[REVIEW]: 70783 Protector of Fire

[VBBN]

Set name: Protector of Fire

Set number: 70783

Pieces: 63

Price: $9.99, €

Release date: 2015

Packaging and Contents

Box Front

Now I could go on an talk about the hexagonal shaped packaging that we have all heard a lot about by now, but let's cut to the chase here. Whoever posed the set with the arm like that needs to be fired. And whoever approved it for the official packaging images, needs to be fired twice. I'm seeing a bit of irony here..."fire"...

Box Back

Set functions, and a whole lot of chocking hazard warnings.

Instructions

Standard fare. I will post all of the comics from the insides after all of the reviews are done.

New/Interesting Parts

Gatling Gun

One of the more interesting parts that has made it's way into the Protectors is this new gatling gun. Unlike the Toa who feature gearboxes, these lovely little weapons offer a very awesome new choice of "bionicle launcher" that we have come to expect. The gun is made up of two parts, a dark gray barrel, and a yellow firing pin. Once put together, they do not come apart, at least not without a lot of needless work. The connection is very comparable to the Mata heads with eyestalks. As for the firing power of this new collectible, if anyone is familiar with the minifigure blasters first introduced in Star Wars this year (also seen in wave two of Hero Factory 2014), the force behind the stud is quite similar.

New Pieces

The new head piece, new eyestalk in trans light blue, piston add-on in silver, and new spider leg which is a modified version of a hero factory claw. Standard fare, every set in the wave except for Lord of Skull Spiders and Protector of Earth will come with this same slew of pieces, though colors of course will vary.

Masks

The first mask is the Protector's mask, which we get in a mix of bright red and trans yellow. We also have the skull spider mask in spring yellowish green, which is the color it can be found in all of the fire and earth sets.

Building process

Torso

The Protector of Fire and Earth both have some very interesting torso builds. The PoF utilizes a glatorian neck build for his shoulders, which gives him an additional balljoint to mount the gatling gun.

Action Frame

Oh dear. Those arms are quite unfortunate. By adding the smallest bone element, they could have drastically improved the look and articulation of the arms, but the didn't. With that said, I quite like the build of the torso and legs, and the arms are a simple fix, it's just annoying that you have to source your own parts for such a ridiculous thing to begin with.

Armoring

It's odd that he has so much trans neon orange when his mask isn't blended with that color. The red chestplate also looks strange against so much trans plastic. Seems to me like a forced way to put those trans neon orange hands into the first wave of sets.

Weapon

For this build, the gatling gun is mounted to his shoulder. It's a pretty basic use of the gatling gun, but I love shoulder mounted weapons so I have no complaints.

Finished Set

Skull Spider

As I've said before, I love the spring yellowish green as a color, it's very fitting for a face-hugging-spider-of-doom. Although it leaves me wishing for spring yellowish green shells.

Front

As much as I dislike the arms, I do really like the build of his chest. it's the most well armored of the Protectors, and the gatling gun slung over his shoulder looks quite menacing.

Profile

Unlike many of the other Protectors, the Protector of Fire's chest doesn't stick out extremely far, giving him one of the best profiles.

Back

Here you can have a closer look at his custom shoulder build. The gatling gun looks sort of strange from this angle as well.

Pose 1

This is about the furthest inward you can put his arms. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the weapons (and apparently neither was the guy who did the box art, he was really struggling to pose this guy decently) I think I would rather have skipped the strange under-handed connection, and instead used the budget of those parts for the arms.

Pose 2

If anyone is familiar with the 2007 Transformer's movie, they may remember that Megatron had his fusion cannon built under his arms, and when he put his wrists together the weapon would connect, expand, and fire. I sort of imagined the weapons like that in this pose.

Skull Mask

The Skull mask can also be swapped out on his face.

Conclusion

This guy is a real toss-up. On one hand, I love the torso build, it's well armored and looks great. I like the legs, and the shoulder mounted launcher. But the arms are very strange and awkward, the color scheme has too many different shades of yellow/orange (they should have given him more red armor and kept only one color of trans plastic), and his arm mounted weapons are equally as awkward thanks to his arms. He's a fun build, but he wouldn't be my first choice of Protector.

[Rayskull]

he's gorgeous, put some elbows on him please

[arc]

The chest build looks pretty nice, but the lack of elbows is unfortunate. And I'm not a huge fan of those weapons either. Would've preferred the flame piece connected right to the hand as swords, Easy enough fix though. Overall not to bad.

[Aanchir]

I actually think the Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange works well for this guy. To be honest, I kind of wonder how he'd look if his mask had used it as well. Sure, it wouldn't have matched the weapons, but neither did the mask of the Protector of Jungle, and it looked fine.

I actually sort of like the weapons, peculiar as they are. Definitely a bit more exciting than ordinary swords might have been.

I agree, though, that lower arms would definitely help. He needs them a lot more than the Protector of Ice does, since his shoulders are raised up one module. If they were Black it would even help balance the color scheme better, since the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange hands wouldn't be directly adjacent to the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange arm shells, and since his arms would no longer feel so much lighter in color than his legs.

I'm also not a huge fan of how his lower legs are so much longer than his upper legs. Given how high the ankles of these figures are raised relative to the overall size of the leg, it seems to me like the reverse would make more sense — long upper legs and short lower legs, like the Protector of Earth. I think the Protector of Fire would have been a lot better if his arms and legs alike were built more like those of the Protector of Earth. That way you could even use the same two beams for his arms and legs — another step towards balancing his color scheme!

All things considered, this guy is definitely a creative and expressive design, but I feel like he needs some slight modding to completely realize the potential of that design.

[Leewan]

The torso design is interesting, but the color scheme is indeed poorly executed. Perhaps it could be better with trans orange bones and red or silver shells. Anyways, he definitely lacks red. But I can understand that the designers wanted to use the trans orange parts that appeared in this year's Chima sets, though.

[TheOneVeyronian]

I'm also not a huge fan of how his lower legs are so much longer than his upper legs. Given how high the ankles of these figures are raised relative to the overall size of the leg, it seems to me like the reverse would make more sense — long upper legs and short lower legs, like the Protector of Earth. I think the Protector of Fire would have been a lot better if his arms and legs alike were built more like those of the Protector of Earth. That way you could even use the same two beams for his arms and legs — another step towards balancing his color scheme!

Thank you Aanchir for saying this! I am so glad I'm not the only person who thinks lower legs being longer than upper legs here is odd especially as the femur (upper leg) should be longest part!

Ahem. Anyway, another great review. I'm aware it's the Protector of Fire, but to be honest, this set is lukewarm. It has good bits, but it also has bad bits, which in turn leaves this set a rather mediocre effort overall. Agreed with all the points in the review, and I figure that a couple of basic limb changearounds and additions which would take a mere matter of seconds to fix will improve this set leaps and bounds.

Any chance of some photos of what the Protector of Fire looks like with the upper and lower leg parts reversed and addition of some 3M bones to give him lower arms perhaps? Just wondering...

[ZORK64]

Aside from his stubby arms, I like this guy. Thanks for the review.

[KopakaFan116]

That mask is one word: EPIC!!!

[Kalhiki]

I'm quite surprised with how good he actually looks. As has been said, his arms need some work. Not as bothered with the legs though. I have the two smallest bone sizes in surplus, so I'll definitely be breaking those out to experiment with what looks best.

But as he stands as-is. Not bad. Not bad at all.

[Ventum]

Solid review. I sadly can't say the same for the PoF however. The model looks incredibly awkward, especially on the front of the box (The right arm). I agree with others in saying he'd benefit with shoulders. Also, the back could really use armor. Overall though, not the worst set, could be better.

[Lord-Vorahk]

I like him. Sure, when I get him, he's going to be "borrowing" Furno's limbs, and I'm going to be calling him Jaller (Dat Arthron-looking-mask, dat story role, dat size), but still.

[Rayskull]

The colors are super striking, I'll probably get him.

[Rayskull]

I remember someone saying POF is shorted in parts, I'm thinking that Lego may balance part use over the whole line, meaning some sets may have more and others have less to balance it. Especially when you compare POF with POI

Edited November 23, 2014 by Rayskull

[One Very Agile Cat]

Great review, but this is probably the weakest Protector. The arms are awful and the weapons are cheap. No thought looks like it was put into either. :(

[Aanchir]

Great review, but this is probably the weakest Protector. The arms are awful and the weapons are cheap. No thought looks like it was put into either. :(

I think this has less to do with lack of thought and more to do with lack of budget. It's not like adding another joint to his arms would have required any real thought — if the budget had been there, it would be a no-brainer, especially since the Protector of Fire is one of just two sets that lacks forearms. As for the weapons, they're definitely much smaller than the weapons of other Protector sets, but you do have to keep in mind that all together, his two swords and shoulder-mounted blaster use 25 parts all together, barely any fewer than the Protector of Jungle's 28-piece weapon. If the designers had given the set just one weapon, it probably would not seem nearly as small and pitiful — but it would have also have made the set's weapons considerably less unique.

[Shakar]

Everyone is saying he needs lower arms, but I actually think he needs upper arms instead. His legs in the set and the Fire villagers in the animated episodes follow that thin (just a single bone) upper limbs+bulky (bone+shell) lower limbs style, which looks very cool IMO:

The limb issue aside, the biggest flaw of the set are the weapons, which look somewhat unimaginative compared to those of the other 5. As for the rest? He looks very nice IMO, the wide shoulders look is something new for Fire characters (Tahu is pretty wide too, and I like it!), the shoulder mounted cannon looks great and the colour scheme really pops out. Not perfect out-of-the-box, but one of my favourite Protectors in terms of overall look.

[Rayskull]

Everyone is saying he needs lower arms, but I actually think he needs upper arms instead. His legs in the set and the Fire villagers in the animated episodes follow that thin (just a single bone) upper limbs+bulky (bone+shell) lower limbs style, which looks very cool IMO:

The limb issue aside, the biggest flaw of the set are the weapons, which look somewhat unimaginative compared to those of the other 5. As for the rest? He looks very nice IMO, the wide shoulders look is something new for Fire characters (Tahu is pretty wide too, and I like it!), the shoulder mounted cannon looks great and the colour scheme really pops out. Not perfect out-of-the-box, but one of my favourite Protectors in terms of overall look.

I agree with this assessment.

[Logan McOwen]

Gonna be the first to say this, but I really dig the weapons. They remind me of the whips the baddie in Iron Man 2 wields. The piddly arms are a let down, however.

[bjj8383]

I've always loved any trans-orange pieces.

[Bigger Fish]

I'm beginning to think that those "fire swords" are supposed to be more like flip-out flame claws or fire tonfa.

[Crabster]

This is a good bionicle set, but protector of fire needs longer arms and another fire swords.

This protector needs upgrade.

[Crescent Rain]

The chest build of the PoF looks like it's only saving grace to me. Dude's weapons and elbows are a mess.

[One Very Agile Cat]

The chest build of the PoF looks like it's only saving grace to me. Dude's weapons and elbows are a mess.

That's just it, what elbows?

Yeah, he deffinitely needs new arms all around. Then again adding upper arms shouldn't be hard, but I kind of wish I had an idea of what to do with the weapon situation.