Zarkan

Heh, funny, I thought it might have been Whitefang, since he was the one who told me about it, but I suppose I should have expected the obvious and gone with the guy who gives 75% of all the titles on Eurobricks. (j/k) Might as well. Boring Title Gungan - I got this title after commenting in this very topic that my titles were relatively boring compared to some of the more active member's titles.

Gee, I wonder who that was....

Eh? I thought that Toy Story was only going to be system, and Cars was going to be Duplo. Did I miss something?

Actually, I will be moving in about a week, but I'm still in Connecticut at the moment.

Here's a basic summary of the three titles I've gotten in the few years I've been a user here. Gungan Rebel - I got this back when I was a new member and the Tie Army Thread was still going. I got into an argument with Vader about whether my in game character was a Gungan, and he responded by giving me this rather embarassing title. Indy afficionado - Even more embarrasing than my first title, I got this one after demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge about the Indiana Jones movies (although I don't remember who gave it to me). Indy afficionado & Gungan - This title was given to me by Hinckley after I said in the original titles topic how glad I was that I didn't have the title of Gungan Rebel anymore. Overall, a rather boring set of titles, and not nearly as many as some of the busier members around here. Ah great, another user with Imperial in his name. First there was ImperialScouts, then Imperialshadows, and now there's ImperialSvelte. Yay for originality!

Sneak Preview number 4 is easily the best one yet. The animation is simply incredible, and the action shown was more intense than anything from the first three bionicle movies. Plus, the music here seemed a lot better than in the first two clips. Oh, and the very fact that Metus doesn't sound like a character from Spongebob is a great relief. Looks like that kind of voice is just exclusive to Berix, instead of being the general way all Agori speak in the movie.

A few days ago I bought the 2009 Bionicle canister set Tarix, which I feel is a lot better than some of the reviews I've read have made it out to be. I believe that pretty much wraps up my first wave purchases this year - now it's onto the summer wave!

Your photo reminds me a lot of a friend I had in the 6th and 7th grades.

Dunno, but I don't doubt that it could be at least a possibility, since he seems to be a prominent voice artist (he voiced Green Goblin in the new animated spiderman series, for example). At least it fits in with the rest of the cast that TLC has gotten, but I still wouldn't trust it until we get official proof.

This is honestly rather strange to me. You complain about so called "custom" pieces, but since they are official lego pieces, I feel that that's an unfair title. And even if it isn't, where would you draw the line in deciding whether pieces are custom or not? I don't doubt that anyone who said that all pieces since the basic bricks are "custom" would be criticized and even laughed at, because that is simply ridiculous. Your opinion is not anywhere near that extreme, of course, but I feel that calling pieces like the longer arms and shorter legs lazy and cost cutting is rather odd - especially considering that it costs MORE to make new pieces and molds than to reuse old molds. If anything, this shows the exact opposite - that TLC is willing to invest a lot of money into making the new Toy Story line look great and be instantly recognizeable. Oh, and I also disagree about licensed sets de-emphasizing building in general. Lines like Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones have excellent vehicles and buildings in general, and some of the kits are even more complex than the kits in lines like City, Castle, and Space Police. The only time I ever hear the majority of people complain about the build in large kits from any theme are when it is technic heavy or repetitive, and there are tons of kits from both the licensed and non-licensed themes that don't have either of those problems.

I couldn't disagree more. IMO, the Toy Story figures display everything that I've come to expect in lego sets. They're high quality, with lots of detail and fantastic torsos, they're completely compatible with other lego sets and can be taken apart, and they have real charm and are quite cool in their design. Perhaps this is because I have never judged whether something is lego or not based on the style - and perhaps this is why I also support Bionicle. Regardless, I'm really getting tired of people screaming "Megabloks!" every time they see something coming from TLC that isn't exactly like what has come previously. The reason many people view Megabloks so poorly is because their plastics and set and minifig designs are low quality, and becase they de-emphasize buildding and focus totally on playing. In my honest opinion, these Toy Story figures have none of these problems, and if nothing else, they are hardly a threat to the quality of lego at all. And more importantly, as SuvieD said in his post, these figures are showing that TLC is willing to experiment and inovate - something that a lot of members here unfortunately seem to be opposed too. Oh, and personally, it looks like the headgear does detach. I see big gaps between the heads and the rims of the hats, which seems to indicate removeable molds.

I must say that I'm very suprised at all the negative reactions to the Toy Story minfigs. And yet, I think I understand now why so many people are against them: because they're something new. These figures look nothing like any other figures we have ever seen before, and they contain a far greater amount of detail and texture than any previosu minifig designs. Indeed, they are totally different, and may even be quite weird to some people. There's just one problem: this was simply the only way to capture these figures. I think we were all kidding ourselves when we thought that the toy story minfigures would look like other normal figures. The designs of the toys in the movies are simply far too three dimensional and have far too many scale differences, compared to the relatively flat and simple designs of normal minfigures. These new designs are simply a way to keep the personalities of the toy story characters while still allowing them to be lego compatible. Seriously guys, ask youself one question: why do you dislike these figures? If the answer is "because they don't look like any figures that have come before them," then IMO you're being a bit closed minded to new ideas. There's nothing wrong with change as long as it still remains the high quality style of Lego. And as far as I can see, these figures all meet that criteria perfectly. Oh, and the prince of persia minifigs rock as well. Beautiful new torsos and head pieces, and the camel and emu are simply incredible.

Okay, the new movie update was a bit.... unexpected. And unfortunately, unlike the first two clips, it didn't leave me satisfied enough. First off, the first thing that popped into my head when I heard Berix was "Spongebob." The very fact that his voice reminded me of that character can't be good news at all, especially considering that this guy might possibly be the traitor. But seriously, what kind of crap is this? This is almost worse than Jaller from MOL. Then, on a much more positive note, Ackar rocks, and is just as good as Mata Nui, IMO. Very wise sounding, fairly deep and thoughtful - exactly what I thought he should be like. But, things soon take a trip back down through the bad lane, as Kinna is next. And man, is she hyperactive. She sounds more like an excited school girl than a fierce, fiesty warrior, and those yahoo's are really annoying. Not quite as bad as Berix, but far from good. Fortunatley, the clip ends on a good note, as Gresh is pretty decent. Young sounding, as most expected, but still well done. And at least he doesn't sound like he's full of helium or caffeine pills! So, overall, this new clip is the utter definition of a mixed bag, and I'm afraid that the two bad voices alone could sink parts of this movie. Here's hoping that these were just bad clips and not the best possible representations of how these characters will sound.

Eh, what can I say - I'm not really an expert on music or anything. I thought since it obviously wasn't soft rock, then it had to be something else, but all that came to my mind was "hard rock." Even when I said that though, I realized that something wasn't right, because general hard rock is REALLY hard, and Cryoshell is not. Honestly, I dunno if anything will make me like the Titan Mata set. Sure, other sets have looked far better in person than in official artwork, but in this case, there's going to have to be such a huge difference between that and the actual Titan Mata Nui set when seen in person. And IMO, that's about as likely to happen as Darth Vader acknowledging a secret love for Tarix and Jinzo switching to K-nex as his building toy of choice.

Am I the only one still posting in the bionicle topic that actually really likes Closer to the Truth? That song is honestly the only song I've liked since Creeping in My Soul, and I honestly feel it's Cryoshell's best. Also, it fit perfectly with the epic final battle theme that Bionicle 2008 was trying to get across. Oh, and I happen to like the lead singer, honestly. And this is coming from someone who generally hates hard rock music.

If that was released, that would be the most epic canister set ever.

Couple of comments: 1 - The contest sounds cool, but I probably won't enter. I was all hyped up about it until I saw the 4000 word limit, as all my ideas were centered around a story that would probably be much longer than that. Ah well, can't have everything, I guess. 2 - Now that I look back on the first movie scene released, it strongly reminded me of the 2001 movie with the bird investigating Onua's canister and getting suprised by it rumbling. The scene from the new movie is kinda like that too, only with a lot more creatures and the object of interest lighting up instead of making noise. Anyone else get that vibe?

My answer: none. At least, not with TLC's current way of thinking. You see, almost all of their sets are vehicle based, including much of their licnesed themes. The reason for this is that it's been shown that themes without an emphasis on vehicles, themes simply don't sell well. This is why Harry Potter and Spiderman did not sell well - because they were almost totally driven by characters and locations, and thus did not appeal as much to young boys - TLC's primary market. This is also why Batman is the only superhero theme that did, or will probably ever do well as a lego license. Because the Batman mythos has such a wide variety of vehicles that can be replicated in lego form, it was fairly easy for TLC to make three waves of lego Batman sets that almost entirely focused on vehicles. The reason that the theme got terminated after a little while was that, while there was a wide variety of vehicles, the actual set design and orignality deteriorated by the third wave. 2008's batman line had a total of one unique set (Harely Quinn's Hammer Truck), one set that was a derivative of a 2006 set (The Tumbler and The Batmobile both featured the "bat-car chases an enemy's armed van" theme), one set that offered only new versions of vehicles included in the 2006 Batcave (The Penguin's Sub), and one set that was new but was also horrible in quality (Batman's buggy). As you can see, Superhero themes in general just don't work well in lego form, profitwise. Any superhero theme based on characters and locations is doomed to fail from the start (even with a movie license rather than a comic book licenese), and the only superhero theme that did work in Lego form only succeded until TLC ran out of original, high quality vehicle designs and the kids got tired of all the repetitiveness. In any case, it's just not a win situation for the Lego company to continue licensing themes like this - at least not unless they have a change in policy that works for the better of the company. I can't see that happening any time soon, however, as their current strategy has been very sucessful. We have Agents, and that's about as close to a James Bond theme as we'll probably ever get.

I agree, the set's not worth 80 bucks, but it looks good. Some nice detail, a decent amount of acessories (for the Power Miners line, anyway), and some good functions. It's not perfect, but at least it's not rubbish like the Crystal King and the Rock Wrecker. I only wish there was an exclusive giant Rock Monster with a new color. Come on TLC, how hard would it have been to put in a little something exclusive in this exclusive set? Even if it costed extra money, it would be worth it, as kids would be especially attracted to the set by the promise of a cool new figure. I'm afraid that without something really cool to set this set apart, it's just another good Power Miners set without any especially unique elements.

I am most definitely not paying 10 dollars for three minifigs made out of parts that are commonly availible in a wide variety of inexpensive sets - especially since the Pick a Brick wall gives you such a better value.

The particular Lego Racers line that those parts came from was crap through and through, and barely even quallified as Lego. All of the pieces were very specialized and not useful, there was basically no build at all, and the slammer/cases that they included were made out of the horrible non-ABS plastic that they also used to make the Racer ramps, play scenes, and all the other extra stuff in late 90/early 2000 sets. As much as I dislike the repetitiveness of the current Racers line, it totally blows these pieces of crud out of the water. Actually, if it wasn't just a small subtheme, I think that racers line could probably be a contender for "worst lego theme ever."

Michael Dorn is win as Mata Nui. So calm and thoughtful, and yet he carries a sense of inexperience as well. Exactly how Mata Nui should sound. Man, this movie just keeps getting better and better. This really could turn out to be the Bionicle flick we've all been waiting for since the utter disapointment of MOL and it's two mediocre sequels.

Hello again, space fans, and welcome to another review of a minfigure from one of TLC's most popular and long lasting lines. Today, I'll be overviewing one of the most iconic and popular space figures next to the original spaceman. Yes, I'm talking about the original "bad guy" of lego space, the Blacktron pilot: First year of release: 1987 Last year of release: 1991 The Space theme began fairly simple when it came to factions or sides, as it had none to speak of.!The original space sets and the first subtheme Futron contained only simple, peaceful explorers, clad in bright colors and having no printing or acessories that set them apart as "good" or "evil." This all changes, however, when TLC released the Blacktron line, which traded the light, friendly colors of the first space sets for a dark, contrasting look that seemed to infer that Blacktron was not just another average exploration organization. The Blacktron minifigs were no exception - covered in black space suits with a sleek, menacing torso print, they definitely looked the part of an "evil" space espionage faction, which was what they were subtley marketed as by TLC. The Blacktron figure came in six parts, which include the following: . Besides the awesome torso, the most interesting piece in this figure is the black visor, which had not been seen in the space line until the Blacktron subtheme appeared. Despite being the stars of one of the most popular subthemes, the Blacktron pilot only appeared in 13 sets. Interestingly enough, the Blacktron figure was unique in that it also appeared frequently in another subtheme: Space Police, which was created to counterpart the Blacktron theme and provide an opposing faction. Anyway, some of the sets that the Blacktron pilot appeared in included the following: 6894 Invader - 6941 Battrax - 6987 Message Intercept Base - 6986 Mission Commander - 6955 Space Lock-Up Isolation Base - A full list of the sets it appeared in can be found HERE. In conclusion, the Blacktron pilot was a great step up in style from the original spacemen, and it still holds the position of being one of the most iconic "bad guys" of the space line. In fact, many fans consider the original figure to be better than the version found in Blacktron II, proving that sometimes "newer" doesn't necessarily mean "better." Resources: Bricklink entry for this minifigMinifigs.net reference for this minifig (scroll down)

Those are so fakes. Wh...what? Are you serious? If so, then this is very bad news for all the fantasy fans. Unless of course, you have to say that, seeing as you're in cahoots with the lego Company at the moment.

Definitely not Gold Heist, which IMO is probably the weakest of the entire Space Police line (an opinion shared by a lot of other people as well). Claw Digger is much better, but it's probably not nearly as good for Bionicle MOCing parts as Cendox, which of course is a Bionicle set. I guess it all comes down to whether you're more into brick based or technic based sets at the moment.