JrMasterModelBuilder

They can't properly be compared in execution because Greg never wrote out the event in great detail, but in concept, I like Greg's account better.

I sort-of imaging they were the dark side of the Toa's personalities, manifested by Makuta, possibly by the power of the Mask of Shadows.

In all honesty, I'm not sure why they were even in the book. It's the only time they ever really appeared and the events were different from what we saw in MNOG. When I read it it just added to my confusion of what really happened. I'm guessing they played a bigger part in the official story bible than we ever saw. Perhaps they appeared more in the canceled 2001 game.

I found the first one. It was on the small WoS site that doesn't appear to be online anymore (which explains why the quality is so low). It's in BionicleMovies.com.zip. It could have been on other places too.

I'm pretty sure those aren't from the DVD (Web of shadows), though I havn't watched them since 2012.

If the were from a DVD, it probably wouldn't be from the WoS DVD, except maybe as a bonus feature.

The first one seems more likely as a DVD or online trailer, giving the MPAA screen and length, but the second one could be a TV spot.

No, no. Yes, the Gali hooks were normal, but each one has a peg. If you look closer, it looks like two pins fit in a space that can only fit one.

Nah, they both fit fine. The pin on the hook is length 1. The brown backs edges of the Toa Mata foot are both 0.5 width. The bush is also a length of 1.

2 x 1 = (2 x 0.5) + 1

Umm, no? The horns made of Exo-Toa's dark-grey Gali hooks? They look normal to me.

I never got around to finishing any of the Galtorian Arena Games. Other than that, I finished all the online games and BIONICLE: The game. Haven't started any other PC/Console games.

I never got around to finish The Legend of Mata Nui.

Um, what?

This The Legend of Mata Nui?

Do you have a copy?

 

I agree with JrMasterModelBuilder that if Bionicle is indeed coming back, they should not use comics as a media source. I for one would like to see a TV series, or even a web series. I personally think it should be a weekly TV series (not the entire year's story crammed into 30 minutes), a video game on consoles (breaking away from the TT formula we've been getting almost constantly for the past 10 years), and a point-and-click adventure game on Bionicle.com (a la MNOLG).

 

I don't think we'd get all of that at once. I suspect that 2015 would be a sort of test year, to see how the community responds to the new theme. I doubt Lego would pour so much money into a theme that they may or may not have to scrap, depending on how it is received.

 

Didn't HF just get a short TV special and one game in its first year?

 

When BIONICLE initally launched, they had planned a movie (Templar spoke of this), a console/PC game (BIONICLE: The Legend of Mata Nui), and a point-and-click game. They first two were cancelled at different stages, but in the past they have attempted the same amount of media.

I think that the perfect formula for a TV show would be:

1. SET ACCURACY!!! HF has this down pretty well, but set accuracy was seriously lacking in the Miramix films.

In fairness, the Miramax films were made back when set-accuracy was computationally infeasible, especailly for direct-to-home movies.

Greg's reply : 'We are working on the first issues of LEGO Magazine and LEGO Club Jr. magazine for 2015 now. We are NOT working on a BIONICLE comic for 2015.'

 

Source : https://community.lego.com/t5/LEGO-General/Chat-with-Greg-Farshtey/td-p/6605180/page/376

 

Ah well...

I wouldn't be surprise if LEGO didn't revive the comics. LEGO was trying to kill the cost of them all along, from reducing their size on some issues, to once having a comic online only.

In all honesty, the comics were an old idea. If LEGO is bringing BIONICLE back, I want to see them bring new ideas to the table. I think digital media could be more powerful.

This could have some significance. It's not a post by Greg, but I will be looking eagerly for what he says about it.

 

https://community.lego.com/t5/LEGO-General/Chat-with-Greg-Farshtey/m-p/10665945/highlight/true#M245505

One of the mods made a post about BIONICLE coming back rumors being false. Why can you not do the same, if they ARE false? Everyone is hyping up about some supposedly leaked pics. Can you at least make it stop?

Does anyone know where this post is? I would like to read it.

UPDATE:

Another interesting comment by Greg. Doesn't prove anything, but he's still not denying a return.

7) Are all Toa, aside from the Nuva and Mahri, the same basic "model"? I know their armor takes the shape of what they imagine, but do all Toa have the same: height, body shape/proportions, amount of elemental reserve, strength level, etc?  I would hope there is at least a small varitation in the first two for more individuality.

7) Not something I would want to comment on -- that would be up to future set designers, if the line comes back.

UPDATE 2:

Greg replied to the question of the moderator's post.

, What the moderators do, or can do, is separate from me. My instructions are very clear -- I do not discuss anything that is leaked, accurate or not, and I do not comment on future product plans. Never have, never will.

 

Also which version of pohatu are we talking about? Nuva or mata? Because nuva pohatu I am fairly certain could win with the use of the kakama nuva

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Nuva transformation's benefit to the masks was to allow their powers to be shared, not to increase their actual power. So Pohatu Nuva wouldn't move any faster than Pohatu Mata.

 

I thought the masks became more powerful. For example, the Kakama Nuva allowed users to move fast enough that they could travel through solid objects and the Miru Nuva allowed Lewa to fly without the need to use his wind power. I seem to recal other minor encancements in a comic book a long while back, but those are the two that I remember.

UPDATE:

Here is the comic page I was refering to. Note that the Miru and Pakari images are mixed-up.

 

Which brings us back to the previous question: In the context of this fantasy world, what is a "male" and what is a "female"? How does a character decide to identify with the masculin pronoun or the feminine pronoun? Or is there no difference between genders and they are effectivly irrelevant? At which point, why bother having them?

 

 

If you're implying gender in our world is decided purely by what's in your pants, you're mistaken. People have been figuring out gender without genitalia for centuries now, at minimum.

 

You bother having genders for relatability to a human audience. Why do the Transformers have genders? Why is GLaDOS female or Wheatley male? Why is WALL-E male and EVE female? Gendering otherwise ungendered characters has less to do with an internal logic and more to do with appealling to a human audience. That's why you bother having them, and also why it matters if one is drastically underrepresented.

 

I'm not implying the above at all, and fully believe that implying such is wrong.

I am also fully aware of the benefits to having genders in anthropomorphic character to fascilitate human relatability. But I think you would agree that your examples also suffer from gender stereotypes, yes? WALL-E was a stereotypical love-struct male who Eve had to depend on to rescue her. Wheatley was a dense male easily consumed by power. Transformers is no better than BIONICLE.

ANYWAY:

This is probably my last post on this issue, at least for the foreseeable future. I'll come back and read the responses at a later date. My departing advice: "Be constructive." Stating something is wrong without offering an alternative is only addressing a small fraction of the problem.

UPDATE:

Appologies to GSR. I posted this before seeing your reply.

However, if you do decide that it is wrong, I encourage you to offer alternatives or recommendations on how to handle this, especially considering the tight time constraints media producers have to define a character in a story. As a media producer, I would be very interested to read them.

 

 

 

My alternative/recommendation is so simple I've already stated it multiple times without breaking a sweat: just write characters. Tahu could be female. Lewa could be female. Gali could be male. All preserving the same personality traits. And I guarantee no kid is going to double-take at the idea besides the fact they had different genders before, because again, personality traits aren't tied to gender. If you want to write an interesting female character, first ask yourself why you haven't written any already. Chances are it's because you prioritize the "female" over the "interesting".

 

Which brings us back to the previous question: In the context of this fantasy world, what is a "male" and what is a "female"? How does a character decide to identify with the masculin pronoun or the feminine pronoun? Or is there no difference between genders and they are effectivly irrelevant? At which point, why bother having them?

Writing a character and then deciding what gender they identify as seems like a good plan to me. There are lots of tropes and shorthands that can be used that aren't linked to gender! And it looks a lot less stereotypical if there's more than one girl in a group and they have different personalities. And everybody gets approximately equal screen time and plot importance.

The same question above applies here as well, but I am interested in this. What do you consider to be acceptable "tropes and shorthands" and on what criteria do you differentiate?

 

No, I said the exact opposite. Gender does not need to be defined by personality traits. In the end, in the Bionicle universe, all you should need to determine gender is either for the character to state it or to judge from pronouns. Otherwise, you are implying traits to be intrinsically linked to certain genders, which is wrong.

 

You're reading too much into my post. I did not say that gender needs to be defined by personality traits. I said that it commonly defined this way in media. I am also, in no way, trying to imply that traits are intrinsically linked to certain genders, in reality. Again, I was only stating that this is how it has been traditionally done in media for many years. It's up to you to decide if you think this is wrong.

However, if you do decide that it is wrong, I encourage you to offer alternatives or recommendations on how to handle this, especially considering the tight time constraints media producers have to define a character in a story. As a media producer, I would be very interested to read them.

 

If a pronoun is all that defines the difference between a gender, the characters would seem to be trans-gendered.

 

 

...........what?

 

A character's gender is just a trait, like skin color on human characters, that defines WHAT they are. Ideally, in human characters, there would also be little difference in the character traits allowed for male and female characters. If you're worried about being unable to tell what gender a character is without pronouns, you've been reading some shallow characters. Personality and gender should be disconnected, especially in a fictional society in which there are no social pressures for a gender to act a certain way.

 

I think you're kind-of agreeing with me. There does need to be more to a gender than just a pronoun. It's just a mater of how you manifest it with or without stereotypes.

 

Whether he knows it or now, I think Burnmad is hitting on a topic those in media production have been struggling with for a long time. How do you define a character without the foundation of some stereotype, big or small? Gender protrayal in anthropomorphic is closely tied into this. Defining a character's gender in a form which is not anatomically different leaves only their character to define them. This is where stereotypes, and often the subversion of some of them, are an easy choice. I know it was suggested that the pronoun used to refer to them was another way gender could be defined, but this seems a rather flat definition. If a pronoun is all that defines the difference between a gender, the characters would seem to be trans-gendered. I guess that would be one way of removing gender stereotyes...

We-e-e-e-ell, being transgender is the state of having been assigned a gender by a state of your body and then disagreeing with that assignment. So if, say, a Ta-Matoran, this element being one that's "always" male, identified as female, then she'd be a trans woman. If gender isn't assigned by an outer trait, though, and was only a mental designation of "I am female, I answer to she/her", "I am male, I answer to he/him", "I am neither, I answer to they/them", "I don't care, I answer to my name or if I can tell through context that you're talking to about me", "my gender changes depending on my mood, I'll tell you what pronouns I prefer but in general they/them is OK", then there's no transness, because trans is, by definition, "opposite" something. If there's nothing to disagree with, then it's just... gender. Existing for its own sake. Which there's nothing wrong with.

True, I appologize for my poor choice of word. "Transended gender" would be more appropriate for what I was trying to say.

Whether he knows it or now, I think Burnmad is hitting on a topic those in media production have been struggling with for a long time:

How do you define a character without the foundation of some stereotype, big or small?

Gender protrayal in anthropomorphic is closely tied into this. Defining a character's gender in a form which is not anatomically different leaves only their character to define them. This is where stereotypes, and often the subversion of some of them, are an easy choice. I know it was suggested that the pronoun used to refer to them was another way gender could be defined, but this seems a rather flat definition. If a pronoun is all that defines the difference between a gender, the characters would seem to have transcended gendered. I guess that would be one way of removing gender stereotyes...

It should be noted that the issue of stereotypes to define characters does extend beyond gender. I cannot think of a single character in any media to which some stereotype does not apply.

Posting on behalf of Xiron of Rock Raiders United.
 

What I do have say about what I'd like to see is:
I'd like to see more unique games like the classics, and I'm not just saying this because I grew up with them, but because they actually stood out from the other games LEGO developed at the time. It didn't feel like a car that kept being brought to the garage to get a new coat of paint with a few new extra additions just to always look brand new. Right now, with all the liscened games being made with TT Games, this is what it feels like, an old car ran past its time, it isn't all that cool as it use to be back when it was brand new.

I haven't bought a new LEGO video game in years because I'm tired of the TT gameplay that has been repeated for a long time now. I understand that the engine and gameplay have improved since LEGO Star Wars, but it's still the same basic gameplay. I'm bored with it and want something original. In fact, the only LEGO video games I've bought in the past several years are older pre-TT games.

Thinking back, the best LEGO video game of all time and the one I spent the most time playing, and still do play from time to time, is the original LEGO Racers. The whole series was pretty good too, I've spent a great deal of time playing LEGO Racers 2 and Drome Racers, and I still play all of these games sometimes. Compared to other LEGO video games, for me there's no contest.

Also, please don't fall for the trap of fancy new graphics. Higher-concept beats higher-resolution anyday.

Yeah, but that description looks like a reference to the Mistika racing game, Swamp of Secrets, not anything having to do with Battle for Power, which was the Phantoka game.

 

I'm also not sure how that got on the Lexicon of Terms if it was just a reference to the Mistika game. 

I don't think the Mistika Game / Mistika Race Game ever had a real name, it was just commonly refered to as one of those names. Maybe Reveal the Secrets was another unoffical name for it or mistakenly taken to be the real name?

Was posting this just as the topic got locked.

Okay, so I look up the words 'Bionicle returns' on my computer and found a link to the customer services page of Lego.com. On there it has this question; 'Are there any plans for Lego Bionicle to come back?' The response and I quote is:

 

 

 

At this moment, we're not planning to bring back Lego Bionicle.

 

Here is the Link: http://service.lego.com/en-us/helptopics/products/themes/bionicle/will-bionicle-come-back

 

Now, I'm not trying to kill the hype here, but I think this may puts the rumors to rest. Unless Lego is bringing back Bionicle and simply keeping this up to throw people off the trail.

 

Edit: Meant to say I'm NOT trying to kill the hype, but forgot to put the word 'not' in the sentence. Makes me sound kind of bad, doesn't it?

 

This information is at least as old as October. It may no longer be relevant.

No problem. Whenever you get time. Wonder where he got them.

 

 

I have 204 sealed packs

Can we get pictures?

ill give you pictures of the sealed packs. I can't open them, sorry

 

That's better than nothing. Also, where did you get them?

I have 204 sealed packs

Can we get pictures?

Another thing that should be noted is that Greg used to flat-out deny that LEGO had any plans to revive BIONICLE in the foreseeable future. He isn't doing that anymore.

NOTE: I recognize there could be a number of reasons for this. Just food for thought.

LEGO's creative enough to come up with a new theme. Why would they 'revive' an old one?

Simple. LEGO makes new themes all the time. It's not every year LEGO brings back a beloved theme. Similar to how LEGO ended BIONICLE to create a new theme was interseting enough to get on the cover of the toyfair magazine, bringing back a great theme is more interesting than just another new theme.

 

i'm gonna provide a third insider opinion here - apparently the source, Des, has in fact been correct about upcoming sets before. i can also confirm that if this is a fake, it's something Des is fooling everyone with, not just people outside of Piece Out. they've been discussing this for a while within that group as well.

 

i'm still pretty skeptical about all this, but i've long said that there's a good chance of Bionicle's return in the near future and well...this may be it. i'm not getting my hopes up, though.

Who is this "Des Desworth", again?

 

And who/what is Piece Out for that mater?

The shadow toa rumor actually appears to date back to 2002. Unknown if this is just an assumption made from the text in the back of the 4th comic book.

UPDATE:

I think I found the source of the rumor.

As speculated, the "shadow Toa" were only a part of the cancelled PC game, and were never intended to be made into sets. (At one point there was a lot of discussion on BZP of the Toa Nuva being the Shadow Toa, which of course turned out to not be the case.)

No telling if they were ultimately just a concept or included in the game. Seeing as how they did not appear in MNOG, I wouldn't be surprised if they were scrapped early on.