ToaDraco

From my understanding, the reason we barely got any Turaga in G1 is because kids were more interested in characters like the Matoran who could accompany the Toa into battle or even fight for themselves. This isn't necessarily because BIONICLE's audience was boys — the sets are action figures, and an action figure that isn't suited for any kind of action scenarios is pretty lackluster from a play perspective. With that in mind, I think it was a very smart decision to make the Protectors village elders who CAN fight for themselves. Being able to hold their own in battle doesn't amount to mindless violence — Avatar: The Last Airbender had lots of butt-kicking characters of the older age set. Yeah, I think main reason is ACTION figures of old people who need a cane to walk aren't very exciting, like getting an action figure of the old man in a walker from UP, nobody wants that. I agree with Aanchir, they did a great job in giving us village elders that are wise and can hold they're own in a fight. More Yoda, less old man from UP.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lego started throwing fart jokes into their stories (actually I think they might have already somewhere).You're right, they did it in the Chima show(A.K.A one of the worst things lego have their name attached to). They also did in MNOG. Where? In Tahu's arrival animation. It's still a more dignified fart joke then whatever Chima was going for. Holy cow, I never realized that was a fart joke! The fart jokes in Chima, I absolutely hated! I thought LEGO was better than that. Even as a little kid I never found that stuff funny, just crude and distasteful. That Steve Urckal-like skunk was the worst thing about Chima, hands down.

Difference: the Morbuzakh conflict was told over the course of two books and several comics. The books especially used this "placeholder" conflict to establish firmly both the personalities of the Toa as well as the setting, while also including abundant foreshadowing for what would happen down the line. In addition to that, Nidhiki and Krekka featured prominently in the first half of the year, providing a threat to the Toa Metru that directly related to the larger conflict (Makuta's plan). They were mysterious, they were dangerous, and they built up suspense. As a bonus, we had Ahkmou the traitor as well. It's not fair to compare 2015, the first year of G2, to 2004, and just as well, because there is no comparison to be made. ^ this x10 I can give you the books part - I guess since books have been a staple of Bionicle since 2003 it was only to be expected, so to me it does not fuel any excitement. But yeah, I guess we have that. Some of the excitement for the animations is tainted by the fact that all of them (at least for the first wave) were uploaded already. Regarding the cancelled PC game - at least they talked about it. The Mask of Creation game came out of nowhere, with no advertising and I still don't even see much promotion for it from LEGO. I think the payoff for that games release would have been better if it had prior advertising. Not keeping promises isn't good either though, I will agree to that. Bionicle Gen I was especially bad in that regard. Now about conflict - the fact that this line of sets comes packaged with conflict ready to go is what makes its execution so disappointing! In Gen I, to ensure the story didn't crawl to a snails pace, the writers tried to make conflict with what they could. The Morbuzakh is just a small part of winter 2004 - a faceless, non-set enemy designed to be an adversary to the Toa Metru toys - but the real conflict of that portion of the year was the Toa Metru's quest to find the Great Kanoka discs and prove their worth as Toa. The Morbuzakh essentially was a plot device that emphasized the importance of their quest and why the Toa had to team up with the Matoran to defeat it. There was solid storytelling to be found there. 2005 actually was unique in that all the sets were released at once (though, at different times in different parts of the world) so the story ending up being consistent throughout the year without a need to set up a next wave of sets. The "main" story happened in the Summer (more accurately fall) because they had to tie it into a movie franchise. Despite this, the books told a lot more story in those "blank" portions of the year then the movies ever hoped to. The only year that I felt didn't make successful conflict out of one wave was 2007 with the Barraki, but even then there was some intrigue to what lies beneath the surface and what happened to the Matoran of Voya Nui. In comparison, 2015 has all the set-up for conflict but never utilizes any of it. Various types of Skull Spiders with different powers? Their ability to snare onto the villagers faces and enslave them? That's awesome, so why aren't they putting this to full use? They don't have a backstory and they haven't set it up well enough that I even care about it. We have potential for exciting conflict right off the bat and its not happening. By comparison, the 2001 villains were simple Rahi tainted with evil, but the infected masks were utilized to their full potential. The Rahi's importance and defining characteristics were already stated beforehand. Also, I agree with toa kopaka4372 - Okoto is, well, boring. The island of Mata Nui was treated like a character itself - there was so much emphasis on the landmarks and history which made it feel like an organic, living component of the story. I don't think Bionicle would have been so enticing without the focus on the island itself. That's probably why it remained a defining symbol of the franchise throughout its original run, despite changing locations in further years. I don't feel like the same amount of thought went into creating Okoto. We don't know the culture and society, the inhabitants, we don't know anything about the flora and fauna, and I personally can't really care about their mission to save the island because I don't feel its importance. -NotS I whole-heartily agree. There is no story, no character and no soul to gen2 so far and I seriously hope this changes soon and hopefully the books help with this. Bionicle's initial creation was about not only selling toys but about doing so in a way that creates a story and a franchise all its own for children to read about, explore, be inspired by, and much more. It seems this time around, LEGO is so scared of adding anything remotely complicated (like names for goodness sake) that they seem to forget why they experimented and took a risk with Bionicle in the first place, the same reasons it lasted a full decade. I fear they're over-caution will be what dooms the reboot and I really hope they prove me wrong by doing some real world-building and character development. After all, they essentially copied the formula used for Bionicle and created Ninjago and that worked beautifully. It would be sad if they shied away from it for the theme that gave them that formula and proved that it can be very successful in the first place. Having more media about the theme is an important part of that. The videos, while a great idea, are not long enough or numerous enough to convey the story. For me, the comics and books were my primary source for the story. Ideally, bringing back comics or making a tv show would be significant enough to really flesh out the story.

Yes! The episode is great! Except one thing: The narrator calls Pohatu's element earth and Onua's element stone. Let the confusions begin... For crying out loud LEGO!! Seriously, is it that hard to get your OWN story strait?? Sigh. I get so sick of Earth and Stone getting confused. It isn't so bad when it's miss-typed but to mess it up in a promotional video is something else, sheesh. Anyway, is it just me or does the character dialog keep getting worse. Tahu sounds like a brain-dead idiot although his voice is acceptable while PoF's lines are OK while his voice is terrible.

Realistically, Kevin Michael Richardson for Onua. He is a very prominent voice actor a does the voice for Bulkhead in Transformers Prime and the high school principal in American Dad among other things. As for the rest, I would like the rest of the voice actors from MoL to return as the voices of the Toa, except for Pohatu who is now a gruff Australian for some reason.

How much did it cost you? I have always wanted one of those Bionicle statues but it would be really expensive and rare, it would be the centerpiece of any Bionicle collection! So cool!

Tahu Mata was my first but Onua would have been my first if the store had him at that time. Onua was my first this time around.

I voted earth for the win! Earth characters have always been my favorite.

So I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but you can now play the Mask of Creation game on the Bionicle website.

What were they expecting Luke's head to look like? Because this looks as good as I could have hoped for! I don't see anything scary about it... Personally, I think it was a poor choice to use luke in the first place. It would have been better if they had replaced him with a Stormtrooper or C3PO. Human features just don't work so well in constraction, it's best if it's a character fully clad in armor or a robot. The head is exactly as I expected it would be but it still looks odd. Well on the contrary, the dc constraction sets "amored heroes and villain" which had green lantern, joker, and batman and hulk constraction had heads that were iffy or awful including such as The Joker's hair and hulks hands. Luke on the other hand feels like lego has greatly improved themselves with human heads By fully armored I meant head covered too, like a helmet. Which is why Darth Vader works well, while Luke on the other hand looks like a creepy mannequin.

What were they expecting Luke's head to look like? Because this looks as good as I could have hoped for! I don't see anything scary about it... Personally, I think it was a poor choice to use luke in the first place. It would have been better if they had replaced him with a Stormtrooper or C3PO. Human features just don't work so well in constraction, it's best if it's a character fully clad in armor or a robot. The head is exactly as I expected it would be but it still looks odd. Back on topic, I love that the Mask of Creation is getting it's own brick-built stand, it just adds that much more to an already fantastic set! By the way, does anyone else find it odd that Skull Warrior is the only skull guy to have a gunmetal skull while everyone else has silver to mach the silver bones and torsos? If anything, Grinder should have gotten the gunmetal skull as it would mach his color scheme much better. And for that matter, Skull Basher should have gotten a gunmetal skull so we could have a different color for both skull masks, plus it would mach his color scheme quite well.

I feel like this will be 99% MNOG. I must say, MNOG gets my vote, 2 was boring to me and vnog I really liked but it wasn't great atmosphere-wise. MNOG had really great personality and storytelling.

The Protector of Fire. Onua would be the best for that discussion I feel. The armor pieces and shoulder/ hammer pieces are incredible pieces of plastic molding with lots of intricate details.

My first memory was getting the very first Bionicle comic in the club magazine back in late 2000 as a wee lad in first grade and I instantly fell in love with it and read it over, and over, and over again. Unknown to my family or myself, I had an undiagnosed case of OCD and had just been diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, so there was that. It was a crazy time in my life. It was also the same year my sister and I started getting into Pokemon.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no, can I vote no on these more than once?!? NO. Just, nooooooo.

I just got Tahu and PoJ for V-day, they are pretty great sets. Tahu's shoulders atre a bit odd and the chestplate prevents him from looking down but these are minor issues. PoJ will likely be my favorite Protector, he is just really cool. Now I have two Toa and two Protectors, the other two are Onua and PoE.

I am 110% for weapon storage. Onua and Tahu and Pohatu(kind of) have it but that's it.

I noticed in the entry list that the links to my entry photo and topic do not work, is there anyway I can get that fixed? here is the topic link:http://www.bzpower.com/board/topic/17335-bbc-69-heat-vision-rahkshi/ and here is the entry photo:http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0100.jpg

We should have a tv show which could replace Chima's time slot since it's over. A 20 min program would be awesome.

Orange paint? There is no paint on anything, it's likely the lighting.

Awesome! I've never seen that Battle for the Region of Fire insert. Really nostalgic! Reminds me of similar inserts they had in 2005-08 -NotS Yeah, those were always my favorite parts of the Lego Magazine. The colors are messed up on the Protectors on another page, though. Specifically the Protectors of Stone and Jungle. I actually wish the PoS looked like that, the brown and candy apple green look really nice together! Although, that color scheme should be given to a representative of the Jungle region.

Thank you everyone for the kind words! Yeah unfortunately have very little in the way of trans yellow aside from those pieces. They are the only shells I have in that size and I really liked how they looked. I would have much rather had them in solid yellow or had other trans yellow shells to balance their use but as it is now, I admit they look a bit out of place. I actually used the front picture as the entry picture since it shows it off best. I'll update the op to reflect this to save confusion. Thank you for your kind words! I love the "chicken-walker" leg style and I use it whenever possible.

I loved the Ignika ark and I loved the seriousness and epic tone it set, so yes that should return. That being said, why not both? I think they could have the mystery while also have an epic tone. Having villains that pose a threat aren't going mess around and I want villains that are intimidating and ruthless. Having the setting be mysterious while the conflicts are epic and dire would be a good balance between the two 'feels' imo.

Thanks! Btw, I like how you did Malum's claws in your entry. Yeah I still have trouble photographing models with lots of black. The black chest area is where the two horizontal black hero torsos line up with a black savage planet paw in the middle.

For my entry, I built a Heat Vision Rahkshi to fit the new Bionicle aesthetic (and of course CCBS). I wanted a beefy Rahkshi that is larger than a Toa just as they should be while making some design modifications, specifically in the staff. I gave him an asymmetrical staff and made a change to the pilot Kraata itself. When building it, I imagined what a Rahkshi would look like in the new animations which helped inspire the angles and blockier areas of the model. I also had fun designing a new creepy Kraata mouth. Enjoy! Action pose!: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0107.jpg Front AKA Entry photo: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0100.jpg Back Left: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0106.jpg Back Right: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0109.jpg Side View: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0108.jpg He may not have gear functions, but...http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0117.jpg he can do this! http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0110.jpg The empty pilot's seat: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0111.jpg Look familiar?: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0113.jpg Angry Kraata: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0114.jpg Kraata profile: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0116.jpg Onua fighting the Rahkshi 1: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0118.jpg and 2: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lupa/heatvisionrahkshi/dsc_0119.jpg C&C welcome! Brickshelf gallery when public: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=552958 Edit: Please link to images over 640x640 pixels and 100 kB in BBC. -Wind-