Refia

I kinda liked the chapter. At least Tren Krom didn't go down the "now me having revenge rawr!" route. The irritating is, however, like others have said, that Greg is probably setting him up to die and I would hate to see Tren Krom go. Tuyet, fine, Tren Krom, no.

I have watched the movie a second time now, with headphones on an my second impression is even better than the first. I enjoyed the movie more now than the first time I watched it. The music sounded better now, probably thanks to the headphones. Still, I wished Mata Nui vs Tuma had a slightly better soundtrack... My three complaints remain, minus the first perhaps, but still it was a damn epic movie.

I've see the movie, and it was great. Not fantastic, not excellent, not just good and not average. Just great. Blew the firstthree out of the water, certainly, but I've got three major problems with it, and I was wondering if I was the only one? 1. The music was okay, but it was never good or great. Important moments ddn't have very fitting or epic tracks. Sure, LomN wasn't the greatest, but the music at times was fantstic, same with MoL. Vakama's last vision? Epic music, man. Takua's transformation? Sounded great. But TLR doesn't really have anything that stood out, which dissapointed me a bit. I would have loved a great epic track during Mata Nui vs Tuma. 2. Is it me, or are the Skrall all a bunch of wimps in this one? The Bone Hunters and the traitor are the real menace, while the Skrall seem to be puppets of the traitor, not the fearsome tribe they were in the beginning of 2009. And Tuma, what's up with him? He has about4 minutes of screen time, and he spouts bad lines all the way. This is the Skrall leader that made plans to conquer Bara Magna, the one who ordered the destruction of Atero? Sorry, but no. He was lame. =/ 3. What exactly was the "bigger secret" or the "shocking revelation"? I didn't see or discover anything shocking or big secret. Not even in the secret lab. But aside from those three points, it was a great movie. Characters, except Tuma, were great. Mata Nui was everything I had hoped he would be and the Traitor was a fantastic villain. Berix served as great comic relief and I often found myself chuckling at the moments he and Kiina shared. Ackar did what he had to do. But Click takes the cake. He was, in the end, a great addition to the movie and it wouldn't have been the same without him. Fighting was mostly great, though I found there was no suspense because of the average musical score. Still, a step up from the preious three, for sure! And everything concerning the secret lab of the great beings was great. One of the best scenes of the movie, IMHO. It really will give you the feeling of mystery and secrets. And as others said, this movie totally paves the way for 2010, and I hope 2010 does a 2003, with 2 canister lines of villains so that we can keep the current cast of good guys.

I thought that "They knew who they were designing" was more a reference to the Ignika. If that hadn't been in either of these sets, I'd have a lot more problems accepting it as Mata Nui.

Man, that Krika picture is awesome Front! He was the only Mistika I ever liked and bought. I always thought Keetongu had a bit of a poorly made head and of all 2005 titans I only have Sidorak. But in 2006 I bought all titans, and I loved Brutaka. Your picture does him all the justice he deserves, for he was a great set. And the Glatorian and Glatorian Legends pictures need no praise, they're the greatest Bionicle sets till now anyway.

Ackar: "I was thinking the same thing!" Though 3D Brickthing has a point too. But the Kanohi issue only happened in a level 3 reader, so, no big deal.

I know that, don't worry. ;) But he can't fight very good yet with his awesome sword and you don't see him shooting fancy life energy from his blade, now do you? That's all I meant. But I'm curious, how does he continue to prove himself unobservant and unintelligent? Just wondering.

Okay, I'm sold. I died and came back from the afterlife to post this. SO. AWESOME. Man, how could anybody who calls himself a Bionicle fan NOT love, or at least like, this movie? It completely blows the other three out of the water and in an orbit around the moon. And I don't really get what's so cheesy about the dialogue. I thought the scene between Ackar and Mata Nui was pretty deep. It was touching in a way, to see Mata Nui get called friend for the first time in his 100 000 year life. And I'm fine with the elemental powers, or weapons, we still don't know for sure. It's the only way that they'll believably stand a chance against the Skrall and Bone Hunters. And lol, looks like Mata Nui is the only one who doesn't have any powers or fighting skills yet. He must feel so awful. And I love Kiina, finally a refreshing female character in Bionicle, after all those Toa of Water, or Hahli Mahri's unbelievable character change. As for Gresh having air, well, it's okay. I can't really imagin him firing plant life from his blade. He'd look like a Pokémon. XD

Me likey that. I like the sound of that too.

Then give a good way they can beat the Skrall. If all Glatorian in Atero couldn't do it, a rookie like Mata Nui with three Glatorian and an Agori certainly can't without some extra power. Sad, perhaps, but true. =/

Wow, awesome! So Tuma vs Mata Nui is an Arena fight, maybe after Mata nui is captured (the clip shows that it is possible). Ackar wacks to Bone Hunters' heads together, yay! And obviously now there's gonna be elemental weapons, or powers. Great find!

You know Greg can't make up names on his own, he needs to use approved ones from his list.

You know guys, there's even bigger news: we know the name of a Great Being: Angonce. Curious? Just read the new Empire of the Skrall chapter.

I lol'd at Kiina's discussion with Click. That Scarabax beetle was a great addition to the movie. Nice clip too, Skopio was awesome. Oh, and by the way, there was a story update too. You can now read about the attack on Tajun in the story section. And now we know too when Gresh joins the team.

Hey, now that's not nice to exagerate Bink! :( Not everybody hates the new info of the next year once it comes up. In fact, I seem to remember that the first reactions to the leaks, and later official pics, of the Glatorian were mostly positive.

In theory, the idea of MU characters meeting BM characters is not so bad. The clash of cultures and powers could bring forth some very nice character scenes. The bad thing is Bionicle's story barely has the time to focus on such interesting things as a clash of cultures. It has to be all action and blasters for the kids. Grr. I'm waiting for pics to form an opinion. If the set list is true, well, I'm sure I'll grow to accept, or even like it. If not, well, that suits me just as fine.

Man, sounds good. I really hope the traitor isn't Berix, though. I'm eightteen, but still looking forward to this movie. BTW, Front, have you seen the other three Bionicle films? If so, how would you say The Legend Reborn compares to them?

Hi Eurobricks, today I bring you my first set review ever: a review of the much debated Toa Mata Nui, the titan version of the canister Glatorian Legend. When the pics first showed up, I remember many being horrified or disappointed. But is he really that bad? Is the colour scheme as terrible as it seems? I don't know, but I'll give you my opinion. I apologize in advance if the picture quality is not up snuff, I never did this before. Also, sorry for the size of the photos. The Box The front: We've seen this boxart before: Toa Mata Nui stands with his glorious golden 2008 Ignika in the desert, a big vahki leg behind him and himself, his canister brother and the rest of the Glatorian Legends in the background. It doesn't make sense, that last part, does it? But nevermind, the boxart is crisp, nice and catchy. The scarabax logo is great, in my opinion. Also there is a small add for the new movie. Now let's turn the box around. The back: The back shows Mata nui again, in a different pose, one that looks less good than the one on the front. It shows of Mata Nui's functions, if they can be called that: his hands, thornax and shield pincers. The Glatorian Legends are there too, together with nice pictures of The Legend Reborn. We've all seen them before, but it's still nice. Better than the promo pictures of Legends of Metru Nui on the titan boxes of 2004, in my opinion. Inside the Box What do you find when you open it? Well, this: It's ridiculous, isn't it? Such a huge box, and then only three bags of pieces and two instruction booklets. Speaking of those, why two? It's not as if they would be very thick if they were one book instead of two. I don't get it, but nevermind that. I still think the box is oversized for what's inside it, but ah, who am I? Once you pull it all out of the box, your desk migt look like this: The instruction booklets tell us what each bag is for. Bag one is the torso, bag two the legs and bag three the arms. A random page from the instruction book: The instruction books have the same coverart as the box did, and the images inside are nicely drawn, so no complaint there. It's all standard stuff. Let's move on to the more important matters, shall we? Like, say, the build. The Build Regardless of my dissapointment of what was inside the box (only three bags?), I still looked rather forward to the build. I had watched the instructions online a few days before, and it looked interesting enough in certain places. So, how was it really? Part 1: The Torso You rip open bag one and the parts tumble out. The first part that'll catch your eye is this one: The golden 2008 Ignika. It's wonderful. It's amazing. It's glorious. It's fantastic! It's everything I hoped it would be. I am an Ignika fan. I adore this mask, its cute personality, all of it. A golden 2008 Ignika was a must for my collection, no matter the price. This single piece made the set worth it for me. But that's just me. Now, on to the build of the torso. Like almost every titan set, building Mata Nui begins with it. It's a pleasant surprise that it was fully custom, no Piraka or Inika torso in sight, unlike last year's excellent Takanuva. As you can see, fully custom. Two lower hordika arms serve as the shoulders, a Toa Ignika hand as the neck. A gahlok kal handshield is rather oddly placed in the middle, and that worried me for a while, but it looks fine in the final set. What's not so nice is, as you can see, the flood of blue pins. I remember the days these things were black. They'd look much better black on a yellow set than these blue ones, really. Luckily, the torso armor covers some of them, but not all. It's not that big of a deal, but I can imagine some people disliking it. Next is Toa Mata Nui's life counter. He comes with two of these, and they are in a rather clever and nice way attached to his back. They look much more in place than on say... Tuma. They don't get in the way, at all. That's nice. And the end result of bag 1 looks like this: As you can guess, or see, Toa Mata Nui has a metru head, needed to wear the 2008 golden Ignika. This is not bad at all, really, but what bugs me is the eye colour. LEGO has used blue eye pieces for metru heads before, like in Nuju or Onewa Metru. But Mata Nui has the same neon green as every Toa Nuva last year, or Toa Ignika. Dissapointing. Besides that, Mata Nui has the same double shoulder joints Takanuva and Tuma had. A black av-matoran arm is connected to a grey Hordika neck and attached to the torso. I found it ingenious on Takanuva, and it worked just as well on Tuma and now on Mata Nui. Part 2: The legs So the torso is done and put aside for a while. You rip open bag two and this falls out: What catches your eye almost immediatly are four of these: Four yellow Bitil Wings/Onua Mistika shields. I believe these were on the yellow Jetrax set from last year. Regardless, they're in this set too. If anything, Toa Mata Nui is probably a great set for parts for MOCists. The first thing you begin to build is the foot. Like Takanuva last year, Mata Nui has big feet, needed to support his tall body. The build of them is very like Takanuva's with some differences like the parts. The feet are not symmetrical on their own, and mirror images of each other. There's a keetorange spiked inika feet and two metru feet also in keetorange on each foot. I was rather surprised by the way the Metru feet were attached, and in teh end it all fits nicely together. The only thing that might seem out of place are the silver bohrok eyes. The golden ones like on Brutaka would have made more sense. There's of course the double sockets for the shin to attach to and the piston for support. After the foot is build, work starts on the shin. It's almost identical at first to Takanuva's, save for the colours of course. LEGO has learned from Takanuva 2008 however, and attempted to cover up the holes in his shins, with a golden Inika tigh armour. It's not perfect, because it stands too far off the shin I find, but at least they tried, and that's good. Also, unlike last year's titan Toa, Mata Nui uses a straight black hordika neck unlike Takanuva, who used a white hordika lower arm. The leg pistons are lengthened the same way as Takanuva's were, and have the same problem as his did: why use a 3 plusrod instead of a two? I don't get it, but anyway. The yellow Bitil wings aren't attached till later, making the end result of this part look like this: After the shin we get to the thigh, which is the most refreshing part of building the legs. I found myself rather surprised by how it all fit together, but once it was done and I figured it out, I was very satisfied. Nice job, LEGO! This part is armoured with a keetorange metru foot, and has three sockets. One to connect to the hip and two for the waist pistons. The result is this: So you've got the three parts of the leg build. All that's left is snap them together and connect the leg piston with the thigh and add the yellow bitil wings. After that, you can connect it to the torso. A complete leg looks like this: The legs look very sturdy, bulky and well-armoured. They were a rather nice build, and have three main colours on them. But I'll comment on the colour scheme later. Now, let's move to the last part of building the set. Part 3: The arms When you open this bag and shake the pieces out, you can't help but feel a bit confused or dissapointed. The third bag contains much less pieces than the second, making you fear for the bulkiness and length of the arms: You begin with building the right arm, which is the same as Takanuva's last year, minus the Takadox-head as shoulder armour and the colouring. While it worked on Takanuva thanks to said Baraki head, the arms of Mata Nui can't help but look small, tiny even, and weak, especially when compared to the bulky and sturdy legs. They also seem rather short. Many complain that the canister set's arms are too long, but I feel the titan set sufers from the opposite problem: too short arms. As you can see, nothing new if you have Takanuva from last year. Next are the hands. Many people were excited about these, because of the individual movable fingers. So how do they look and build in real life? And are they really that big of a deal? Well, if you ask me, yes and no. There's no doubt that they are nicely done, and they don't look out of place on a Bionicle set, but the colouring just doesn't work for me. The canister Mata Nui had black arms and yellow hands. The titan set has yellow arms and black fingers. It would have been nicer if it were the other way around, as well as closer to the original. Furthermore, the moving fingers are nice, but they can only bend in the middle, not at the base, and their movement is very stiff. So, you made the arms and the hands. What's left? Mata Nui's weapons, of course. First up is the sword, which you could make blindfolded without ever having seen the instructions. Yes, it is that simple, as about everyone had guessed. It doesn't look bad, on its own, but because this is meant to represent his movie weapon, the handle is a no-no. The scarabax-shield piece should have been silver. It would look much better as a whole, too. The Jaller Mahri sword is as nice and big as ever, so no complaints there. It's about the only thing about the Mahri I ever liked: Jaller's sword. After the sword, you build the left arm and Mata Nui's shield. I'll say it right away, this shield has nothing on the real Scarabax Shield, in my humble opinion. Some complained that Click wasn't much of a shield in the canister set, but in all honesty, the titan shield isn't much better. It's very easy to make, almost as it it were amde with left over parts and features two of this set's 'functions': the Bitil-sword pincers and the thornax launcher. We've all seen the thornax launcher before and made up our mind of them. I personally adore the Thornax launcher. It's an incredible improvement over the Cordak Blaster, Midak Skyblaster and Nynrah Ghostblaster, all of which were ridiculous, oversized, way too bulky and huge and much more negative things. The thornax is simple, small and actually fits on a canister set. It fits on Mata Nui's shield here, too. So no complaints there. As for the Bitil pincers, yeah, they can move a bit. Big deal. They can't touch each other at the tip, so Mata Nui can't grab anything with them. Lastly, a silver bitil wing serves as the foundation of the shield. Eh, I prefer Click. After you've build all that you snap the arms on the shoulders and the black av-matoran arms, add keetorange scarabax shield pieces on the shoulders and voila, you're done building the set. This is the end result: Now, let's judge the end result, shall we? The Set Front: Right side: Left side: Back: At first glance, Toa Mata Nui is a pretty nice set. He has a pretty enjoyable build with some nice twists, he has a golden 2008 Ignika, what is there not to like? Well, because you asked... You see, there's no getting around it: the colour scheme is rather messy. It's not as bad as I had feared, but still. This set would benefit so much from an even colour scheme. Just make all Mata yellow parts keetorange, that would fix so much. Also, there's only four golden pieces in the entire set: the Ignika and three Inika thigh armour. And then I didn't even count the thornax. Furthermore, those arms are just too weak and small. They really needed more bulk. Like, desperately needed them. The scarabax shield pieces on the armour worked as shoulder armour on the canister set, but not so much here. There's a rather big gap between the scarabax pieces and the shoulder. Also, the torso is a little bit on the flat side, and it is gappy. Though it is covered up on the front by the armour, the back reveals all the gappy glory. Unlike Takanuva, Mata Nui doesn't have a well-covered backside. A shame, really. There are some good things about the set too. The way the legs are connected to the torso is ingenious. The two pistons work marvelous, better than the double connection on Tuma and Takanuva, in fact. Tuma couldn't even bend his leg backwards at the hip. Mata Nui can do that no problem. He can bend over or backwards until his torso is in a straight angle with his legs. It really is nice. However, it's also not very pretty. The pistons might prevent the waist from looking hideously thin, it would have been nice if they were covered up a bit. But then again that might hinder the movement. Take your pick. The torso as a whole, however, lacks bulk just as the arms. A shame, for it had some nice custom ideas and elements. The legs aren't free of bad sides, either. Yes, they look nice and bulky, colour scheme aside, but bending them at the knee might be difficult, thanks to the yellow Bitil wings getting in the way a bit. As a whole this set is rather stiff, thanks to the many double or triple connections. And that might hurt playability. I myself don't play with the sets, merely pose them for display, but even posing isn't easy with this set. It's big, sure, bigger than Takanuva thanks to the torso, but it is stiff. Too bad. Comparing the two So we've looked at the finished set from all angles and I told you what I liked and didn't like. Now how does this set compare to its canister counterpart? "Hi there, mini-me!" As you can see, Toa Mata Nui towers over canister Mata Nui. He's twice as tall, but height aside this is clearly the same character. LEGO succeeded in getting that point across, at least, but this is mostly thanks to the Ignika. The vitrivius man, you know? The helmet Ignika can be swallowed by the golden 2008 one, however, as many have pointed out before. Weapon wise, the two sets differ greatly, as Mata Nui has no sword but a thornax and a shield, and Toa Mata Nui has a sword and a shield that's less cool than the Scarabax shield. Colour wise, Mata Nui gives Toa Mata Nui a run for his money, even though Mata Nui doesn't have a golden Ignika. Oh well... I, too, have a sword! Just for fun, I've given Toa Mata Nui's sword to Mata Nui and see how it looked. See for yourself: So, it doesn't really fit, does it? And I don't blame the size, in fact. I blame, again, the colouring of the sword. If it had just been totally silver instead of keetorange+silver, it would look so much better, and would also fit the canister set better. As it is, however, the sword in its current form is not fit for the canister. So yeah, no movie sword for canister Mata Nui. Just give him a Jaller Mahri sword, that would do the trick and look good, too. Final judgement What is there to like? 1. GOLDEN 2008 IGNIKA! It's awesome and wonderful, but... 2. A satisfying build. It took me about an hour and twenty minutes to build this one. Quite nice, but... 3. The hands are kind of neat, but... 4. It has a sword, which the canister set sorely lacks, but... 5. Colour scheme is not as terrible as I feared, but... What is there not to like? 1. ...If you're not an Ignika fan, or don't care for this mask, than this might not please you. 2. ...Quite a bit is repeated from Takanuva. If you don't mind, or don't have Takanuva, than this is no big deal, though. 3. ...They're not really anything special, and the colouring is off. 4. ...The colouring of the sword is not that great, and because of that it doesn't fit the canister set. 5. ...It's not great either. This set would benefit a lot from a consistant colour scheme. 6. The arms and torso aren't bulky enough and suffer from gaps. 7. The shield can't compare to good old Click. 8. The set isn't very mobile, thanks to the many double sockets, it's pretty stiff. So, in the end, should you get this set? It depends. If you don't have Takanuva or don't mind a similar build, don't like vehicles, adore the Ignika and have 50 euros to spare, then by all means, go for it. But if you could care less for the golden Ignika (adorable as it is), despise uneven colouring and don't mind vehicles, then I would have to say just cash out ten euros more and go for Thornatus instead. That set has an even colour scheme, looks like a fun build (I don't have it yet) and actually has a story role. As for me, I don't regret buying this set. The Ignika is wonderful and awesome, and the build was quite fun. It's a nice addition to my collection, but not the greatest set I own. Takanuva 2008 beats it as far as titans go, regardless of Takanuva's boring colour scheme. "Great Spirits for the win!"

Ah, let's not judge too quickly. Let's wait till we see Gresh in motion. As for the screws... What, should they have used spinning plusrods instead? I prefer the spinning screws to the spinning pins, actually. All in all, nothing worth calling the movie (almost) ruined for, imho.

Well, Gresh is standing a bit further away than Mata Nui, so it could just be perspective...

And it should be noted that, even if they gain elemental powers, the Glatorian are not used to them, so they probably won't be able to use it like the Toa did. Personally, I would find it interesting to see how they cope with and learn to handle their new elemental powers should they gain them. Wouldn't it be ironic? Mata Nui having to learn to be powerless, the Glatorian having to learn to be powerful.

Elemental Powers are almost inevitable. Comon, all Glatorian of Bara Magna stood no chance against the Skrall in Atero. Mata Nui now being there, unexperienced as he is, really wouldn't make a difference against the Skrall, unless he can give the Glatorian an edge: either recharge their elemental weapons with the Ignika (Greg said it is possible), give them Toa powers with the Ignika (Greg said it is possible), or master the Ignika and become a Toa of Life (also possible). But without any of that them winning against the Skrall? That's unrealistic and unbelievable, given Atero's fall. What I also like is Berix in the company of Mata Nui's team. I was hoping for an Agori helping along in the fight, and it seems my wish got granted.

Eh, what a weak TLR update... Even for a behind the scenes it revealed next to nothing, nor was it exciting or interesting. And now another week wait for a hopefully better sneak peak. *sigh*

I got Mata Nui for my birthday today, and man does this set rock! It might just be my favourite canister set ever! It's even better in person than I'd thought it would be. Those scarab blades are huge! The colour scheme is perfect, awesome even. Yes, the ankleguard rattle, but hey, when you're like me and you buy the sets for display only, that's no big deal. His long arms don't really bother me nor do they strike me as out of place. I do wish he had the sword instead of thornax launcher, though. And for everybody who said it, I agree: that new Ignika is so incredibly tiny! At least compared to 2008 Ignika. But it looks right on the Mata Nui set and it is still clearly the Ignika, the mask I love so much. For that I'm very grateful. Awesome job with this set LEGO. What's to hate here? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Didn't Nuparu Mahri have no red? Unless you count the Cordak Blaster amo. I don't have any of the Mahri, so I can be mistaken.