What would you have changed?

[Nato G]

33 minutes ago, Lorentz said:

Icarax already acts exactly like Starscream

Granted, Starscream's whole schtick was being a snivelling, bombastic weasel who thought he could do better than Megatron, but never did anything to back that up or actually accomplish anything meaningful. Whereas Icarax at least had a reputation for being a formidable warrior, and was allegedly the best hand-to-hand combatant in the Brotherhood. 

Edited April 8 by Nato G

[Lorentz]

13 hours ago, Nato G said:

Whereas Icarax at least had a reputation for being a formidable warrior

That describes Starscream too. It's the only reason why Megatron keeps him around. Icarax isn't as obnoxious as Starscream, that's their main difference, so I'm curious why anyone would want him to be more like his parallel. 

Edited April 8 by Lorentz

[Lenny7092]

On 4/7/2022 at 9:00 PM, Lorentz said:

Icarax already acts exactly like Starscream, how would you have him act more like him?

Both of them fighting each other, like Icarax finding Teridax, so he would fight him. He would have first attack Teridax from behind to start a fight. It would be interesting if Icarax would try to control the Great Spirit Robot, but would have tot fight Teridax for it first.

Edited April 11 by Lenny7092
Forget the last two parts.

[Lorentz]

5 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

Both of them fighting each other, like Icarax finding Teridax, so he would fight him. He would have first attack Teridax from behind to start a fight. It would be interesting if Icarax would try to control the Great Spirit Robot, but would have tot fight Teridax for it first.

I see. I suppose it would have been cool to see them go toe to toe, but with the way the story was written, it wouldn't have been possible. I guess they could have just given us more details during the Mutran Chronicles flashback, but if not, a lot of things about the 2008 storyline would have had to been different. Namely, Teridax and Icarax were in totally different places the entire time.

[(-Kopaka Toa of Ice-)]

On 7/10/2021 at 12:34 AM, TERIDAX941 said:

I would've kept Tahu as a Nuva. Golden Armor is cool, but I loved his Nuva look, and I like to keep the Nuva as a complete team, not 5 and a tag on.

I also would have let Krika survive, maybe let him assist the heroes during their rebellion against Teridax.

I agree, even if he's stronger than he was as a toa nuva, the adaptive armor should have a nuva armored form setting look. The golden armor having only been created for the mata design was stupid since the stars set is a av-matoran build which looks nothing like the toa mata body.

[Lorentz]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:16 PM, (-Kopaka Toa of Ice-) said:

I agree, even if he's stronger than he was as a toa nuva, the adaptive armor should have a nuva armored form setting look. The golden armor having only been created for the mata design was stupid since the stars set is a av-matoran build which looks nothing like the toa mata body.

Well, the Story Team were forced to work with what they were given. The Set Designers didn't make the Stars with any story in mind whatsoever, they just made chibi versions of iconic characters throughout the years. It kinda sucks, but that's the only reason they did it. If they made Tahu Star based on the Nuva version, this whole mess would have been avoided.

[Kopekemaster]

I definitely wish they had handled the switch to Bara Magna differently. My interest in the story definitely fell off a lot at that point. Since then, I've learned a lot more about the story of Spherus Magna (thanks to Duckbricks' 9-hour story overview) and it's very interesting, but going straight from the rich, incredible world within the GSR to this postapocalyptic Mad Max world we didn't know or care about wasn't great IMO.

One possible route they could have gone with it (assuming they were able to continue Bionicle for a few more years) would be to, after Teridax took over the GSR and ejected the Ignika, flashback to when Spherus Magna was whole, introduce what the world was like at that point, learn about Annona, show how the Great Beings broke off from the rest of the population, the discovery of energized protodermis and how that affected the world, and the development of the prototype GSR and eventually the final GSR. For the story, to keep people who cared about the Matoran universe interested, you could keep cutting away from the Spherus Magna A-plot and showing how things inside the GSR were going after Teridax took over. From what I've seen, there's a lot of stuff going on at that point that we never see in the comics, so it would have allowed them to flesh that out a lot more while also giving us a reason to care about Spherus Magna and want to see it reformed. Then, you could basically keep the Bara Magna story the same from that point.

[That Matoran with a Vahi]

20 hours ago, Kopekemaster said:

I definitely wish they had handled the switch to Bara Magna differently. My interest in the story definitely fell off a lot at that point. Since then, I've learned a lot more about the story of Spherus Magna (thanks to Duckbricks' 9-hour story overview) and it's very interesting, but going straight from the rich, incredible world within the GSR to this postapocalyptic Mad Max world we didn't know or care about wasn't great IMO.

I like your thinking; definitely agree that while Bara Magna was an interesting concept, the way we were thrust into it was pretty alienating at the time.

Another possible route I can see could have been to have just a few familiar characters possibly escaping the GSR to follow Mata Nui into space; the story could have followed them as they landed on Bara Magna and searched for what had become of him - that way, we would have been discovering this new world and society at the same pace as these familiar faces, and so letting us get invested in it more easily because of its direct impact on characters who we know. The culture-clash between the MU inhabitants and the Bara Magnans could have been interesting to see, too.

I find it notable, after all, that every other time that Bionicle had switched protagonists - 2004 and 2006 - the switch was still to characters who we knew from the theme's early days, so we weren't being asked to accept someone completely new taking over. As good a move as this was, I suspect that it made it all the more jarring to be thrown into 2009 where we knew literally no-one; even the 'familiar' character of Mata Nui had only been a name before that point, not someone we'd met, so it felt like we were being asked to just start over from scratch. I feel like discovering Bara Magna first through the eyes of a very small group of known characters, even if nothing else changed beyond that, could also have been a better way to ease into the new world ^^

[Nato G]

11 hours ago, That Matoran with a Vahi said:

even the 'familiar' character of Mata Nui had only been a name before that point, not someone we'd met, so it felt like we were being asked to just start over from scratch. 

Especially since the Mata Nui we got didn't even really fit with everything we'd seen and heard about him prior to that point in the story. Even before he actually got put to sleep, Mata Nui always came across as a distant, uncaring god, and the 2009/10 story never really spent enough time reconciling his new personality with past depictions. 

[Lorentz]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:16 PM, Nato G said:

Especially since the Mata Nui we got didn't even really fit with everything we'd seen and heard about him prior to that point in the story. Even before he actually got put to sleep, Mata Nui always came across as a distant, uncaring god, and the 2009/10 story never really spent enough time reconciling his new personality with past depictions. 

Yeah, Mata Nui was kinda weird. I don't remember exactly how they handled it, but he adapted awfully quickly to seeing other beings that weren't microscopic compared to him. 

[Zidonaro]

Moltoran versions of Kongu, Tamaru, Onepu and Taipu honestly.

Make a big set including all 4 and call it "Kolhii Match" or something.

[Lorentz]

On 7/24/2022 at 5:51 PM, Zidonaro said:

Moltoran versions of Kongu, Tamaru, Onepu and Taipu honestly.

Make a big set including all 4 and call it "Kolhii Match" or something.

Fun fact, for anyone who doesn't know: The 2003 Matoran design was actually developed before the 2001 McToran one - but it was too complex for a McDonald's toy so they had to simplify it.  

[Zidonaro]

On 7/27/2022 at 3:29 PM, Lorentz said:

Fun fact, for anyone who doesn't know: The 2003 Matoran design was actually developed before the 2001 McToran one - but it was too complex for a McDonald's toy so they had to simplify it.  

Do you have a source for that? Sounds really interesting.

[Lorentz]

https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2003-2008/page100#post3978-line20

[GhostieM]

On 7/8/2021 at 1:36 PM, Xboxtravis said:

• No pop-alternative music and rapping in the 2006 advertising. Sure it impressed the edgy pre-teen I was at the time, but in hindsight its pretty bad (dare I say, "Its cringe"?).

 

You take that back right now. 06 wouldn't be the same without move along. And if it is gone, then we probably wouldn't have got cryoshell for 07-09.

[Mukaukau Nuva]

I'd put less emphasis on the novels as the 'primary' source of canon. Mainly because for colourful, robotic toys, I think a visual medium is necessary for kids to tell who's who. The movies are probably too short to convey the necessary details, but web games or a TV show would be ideal.

I'd also switch the Toa Norik and Toa Iruni sets back into Toa Dume and Toa Nidhiki, as they were initially designed to be. They're so obviously depicting Nidhiki and Dume that it's kind of weird they aren't.