BIONICLE Generation 1 Discussion

[Master_Data]

Greg Farshtey just posted on the LMBs that

he doesn't think that the G2 story team wants any connection between G1 and G2.

Thought I'd post that here rather than the 2015 thread so as not to derail the current discussion.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Master_Data

[Logan McOwen]

Good.

[Walter Kovacs]

Good.

I'll second that. I was hoping for some news along those lines.

I'd still love to see the two serials that Greg started get finished someday. I know it will never happen, but a guy can hope, right?

[Logan McOwen]

Got hold of the Tarakava yesterday! Much bigger than I thought they'd be - very imposing. Sadly, they didn't come with the elastic bands, but the punching function still works and is absolutely amazing! Not disappointed with them at all.

[Master_Data]

Not sure how many of you know about this, but Christian Faber has posted some G1 concept art on his blog, Faber Files! This is just a taste of what is to come, as he apparently has a treasure trove of concept art from his days at Advance. Check it out!

[Silent Nomad]

Not sure how many of you know about this, but Christian Faber has posted some G1 concept art on his blog, Faber Files! This is just a taste of what is to come, as he apparently has a treasure trove of concept art from his days at Advance. Check it out!

I actually did know about that. I'm a member of BZPower as well (I'm Toa of the Blazing Inferno over there). I haven't really looked at any of it yet, though.

[Logan McOwen]

[Nick Wolfe]

the voodoo head things are pretty cool, i wish we god some more power functions sets in gen1. and i liked the diverse play features

[Toa Eljay]

I really do believe a lot of fans have taken his work for granted simply due to becoming jaded. I'm sure, as many have surmised previously, it's because of his handling of Bionicle post-cancellation. But gee, the things I've seen good chunks of the community say about him is... I think the word I'd use is bratty. A lot of the folks criticizing him for letting fans take control of the story via rapid fire canonization end up wanting this or that of their own accord (i.e The MU's height). A lot of it does seem to be valid critique, but a lot of it also seems to be incredibly condescending and almost hypocritical, like somehow after years of enjoying Greg's writing they're suddenly against him because a few folks have become very vocal about it over the last 3 or so years.

And then the blaming. I don't think I've seen people before in a fanbase that have been so downright ungrateful to an author because they didn't get their perfect little bio-mechanical world. So they end up blaming pretty much just him, when a very good majority of the decisions made for Bionicle came from a story team. It's incredible.

Granted, I'm sure some people would say that these folks don't owe Greg anything, which is true, but I still find it ridiculous that they've followed a line Greg is partially response for helping exist to begin with and then whine and complain and nitpick every single thing because it's either not realistic or not how they want it.

You could indeed say the exact same thing about the first wave of Gen 1. That's a big part of why so many people like Gen 2—the classic theme drifted a heck of a long way from its simple, iconic beginning.

As for the discussion about Greg, I DO blame him for a lot of the problems with the story (the rest of the story team was focused primarily on "big picture" things like story arcs, so most stuff like the meandering serials, alternate universes, and boneheaded canonizations was on him). At the same time, I recognize that he's NOT a bad writer, that his work for Ninjago, Chima, and even Hero Factory has been stellar, and that one of the biggest faults in his work on Bionicle was a result of him trying too hard to give a temperamental fandom what they wanted instead of what the story actually NEEDED.

Out of curiosity, do you or anyone have a list of the things he's canonized that has detracted from Bionicle and/or hurt the line/story? Post and pre cancellation, of course.

The reason I ask is because it's easy enough for you to make a blanket statement such as that (as many have) in order to push blame on Greg as some sort of scapegoat. I won't deny that Bionicle had many problems, but it's arguably ignorant to claim they're all or mostly his. The height of the MU robot? Where has it been said that was his doing? If I remember correctly, notes claiming it was the height it was were included in Christian Faber's concepts. I may be wrong, so please correct me if I am.

Not to mention, what problems per-say? I ask for a list because what may seem like problems may only be problems to you or a select group of people. It's easier to discuss the semantics of what's an issue and what isn't with a visual list of issues, because then we can figure out if they're actual issues or your own personal tastes.

As far as recent canonizations go, I blame the fan base more than I do Greg. A lot of it has been voted upon and discussed on fan sites, then pitched to him. Why should he have to say no to something that A. The fans want and B. Makes sense? I'm not claiming all of these things do, not am I saying I like them. I'm merely bringing up an argument.

The idea to not to be able to re-enact some of the things in story and get more involved into, therefore buying sets and supporting the existence of the line.One ff these missteps being Klakk, a rare rather ugly polybag is suddenly canonized as an antidote to the whole shadow leech virus, The second greatest plotpoint of 2008.

After cancellation Greg pulled so many new characters in it didn't make any sense the whole dreameating-tentacle-monster-lady is just plain awful idea atop of other loose ends and connection problems. I also really much dislike the idea that the toa got separated, not because it itself is that bad idea but when story came to somewhat conclusion he messed everything up and stopped there. The serials after it's cancellation are now like a plate that still has food on it and no one wants to eat it. I recall the dishwasher(reboot) the right decision.

Considering the Klakk came with... BrickMaster, was it? I'm not 100% sure, but an official Lego catalog. Considering it came with it as opposed to other polybags such as Good Guy, wouldn't one assume it was always meant to be a part of the story? Did he ever say that he thought up and single handedly wrote into the story a plot point such as that?

And if I remember correctly, Sahmad's Tale was actually really well received. Did that change? I'm not honestly sure.

However, yes, all of the serials post-cancellation were Greg's doing, and I know a lot of that has given the fanbase mixed feelings. But what about during the first run of Bionicle? Books? Story? Etc?

Believe me, I couldn't care less about things like the height of the Mata Nui Robot if I tried. It's got it's own gravity inside it—what's the point of even worrying about if the scale is practical?

Canonizations that bother me include things like the stupid, pointless push to get the Toa Mangai's Kanohi matched up with their elements. What purpose does that serve? They're still unnamed characters—the only difference is that now it's harder for fans to put their own spin on them, because now there's less left to the imagination. Similarly, I disliked the choices for color schemes of other elements—most of them color combinations that left little wiggle room and in many cases overlapped with the actual color schemes of characters with different elements. hings like that—and yes, I'd agree that the fans are mostly to blame, but Greg also deserves some of the blame for assuming that the fans who petition him about stupid stuff like that are the only ones who care or matter.

Problems I find with Greg's writing for Bionicle include his predilection for gritty, over-the-top one-liners (especially in 2006 and 2007), his tendency to divert the actual important story with alternate universe shenanigans and other side-stories that, despite being at best tangential to the overarching story, could have big effects on the status quo of beloved characters, and problematic implications such as all Toa of Psionics after Orde being female because the Great Beings wanted them to be "more gentle".

I believe we can agree here for sure. =P

I do agree with you that it limits fan creativity. That's why I'm also opposed to rapid canonization. However, if it fans are actively becoming involved in the community to make it so they're heard by Greg and they're able to contribute in some way to a (supposedly) never changing story, why is that such a bad assumption? I've seen the polls. A lot of people voted in them. An online poll where you had to register to a website in order to be heard. Who else would Greg be listening to? Fan letters in the mail? Postcards? Strobe lights in the sky, signaling the return of the mighty, mysterious, dark and brooding Bat-Greg?

My slightly more realistic and serious point is that I don't feel Greg is in the wrong for listening to active fans online. All the stuff that has recently been canonized has been stuff being polled for. I DO however believe doing all this canonization in the first place is an issue. I think Greg shouldn't be doing it at all. Maybe some few exceptions every once and a while for things that absolutely make sense and contribute, but very rarely even then.

The entire line took a shift like that around 2006 and 2007. I wouldn't exactly pin that solely on Greg either considering all the dark imagery and alt-rock we were being shown around that time.

But regardless, those are you problems with his writing and that's perfectly fine. I personally find that people read too much into and flipped out a bit much over that last one, but aside from that I won't get into it.

I'll say it again, I do not deny Greg had problems and has caused issues for the story. However, I most certainly do not believe he's the sole cause nor majority cause, and I think people oughta think about it some more and realize there was an entire team of people at Lego running the story, and as such they may have had an even larger role in regards to certain aspects than he did.

A conversation we'd been having about Greg Farshtey and his handling of Gen1. Posting it here in case we'd like to continue the conversation in the right topic.

[Lord-Vorahk]

Bat-Greg. Somebody get onto make a minifig of that. Or fanarts. WHatever.

Anyway, I think the problem with Orde is that Greg seems to find it easier to write men than women. So when the poll for the new team voted in two female elements, he quickly made an excuse to gender-flip one of them to make himself comfortable with the team dynamic again. It's worth noting that, while Orde says that the Great Beings intended Ce-Matoran after him to be more gentle due to being female, that's immediately cancelled out by Chiara being a bit of a sociopath. People focus on the Men = Violent, Women = Soft thing so much that they forget that such a belief was immediately proven wrong.

[Dorek]

His gender-flip decision was more made because he had previously identified them as female and, when reminded of that, wanted to adhere to his previous statement, presumably because he actually agreed that the universe needed a better gender balance and didn't want tor retcon that out of existence. It was a ham-fisted explanation, true, but Chiara's (alleged) killing of the lizard was meant as a counterbalance, to show that the Great Being's sexist stereotypes were actually wrong in the first place. Had she perhaps just beat up a couple of Bone Hunters, we might have had less of a problem. Or maybe if they had eaten the lizard for sustenance, or whatever.

That said, this is still a post-cancellation thing; anything pre-cancellation we could maybe hold up as an issue? I feel like the same arguments get recycled a lot, mostly due to enormous (possibly unwarranted) fanrage.

[dviddy]

Pre-cancellation? Greg has two female characters he recycled throughout the entire series: nurturing peace-keeper, and violent/psychotic femme-fatale. The Chiara incident was an incident precisely because his go-to to prove a female character wasn't a sexist stereotype was simply a different sexist stereotype. She was a clear case of the exception proving the rule. Greg's grasp of characterization from previous media incarnations was tenuous at best, and his answer whenever an inconsistency was pointed out was simply to declare huge swaths of previous-established media as non-canon or as "less-canon" than his own writing. For many fans who followed the line in its entirety as it happened this was a pretty big point of contention, considering the giant topics and arguments that used to happen on BZP everytime a new book came out, or each time a serial was updated.

That and I've always felt that Greg got a little overly concerned with his own "fame" as it were on BZP and in the fanbase. He was our voice of god for the series, and the ability to fill out any basic detail he wanted on a whim seemed to be something he enjoyed perhaps too much, especially considering he was an older professional dealing with mostly capricious and testy teenagers and young adults. The original role of existing on fansites to offer clarification and insight into the process behind the scenes was an important and awesome one, and a role I'm very grateful he had. But as it morphed over the years into canonization contests and the monster "Ask Greg" topics, it feels like the story became an unweildy mess of disparate characterizations and random details and asides that did little to further the main story, and often wasted time that the main story almost required in order to make sense. As my dear Chir brothers have said, the whole alternate universe shenanigans did nothing but burden the story with bizarre what-ifs and allow for a more grimdark and violent overtones Greg's other non-LEGO work generally veers into.

His writing style certainly was serviceable for what it was, kid's books that offered a supplement most consumers would never realize existed. But his lack of plot-planning and foresight led to bizarre story decisions that don't read true to the characters as previously established or the scenarios we'd expect to see from prior story beats.

The whole robot size thing though, that's pure Greg. He chose the number himself, the original concept size had the robot at about the size of continental Europe. Greg needed a number and he chose... poorly.

I think the argument that we should just be happy he did anything at all is... well it's not a great argument. It's not my favourite. It seems to ignore the role of grounded-criticism, and these aren't things that have just sprung up out of the aether in the last several years, many of us have been making these arguments for nearly a decade. Greg does a great job in his main role with the company, and he seems to be a nice guy who really really loves the line, and he gave it his all and I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I also think he handled it poorly and that many of the decisions he made and the writing he gave us were not quality and that they contributed to the decline in quality seen in the last years. Especially his tendency to veer into the more needlessly violent and darker storylines that didn't suit the theme's overall tone whatsoever.

[DraikNova]

What I really don't understand is how he could have more difficulty writing female characters than male ones. Considering that both of the (most common) genders cover the same spectrum of personalities, just with some being more common among one or the other, the difference is practically moot.

[Lord-Vorahk]

Oh hai, welcome back DV.

I actually really liked Dark Mirror and The Kingdom. However, I enjoyed in the same way that I enjoy alternate universe fanfics, more than I do with the actual canon setting. I like the Kingdom mainly for Matoro, though. I liked Dark Mirror because I actually kinda enjoy the whole "Grimdark" thing in fanfics.

I didn't mind the idea that Mata Nui was the same sort of size as Earth, but then again, it does make the internal islands disproportionately huge. Which itself wouldn't be a problem if Toa weren't the same size as slightly tall humans. The real scale issue I have with the MU robot is how it stands so much taller than the prototype. The comics, Mata Nui Saga, and the awesome CGI image from the website made it look like the prototype was about up to MU's shoulder. But then you see the concept artwork of the two together, and Mata Nui's at about waist height on Terry.

I wouldn't call Chiara a psychotic femme fatale, though. She's violent, yes, slightly sociopathic, also yes, but otherwise not so bad.

[The Outsider]

And then the blaming. I don't think I've seen people before in a fanbase that have been so downright ungrateful to an author because they didn't get their perfect little bio-mechanical world. So they end up blaming pretty much just him, when a very good majority of the decisions made for Bionicle came from a story team. It's incredible.

You obviously never met the Transformers fanbase...

I didn't mind the idea that Mata Nui was the same sort of size as Earth, but then again, it does make the internal islands disproportionately huge. Which itself wouldn't be a problem if Toa weren't the same size as slightly tall humans. The real scale issue I have with the MU robot is how it stands so much taller than the prototype. The comics, Mata Nui Saga, and the awesome CGI image from the website made it look like the prototype was about up to MU's shoulder. But then you see the concept artwork of the two together, and Mata Nui's at about waist height on Terry.

Actually, the waist-high scale was an early idea that never got used. Much like the MNR being the size of a continent rather than a planet.

As for the scale, my only problem is that it leaves Spherus Magna disproportionately huge. That planet would have to be the size of a gas giant; which, as the name implies, would have to be made of gas and not earth to support so much mass. But then again, it had a fictional sentient substance in its core that could transform things that were destined to transform, so who knows?

Now, to give my two cents about Greg: I actually liked his writing back then, and I especially liked how he kept in touch with the fandom, explaining the workings of that universe and incorporating some of their ideas and opinions. And given how many other companies made choices that have been very poorly accepted or outright hated by their fans in recent years *coughcoughOneMoreDaycoughcoughJoker'sskinnedmask-facecoughcough* , I think the latter is a much needed approach (with some moderation to avoid the issues some of you have mentioned, of course).

He is, however, human, and therefore not without faults. There were a couple of things I disliked about his writing (the "no-romance" rule and the above-mentioned scale issue, especially), and as my reading standards matured I realised a few other weak points (the ever-growing drama-driven death toll, the lack of planning and the ill-written female characters). Still, I'm not going to let that wash away the enjoyment I had when I first read it, but neither will I deny them with nostalgia-tinted glasses: I'll simply accept it as part of my childhood, with its ups and downs, and hope the new story team pulls it better this time.

Edited May 6, 2015 by The Outsider

[Dorek]

Greg's grasp of characterization from previous media incarnations was tenuous at best, and his answer whenever an inconsistency was pointed out was simply to declare huge swaths of previous-established media as non-canon or as "less-canon" than his own writing.

I'm curious as to what these "huge swaths" are; there's the MNOG (which has its OWN problems of being held up as sacrosanct and untouchable by the community) and there's Hapka's novels, which themselves were inconsistent with whatever characterization we had gotten before anyway.

If we want to talk about poor writing for females, that started way before Greg took over as the book writer; every single movie is atrocious in that regard, and that includes TLR, which is the only one he had much input on anyway.

Especially his tendency to veer into the more needlessly violent and darker storylines that didn't suit the theme's overall tone whatsoever.

This seems more like a nostalgia-based argument, since the "overall tone" you're describing is basically whatever was in the MNOG. The BIONICLE story has always been pretty dark, but it's not until loosening standards that it could necessarily express how dark it actually was; implied violence only carries a violent story so far. Jaller's sacrifice at the end of 2003, for instance, was immediately negated by his deus-ex-machina revival. If we had kept that "tone" through 2007, it would have been a far less compelling quest to revive Mata Nui.

Of course, 2006 was a fair amount of overcorrection on that part, but when the stakes are universal, there have to be consequences for that.

There's plenty Greg has done wrong, but he gets a bum rep for stuff that was often not his total decision, and not enough credit for things that actually were.

[Toa Eljay]

Pre-cancellation? Greg has two female characters he recycled throughout the entire series: nurturing peace-keeper, and violent/psychotic femme-fatale. The Chiara incident was an incident precisely because his go-to to prove a female character wasn't a sexist stereotype was simply a different sexist stereotype. She was a clear case of the exception proving the rule. Greg's grasp of characterization from previous media incarnations was tenuous at best, and his answer whenever an inconsistency was pointed out was simply to declare huge swaths of previous-established media as non-canon or as "less-canon" than his own writing. For many fans who followed the line in its entirety as it happened this was a pretty big point of contention, considering the giant topics and arguments that used to happen on BZP everytime a new book came out, or each time a serial was updated.

I'd actually argue that he didn't have two. I couldn't give you an exact number, but just reading this paragraph reminds me of Hahli and how Greg handled her character. She started out as a rather novice Toa in 2006 and ended up growing as a character throughout and into 2007. In the end, Hahli was neither of the two examples you've given here, and Greg did a lot of writing for her and is one of my favorite examples when it comes to actual character growth in Bionicle. The other examples are Gali who shared the peace-keeper role with Onua on the Toa Mata/Nuva team, Gaaki who was never a major character but also wasn't either of those things (as far as I can recall), Helryx who also wasn't either two tropes but just tough from age and burden, and then yes, the psychopath Chiara.

(Edit: Giving it some more thought, from what I can remember Nokama did fit the sole peace-keeper role, so yeah. I may be misremembering though, but I'm not sure either way)

(Edit #2: Also forgot about Tuyet, who'd certainly fit into the psychopath role. Then there is also Krahka, but I dunno if she fits into this argument whatsoever)

It's honestly been a while since I've sifted through the female character traits, so I may bee totally and completely wrong about every single thing I just said, so feel free to and please correct me if need be.

In regards to the incident, however, I remember a bunch of people claiming Greg was sexist through his writing of the Great Being's reason for making all other Toa of Psionics female in order to be calmer. I do wish to ask, out of all the characters to write himself through, why would it be the Great Beings? They've shown up all of however many times, barely given speaking roles, and are often not characterized. It just seems like an odd choice if the folks objecting to it were right.

For a fair amount of the time books came out, I was on the BZP forums reading feedback, primarily during 07 and 08. Can't say I remember any of these things, but I doubt that'd matter anyways.

That and I've always felt that Greg got a little overly concerned with his own "fame" as it were on BZP and in the fanbase. He was our voice of god for the series, and the ability to fill out any basic detail he wanted on a whim seemed to be something he enjoyed perhaps too much, especially considering he was an older professional dealing with mostly capricious and testy teenagers and young adults. The original role of existing on fansites to offer clarification and insight into the process behind the scenes was an important and awesome one, and a role I'm very grateful he had. But as it morphed over the years into canonization contests and the monster "Ask Greg" topics, it feels like the story became an unweildy mess of disparate characterizations and random details and asides that did little to further the main story, and often wasted time that the main story almost required in order to make sense. As my dear Chir brothers have said, the whole alternate universe shenanigans did nothing but burden the story with bizarre what-ifs and allow for a more grimdark and violent overtones Greg's other non-LEGO work generally veers into.

Honestly, I really doubt he's concerned with his own fame as opposed to us being so. This rapid canonization stuff is rather recent, starting at least around the time Bionicle ended. Before 2009, the majority of the time that things became affected-canon due to fan interaction is because The Lego Group or Greg himself came to the fanbase and presented them with the opportunity to do so. This page lists most if not all the contests that were held regarding the story and canonizations. Maybe I'm out of the loop and Greg asked those fan sites to host said contests, or the sites broached him about the subject. I dunno. All I know regarding this is what I'm able to read and hear.

Also, I feel it's really pointless to tear about the alternate universes. So we got some alternate realities, so what? How many times did they affect the actual main story? Dark Mirror didn't. The Kingdom gave Takanuva his weapons, but otherwise it didn't do anything. Vezon bouncing around did pretty much nothing. The alternate reality with Light Teridax got rid of a character that didn't show up outside of the serials anyways, and brought over into the main universe a character that was set up to do something but didn't. I'm not defending the serials, per-say, but I am saying that the Alternate Universes were pointless and unnecessary to enjoy the over-all story. But that doesn't mean they're the worst thing Greg has ever done, and there is very little point in lumping them in. Maybe they did take time away from the main universe, but I can't think of many examples. To be fair, 09 and 10 were handled very poorly entirely, so in that regard you may be absolutely right.

The whole robot size thing though, that's pure Greg. He chose the number himself, the original concept size had the robot at about the size of continental Europe. Greg needed a number and he chose... poorly.

Says who? I'm seriously asking. I've heard about the debates and the arguments, but I haven't found/seen the quote from Greg saying he picked the height. Chances are I'm missing it, which is why I'm asking.

I think the argument that we should just be happy he did anything at all is... well it's not a great argument. It's not my favourite. It seems to ignore the role of grounded-criticism, and these aren't things that have just sprung up out of the aether in the last several years, many of us have been making these arguments for nearly a decade. Greg does a great job in his main role with the company, and he seems to be a nice guy who really really loves the line, and he gave it his all and I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I also think he handled it poorly and that many of the decisions he made and the writing he gave us were not quality and that they contributed to the decline in quality seen in the last years. Especially his tendency to veer into the more needlessly violent and darker storylines that didn't suit the theme's overall tone whatsoever.

You know, I agree. I'm happy he was a part of it all, and gave fans a chance to interact. And he certainly is not without flaws or issues or things that have caused Bionicle to fail to living up to it's potential. But I do believe that he is given a lot more flak that he certainly doesn't deserve. That's not to say don't criticize him, of course, but I'll be first to give him the benefit of the doubt before condemning him. But maybe it's just because I don't know quite as much about the developmental process that was taken over the years, and I'm lacking some important information. If so, I'm looking forward to learning about it.

Er, long story short Greg's a person who does person things writing about not persons while everyone wants them to be persons. Does that work? =P

Edited May 6, 2015 by Toa Eljay

[Lord-Vorahk]

In terms of the whole "Greg can only write women as Team Moms and Femme Fatales, what about: Helryx, Annona, Gorast, Gavla, Kiina, Krahka, Hahli, Macku, Dalu, and Gaaki,

Dalu even has this line: "Right, I'm sure where you came from, Ga-Matoran are all gentle peacemakers who never raise their voices. That's what they ... we ... were like where I came from too. But I have news for you, sister — this isn’t Metru Nui. We don’t have time to be polite. It's fight, or end up like them."

Sorry about the links, not sure how to remove them.

Edited May 9, 2015 by Lord-Vorahk

[MakutaOfWar]

What about Lariska?

[mysteriouspi]

Not commenting about how the BIONICLE ladies were written (since I don't remember), but I do wish there hadn't been rules about "this element is this gender;" that horribly limited the number of female Toa and Matoran we met. I find a five-to-one ratio of guys and gals to be oddly disproportionate.

Now about the giant robots, since I ducked out at the beginning of 2008: how tall was the original Mata Nui robot? And the prototype robot compared to it? It sounds like they were very oversized, the way you're talking about them.

[Lord-Vorahk]

What about Lariska?

Well, she was a Femme Fatale, in a sense (Which is probably why she's often depicted as a Vortixx, or at least resembles one, in MOCs/art, despite never having been shown to be one). It's even none-to=subtely suggested that Nidhiki is attracted toher in Birth of a Dark Hunter (Yet another thing that comes across as awkward after Greg dumped romance for no reason).

Not commenting about how the BIONICLE ladies were written (since I don't remember), but I do wish there hadn't been rules about "this element is this gender;" that horribly limited the number of female Toa and Matoran we met. I find a five-to-one ratio of guys and gals to be oddly disproportionate.

Now about the giant robots, since I ducked out at the beginning of 2008: how tall was the original Mata Nui robot? And the prototype robot compared to it? It sounds like they were very oversized, the way you're talking about them.

The Mata Nui Robot was, canonically, 40,000,000 feet tall. THe prototype seemed to be about up to its shoulder, but not as bulky- it was much slimmer in build. You could probably make some reasonable to-scale MOCs by putting a Mata Head on an Inika torso and a 2015 head and Metru or CCBS limbs on a Mata torso.

As an aside, looking at the render of the GSR, its hands are level with its knees, and its torso is fairly short. I think it's pretty safe to say that OG Bonkles are supposed to have long arms. Never understood why BZP always harped on that, when it was obviously a deliberate design choice.

Edited May 9, 2015 by Lord-Vorahk

[One Very Agile Cat]

Bionicle's Toa and other larger humanoids always seemed to have the same proportions as, like, the Gorillaz and certain anime styles. I always assumed it was deliberate as well.

[MakutaOfWar]

^Like the oversized Glatorian hands? XD

[One Very Agile Cat]

^Like the oversized Glatorian hands? XD

They're not oversized for the Glatorian, though.

The whole bit of using those socket connectors as hands looked weirder and weirder as the sets got bigger.

[MakutaOfWar]

They look larger with the use of some limbs, namely the Metru leg, but with others such as the Vahki leg and Inika leg they seem to be evenly proportioned. Not that the larger look is unattractive or anything.