dviddy
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Everything posted by dviddy
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I mean, "truck prime" is basically his name in Japan. Add in "Lion Prime", "Big Prime," etc....
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First of all, how dare you. Ready for these to show up in the US, the review set I've got just isn't slicing it.
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I'm still going to hazard that there is nothing accurate in either rumor.
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Note that even 2005 was only in some markets. The weird villains in one part of the world and heroes in the other that year was the only reason this happened.
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Bionicle Skull Villain Alternate Builds
dviddy replied to TheOneVeyronian's topic in LEGO Action Figures
I have to say, I'm weirdly surprised to be as in agreement with Scott as I am. I didn't expect the trans-orange to be as important to the look of these as it is. The missing orange feels weirdly off on these, even though they are, for the most part, simple and clean changes I can get down with. Looking forward to my review copies arriving soon. -
I'd be much more disappointed had it been real. That looks awful.
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He (like the team before him) says very succinctly "it's a reboot not a continuation" which should really be all that is necessary. His quote you're bringing up here says "well we didn't change them that much, so it's not weird that people assumed they were the same. And while we might bring actual items or things from the first line, as it's the foundation, you'll definitely see inspiration and homages from it." Which is all stuff we already knew.
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I mean it's great that the sole single source for the theory finally put something out saying they were wrong, but the panel at NYCC in October said it was a reboot and I'm still stumped that people thought that wasn't enough. Regardless it's good to finally move forward from that avenue.
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Old Bionicle parts you'd want to see brought back for Gen 2?
dviddy replied to Takanuinuva's topic in LEGO Action Figures
This part forever. Otherwise I'm pretty set, to be honest. -
The bolded part is precisely my point. Greg wasted time and effort on poorly-written and unnecessary side adventures that not only affected the main storyline by one time giving Takanuva a new weapon (that could have simply been picked up anywhere, it's not like the story ever made the weaponry all that important), but basically just gave him an outlet to make all these dark and morbid side universes where he could be more "mature" with his storytelling. I have a very strong criticism of Greg's insistence on taking the story to a place where "random deaths for shock value" equals "mature and edgy storytelling". The two are conflated too often and are not synonymous. Greg's non-LEGO work, if you ever get a chance to read it, is full of "zingy" one-liners and gratuitous "shocking" deaths. I don't like the forced attempts to bring that into BIONICLE where it was a tonal mismatch. MNOG, we'd had three films, by 2006 we'd had five years of comics, three years of books, etc. It's not just the MNOG or the Bohrok animations (which paired the "our entire island is being destroyed and we're losing our homes" with well-written character moments and even humour, to boot). While I'm sure we'd all agree that the MoL film was too light, let's not pretend there was no tone to the series. I would also quibble with the assumption that grave stakes require a darker mood- several other brands make heavy use of world-shattering stakes and still make fun and enjoyable films that balance the pathos with humour and intelligence (Marvel or Star Wars both come to mind). As Greg gained more control over the story he veered closer and closer to the "grimdark" (I know you hate that word but it is what it is, and it's the perfect term for Greg's tonal shift in latter years) trope. A complete misunderstanding of how a "dark and gritty" take on a series works and when to use it. The new Daredevil television show is dark and gritty and it works because of the stories it tells, and because it doesn't labor under the pretension that "grim and dark" is "how the world actually is". Whereas the newest Superman movie attempts to adopt the Nolan Batman film tone and falls flat because that tone fundamentally missed the characters it's talking about. Helryx is the overly-violent "anti-caregiver", as is Annona, Gorast, Dalu, and Gavla. The rest are stereotypical "bring the group together/peacemaker" characters. Macku, Hahli, and Kiina have the added bonus of existing in most of their characterization as a potential love interest as well, regardless of the "no romance" angle. I don't have anywhere near the time to do it, but you could pick out-of-context dialogue snippets from almost any of those characters in the same column and assign them to another from that same column and it not feel out of place. That's a problem.
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Well then. I'm actively and actually surprised by this and now I need one. Here's hoping it sees some sort of release elsewhere. The orange one did, and while the clear one was just a NYCC exclusive, it was an exclusive for two NYCC events... Man I just want that mask.
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Pre-cancellation? Greg has two female characters he recycled throughout the entire series: nurturing peace-keeper, and violent/psychotic femme-fatale. The Chiara incident was an incident precisely because his go-to to prove a female character wasn't a sexist stereotype was simply a different sexist stereotype. She was a clear case of the exception proving the rule. Greg's grasp of characterization from previous media incarnations was tenuous at best, and his answer whenever an inconsistency was pointed out was simply to declare huge swaths of previous-established media as non-canon or as "less-canon" than his own writing. For many fans who followed the line in its entirety as it happened this was a pretty big point of contention, considering the giant topics and arguments that used to happen on BZP everytime a new book came out, or each time a serial was updated. That and I've always felt that Greg got a little overly concerned with his own "fame" as it were on BZP and in the fanbase. He was our voice of god for the series, and the ability to fill out any basic detail he wanted on a whim seemed to be something he enjoyed perhaps too much, especially considering he was an older professional dealing with mostly capricious and testy teenagers and young adults. The original role of existing on fansites to offer clarification and insight into the process behind the scenes was an important and awesome one, and a role I'm very grateful he had. But as it morphed over the years into canonization contests and the monster "Ask Greg" topics, it feels like the story became an unweildy mess of disparate characterizations and random details and asides that did little to further the main story, and often wasted time that the main story almost required in order to make sense. As my dear Chir brothers have said, the whole alternate universe shenanigans did nothing but burden the story with bizarre what-ifs and allow for a more grimdark and violent overtones Greg's other non-LEGO work generally veers into. His writing style certainly was serviceable for what it was, kid's books that offered a supplement most consumers would never realize existed. But his lack of plot-planning and foresight led to bizarre story decisions that don't read true to the characters as previously established or the scenarios we'd expect to see from prior story beats. The whole robot size thing though, that's pure Greg. He chose the number himself, the original concept size had the robot at about the size of continental Europe. Greg needed a number and he chose... poorly. I think the argument that we should just be happy he did anything at all is... well it's not a great argument. It's not my favourite. It seems to ignore the role of grounded-criticism, and these aren't things that have just sprung up out of the aether in the last several years, many of us have been making these arguments for nearly a decade. Greg does a great job in his main role with the company, and he seems to be a nice guy who really really loves the line, and he gave it his all and I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I also think he handled it poorly and that many of the decisions he made and the writing he gave us were not quality and that they contributed to the decline in quality seen in the last years. Especially his tendency to veer into the more needlessly violent and darker storylines that didn't suit the theme's overall tone whatsoever.
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As far as I'm concerned, as others have decided to talk for/about me (?), this is pretty much where we've reached a pretty stable accord.
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I am well aware of the constraction MOCing world and its reliance on cluttered and visually clashy G1-style technic heavy builds. You don't have to tell me about it again! I've been in it since the beginning. ;)
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Which is the only part that was customized on the "more complex" sets from the Inika area you mentioned. ;)
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Chillax bruh. People are so tied to their opinions that they take any moment of pushback as some sort of personal feud. You have an opinion I disagree with, and of course I think mine is better, it's why I hold mine and not yours. That's how opinions work. It's not personal dude. But the "it looks drawn simply" is still pushing the fact that you have no idea how much went into these, and you're simply saying that because you don't like them. That's not fair to those who worked on them, and the panel at NYCC and talking with the artists at the event showcases the time, effort, and passion they put into these. You don't like the style- you don't have to. But you're making unfair criticisms and those aren't okay. I've got friends who make careers out of drawing comics, and looking at the time they put into drawing things like these Toa? It's not some simple click-and-go thing. Say you don't like them, and that's fine. You don't have to! Don't be a jerk about it. Claim your interests and opinions on actual merits, not by degenerating the work others put into something. If you have criticisms, that's cool! Criticisms are cool. It's how things get better. From the beginning all I said was that while you don't like them and I'm cool with that, it wasn't fair to say they are cheap or not quality. As for the budget, considering the line has eight solid gold masks, has had two massive worldwide competitions so far, had the entirety of the NYCC booth dedicated to it, has novels, a graphic novel, continuous video updates in several different arenas, shirts, two separate promotional masks, etc... The line isn't hurting for budget. The animations and art style were developed simultaneously with the new theme, they are purposefully linked. The style was designed purposefully to be stylized, but also reminiscent of the MNOG. It seems to be working well for most fans online, but it's cool if it's not your thing. A similar blowup happened in the TF fandom with TF:A, but then the show ended up being one of the tightest, best-written, most consistent TF cartoon ever. Or Zelda: Wind Waker. Society has this built in idea that cartoons are for kids, and that art in cartoonish style is somehow cheaper, lazier, or amateur because it "isn't realistic", when that's part of the point behind it.
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The new torso piece is nothing but pin holes. TECHNIC pinholes. The possibilities with both systems are as open as you let them be.
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In all honesty, while part of me would love names for them, I'm also pretty fond of the headcanon that by accepting the role of "Protector of ____" they forsake their previous identity entirely. So they wouldn't have names, because their role is their identity entirely. Sort of like how the Pope chooses a name and as far as the Catholic Church canon considers it, the previous person name is gone, and the person is now solely "Pope so-and-so". History has a few other traditions where the office becomes the identity, and fiction is full of it. IDK, I'm pretty torn on this. It'd be cool to give them the names of the old Turaga (I much prefer this to the "give them the names of the Chronicler's company or the Inika/Mahri" idea), but at the same time, the whole "you take this mantle, all of who you are is gone, and you are the office" is also very cool and mythical feeling to me.
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I've seen people saying this on a few forums now... How is this particularly true? Both have interchangeable limb lengths, both have multiple feet molds, several head designs, and different attachments. But the CCBS base parts have more connection points than the Inika style builds, and the shells can be connected in eight different configurations on one beam with just the socket connection (not to mention the connections that open up when utilizing the minifig ports) whereas the Inika armours and others could generally connect via a pin or axle in four configurations without the introduction of a socket connector that had axle holes on the sides, and that part was fragile and limited, and had the same problem as the other, just swapped to the side. Having two parts with the exact same connection points, same length, that serve the same purpose, a la the variety of different leg molds used for lower legs in BIONICLE's run isn't really "more customizable". Not to mention all the different add-on parts CCBS has introduced allow for a similar swapping with CCBS. This argument just doesn't make any sense, and doesn't particularly ring true at all. If anything, the old system was more limiting, relying on brand new molds in order to introduce different connections.
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I mean, they were pretty clearly tracings, with that one panel of Kopaka being line-by-line an Iron Man tracing... No, cheap isn't a fair term, because you're using it to disparage an entire style simply because you don't like it, and at the expense of the hard work of others who put time and effort and skill into something using their skillsets. You also have zero knowledge of the marketing or design budget (none of us do, outside of one flippant off-hand, uncorroborated report from a toyfair stating the new line has a "small budget" when all marketing moments point otherwise). You have no idea how much they cost, how many hours went into them, etc. The "they aren't up to my standards" thing is fine- that's your view, but your standards are sub-par to me, the early G1 comics don't hold up, the linework is abysmal, the colouring often wrong, the overly-old and scratched and faded and also super reflective look runs counter to my personal tastes and reminds me of the terrible Transformers comics from Dreamwave. I'm not into that. It's fine that you are- but that's subjective. There are objective qualities to subject art criticism too- "it looks cheap to me" isn't one. If you'd like to use actual artistic criticisms, let's do it. I've taken art classes most of my life, including classes focused on art criticism in both traditional mediums (paint, pencil, etc) and photographic ones. We can talk colour theory, use of lines, etc. But I feel like you're probably not interested in that, since most of your replies to most of these topics consist of "I wish this was like G1". :/ Feel free to air opinions, I don't know why so many people have this belief that airing one on a public forum for something means their opinion shouldn't be countered. You said something, people disagree, so they say so. Don't get upset when people utilize the same media form you're using to disagree with you. That's part of what an open forum was designed for.
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Since we'll be paying for it, I agree, we should get something quality. So I hope it's nothing like the often quick and shoddy artwork we got with the Gen 1 comics, which were free, after all. I want it to be something better than that, since we're basing an arbitrary concept of quality on how much something costs. The new style is brilliant, and it's dismissive and rude of you to say it's cheap and not quality when people have worked very hard on this, and a less realistic art style says nothing about quality or work that goes into something. I have friends who do caricature work for a living- it takes just as much, if not more, work to create something that is cartoonish, yet represents reality in an exaggerated manner as it does to create something that looks life like. And if the more set-accurate style was what "most fans want", it is what we would have gotten, as these things are all very heavily focus tested first. You're more than welcome not to like it- I didn't much like Sayger's artwork for BIONICLE (though his "real" comic art is fantastic and he's one of the nicest people I've ever met at a comic convention), but that's not to say he's not talented and that his contributions weren't quality. There's merit in saying you don't enjoy something- there's very little in saying it's not quality or cheap when you have little understanding of the work that went in behind the scenes or the talent utilized therein.
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What I'm saying is that it's not TLG "clearly violating their own TOS and rules". IF (and they did) clarify that entries are only counted on a week-by-week basis, than technically they can argue that each week is a brand new competition, with each week consisting of "new" winners because it's an entirely "new" set of entrants. So when they say "you can enter multiple times but only win once", it reads to me like "you can enter multiple times [during a week] but only win once [during that week]". So a member can't win the Stone and Fire categories each week, but theoretically as each week is a new set of entrants, separate from the past weeks', you could theoretically win the fire one week and the stone the next week. It's a bit of an Obi-Wan style "from a certain point of view" but it's most likely legally defensible and what they intended, considering all the posts about "weekly winners" and whatnot (which I and many others took to mean each week's entries were separate, because it doesn't quite make sense to keep adding to your workload each week when you've already decided a group of them aren't worth winning one week.) I've voiced most of my complaints about the MOC contest before, even on here, but some of my complaints or criticisms aren't airable because of my NDA role. It is what it is.
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If the entry period is reset each week, then the person has won two different competitions, and nothing has been violated. And since they have clarified the entry process, which again, seemed intuitive and implied, the awarding of to prizes for two seperate competitions violates no policy. I'm all for fairness, and I have my own complaints about prior competitions such as the gold mask moc contest, but this incessant complaining about this contest, limited by social media constraints, seems a tad over the top, IMO.
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I thought it was pretty clear from the beginning that entries were only per week. I also don't see anything against a person winning twice either, so while maybe unlikely, it doesn't seem wrong. Obviously YMMV, but neither seems like a reason to rage.
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The temple of Time and the Mask of Time being used to summon the Toa are indeed confirmed plot points. Several different media mentions of both, and the temple of Time was in a slide at NYCC too. Now, the mask of time being used to summon the Toa doesn't entirely mean they were summoned through time, just that the power of the mask was what summoned them. Semantics, but important semantics.