Zarkan

I kinda see what you mean about this years offerings, but overall I disagree. Why? Well, take a look at this year's siege engine and compare it with last years, for example: Now, KK's engine is pretty bad, even for the dark ages. It's just a plain brick tower with a couple of shields, a boarding platform, and a boulder "ram" slapped on. Also, the figures suffer from crazy colors; even the shadow knights aren't the best. And the acessories are really quite few, aside from a couple of the horid banana swords. Castle 2008's siege engine, on the other hand, actually looks like it has some design put into it. The slanted boards and hanging chains, for example, and the retracting rammer (it kinda reminds me of the ram they used in LOTR, you know, the giant wolf one), plus the realistic color scheme (compared to KK, at least). Also, the good guy figures are very realistic as always, and the goblins look genuinely scary. The fact that you actually get a tower as well is a step up from KK, as are the things mentioned above. Seriously, if TLC still was making KK, the great ogre ship would probably be a Kings ship, with baby blue sails and some cheesy falcon or bear printed on. Those boats would have mini catapaults in them, and there'd be at least 3 skittle colored knights, plus a catapault on shore with giant flaming wheels or some sort of unrealistic projectile. So (IMO), I can say that we are a lot better off than KK, even if 2008 is not as good as the current year. We have cool figures and acessories plus kits with overall decent design and parts selection. If that isn't a giant step up from the Kingdom disaster, I don't know what is. ;-)

Totally. While some people may say that the Piraka and Barraki are carbon copies of each other, but in fact they are totally different. While the Piraka are rebelious and always fighting and suspecting each other, the Barraki hold a much tighter alliance, and have only been drawn apart because of the Mahri's slick actions at the end of BL7. The Barraki also seem to be much more inteligent and motiveful than the Piraka, as the Piraka only wanted the MOLI because Makuta influenced them, while the Barraki built an empire by themselves. I'm looking foward to next years villians, since I'm wondering how Greg will handle them. I'm kind of hoping of a tight knit, group of assasin like characters that are working for the Brotherhood to take out the Nuva. I'd also like to see them willingly submisive to whoever the leader would be, unlike the last two villian group. Oh, and Marvah does rock. So does Roodaka, and Makuta. And I actually like Vezon, since to me he doesn't sound like a Golum clone at all. However, I think thought that one of Greg's best characters yet is Toa Tuyet. Shame that we won't be seeing her again other than in Dreams of Darkness. :-(

I guess I shouldn't have expected the new Nuva to look like the old nuva. After all, Greg said that the mainstream store chains are nervous at putting a new Pohatu Nuva and Lewa Nuva out in stores at all, since they sold kits of them "only" five years ago (regardless of what the new versions look like.) :-| Still, I'm very frusterated that Pohatu is ORANGE and SILVER. Then again, Lego aparrently has totally scraped ever making brown bionicles again, since they aparrently don't sell as well as the others. Also, his weapons are horible (especially the zamor/cordak launcher :-| ) and I dislike his visor. Couldn't they at least have given him an orange visor? On the positive side, this is yet another sign that 2008 won't be nearly as hard on the budget for me as 2007. :-P

Man, after those totally dissapointing Bionicle 2008 images, these pics really make me feel better about next year! *sweet* Time for comments, I suppose: Dwarves Mining: Hm, doesn't look as big as it did in the last picture, but it still looks great! (and even maybe in my price range.... *sweet* ) Those dwarves rock my socks! After so many years of relying on aftermarket molds, we now have real lego beards and dwarf helmets, and sledge hammers too! And look: the green mine carts aren't one piece molds! And the goblins rock! And the troll doesn't look silly! *wub* X infinity! Goblin battering ram: This ram totally rocks the socks of the bare bones KK crud one! The tower is also good, and we get 4 figures! It's great that Castle is not skimpy on figures like other themes are!(hintcityhint |-/ ) Dwarf catapault: Well, the catapault looks pretty boring and bare bones, but this still is a great army builder from the looks! Why, though, is only one of the goblins armed? 8-| Troll attack ship: Easily the best of the lot. While it may seem a bit Megablokish on the forefront, I happen to not be a Megabloks hater, and I can say confidently that this is far better than their ships in their Dragons line! Looks like there's a fair amount of construction on the hull (obviously a vikings hull), and lots of cool details! I love the troll banging on the drums. *sweet* Oh yeah, and this kit is wonderful for figures, plus it has a GREEN dragon! Awesome.... Now how to get it with my limited resources.... *wacko* Unfortunately, we get no skeletons this year aparrently. :-(

..... no one word can describe my feeling about these. Okay, maybe one: BETRAYAL. >:-( Lewa has a chainsaw, a mask with a blue visor, and a dumb launcher. Oh, and he's LIME. Pohatu has two dumb weapons and a third on his shoulder. But worse, far worse, he's ORANGE and GREY. The "Toa Ignika" is orange, black, silver, and as bare bones as a canister set can be. He also has another dumb launcher. :-| Chirox.... I'll withhold judgement on him for now, but the rest I can say are 100% :-X And not because they are terrible in design in general. No, because they are supposed to be the Toa Nuva. But these kits are NOT the Toa Nuva, at least to me. The pictures may be blurry, but I can already tell that TLC has completely butchered 2008 Bionicle. And now poor Greg and the story team have to make a story around these monstrosities..... :-| With the color schemes and designs on those defects above, I wouldn't be surprised if that blue thing seen on Chirox's picture IS Kopaka. :-| It's even worse that that. According to Greg, the bionicle story exists for one purpose only: to promote the sets. So do the comics, books, web serials, etc. So, if good old TLC decided that Bionicle didn't need a story to sell sets, then Bionicle would not have a story any more. People here may act like Greg is the worst story writer ever, but in fact he and the story team are in proverbial chains as to what to do for the story. It's the sad truth. :-/

I haven't seen this mentioned yet here, strangely. Anyway, GregF said on BZP that TLC's making at least one giant titan kit in 2008 for Bionicle. Not just the average 30-40 kit, mind you, but a huge Muaka/Kane-Ra and Bahrag size kit. It's supposed to be around 70 dollars or so, and will probably be out in the summer. Other than that, it's all up to our imaginations. ;-)

Another note: these fakes are getting worse and worse as time goes on. The first fakes we saw actually were not so fake looking, but these later ones are crud! :-D

He is most certainly fake, because he is using old green and it's obvious that he is using nocturn's lime pieces. Also, why would the image be so blured and the label easy to read? Oh, and not to mention the fact that there's no other images with it. Plus.... blahblahblah. Yeah, it's totally a fake. :-P

Whoohoo! Awesome news, yoda! Clone wars is so on, especially if they make Anikan's modified jedi starfighter! *sweet*

Uh really? Because I can think of at least a few sets that stink in both catergories.... :-P Anway, this is great news! The battlepacks look awesome for figs (especially the rebel one *wub* ), although I totally dislike the vehicles. The Droid battlepack is much better IMO, as it seems to have 5-7 droids plus a great hailfire droid and spider droid! I'll have to get at least one of those.... *sweet* Then there's the AT-AP. I don't really like it, actually, because it seems too top heavy and too big in the cockpit area compared to the legs. I'll have to wait until better pictures to make final judgment, though. :-/ I do really like the Rogue Shadow! True, it seems a bit too blocky, but it has a great color scheme and captures the basic shape really well! Plus, it has battle damaged vader and other awesome figs... *sweet* Overal, it's looking to be a sweet year for January 2008, and we only have seen pictures of Indiana Jones and Starwars! I can't wait to see more... ;-) Edit: Wait a minute! We're missing Anikan's jedi starfighter! Why isn't there a picture of that? 8-|

Or Long John silver... or even the crazy pig canibals! (though, they would probably eat you first) X-O

Uh, nope, no muppets here? Stauder, are you sure you're feeling well? ;-)

Well said, Visorak-Kal! You summed up exactly what I was feeling, as you have done before. ;-) Anway, I'm wondering if legomilk could find out if those bionicle 2008 set names are real or not, since he's been finding a lot of new information on 2008 sets. Maybe he could find out this too! 8-

Yes, finally someone who understands my view on the Ewoks! ;-) Great to see I'm not the only one who likes them and doesn't consider them as bad as Jarjar. Like they were to you, the ewoks actually were genuinely funny to me, and they also made sense: a tribal but fairly intelegent civilization on a mostly deserted planet. It's not like that's unrealistic or anything; hasn't anyone else heard of the aboriginees in Australia? They were there long before anyone else, so of course they are going to be different than the rest of the world. That doesn't mean they aren't good warriors or resourceful, though! ;-) On the other hand, Jarjar was just "Peusa" and "How wude," and also known as the now necessary kiddie pleasing clumsy oaf that pre-adoslescents love. "Hahaha, he just tripped over something, Hahaha his foot's stuck in the droid!" :-| I guess what I hate so much about episode 1 is how the acting was trying to be serious, but just ended up coming off as kiddy and silly. How is a race that calls energy balls "boobas" ( great use of language Lucas :-| ) and shakes their lips when they agree with something supposed to be serious anyway? Even though Episode 1 is the worst, I still have problems with the other episodes as well: Episode 2: When I was young, I somehow loved those puns and pointless gag scenes revolving around R2-D2 and C-3PO. No more. *n* "Oh look, his heads on a droid! And the droids on his body! Oh this is such a drag. I'm quite on top of myself!" And that line from obiwan about Padme was just so corny and in bad timing. "Oh look, we're about to die a gruesome death at the hands of bloodthirsty beasts! Where's Padme? Oh, I think she's on top of things." :-| Despite that, I kinda liked the romance, although it WAS unrealistic in parts. And I happen to love Yoda's fighting: the best part of the movie to me still! *sweet* Episode 3: Grevious's cough? Eh, don't really care, because he was still pretty cool. Episode 3 to me was the best of the prequels, because it was much more serious than 1 and 2. The Mustafar scene and the opening battle were the best Prequel scenes, and Padme's and Anikan's romance was much more realistic. Yes, she knows Anikan's a self centered Jerk! X-D Yoda fight was also awesome, and I happen to love the emperor in this movie. Really dark and... "insidious" :-P Episode 4: The only real problem here was that in some parts it was a bit slow, and the lack of music in parts was a bit dissapointing. Everything else was great! ;-) Episode 5: Perfect. *y* *y* Episode 6: I've already gone on about the ewoks, and I really like everything else. I understand what Jinzo means about it being more silly than the first 2, but I still really enjoy it. ;-) I think we all need to realize here that Starwars really isn't realistic at all, in terms of the laws of science or other stuff. What really matters is whether we enjoy the films or not, and stop trying to analyze every tiny problem. I dislike Episode 1 the most for one simple reason: I don't enjoy watching it. *n*

I totally agree! I really haven't liked the Ignition comics much, but this one was pretty good. Especially the end scene. It was pretty smart of Greg and the guys to put Mata Nui's death at the end; I was sucked into the entire comic waiting for that crucial scene and wondering how it would happen! *sweet* Oh, and Greg says that this comic doesn't even begin to compare to the final comic of the year. I know that won't mean much to some of the members here, but I kinda trust him about this. ;-)

None of the above. ... What, you say? Yes, I simply couldn't vote on this poll, because I seem to be the only person here who calls both the old brown and the new brown "BROWN." Same with the so called bley; I just call it grey. :-/ The color choice has not affected me much, because I'm not a diehard castle fan. But all the same, I simply don't understand why Castle fans simply can't just mix the old grey and the new grey in castles. Isn't that what those printed castle corner walls are already doing? Also, who ever saw trees that all look exactly the same, color wise? Why can't you just use the new brown in some of the trees, and the old brown in others? Besides, needless to say, I like the new colors better than the old. The old grey to me is just... plain, while the new grey really feels new and fresh. Guess it helps that I was young when old grey was still around. ;-)

To tell you the truth, I'm not bothered by romance in big franchises like Starwars and Spiderman at all. The romance scenes were not the problem to me, in fact they may have been the best scenes for Anikan, since in a lot of the rest he was just a whiny preschooler. :-|

Anyway, the worst in my opinion is, hands down, Episode 1. I have several reasons for that, starting with the most obvious: Jar Jar Binks. I need not say anymore about him, as we all know how his misfitting clumsiness and childish posture made us hate him so much. But it

Here's a folder I found with absolutely every fake Bionicle 2008 image so far. Here Seems this is becoming quite a fad.... :-D Actually, I had something about that strange "coinicedence" in my first post in this topic, but it was a little too much for me to even infer something like that, so I edited it out (personal issue, what can I say?). Strange thought that it actually has some ironic truth in it, though. 8-|

Hm, Taragon. I kinda like it, but I've already used the word Taraga in so many chapters, so I don't think I'll use it. Thanks anyway! ;-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And, now, our story moves to an area on the other side of Motta-Suey, far away from Kokapa. This location happens to be a large beach made up of finely crushed graham cracker crumbs. Usually, this shore is deserted, but today does not fall under

Oh crud, 2008's months away and already my wallet is looking empty... wait, it already is! *wacko* X-D Well, regardless of that, these sets look awesome! So much to look foward to: that truck chase scene is GENIUS! The Kubelwagen is possibly the best wheeled lego vehicle EVER, and the truck is great too! Plus, look's like we're getting suitable stand in's for the nazis - AKA, figures that look like nazis without the dreaded symbol. ;-) Everything is great, so I'll leave it at that. Go 2008! *sweet*

Trust me, Bionicle is not getting repetitive, or at least to me and others it isn't Sure, we still have the 6 set waves, but just this year we got the first truly un-clone canister sets since 2001! And we're also getting 3 bad guy and 3 good guy sets next year. Some things may be the same, but lego is trying lots of new things too. ;-) Also everyone, just because you don't like a certain theme doesn't mean it shouldn't deserve to be on shelves. People have been disputing Bionicle and Exo-Force ever since they came out, but nevertheless they have been raking in profits, and as long as they sell well and aren't rubbish like Galidor or 4+ Pirates, there's nothing wrong with them taking places on shelves. Besides, truly bad themes never usually sell well anyway! X-D

I totally dissagree, of course. To me, elimitating Exo-Force over Spongebob or Avatar is really dumb marketing strategy, since Exo-Force is the 3rd most popular theme. Also, what do you mean by shelf space? :-/ Of course, we all have to realize that this topic is made of opinions, so nobody is really right or wrong. ;-)

Or a bit more... >:-( Or, do only the ToysRus's in the USA overcharge on sets? Because the one nearest to me has HORENDOUS prices. They're charging an extra dollar or 2 on almost every set! :-| BTW, the new AT-AT is really sweet. Looks a ton better than the prototype, and if the motors work really well then this will be a hit for sure. *y*

Happy birthday, Thrawn! BTW, have you read all 5 of the Zahn novels? I'd assume you have, but just checking, as I have also. ;-)