Dorek

The Hero Pack again? Huh. Guess they didn't get rid of as many as they wanted to? Hopefully Kulta's mask will be December.

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Wow, those head moulds... are pretty terrible. But hey, at least the villains are cool.

Oho, very cool, a teaser from next month's mag? Wonder how they managed to get that. I'm definitely looking forward to Umurak, he seems like a worthy BIONICLE villain.

Finalized covers for both Revenge of the Skull Spiders and the activity book are up. Slightly different than each of their prelim covers, although nothing much else is new.

Oho, didn't expect some concept art for the contest. I dig it. Little lo-res, though, wonder why.

Didn't we know the graphic novel releases then? Or does something else release on that day too? I know we've seen that date before.

I do appreciate you keeping everything here, including the Star Wars stuff. It's a bit of a different population sometimes, but I think it works best if we're centralized. Although I gotta say, I'm not a huge fan of the split story/sets topics. Sometimes it works well enough, other times it really doesn't; considering how interwoven everything is, at least at this point, it gets a bit fragmenting to have to read both topics, and there's a lot of overlap between the two. Just my opinion.

Right, I definitely don't see this as any sort of crossover proof. It just happened to ignite a recurring dialogue that I'm getting pretty tired with. The similarities we've seen ARE the acknowledgement of the previous generation; paying respect without being slavishly beholden. Does make me wonder if those Nuva symbols we saw in the concept art were actually teasers for 2016, or if the use in the new sets just evolved from them. I was kinda hoping Umarak would have been named "Barraki" or "Piraka" or something along those lines; a "he said the thing!" moment for older fans, while still being a serviceable name for a new character. But Umarak is cool too =P.

Maybe Umurak isn't allied with Makuta in the beginning, but then after they meet, he gets upgraded to "the destroyer"? I wouldn't mind if he's independent, but I don't want Makuta to sit out a whole year, especially since his mask seems to be involved. Despite how much I loved 2002, I did have a slight issue with it based on the fact that the Bohrok came out of nowhere, and was later glad to see how they tied into the whole mythology. So I'd like for Makuta to have something to do with the story, even if it's arguing with Umurak over possession of his mask. Yes and no? Star Trek could easily have gone south. Look at what happened with the new Terminator; a quasi-soft-reboot involving convoluted mechanics already established. Didn't work out so well. I'm not a Trekkie, so I'll defer judgment on that =P. But doesn't that mean they had to ignore certain universe mechanics in order to craft this new story? Kids won't care at all, since they won't care about the old story in any way (again, not an absolute truth, I'm just speaking in terms of the audience that BIONICLE is aimed at, which is set-buying kids). But people who understand the old story (the intended recipients of this linking, no?) would definitely view it differently. Both the time travel statement and the prime universe statement predate the Ask Greg topic and are very much part of the canon. The idea of time travel is as old as the Vahi itself, and the sorting out of divergency in the AU's was actually something I asked about =P. You think they're in the majority? That sounds more like something you'd have to prove. Poll it! It all boils down to "who's your audience". With the new Trek movie, it was an assorted subsection of old fans who were happy to see the series back regardless and new fans who had a vague understanding of the themes and characters through absorbed pop culture. BIONICLE has already successfully re-introduced itself to a new audience (as well as an old one, but again, they aren't the targets) without relying on the previous continuity. So who would connecting these universes be for? Vezon, for instance, is kind of a bad example. Would old fans find it cute? Maybe. Would that really entice the younger audience if they were to look it up? "Hey, that guy seems funny, where was he from? Oh... he was a murdering schizophrenic psychopath... um... and he can travel dimensions because he's fused to a mask of power? Wait, they aren't called masks of power, they're called Kanohi?" Whether or not the majority of the old fans want to see the universes connected (a dubious claim, but I'll wait until I see some numbers), they aren't the target. They're the audience that STOPPED buying toys and eventually fell out of love with the story because it collapsed on itself. Not to mention they're fragmented anyway! I love seeing the term "genwunners" because they weren't uniform even when Gen1 was still a thing. It's not worth LEGO's time and effort to try and satisfy a subsection of a subsection of the population, especially since it can't be a guaranteed crowd pleaser no matter what they do. This is why a reboot was the best, and really, only choice. It's take it or leave it; the only thing holding you back from enjoying it is yourself.

Different fanbase, different beast. Not to mention that for them, the AU concept is "new", as I understand it. Also I never really got the comparisons to other franchises that rebooted; I think Transformers is probably the most apt, but then I was never a huge fan there, so I might be misinterpreting it. But various reboots we see do have the dual balance of appeasing old fans (or at least, not pissing them off) while attracting new audiences. LEGO's goal isn't so divided; their metric for success is sales and buzz. These new sets are inspired by the ones that made people get into the franchise in the first place, but that's not the same as targeting the people who will purchase out of nostalgia, and I've seen the two conflated before. In BIONICLE's case, it does; the alternate universes were established as having branched off from the "prime" universe that the majority of the G1 canon takes place in. You can do AU stories where such a thing doesn't matter (Marvel just introduces universes haphazardly, while DC keeps it tight), but for G1, that's the rules we were given. And people very much care about G1 and its rules, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. Well, maybe, but that's sort of beside the point. He is the one that made up a lot of the weird rules (including the prime universe thing), so presumably the new story team would consult him if they were going to attempt such a connection. Otherwise, they might risk retconning some or a lot of things (another reason to avoid it entirely!). I have no idea of a percentage (my assumption is that it's a minority, or if not a minority, then a non-set purchasing portion), but you need only to go to some of the early facebook posts on the new BIONICLE page to see people asking for a connection. As for time and resources, as Aanchir mentioned above, there's a lot of questions that would need to be answered; obviously he thinks there's a more simplistic way to do it, but I'm of the opinion that no matter what, there's no satisfying way of acknowledging a connection without delving back into the whys, which just breed more whys, and take away focus from the current story. Or it could be unanswered, which I consider unsatisfying on multiple levels, and I'm assuming a large portion of the people asking for said connection wouldn't be satisfied with it either, despite what they say.

Any connection at all would be entirely self-defeating. Nothing has changed from when they made the declaration that the two canons were separate back at NYCC. Linking the two would only A. Alienate people who preferred them separate, and B. introduce a whole can of worms that can't and won't be explained. G1 already blew its load on the whole alternate universe thing. By calling G2 an alternate universe, they'd be acknowledging G1 as the "prime", which is a terrible marketing move. Not to mention that who's going to explain the actual connection? Greg doesn't write for BIONICLE anymore, and I'm pretty sure they don't want to go back to him (and continue to not pay him regardless) for the sole purpose of this weird fan-fictiony connection a minority segment is asking for. Without explicit and detailed confirmation (and even then), people are just going to keep pressing for more and more, and they know that; it's a rabbit hole they have neither the time nor the resources to devote to. We're going to get G1 references. That's inevitable. But I certainly don't look forward to having this conversation over and over for the next 2+ years.

Not saying it isn't Mata Nui at all; it clearly is, or at least the same shape. And we have the actual Nuva symbols (well, "officially" rather than just as Easter eggs - or would they have been teasers?), so they're not above reusing the same designs from G1. But the Mask of Creation has, presumably, had a finalized render for a while now (since before 2015), so to see Mata Nui there is not that surprising. Not to mention even on "finalized" things (note that this is leaked, and we haven't seen the version intended for consumers yet) you can still get placeholder elements; remember Dark Destiny?

Oh my god you guys they use the Ignika as a logo, G1 and G2 must be connected! Oh, sorry, I thought this was 2014. My bad.

Shame he gets his butt kicked in less time than all the other skull villains. That concept work is amaaaaaaazing.

I caved and got Vader and Greivous. You'll probably see my thoughts on Vader in review form, but overall he's okay. I liked the torso construction, since it's super dense and well layered, but the gangly limbs tend to work against it (and the armor tends to clash, especially around the shoulders). Greivous, however, is just plain fantastic. Perhaps a little under-armored, but a real joy to build, and with a final result that looks good and is fun to play with. This is the kind of titan I hope we get in BIONICLE.

Right, and if it can go both ways, does it really matter? It's like the Kopaka mask; no it wasn't power drained in the story. Is that what it WOULD have looked like? Yup. Is that a canon representation of the power-drained Golden Mask of Ice? Yes. Again, it's one of those things people are going to have to roll with, because that type of thing isn't going to change any time soon (and really, is one of the recurring complaints of G1 in the first place!).

I think people should probably steel themselves more more incidences like those things. Not to say there isn't a "canon", but it's not beholden to the micromanaging that accompanied Gen 1. Do these things exist? Sure. Do we see them? No. Do we really NEED to see them? Also no.

So Andrew Jeffers is the narrator, according to the episode credits. A little digging yields this guy, presumably the same one. I liked his delivery, personally. He did a pretty good job of varying 8+ main characters.

Loving the GN cover; not quite what I had imagined, but definitely the kind of art style I think the series needs. Episode was great, too. A good day for stuff.

Right, I'm saying that people develop an opinion based on something not finalized and then don't update said opinions based on new information. On the flip side, you also have the idea that you can't necessarily know what a set is like until you build it (which makes reviewing a challenge) but I do understand that we're not all made of money. Keeping an open mind is the key.

My point is that they don't. Plenty of people here might (or at least, they say they do, which is a different issue altogether) but there's certainly a percentage at large that doesn't buy the sets based on their initial presumptions. Haha, I didn't even notice that it said "reboot". Yeah, it happens every year, for many years now.

5.5) People post observations of said behavior hoping that things will change 5.6) Things don't change also #9 is where the biggest issue is; people straight up don't buy the sets sometimes because of whatever weird preconceived notions they develop. It all gets to be rather tiresome, really.

Breakout, Brain Attack, and IfB all had the summer sets, despite airing in spring, so I imagine that these four will be the entire year's story. The books and other supplementary material will fill in the cracks.

Yeah, Betteker's stuff is cool. I was actually not a huge fan of the Hero Factory IfB art, but the BIONICLE series he's done is exactly what I wanted out of his art style. The Jungle stuff is neat; not necessarily the huge trees you'd expect, but a nice quiet oasis. Also waterfalls. And I guess no video; probably Monday, since that's when the Youtube channel tends to update.