Kalta the Noble Mind

cant agree more with this. for one thing with contests the story team can have a specific "problem" in the plot with its own requirements which allow them to integrate the fan submitted "solution" seamlessly into the narrative leading to a more cohesive product. i recall the "shrug of god" answers gregF gave for fan theories made the story more convoluted due to them just being made arbitrarily. also was it just me or did the ask greg sessions stir up greater controversy as people kept asking touchy subjects like romance/reproduction in the MU and who created the Galactic universe outside of the great spirit robot ie the cosmos?

Vehicles and other in scale props like official mask Shrines or weapons rack. in lieu of that maybe 2006-7 type playsets using the ingenious Invasion from below minifigures and more intriguing integration of system and technic for gimmicks. if not those i want something overtly mechanical or artifical like the vahki or Bohrok. maybe these new enemies can be 4 legged drones akin to the VNOLG nektahn or mazeka's swamp strider. could possibly make up a theme of power,with the Skull warriors being eldrich magic Umarak harnessing gaian nature and this hypothetical 3rd year being technological prowess. essentially more mech in the BIOlogical chroNICLE. or something.

i went to a barns and noble last week and they had no trace of bionicle at all with the only constraction being star wars. and this barns and noble had nearly half a floor dedicated to toys both collectibles and kid's playthings. so does barns and noble not carry bionicle anymore?

is it just me or was Journy to One going to be the first Netflix exclusive Lego show? since all other shows seem to be on various tv networks. if so coulld it mean we may have more "mature" (plot and drama heavy) tone than ninjago or nexo knights? kind of like how the marvel netflix shows are way more mature and hardcore than the movies and ABC series because the platform allowed such stuff. if i make sense. also is Journy to one done by the same studio as the web episode? cuz it looks like they went back to the original style they wanted for the shorts. paintelry effects and pseudo 3d by way of cel shading.

i noticed there are several errors with the nuva symbols on all toa. off the top of my head Gali's nuva Symbol is upside down on her mask while lewa is missing a big block on the bottom.

the comic art looks...phoned in. it does its job at being sequential art there isn't much life or soul for lack of better terms. the individual villagers look too generic like they were all made from a template and the protectors while having unique and varied designs also come off as being taken off of specific templates. no real character or personality to them. and going by the stylization it looks like they worked off the animations rather than the toys themselves which could explain why they look so template-y: the initial character designs that gave those plastic figures life were just rotely duplicated rather than have the artist work from the source material and breathe their own life into them if i make sense. also the blocky torsos and spindly limbs remind me of those zombie matoran from karzahni http://biosector01.com/wiki/images/4/42/Blue_Pickaxe_Karzahni_Matoran.PNG i loved the comics from Carlos D'Anda and Stuart Sayger since they seemed to go the extra mile and but flair and style where they could. D'Anda kept the details and shapes of the toa but played with the proportions and rendering to make those jumbled hunks of plastic look like plausible beings capable of movement and expression such as thickening their abdomens so they look like they were segmented and moving the the joints to the middle of the limbs so they could support the bodies and plausibly flex. and where he couldn't mess with the design too much he employed artistic license to get the image he wanted. like to get the rigid and iconic kanohi masks to emote he would tilt them foreshort them shade them and perform other rendering techniques that would let him Fudge the expression he wanted. like in one panel he would have Kopaka 's head hang down a bit so the sharply cut 'eyebrow" of his Akaku could angled in a way to make the squinting of a glare and in the next panel would be a closeup that employed a slight fisheye distortion that would warp the same eyebrow into a rounded curve reminiscent of eyes widening in surprise. and in one panel he would cock lewa's head in such a way that emphasized the big grin in his miru further and then give us a worm's eye view curving all those up pointed curves downward turning the gleeful grin into a worried gasp. and he didn't just stop with the characters but the environments too utilizing similar shape and design language in both the natural terrain and artificial constructs of the matoran villages making the characters look like they are part of this universe. the same cuts and bevels seen on the toa's masks and tools were seen in the Kini nui and the suvas and any peg and peg hole seen had the same stylized conical shape reminiscent of the original toa canisters. heck thinking about it now i think he treated the toa matoran and such like any other fictional character, building them from the inside out starting from primitive shapes to more complex shapes to final detail building them from the ground up which is why they felt so functional and realistic. it was like lego made toys of D'Anda's art instead of the other way around. and sayger did all that and more as he not only embellished existing toys he built media only characters from scratch such as the nameless voya-matoran and the odd non descript rahi. and like a proper artist he played to his strengths for the best result rather than force himself to do something he couldn't. so where d"anda integrated the characters into the world with super solid structure and aesthetic Sayger emphasized raw style and implication of detail with his integration. his "sloppy" grimdark edgy style was detailed enough to have the actual characters be recognized as their toy counterparts but was vague and minimalistic enough to fudge more original creations and still make it look like they not only belonged but could actually be actual toys. your brain filled in the missing detail automatically integrating the official lego toys with the purely fictional comic elements. and where D'Anda went to great trouble articulating the rigid kanohi masks to get life and character Sayger embraced the staticness treating them as archetypical icons whose character was inferred by composition and context rather than deliberate rendering. the first matoran we see were original designs meant to look sad and decrepit so the Matoran resistance team's inherent rigid and stoic designs look heroic in contrast, while the Piraka had ugly demonic/trollish maws stick in permanent gritted teeth to emphasize their monstrous demeanor while the Toa inika's more "traditional" looking organic kanohi while still oddly organic and alien were treated like power ranger helmets or so emphasizing their heroic nature. both these artists were real artists using the medium to tell the story in the most efficient yet entertaining way while presenting the fictional world as a plausible reality. i get none of this from this comic. outside of the coloring i feel no integration of the characters and environment. it doesn't look like these biomechanical beings live in this village with huts they built with their own hands they look like aliens who invaded a human village. and the only thing that makes them "alien" is how they are blatantly fictional entities with no detail presenting them as sufficiently advanced robots or armored lifeforms or the canonical middle ground of biomechanical beings. they are just humanoid shapes that have mass and volume and nothing else. and that is just the concerns of their incidental nature! the designs are too static and rigid to give life like D'Anda and they are too generic and blatantly reproduced to have the archetypical iconography like Sayger had done. they are devoid of character! Aanchir was right on the cover art having more character than the interior art. while a tad derivative the artist took the transformers approach of treating their nature as big bulky mecha heroes ready to take on the bad guys. and they employed compositional techniques like shape contrasts to denote character. tahu has a more barrel chested build typical of superheroes while gali if not deliberately meant to be feminine has a more lithe athletic build to compliment Tahu's "muscles" and Onua was made to be the big bulky mighty glacier to compliment his companions' more proportional builds. and while unsure if they align with said characters' personalities they have some character informed by their stances: tahu swings his sword like an RPG knight vanquishing a foe gali poises her trident like a martial artist poising a staff and onua is either bracing for impact or getting ready for clobbering time. at a glance you can tell these characters are both real in terms of physical substance and construction as well as personality and demeanor. none of that is present in the comic. i just hope the Netflix show exercises more imagination and doesn't just transplant the toys into a CG world but take effort and ingenuity to make the island of okoto teaming with biomechanical inhabitance with a culture that told about heroes bringing peace to the land after a great cataclysm hit famous legends.

this reminds me of the CCBS. were the racheted robot arms form Alpha team Mission Deep Sea the original intention of the Lego Beings system? i always felt those racheted joints would have been perfect for advanced Constraction, being sturdy enough for larger figures that could hold more detail, like Christan faber's Cybots with all their brick built greebles.

i want Michael Dorn to voice Onua. he always had this sense of power and wisdom that would have fit Onua in both generations. never understood why they always made the earth toa sound like fantastic Four's the Thing with rough uncouth tough guy demenour. always felt that was more suited for the toa of stone.

is there a filter or reformatting thing going on? cuz regardless of which resolution i click i just get the tiny thumbnail:(

could Dimension hopping Vezon as one year's Big bad be the best way to link the two continuities subtly? to newcomers he will just be one of many villains G2 introduced with a necromancer a hunter and a mad mask maker among them so a dimensional overlord wont be that out of place. if they keep his original eccentric mad personality Vezon can drop hints to G1 as silly quips that denote his universe hopping nature ("so you're this world's Toa of stone eh?" Vezon said to Pohatu. "you're grumpier than the last guy, and what big feet he had!") . casual fans will just see a silly villain while those who love to look up story would be rewarded with secret knowledge as they find out those comments about their favorite Masters were true in an older continuity and it allows the latest continuity to do its own thing as that reality hopper was just one of many baddies in this particular franchise.

http://images.comicbookresources.com/solicits/marvelcomics/200901/RUINS_cov.jpg eh close enough in power/awesomeness.

dont believe i ever gave much thought to imagining Mata Nui pre reveal outside some pondering in the early years like 2001-3 where he was a a generally regal/siantly mechanical humanoid big enough to use two mountains as arm rests for a throne. he's been sleeping upon a giant throne made of mountains. and while i am betting newer memories contaminated those old memories i wanna say i predicted the ground shaking awakening of this Great Spirit. dont think i ever put much thought after that especially during the Ignition saga where mata Nui had a huge role becaus ei figured i'd trust the series. i for sure never suspected a humanoid space station and this idea inspires and intrigues me.

i am unsure how the masks of Creation and Control work but mask of Time is time travel and the Mask of Ultimate Power seems to have all 6 toa elements rolled into one imagine if we have a sort of Infinity War deal where an overarching big bad is looking for such powerful masks to forge into one super mask to take over the world and such. it can be a good way to keep the story going, each year showcases a new legendary mask a bad guy wants to steal and such and in a grand finale they would showcase the MoUP (if sapient) to steal all those legendary masks to become the a great final boss to take down. MoUP can be this generation's Story Engine that way! especially since from what i seen they haven't shown it to have a finalized design unlike MoCr and MoCo making me think it's a purely conceptual plot point like mata nui is. if i am making sense.

combination! 3D animation for the bulk of the content but 2D for storytelling like the retelling of the legend the prophecy and such. the 3d art can be detailed enough to let kids recognize those characters as the toys and the 2d art can be stylized to illustrate the scenes being more or less mythologized happenings as well allow you to abstract some future sets allowing you to not spoil the reveal and add further interest. the mask of Ultimate Power is a good example of the former and the reaction to the mask of Control is an example of the latter. and in my experience the expense of CGI is the computer resources needed to render lighting physics and FX rather than the movement of the characters themselves which are basically easier to control virtual stop-motion puppets. the benefits come from needing to "draw" (create) a character prop or environment once and can be used again and again for any scene. and with proper asset management you can use the same few assets to create new ones in economic modular fashion (which could benefit a franchise made from a building toy). 2D doesn't require extensive rendering or effects to make an animation look good but al the effort goes into the moving of characters themselves. due to being 2d graphics you have to draw the same asset multiple times in the form of keyframes and tweens with i believe most of a budget going into animators themselves keeping all those frames consistent on on model. cutting corners is glaringly obvious as seen in old hanna barbera cartoons and any low end flash animation . both methods can produce masterpieces if utilized right in the right hands but i think studios use CGI all the time is due to long run efficiency where you can just replay old bone animation and a new character can just be a pallet swap. doubly so with the map based rendering technology modern video games are using. though i bet lego will still be doing 2D animation because they still have the studio on retainer . but i can see a wonderful marriage between the two styles, with the current animation’s geometric shapes being made into very simple polygon meshes with the colors/rendering being a pure painterly style texture paint that has built in shading allowing you to run the animation as flat color. also doesn’t Lego itself have a sort of developer’s kit for games and tvshows/DVD movies that consist of pre modeled characters and elements that allow the animators to use as a foundation/platform for the project while keeping aesthetics consistent with the toys?

i forget but is there a Scottish pagan God called the Wild Hunt who is a deer headed humanoid who wields a bow? because if so with those antlers and the woodland color scheme of dark greens browns and black makes me think Umarak was inspired by that mythological figure. if that is the case does it mean the G2 story team is doing the exact opposite of g1 and rather than milking one mythology for inspiration (till they got sued for trying to copyright a forien culture) they are broadening their inspiration to any mythology and fiction out there thus making for a more interesting and intricate world/mythos? also i adore how the trapjaw critters have unique legs:D the earth trapjaw has little unicorn horns for drill legs the jungle trapjaw has viny tentacles stone trapjaw has hero factory minifig arms for its legs etc. for little clone sets they have a surprising amount of character for each flavor:D way better than the skull spiders in my opinion. i love how ominous and alien the mask of Control looks like. with the mask of Creation the pillars and appendages it looked like a cross between a crown and a palace, emminating authority and respectibility. the sharp near throny curves of the MoCo make it look like somethign of malevolence like a demon's face or a hostile alien spaceship:D ooh did the g2 team miss out on a new collectible that homages Bionicle's descendant hero factory: Nuva icons that functioned like hero cores. the blockiness of the symbols fit well with the aztek type motifs Otoko employs and could have been symbols that represent the elements and they could always add more for other elements. and they could be used to denote what faction/element your MoC is part of. if i make sense. overall i am looking forward to 2016 :D

ooh looking forward to Onua's warhammer and Pohatu's mace and chain:D and holy cow does the mask of Control look sly and regal. not so much like a crown like the mask of creation does but something an elected official would wear. or an old timey Lord. wonder if the toa's masks will have new powers.

i bet the they would do the island-as-computer thing like in hitchiker's guide to the galaxy:D due to how the series so far had time as a major element/theme i can smell time based simulation like i dunno see how a civilization develops so they can solve a problem on their end. and the MoUP ends up being such a huge glitch in the system they deploy plan B the masters. Transformers had the earth be the cybertronian god of evil unicron right? would lego be comfortable to have a god figure be a badguy, like a malevolent precurser/creator. this can just be because we are just exiting its very first year but i dont think we saw anything that hints at a supernatural presence that would indicate a sentient place.( i think there was a lot of dialogue talking about mata nui's power and his ties to the MU though). so i dont think we will have any living plane or anything. curious to how fan reaction would be if the inhabitants of otoko were more akin to Glatorians rather than the matoran they were based on. not a created race but cyborgs that transitioned to mechanical forms form a naturally occurring organic life. transhuman Aliens:D since G1 had the inhabitants of the MU be artificial constructs in the first place to have the reveal work. bet a cyborg nature would introduce an atlantis type antient civilization that the islanders once forgot and only two members of that civilization survived to carry on their antient craft...until one got jealous of their brother and did something selfish and unspeakable :P on a tangent i am curious if the story team utlized new plotting techniques that can allow a planned end to be prolongued without seeming clunky or out of place since they did plan for 3 years of story with the conclusion penned out incase they need to end it. and thinking about it is there a way to write for a literal multi media franchise compared to individual media like comics books tv movies games ect. (but i know that is off topic)

in regards to weather we'll have the same Big Story Engine as G1 i personally doubt it not only because how it is old hat/treading the same ground but the whole appeal was how it was the reveal of the very character that started the whole series. it wasnt the cool factor alone of the setting being a humungus mecha all along but the godlike ruler and guardian of these little robot people's legend wasnt just real but true in the most literal sense, mata Nui was their universe. as well as having is devil adversary makuta seem near supernatural throughout the series leading to a great payoff as to how this powerful being took down the supreme being of that world. we already have the catalyst event getting solved this year, with the mata nui analogue not only being awakened but available as a toy and character from here on out. so that is proof they are not gonna go in the same direction as the first series. especially if they planned the series in such a way that it can be wrapped up fully in 2 more years if the line stops selling. if i should hazard a guess to what this series' story engine would be i wanna say it's gonna be this series' Great being analogues. from what i have seen in fiction nearly every mechanical character was explicitly stated or strongly implied to have been the creation of some other race/species/class for whatever reason so maybe this time around instead of merely being the explanation to why we have a giant robot full of robo-villagers the Creators would have a more direct and integral role to the plot. like off the top of my head it wasnt a magic artifact that summoned the masters to Okoto but the Creators directly answering the protectors' call,probably generating said Toa wholecloth just for that instance. could explain how they have no memories since they were just born and how they just so happen to wield the elements Ekimu's premade masks possessed already. heck i can see this tie into the Mask of Ultimate Power being a sentient force capable of destroying the world. the Creators were so shocked at fearful of what makuta has wrought upon the island that they pulled all stops and did what they can to nullify this threat: make a local legend manifest to do what legends do and take down the badguys while instilling hope to a fallen people. it can tie into the series catalyst by bringing back some classic characters. like it is revealed that the toa were just legends brought to life to take down an ultimate evil made by combining everything possible for power they can probably do the flipside and combine their strengths into gestalt beings,one who has the wisdom of heroes and one with the determination/viligance of heroes. Waiura and Akamai in other words. they can be the two good titans that would fight whatever titan the MoUP will come in as the epic final battle. this is all my wild mass guessing though but bottom line i doubt they will reuse the giant robot again.

true true, espeically how arbitrary they are placed in the pic. thoug from what i have seen from what came out in G2 the creative teem loves to pick out the best elements from the old canon and are willing to mash two similar concepts together in great effect. like how the masters seem to be a delightful blend of both their mata and nuva forms, ehkimu and makuta are sendoffs to both mata nui and makuta and artakha and karzahni i think even the protectors were a nice combination of turaga and matoran. so i wont see it as a stretch if those twin moons were a mashup of two of G1's greatest twists/mysteries. like they are physical celestial bodies like during the bara magna saga but they also hint towards the world/setting not being what it seems. like they are actually observatories of their true creators ala great beings on the red star. als now that we have confirmation that these beings are indeed cyborgs/biomechanical i am curious to their reason. like we knew the MU and its inhabitants were just nanites for the great spirit explaining why they are artificial so wonder what the protectors and masters were made for to be artificial.

in regards to the twin moons is this a twofer continuity nod/plot point? i remember the twin suns of metru Nui didn't just denote the alien-ness of this world but hinted at mata nui's true nature with those "suns" being the great spirit's eyes. and in 2009 we learned the three Virtues symbol was actually a map of the damaged spherus magna with bota and aqua magna being bara magna's moons. so can those twin moons hint towards a hidden nature remenicent of the secrets of g1?

http://imgur.com/a/9DzWR small gallery since i only took enough pics to show i have the actual toy. the last 2 images are of the stand. Jangbricks said the way the base is built the holes are too big to hold the nibs in making the mask loose. $50 says this was intentional but never made it into the instructions but i remidied this by using a spare black peg to fill in the original peg holes which now shrink the holes to minifigure handle/rod size which the mask nubs fit perfectly. tried it with my other masks and all seem to have a nice firm sturdy grip. perfect build for displaying masks and i think can fit on the original toa mata suvas so you can display the new masks old school style:D EDIT: also the big axe blade has a springiness to it. unsure of the purpose though.

not to keen on how different stores price things so i cant comment on that. also unsure if the toys are truly out everywhere in the US or due to being a Times Square Tourist trap TRU@NYC gets all the new releases early to rake in more buyers. also kind of disappointed that i had to go to essentially a tucked away back room to find these new bionicle sets. it's where they keep low general interest stuff like the lego ideas sets or $100+ or leftover toys like The lego Movie and Lord of the rings. figured they had the winter wave there because it is the summer and maybe didnt sell as well but the latest releases tucked in that kiosk as well? i remember with G1 where they were basically the crown jewel of the Lego Section where not only did they have dioramas but life size pexiglass statues of that year's prominent set, like the rahkshi of the MoL saga or Toa vakama during the metru Nui saga. wanna attribute that to practicality/cost as it is easier to just print the odd banner to denote a section dedicated to a series than to commission all manner of bells and whistles. i think they even cut out most of the dioramas to have more shelf space and only have i believe a 2 year out of date ninjago diorama remainXD though i personally have no idea what to think of tucking away this remade old favorite like it was excess stock. i know ninjago is now the jewel due to it being the most prominent franchise now (outside of star wars which also has its own diorama now that i think about it) but given how lackluster the winter wave marketing seemed to be it doesnt speak well to me.

my recipt says $29.99 so basically $30. i want to say it is fairly expensive for a titan set but then i remembered it comes with a protector set as well.

i have just bought mask maker vs Skull grinder from Toys r Us in Times Square. i think it means that the summer waves are out now because they also had the scooby doo sets out as well. i shall put pictures up shortly though i dont believe i can give any more new information a si believe jangbricks covered the sets all in good detail.

i am not sure why but i find it amusing that the one female protector has her elemental blaster built into her chest. do hope we will have other female characters of other elements and whatnot though.