Bionicle 2016 Story Discussion & Rumors

[Aethersprite]

Multiple Umaraks (with the purple ribcage arms and shadow trap hands) spring out from the ground - seems like Umarak can summon these apparitions of himself rather than transform his hands into shadow traps.

[Fulcrumfan91]

I can't tell from the Toa voices...but Gali I kinda hoped would have a deeper voice (that's mostly my Mask of Light Gali bias), while Ekimu and Makuta's voices are great for me.

[arc]

So akida can fly? Neat.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Since the main feature of the beasts is the jaw, and the shadow traps also have the biting function, what if:

The beasts are the shadow traps mutated by the green slime?

[Dorek]

Multiple Umaraks (with the purple ribcage arms and shadow trap hands) spring out from the ground - seems like Umarak can summon these apparitions of himself rather than transform his hands into shadow traps.

Given the particular voiceover at the time ("He's using the elements against us!") maybe we'll see other Umarak-ites based on different elements? These ones come from the earth and take obvious inspiration from Onua, so maybe we'll see combos with Tahu, etc.

Either way, I hope they release some official building instructions, even if it seems easy enough to mod yourself.

[ToaDraco]

Given the particular voiceover at the time ("He's using the elements against us!") maybe we'll see other Umarak-ites based on different elements? These ones come from the earth and take obvious inspiration from Onua, so maybe we'll see combos with Tahu, etc.

Either way, I hope they release some official building instructions, even if it seems easy enough to mod yourself.

That's probably where the design came from to begin with. I'd bet we get some combiner models in the Club magazine and online at some point. I like the voices so far, well except Umarak's but it might grow on me with time.

On a side note, just finished Revenge of the Skull Spiders and it was quite good. I like the new characters and creatures that have been brought into the books and the descriptions of the Protectors' 'mad skillz' particularly Vizuna, lends itself to some great mental imagery. Also

So given the ending, does this mean Vizuna and Korgot are now being shipped? I also really liked that the villagers are making a pilgrimage to the City of the Mask Makers to be rebuilt and repopulated, a la Metru Nui.

[Zorglorfian]

I posted some images to imgur regarding the Netflix Special.

http://imgur.com/a/uTkXY

Hope you like them! :)

[Fulcrumfan91]

I must say....Journey to One was very enjoyable. Can't wait for the next episodes!

[ToaDraco]

That was awesome! I like all of the characters' voices, they fit them very well and their personalities shown through and the voice acting was top notch. However, I'm still not sold on Umarak's voice. I do like that even though he is serving Makuta, he's in it for himself and doesn't revere Makuta but sees him as more of an equal, considering he is far more ancient than Makuta. I really liked Narmoto's narration of previous events, very similar to Vakama. That, and his voice was pretty cool. The writing, I think, was actually pretty decent and it feels a lot like the first few years of G1 with the sense of mystery and wonder and the exaggerated speech. The character models all look awesome The music is also superb as is the action and animation. The way the Toa control their elements is very Avatar-like, which is cool. Umarak's shadow powers are pretty sweet too. I can't wait until June for the second half of the series!

The only criticisms I really have are I think the transitions from scene to scene could have been better and everything felt rushed, but that of course is due to the short length of screen time. Hopefully, If we get a series next year, it will be much longer to better fill out the story.

Edited March 4, 2016 by ToaDraco

[Fulcrumfan91]

The music was also superb as was the action and animation. I can't wait until June for the second half of the series!

The music was amazing!!!

[TheBrickPal]

I'm going to be watching The Journey to One when I get home from school in a little over an hour. After that, you guys can expect a review of the first two episodes on Brickset, written by me!

[Bigger Fish]

I honestly really enjoyed the series so far. I liked that the prologue used the 2015 webisodes to explain last year's storyline, that was a nice touch. I liked the art and animation even though there were times that I could tell that they were working on tight budget. The voice acting was pretty good despite the occasional awkward delivery. Though Gali sounded a bit too "valley girl" to me but was otherwise pretty good. The humor pleasantly surprised me a lot considering the rather painful attempts at jokes in previous LEGO works, I liked that it was mostly dialogue based and dry with the occasional slapstick thrown in for good measure. It moved along at a very nice clip and Umarak was a pretty neat villain. I also got a very Transformers-ish vibe from it, especially from Makuta's (Megatron) and Umarak's (Starscream) voices. I also liked a lot of the little details like the Toa's crystals activating and powering up plus the Shadow Trap's antics. All in all, probably LEGO's best TV series yet and I look forward to it's conclusion this summer.

[DuckBricks]

Loved Journey to One! I had high hopes but low expectations, but was blown away. It was amazing! The only thing that seemed a bit off was that it seemed like it was a "season 2" of an already existing show, and we were very abruptly introduced to the characters, even with the intro. I'd rather we started off with 2015 as the first episode and then went from there... But it was still pretty awesome.

If anything, it made me think Ketar was cute and lovable, which is a tremendous accomplishment...

Edited March 4, 2016 by legozebra

[xboxtravis7992]

Meh... Wasn't a fan of Journey to One. Forgettable dialogue. Bad pacing; and not a lot of world building. The animation and voices were okay.

The story just felt like the stuff I came up with as a kid in 2001 when Bionicle just came out... I was half expecting a giant kids hand to pick up the Toa and write their dialogue.

What I did like though was the last 30 seconds with Umarak and Makuta; that was cool direction; but 30 seconds didn't save the hour and a half for me.

[Dr_Chronos]

Pros:

-Excellent animation, this includes the models, effects, backgrounds, colors, etc.

-The Prolouge was a nice way to bring viewers up to to speed.

-Basic but good plot.

-Balances show time for each Toa.

-Average voice acting depending on the character.

-Heavy hinting toward the Toa's origin.

-It was funny.

-Headcanon idea of Pohatu going after Umarak for Ketar turned true.

Cons:

-Lackluster pacing. While there were time constraints I do feel the pacing could have been greatly improved, specifically the second half of the second episode and the first half of the third episode.

-Average to cheesy to sometimes even uncharactisc dialogue. Kopaka and Pohatu suffer from this.

-The dialogue. Why need I say it twice? Because it is one of the largest cons I have and it really bogs down the experience. The word choice and repetition, how exposition was revealed, and how the unity "lesson" was crammed into five lines too many.

-The hinting on how the Toa were related to the maze was nice, but where it really falls short is the much needed explanation on how they relate to the creatures.

Overall I enjoyed JtO for the most part, but I feel it could have been much better. I had set my expectations low so it exceeded them, but in the end I can't say I was fully satisfied. I would (but didn't) rate it as 3/5.

[Bigger Fish]

Hey, can anyone here read Japanese? I'm curious as to whom the Japanese voice cast for JtO is.

[TheBrickPal]

Here you go, guys! http://brickset.com/article/19690/bionicle-the-journey-to-one-review

Edited March 5, 2016 by Puffle Pal26

[Mandate]

Atrocious writing.

Cinematography needs work, but is acceptable.

Worldbuilding is nonexistant.

Voice acting is lackluster

Animations are acceptable, but need more attention to detail. Background characters either stay static or move their heads in random directions.

Messages are heavy-handed, forced, and suffer a lack of elegance in their portrayal.

Characters swap between personalities regularly, consistency should always take priority in a story even if it means all characters become one-dimensional templates. Or at the very least make the character give a nod or something to the character that normally would have said it.

The fights are both pretty and well executed.

Overall plot is highly disjointed.

Environments are mostly good, but there locations such as the Labyrinth have a complete lack of originality.

I've heard worse music.

Overall, I actually enjoyed it probably for the action scenes, pretty spectacles and the way they used Umarak's powers. The prologue was more painful than I could have thought, the usage of just the animations with new narration was absolutely awful and a waste of potential. I would have rather seen them do a second series of minisodes than this.

[Voxovan]

*snip*

Lol I know it's all a matter of opinion, but I pretty much disagree with all you said there. Atrocious writing? It was pretty good for a kids' show, on par with old Bionicle movies and way better than TLR or last year animations. Nonexistant wordbuilding? The scenes with the Toa searching for the Creatures in their Regions was good enough for me, sure, not the best, but far from nonexistent. Lackluster voice acting? Other than the awkward pauses between dialogue in some scenes I find it decent, especially from such little known actors. I don't have any problems with messages the show was trying to give to the kids, it was all about unity and working together, which was well integrated in the story with that Pohatu arc.

And I really don't know which characters were swapping between personalities? Pretty much all of them retained their character traits from last year's animation (Tahu was still the hot-headed one, Lewa was still the funny one, Pohatu the grumpy one etc. etc.), one difference was that Onua wasn't as dumb as he was last year, but hey, that's how he's supposed to be, right? Disjointed plot? The Toa had to find the Creatures in order to go to the Labyrinth in order to find Mask of Control in order to destroy it and prevent Makuta from awakening. Makes perfect sense to me. And wow, Labyrinth of Control lacked originality? Sure, it wasn't the most UNIQUE place in the universe, but I've never seen a labyrinth with giant levitating cubes going all crazy in different directions before.

And funny that you say that, the prologue was in my opinion the best thing out of all episodes. The way Narmoto was telling the story, the way the scenes and music were put together made the 2015 story feel way more epic than it actually was, and the prologue was much better than the animations themselves.

I know this may seem like I'm mindlessly defending the show, but I really enjoyed it (which was also surprising for me, I had pretty high expectations but given my experiences with other Lego shows I knew I might as well be disappointed) and most of the flaws people find seem like it's complaining for the sake of complaining, or because "it's not muh bonkle". Sure, it had its flaws, but compared to other Lego shows which are one of the most cheesy and cringey ones I've seen, I'd say JtO blew them out of the water, even if it was far from perfect. Keep in my mind it is a kids show, we can't judge it as a series for teenagers or young adults, who aren't the main Lego target demogaphic. There are some shows that may appeal more for teenagers than young kids (my best examples would be Transformers Prime or Wakfu, not even mentioning many Japanese animations) but those are rarities in these days and given today's standarts, I'd say JtO did its job pretty well.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Voxovan

[MrHerofan]

Journey to One was alright.

The main thing that bothered me were the awkward pauses between dialogue. Now the show itself was okay, but it really could have used a few more episodes to flesh things out. T

Now the largest grip I have with is how the Toa got their new powers. Like Ekimu just made them this new stuff, because........ I understand the masks, but why everything else. Now I know it is because of the toys, but as a story thing it could have used more time.

The voices were okay, but really I could have gone with out the whole robotic thing.

Overall I thought, it was okay, there were neat ideas, that with a larger show could have been something great.

[Dorek]

Finally managed to watch it. I'll post a more in-depth summary of my thoughts later, but I really liked it.

Also, is anybody getting a kind of... sinister vibe from Ekimu? Just the way he talks makes me think he's up to something. I doubt that's really the case (and it would be super cheesy if he were really Makuta in disguise or something) but he sounds less like a wise master and more like he's got an agenda that he's not telling everybody.

[ToaDraco]

Finally managed to watch it. I'll post a more in-depth summary of my thoughts later, but I really liked it.

Also, is anybody getting a kind of... sinister vibe from Ekimu? Just the way he talks makes me think he's up to something. I doubt that's really the case (and it would be super cheesy if he were really Makuta in disguise or something) but he sounds less like a wise master and more like he's got an agenda that he's not telling everybody.

Well in Revenge of the Skull spiders, it was revealed that Ekimu was granted a vision of the future from the mask of time eons ago, hence why me made the masks of power and hid them across the island, he saw the vision of his brother's turn to the dark side. He's been planning counter measures to fight Makuta at every turn, despite not knowing his brother's plan. In short, he does have an agenda. Defeat Makuta's evil and return Okoto to its golden age.

In regards to JtO, I thought it was pretty good. Obviously it wasn't as in depth or 'big' as we all would like but I feel some people had their expectations too high or something. It was exactly what I was expecting, though I thought the voice acting and writing was good. I didn't have high hopes there. I didn't mind the voice modulation at all and I actually liked it a lot. I think if they had the chance to make this into a full 13 episode season, we could have had much better pacing, character, and world building.

Atrocious writing.

Cinematography needs work, but is acceptable.

Worldbuilding is nonexistant.

Voice acting is lackluster

Animations are acceptable, but need more attention to detail. Background characters either stay static or move their heads in random directions.

Messages are heavy-handed, forced, and suffer a lack of elegance in their portrayal.

Characters swap between personalities regularly, consistency should always take priority in a story even if it means all characters become one-dimensional templates. Or at the very least make the character give a nod or something to the character that normally would have said it.

The fights are both pretty and well executed.

Overall plot is highly disjointed.

Environments are mostly good, but there locations such as the Labyrinth have a complete lack of originality.

I've heard worse music.

Overall, I actually enjoyed it probably for the action scenes, pretty spectacles and the way they used Umarak's powers. The prologue was more painful than I could have thought, the usage of just the animations with new narration was absolutely awful and a waste of potential. I would have rather seen them do a second series of minisodes than this.

Worldbuilding? There really wasn't much time to worldbuild, heck there was barely enough time to do the general synopsis for this half of the year's story so I don't know what you were expecting there. The voice acting was pretty good, on par with other LEGO programming at least. The music was great and very reminiscent of early G1 and the animations were very good I thought, a bit slow at certain points, sure but overall very nice. The plot was disjointed, I'll give you that one. I don't get what you mean by 'characters swapping personalities' as each one, except maybe Kopaka, had a clear personality. Kopaka was the only one who seemed a tad disjointed. I disagree that the Labyrinth was 'unorignial' I though it was pretty cool, though I have seen something similar in Star Wars The Clone Wars, God of War III and Hulk and the Agents of .S.M.A.S.H. I disagree with many of your points but I agree it certainly wasn't perfect or ideal. I'm just not sure what you were expecting. I tempered my expectations to the likely budget, time constraints and general direction of G2. Heck, I'm just happy this even got made and that we get 2 more later in the year. Maybe next year we'll get more than 4 episodes so the story can be better fleshed out. As much as I would love this to be a series with as much effort, budget and screen time as Ninjago, it's just not realistically gonna happen. Edited March 5, 2016 by ToaDraco

[Still Raindrop]

I have to say, I loved Onua. He was everything I had hoped he would be.

[Dorek]

Well in Revenge of the Skull spiders, it was revealed that Ekimu was granted a vision of the future from the mask of time eons ago, hence why me made the masks of power and hid them across the island, he saw the vision of his brother's turn to the dark side. He's been planning counter measures to fight Makuta at every turn, despite not knowing his brother's plan. In short, he does have an agenda. Defeat Makuta's evil and return Okoto to its golden age.

Right, but that much he's shared openly. His mannerisms and subtle ways of holding information back made me think that there's something greater at play. More specifically, when he talks about destroying the Mask of Control, it sounds incongruous; he's willing to do exactly what Makuta literally just tried to do to him. I didn't expect that from the so-called "Wise Master". I'm probably imagining most of it, but it's the impression I got from the delivery of the lines. #ekimubigbad2018

Anyway, as for JTO itself, I really liked it. The delivery of the lines is a little stilted on occasion, but it works out for the most part. The voice modulation wasn't nearly as obtrusive either.

Umarak himself was a mixed bag, but primarily in terms his relationship to Makuta. He says he doesn't answer to Makuta in one scene, then in the next he's bowing on one knee. I could get false subservience, but the dialogue compared to the body language doesn't convey that. Similarly at the end when Umarak puts on the mask, Makuta is monologing at the time, so you can't quite tell if Umarak is putting it on to spite Makuta, or if if he's being compelled to do so. Rest of the time though, Umarak was a total bamf.

Animation was gorgeous, and the painterly backgrounds juxtaposed well with the 3D models.

Plot was serviceable. A bit predictable, but at the same time, since it's our first real taste, it told it efficiently and accurately enough. Pacing was all over the place, but I think they took their time with the important stuff. Kopaka's fight with Melum felt cut off though, which is a shame since they seemed the most at odds with each other.

Character dynamics were solid, in particular the way the Toa all had different encounters with the creatures, which reflected their own personalities and the creatures'.

If I ever get around to doing a text review for BS01, these points will all come up in some form, but I enjoyed it. Worth the hype, even if I wish we had gotten more episodes.

[MrHerofan]

Oh did any one else notice that when the toa were saying to their creatures, "I'm ready." that Pohatu didn't say anything, like the animation was there, but his words were not.

I agree with Umarak's relation with Makuta. It seemed "fuzzy", like the writing team tried two different, but similar things, and contradictions happened.

Ekimu did seem weird to me though. Like in the books and animations, he had a form of comedy and logic to him, but here he seems "rude". Like he didn't even mention Narmoto by his name, he just said "You there!".