Wrinkledlion X

2006 was largely new pieces as well. And yeah, I'm hoping 2009 brings some simplicity and... Ambiguity. We know it takes place over about a month, so there's probably a lot of room for the imagination to fill it in- Especially given that we have relatively little story. Just comics, one book, and a movie. That's more than 2001, but it's still a small enough amount for it to work.

Also the background noises from the Charred Forest. And the wind-sound effects from the Toa Mata CD-Rom.

That was awesome! Tony Wedgewood is as good a narrator as the 2001 guy! And that blog is very alarming... I'm glad to see Onua okay, though... DiD wasn't great, but still it was interesting to see Makuta's new powers. It kind of reminded me of the comic "Nightmare" for some reason, in its tone. But allow me to join in: 2001- A wonderful, mythical feel all around coupled with unique and amusing characters. While I'll admit that there could have been a bit more storyline, I enjoyed having lots of room to imagine things on my own. This is a favorite year of mine. 2002- A bit darker, but still it shared the mythical feel of 2001- There was a whole sense of something going on that no one knew that really made everything very mysterious. We got this feeling from the Telescope and Kini-Nui in 2001, and here we got it from the Bohrok Hives and enormous artificial caverns. Not as good as 2001, but certainly up there. 2003- Though the sets were such thorough clones as to be almost tragic, I did enjoy many aspects of the Bohrok Kal Saga. It was lighter at times, like in 2001, but introduced a new feel in places that I think has only been replicated at all in 2008: Bleakness and despair. In the Templar Animations we saw a lot of this in the fallen Toa (Enhanced by some of the finest of Templar's music, in my opinion, ever). The ending was very rushed, unfortunately, but overall, ignoring the problems with the sets, I thought this had a pretty good feel to it. Now the Rahkshi Saga was interesting for a number of reasons. It featured the shocking return of Makuta- But now he had Rahkshi! At the time I remember everyone thinking of them as a sort of Anti-Toa. Rather than being sons of Mata Nui, they were sons of Makuta, which was an interesting idea. They were obviously a huge leap in set design, as well. Plus the whole Seventh Toa thing was very new. The movie was a bit childish, though, but I enjoyed it. 2004- I've always heard people complain about it being too science-fictiony, but I've never really felt that way. It certainly was closer to sci-fi than the years before it, but really it never seemed that bad to me in this respect. There was still a lot of legend and myth and such (Particularly in the Great Temple) and I thought it was all pretty cool. Plus it featured Dume's Soviet-style takeover, which I still think is pretty cool. Probably a favorite of mine. 2005- There's no ignoring the drop in quality here, because it's pretty big. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense (Spiders that mutate their victims into stronger, fiercer forms?) and on many occasions the whole thing seemed like an attempt to cash in on Star Wars Episode 3, what with the whole "Vakama turning evil" thing and the climax in WoS- Even the music sounded like it was from Star Wars. There were nice parts (Mostly hidden away in the books, but the Rahaga were pretty cool everywhere, and I liked the whole "Follow the tears until they reach the sky" thing.) 2006- The first half of 2006 was awesome. It had charming 2001-esque Matoran characters, a mythical feel (Particularly with Velika's stories), and probably the cleverest premise ever seen in BIONICLE. The whole thing with the Piraka washing up and pretending to be Toa was an awesome perversion of the original storyline, both for the nostalgia and for a sick laugh here and there. It featured great lines, fairly eloquent dialogue, and a bit of mysticism on occasion (Vezok meditating in a temple). The parts that took place in Karzahni were incredibly mythlike and creepy as well. Once the Inika arrived, though, everything was dull. Constant fighting with no depth in the storyline, and it just got so repetitive that I had trouble following it. The first half of 2006 was as cool as 2001 (But with a somewhat different style) and the second half was as bad as 2005. If it had ended halfway through it would be a favorite year of mine, but now it just stands as a reminder of how to botch something that's awesome. 2007- A very uneven year. A fantastic location and a pretty good start with the Barraki sets, but things could've been pulled off a whole lot better. The whole Matoran culture was poorly explained and the characters didn't act as dignified as they should have. Far too much sarcasm and far too many one-liners. Sayger also got lazy here and made everything so dull and repetitive that the comics were practically ruined. Many of this year's problems I'm hesitant to pin on Greg, though, as he did have some big complications regarding the book cancellation, so a lot of the more general errors were beyond his control. The last book and comic were awesome, though, without a doubt. 2008- I think Greg's gotten into the swing of things, because this has been a very strong year. Lots of memorable characters and a generally epic tone. It was great to see the Nuva again and the ending was handled incredibly well- I genuinely felt sorry for the victims and also a bit of happiness for Makuta himself. And the expanded universe stuff has been great this year- Serials, that incredibly surreal kid's book, and pretty much everything. (Admittedly, Dark Mirror was too Sci-Fi for me, but JoT and The Kingdom make up for it.) Probably a favorite. ... And yes, I did that to anger The Dor.

1) Why would the tunnel have needed to be retracted? It doesn't come above the surface of the island. 1. I'm having difficulty explaining what I mean, so allow me to use a diagram. Is the tunnel directly beneath the temple itself a part of the Great Spirit's body (As in diagram A), or is it just a tunnel carved into the stone layer on top, with a hole in the Great Spirit's body at the bottom (As in Diagram B )? If A, I was thinking that the way it would work would be that the tunnel (Really more of a tube in the image) would retract into his body before getting up, and only the pillars surrounding it would collapse- Along with the rest of the landscape grown by his camouflage systems. Then, once he lands somewhere and lies down again, the tube/tunnel comes out and the landscape and pillars are regrown around it. 1) It is a part of his body. Have you read Bink's explanation of what Kini Nui is yet? No one in the OGD has been able to find the explanation, including myself. So are the pillars formed around the tunnel by the camouflage system? That's probably because I didn't publish it yet... it was a conversation I had with Greg. But here it is; I'll also post it in the forums. The Kini Nui was an integral part of Mata Nui’s face, built by the Great Beings, but used more as a “probe” than anything. When he fell over, it was extended to rest on the camouflaged layer of dirt and rock above his face. It kept MN’s consciousness informed of surface conditions and provided a safe route for the Matoran and Toa to access his exterior as needed. If the re-start of Mata Nui had been done in proper sequence, the Kini Nui would’ve been retracted back into its slot on MN’s face. But since the Nuva had to jump-start his heart with the Ignika, non-essential systems were bypassed and it was essentially jettisoned – kind of like the escape tower on the Apollo capsules after they’ve reached escape velocity. - Bink Can it be regrown, though? It seems like it would still be pretty useful. (Also, uh, I kinda liked Kini-Nui... It's rather iconic, so it might be a bit of a loss if it's gone forever...) It would make sense that there was more than one Kini Nui able to be created. - Bink Phew. I was worried there for a second. Good to hear that Kini-Nui's not gone forever.

Bone-hunters.

LEGO hadn't tried to copyright them. LEGO has hardly any names copyrighted besides "BIONICLE." The reason the Maori were angry was because, if I'm not mistaken, their language is a big part of their religion.

I think Tales of the Tohunga is the only fully canon game we've had...

Planetperson. EDIT: Image from 2007, with oddly 2009-esque giant pieces.

These intrigue me.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just intended to show the arrangement.

Strange how they always manage to give the best sets the worst of these pictures.

Here, use this

FOR SHAME BUNDA. HOW I LOATHE YOU.

Super-Super-Fun-Fact: I actually invented the name "Spectral Hau." It's never been referred to as such anywhere else.

1) Probably a couple months 2) No 2a) Yes 3) No, it's gone 4) Well, he is still antidermis, so he can still make kraata the same way he did before, and he knows where all the EP in the universe is now.

Assuming Mata Nui is considered a Glatorian, I say that wherever he steps little vines sprout up. Like in Princess Mononoke.

He keeps the gravity constant.

I wonder is having opposing tribes like this will make the fans all fight each other. Supporters of the Rock Tribe Vs. Supporters of the Jungle Tribe, etc. Lots of flaming and such. I hope. That'd be fun. GO ROCK TRIBE

But Earth is my favorite! Regardless, they're still underground. That's what matters to me.

What does that have to do with my post...?

I hope that those Mata Nui-limbs are all hollow and have empty domes intact on the inside. That would be cool if a village was inside one of them. EDIT: 1) Of the winter sets, probably Malum is most interesting to me as a character 2) There is no "earth" as an element or tribe name next year. Rock is black, sand is tan 3) Really, neither. 4) It's mainly an ad slogan. It's not being used anywhere in story that I know about. It's like "find the power" was back in the early years of the line -- no one ever actually said that. 5-8) Can't discuss

USE GRAMMAR! :O

The glowy thing. Might be an energy-ish creature or something.

I made picture.

I was just about to post those. I love Skrall's mask, and you can see the new head-piece on Malum. Also, these backgrounds are turning out to be as interesting as the Slizers'. What's that little millipede-thing to the right of Tarix's pic? And there are some weird Strakk-esque Glatorian in Strakk's background.