templates and painted up that I'd like to show off, but I don't know if they'd belong better in BBC or Fan-Created Media.

Which movies? I can definitely see that being said for Legends of Metru Nui and Web of Shadows because they skipped over the initial Metru and Hordika quests on account of needing screentime for the finale arcs; I think WoS is the bigger offender because it doesn't even have a transition sequence to fit in the quest like LoMN does. But Mask of Light isn't watered down - it's the main presentation of the late 2003 storyline; that's where it starts and that's where its focus is, and it makes sense enough and does well enough in that regard. I was disappointed by the Nuva not having longer fights with the Rahkshi or going Kaita, but the latter makes sense spectacle-wise. Yeah, I saw it this way myself. Vakama has a lot more weighing on his mind than wounded vanity - he's trying to be a leader and live up to Lhikan's legacy, Lhikan sacrificed his life because of Vakama's failure to control the Vahi, and now he's gotten himself and his team captured and horrifically mutated with their powers inhibited and their minds under attack by their new bodies. That's a big mountain of insecurity for you - add in the pressure from the Hordika mutation and his own temper, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Greg Farshtey's idea of "Matau turns b/c vanity" feels shallow in comparison - no surprise, since Greg was a hack. Oh, and here's something to consider: The 2005 comics show all six of them increasingly struggling under the strain of the Hordika mutation and getting closer and closer to cracking. I think any of them turning could be justified based on that alone. Vakama just so happens to be the one Roodaka targeted first. That's what ultimately turns him, after all: A toxic outside influence preying on his insecurities at a time of extreme psychological vulnerability. And judging by the comics, it could have happened to any of them. Sailor Wah!, your comment about 2009 doing so much for worldbuilding in one year would hold more weight if most of that worldbuilding wasn't garbage. I think the Karda Nui Toa sets would have been better as new characters. As for comparing it to the Inika not resembling their Matoran selves.. A. Different case, since the Inika are ascended Matoran rather than alleged re-armored Toa and B. The Inika have more resemblance than you'd think (Hewkii's dumb palette swap aside). It's obvious from studying the Inika masks that, contrary to how the comics present them, they were designed by the set creators as mutant versions of their Matoran masks. Just look at Kongu, for instance - you can clearly see a Kanohi Miru in that mask. If you were to cut away the organic growth under and above the chin bar, it would be even more blatant. Based on having Nuparu, Kongu, and Jaller (somewhere), I agree about the Mahri largely feeling like downgrades from the Inika (and I don't even own the Inika). I think Kongu got it the worst - he has an Earth Toa build and no unique Toa Tool. I dunno, plasma was at least already-present through the Bohrok-Kal. Although really the Toa that should not have existed is a certain Toa of Water whose name starts with H. As for Toa of Stone colors... I think dark orange (like Matoran Hewkii has) was fine, although better as an accent color than a primary. Regular orange... That would be maybe-okay as accent, not good as primary (too close to Fire); same for yellow. Gray is fine as an accent, but as a primary it's too close to Earth colors, same for black. Hewkii Mahri being both black and flaming orange? Wrong! Wrong wrong! I'm a fan of the Bohrok-Kal arc as well. A "powers lost" arc is kind of a rite of passage for superheroes, and Bionicle did it well. Additionally, it makes sense lore-wise for there to be contingency agents for the Bohrok swarms. And the solution was clever too. ============================================================================================== Now, as for my actual contributions... * Cathy Hapka and Henry Gilroy were better writers than Greg Farshtey. * Clone builds aren't automatically bad. Case in point: Wairuha Nuva suffers pretty badly from trying too hard to be a divergent build from Akami Nuva. * IDK where this falls on the popularity scale, but the 2004 palette shift did Fire and Air Toa super-dirty. Dark red and green didn't work for Fire or Air the way standard red and green did, and the loss of accent colors on the Metru (instead just having the dark stone gray joints) didn't help. They course-corrected with Fire, but main Air Toa suffered through 2007. * Again, IDK where this falls, but the overwriting of Rahi reproduction was dumb. * The Nuva Redesigns of the original six Great Kanohi are perfectly fine, thank you. The changes still fit the theme of the mask, and from a real-life perspective are very understandable - they were done to address where the original designs were prone to bowing and breakage (hence the flimsy Miru being perhaps the most changed versus the mostly-solid Akaku and Kaukau being the least changed; heck, the Kaukau's biggest change is being opaque). * G2 was perfectly fine. In several ways it's kinda like the story overhaul I wish G1 would get - it returns to the roots and works out a more pure story from there that sticks to its guns (and doesn't badly inject edgy characters, plots, and non-fantasy sci-fi traits that don't mesh well with the existing fantasy-sci-fi traits and plot points). And the sets may be CCBS-looking on the outside, but they restore the action gimmick of yore. I wish it had been given more of a chance - maybe then the sets wouldn't be so blasted expensive on eBay. I would have bought some myself when it was on the shelves, I always meant to, but Transformers was a bigger collecting priority for me in 2015. And in 2016 I was focusing heavily on model trains.

This looks very good! And in the case of the Nuva and Great Matatu, would look even better with detail paint! The Great Akaku normally would too, but I don't see it as working well on the Golden version.

I never forgot about it.That was one of two things that particularly bugged me about the movie: The Morbuzakh never being mentioned by name, given it was the driving force of the early 2004 storyline. The other thing was mostly forgetting the Toa's elemental powers.

I hope whatever we get has 2003-style Le-Matoran and Onu-Matoran. I realize that's a long shot, but..

Here are the biggest ones for me: * The entire G1 storyline from Time Trap onward. That marked the point where Greg started writing Hero Factory instead of Bionicle, the lore and ongoing storyline got increasingly hijacked and derailed ("Teridax" is a dirty word in my book and should be added to the forum's swear filter, and Greg's never resolving his about Makuta with the explicit establishment of Makuta and Mata Nui as brothers... that alone proves he was unfit to run the show), and all the work of the actual hero characters started being minimized compared to his god-mode bad guy guilds and edgy anti-heroes. Greg should have been transferred or told to clear out his desk when he turned in the manuscript for Time Trap. Because Time Trap was and nearly everything we got in the story from that point onward was . I would rather have seen Bionicle canceled after the 2005 line, than get the we got. Lego needs to do a reboot of G1 that rewinds to before Time Trap happened, and throws it and everything that came after it out. Well, a reworked version of the baseline plot of 2006 (one that doesn't involve an inappropriate ignominous defeat for the Nuva) has the potential to be decent. And maaybe the same for 2007. But everything else definitely needs new story material - repurpose the Karda Nui Toa sets as a new team instead of the Nuva they barely resemble anyway, for instance. * The fact that we never got Le-Matoran and Onu-Matoran in the 2003 style.

Looks awesome! But please fix the eye color

I know they were published around that time. But I brought them up to nitpick your original wording - they cover pre-MoL and have Lewa speaking that way. As for TLOMN, while other sources may not have had Lewa use Treespeak until 2003... I think it's a possibility. After all, Farshtey (who hates Treespeak/Chutespeak; notice that Kongu doesn't speak it in Challenge of the Rahi) was less involved with that game and its dialogue. Honestly it's stuff like the art and composition flaws that really pushed me to bring this up. Art fails, bad panel layouts, poorly-placed and even misplaced speech bubbles, the constant fluctuation between which kind of emphasis bold text is used for...

Actually, he also spoke it in the Bionicle Chronicles books and I believe in the MNOG, where it originated (although I haven't gotten far enough in that to see for myself. Also, no idea as to whether he uses it in TLOMN). But beyond not speaking in Treespeak, he also seems to lack his canon chidlike carefree personality. Just finished comic 9. More pain: Tahnok-Kal using Pahrok-Kal's Plasma power and Kohrok-Kal using Nuhvok-Kal's Gravity power. Or at least, that's how it looks since Nuhvok-Kal is nowhere to be seen. Oh, and among the recurring art errors: Matoro is miscolored.

So... I've been reading the old Bionicle comics recently (currently on the Mata Nui saga). Never got to read most of these back in the day... and I can't exactly say I'm impressed with the quality. Writing-wise.. The dialogue is clunky half the time, the dialogue and narration are painfully edgy in places (an aspect of Farshtey's writing that went completely out of control circa 2005), Lewa seems a bit out of character and doesn't speak in treespeak like he should, and Farshtey switches between using bold text for vocal emphasis, and using bold text for narrative emphasis (the way video games use different-color text), on a whim - sometimes within the same set of speech bubbles! That's bad form, and something the editor should have busted his on. The art has numerous errors - characters being drawn misassembled, iffy proportions in places, weapon arms randomly changing which side of the body they're on, the Lehvak Va being drawn as holding Tahu's mask when they should be holding Lewa's mask... Ugh. Now, I've seen some of the amazing creative efforts put forth by the community. I don't just think you can do a better job, I know you can. The question is, does such an effort interest anyone? Is there an interest in overhauling the comics to be more competent?

It's part of a big picture that had been growing increasingly covered in toxic mold since late 2005, and anything good in it is undermined by the fact that's built on a road paved with utter garbage that the story should never have taken in the first place. You know how you said " However, a movie can be lighthearted and still be fun"? You're absolutely right, and so can most any story. It's a shame that outside of this movie, the writing attitude for Bionicle from late 2005 on was "lightheartedness is for babies, everything must be edgy edgy edgy edgy edgy! Substance and happiness bad, edginess and darkness good!" Why yes, I am bitter. I am very bitter, and it will take an apology and a massive external retcon from LEGO to make me stop being bitter.

IMO LoMN is the absolute weakest of the Miramax trilogy. I share the complaints of the OP, and little of their affection for it. It fails to integrate the rest of the 2004 storyline, Whenua only has one Proto-Piton and it's misinterpreted as a pickaxe, the Matoran models are lazy and so are the Vahki, aside from Matau flying the movie largely forgets the Toa have elemental powers, Makuta's "Ultimate Dume" form is portrayed as the 2003 set with Nivawk's wings stapled on... I would also like to add that the final battle is far too video game-y and unlike with MoL there's no reason for the other Toa to be just standing there. Mask of Light was never meant as a jumping-on point. It was meant as the grand finale to the Mata Nui saga and I was off that the subsequent storylines undermined that. I will continue to remain off until LEGO fixes that mistake, and I will NEVER forgive Greg Farshtey.