Aanchir
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Everything posted by Aanchir
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I guess your milage may vary. I don't really find it much more unfriendly to Technic and System parts than pre-CCBS building systems were. It doesn't work all that well with certain older BIONICLE parts, but I find that to be as much of a limitation of the old system as of the new one. If I can't use a Toa Metru thigh or shoulder shell with a CCBS beam (not that I'd necessarily want to, given their more specialized textures), that's as much the fault of the shell as it is the fault of the beam. And it's not just CCBS parts where you run into the limitations of older parts like that. Using a thigh shell like that with a Toa Nuva leg beam or a Toa Metru lower arm beam wouldn't be much easier. The parts just weren't designed to go together in that way. Well, not quite. The Toa+Protector combining function is just the weapons of the Protector being attached to the Toa in the examples we've seen. It does not involve actually sticking the two sets together, nor does it involve really taking either of the sets apart. But at the same time, that doesn't rule out the possibility of other combi models that don't appear on the packages. The two Hero Factory combi models for the second half of 2014 weren't advertised anywhere on the packages, but they do involve a lot of rebuilding and creative part use. Won't really work now that BIONICLE is using the CCBS. And in fact, it's a lot harder to think of older BIONICLE sets as all sharing a unified building system. Putting together a Toa Mata is practically an entirely different building experience than putting together a Toa Inika, which is in turn a different building experience than putting together a 2001 Rahi. The only think they have in common are the types of connection points they use, and most of those are also used in both non-constraction Technic sets and the CCBS.
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I hardly think using Technic pins to stick together two parts that might as well be connected together directly counts as "integration". The purpose of Technic is to give models structural stability and functionality, not to act as an adhesive or slow down the building process. Now, Technic pins COULD be used creatively in older BIONICLE sets, just as they can in CCBS sets, but most of their use in small and medium-sized BIONICLE sets consisted of attaching a generic shell to the front of a generic beam, and usually right in the center to boot. For that kind of use, it's hard to see how using pins actually increased those sets' complexity. What the dearth of pure CCBS MOCs tells me is that Hero Factory never took off like BIONICLE did, so the majority of experienced constraction MOCists got their start when the CCBS and its building styles were unheard of. Personally, I've embraced the challenge of learning the ins and outs of the CCBS, and nowadays I hardly ever depend on old-school BIONICLE parts in my MOCs (besides ones like Glatorian and Hordika neck joints that have stood the test of time and continue to be used in CCBS-based sets). I have a feeling that if the new BIONICLE really takes off, you'll see a LOT more MOCs using CCBS as their foundation.
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Transparent Green (Trans-Dark Green) is just one example of why I do care so much about whether eye colors are fluorescent. It almost never glows unless you have a light shining directly on top of or behind it, and even then the glow tends to be much less bright than a transparent fluorescent color. Plus, it's so dark in color ordinarily that even a solid color like Bright Green might be brighter in typical lighting. On a Toa Metru head with a Tr. Green eyestalk, the back of the brain stalk tends to glow more brightly than the eyes themselves, no matter what your lighting setup. If a set's going to have transparent eyes in the first place, I want them to shine. Tr. Light Blue is not as dark as Tr. Blue, Tr. Red, or Tr. Green, but I still can't help but feel that when given the choice between Tr. Light Blue and Tr. Fluore. Blue, the latter makes much more sense as an eye color. Yes, but even then it wasn't Transparent Fluorescent Yellow, just regular Transparent Yellow. Which is not awful, but still not quite as cool as if those parts had been available in a wider range of fluorescent colors.
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Yeah, the use of Tr. Fluorescent Red for the original Tahu and Vakama sets was always a bit of an odd choice... a contrasting color would have stood out better. I was not a fan of the Toa Metru and other 2004–2005 sets using so many non-fluorecent transparent colors, but one thing I think they did do right was assigning eye colors that contrasted heavily with each element's primary color. Same goes for the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal, to a lesser extent. Speaking of which, I had never really thought about it, but it's odd that Bohrok eyes never existed in Tr. Fluore. Red and Tr. Fluore. Yellow, seeing as both those colors were available for the Toa Mata sets before the Bohrok were released, and for the Toa Nuva afterwards. Bohrok eyes didn't even show up in Tr. Fluore. Blue until the Alpha Team sets of 2004 (though they later did make their way into BIONICLE with the Kazi set from 2006). I guess part of the reasoning might have been that the designers wanted to have Krana in all the iconic LEGO colors like Bright Red and Bright Blue, and chose the eye colors based on what best matched the Krana colors they settled on for the Bohrok. As cool as it was to have different eye colors for each tribe, I'm more than happy for eye colors to be more limited seeing as there are now so many fewer fluorescent colors to choose from. Though I can't say I understand the blue eyes in the new sets being Tr. Light Blue rather than Tr. Fluore. Blue. They DO match more CCBS parts this way, but I hope it's not a sign Tr. Fluore. Blue is leaving the color palette in the near future...
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They are not, nor are the new eye stalks compatible with the Toa Metru heads.
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You realize these sets are about as Technic-based as most BIONICLE canister sets? Just as a random example, Pohatu (the simplest of the new Toa) and many of the Protectors include more basic Technic than a Toa Inika. They don't use Technic pins to connect all of their armor on, of course, but that's because that's generally a limiting, obsolete building style that the designers were smart enough to do away with.
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Transparent Fluorescent Green often looks really yellow in renders. Just look at it on LDD, for example, or in the thumbnails from the LEGO Customer Service site. For that reason I almost find the Protector of Stone's color quite apparent in these pictures. When you compare a Tr. Yellow part with a Tr. Fluore. Green part, the latter is closer to the look of the Protector of Stone's beams and ammo (though his mask doesn't quite match, so maybe it IS Tr. Yellow). Official set images they often take care to correct this so the greenish color is more apparent. Not always, though — just look at the official images for 4527 or 44025.
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If anyone's interested, The Brothers Brick has high-res images on their Flickr, including both the Toa and Protectors. Kind of odd that no sites seem to have gotten an out-of-package image of Lord of Skull Spiders.
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Well, the Lord of Skull Spiders sort of vaguely looks like a mask, in that it has the two transparent shells on its back that could be "eyes". But I don't know if that was deliberate. Anyway... one thing to keep in mind is that we don't know if Lord of Skull Spiders is a unique entity or if there's more than one of them. Its product description describes it in the singular, but the same is true of the descriptions for many BIONICLE and Hero Factory creatures like Frost Beast or Vorox that are known to depict a generic member of an entire species. If there is more than one Lord of Skull Spiders, then that basically rules out the possibility of it being a transformed version of the Mask of Ultimate Power itself, because we know there's only one of said mask.
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Of course! That's why they're called "Master of _____"! Because the Temple of Time is where they find the Master Sword! EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE NOW!
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One thing I love about the new, stylized animation is that the style is very easy for fan artists to imitate. Check out these recent wallpapers one of my friends did.
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The simplicity of MNOG's gameplay is one of the things I love about it. I'm not much of a gamer, and point-and-click adventure games like the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney series are basically my preferred genre. Mata Nui Online Game is a pretty good example of that genre. More action-oriented games that require the player to have good reflexes are not nearly as fun for me. I can enjoy them, but I don't find them relaxing like a good adventure game. Having to react to so many stimuli can be exhausting.
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The similarities to MNOG are less about the level of set accuracy and more about the bright, flat colors and simple shading. And also, perhaps, the length of the episodes. It might not be the spitting image of the MNOG, but it's a lot closer to that than to the other animation styles used in the old BIONICLE. As the presentation showed, the MNOG was just one of many influences on the new animation style.
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I think where sets release early has more to do with retailer than with country. Toys 'R' Us tends to be the place to release sets early in the United States. I don't know which sets might do so in Europe, but I know sets HAVE shown up before their "official" release date in at least some European countries in the past, so while your chances aren't any more concrete as ours are in North America, they're also no more unlikely. On a side note, I just noticed something interesting about Onua. I saw at Comic Con that he had an extra 3M neck joint, and was a bit disappointed that he was no longer the shortest... however, I just went on LDD and realized that with his torso built like it is, that extra neck joint can be positioned 100% horizontally, which means not only does it not add to his height, it also helps give him his characteristic forward hunch, and very convincingly at that. Overall, the height of the characters is as follows: Tahu: 27 modules tall Kopaka: 26 modules tall Gali and Lewa: 25 modules tall Pohatu and Onua: 23 modules tall Average: ~24.83 modules tall This is, of course, a bit of a simplification. It assumes that each mask adds exactly half a module to the character's height, when in fact the extra height their masks grant them ranges from half a module in the case of the Akaku to about three fourths of a module in the case of the Kaukau and Kakama. But I tend to ignore this kind of slight discrepancy even with older sets. Tends to save me headaches later on. EDIT: Whoops, I just realized I counted Tahu a module short! He's actually 27 modules tall, not 26, since he has friction joints in his ankles. So the average height of these Toa is slightly taller than the average height of the Toa Metru.
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I'm in the process of a review like that for The New Elementary, but it won't contain video I think. BZPower is having server issues right now but they're working on resolving them.
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I'm just calling them villagers until I hear otherwise. After all, even if they do have a species name, it's not like calling them villagers would be wrong or inaccurate... just less specific. I'm wondering about the Protectors' genders as well. The product descriptions fail to mention gender for ANY of the characters, and the new website only has character pages for the Toa. As far as the "no romance" rule is concerned, I don't know if it was anything Greg actually took too seriously. It seemed almost like something he just made up to keep from having to answer shipping-related questions. After all, there were plenty of instances of Matau flirting with Nokama even in non-movie scenes that Greg wrote by himself. And there's a bit of possibly romantic subtext to Dalu and Balta's relationship even if they're only ever described as "close friends". Still, having an official LEGO employee state on the record that "there is no romance in BIONICLE" is rather problematic, as it discourages fans from enjoying the story in a certain way or telling certain types of stories themselves. Kopaka x Pohatu OTP!
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Yeah, that would be rubbish. I'm fine with the story leaving things open for fans to decide, but the big story decisions should be written for narrative impact, not just to leave things open for different play scenarios.
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Well, it's possible that the Toa's inherent elemental powers (or the ones they get from their basic masks) are fairly limited in their versatility, while the golden masks give them secondary abilities of some kind. Kind of like how Pokémon start out with fairly basic elemental attacks, but can learn more powerful ones that have secondary abilities. Just as an example from another LEGO theme, back in 2011, the Ninja of LEGO Ninjago only have one basic elemental ability: Spinjitzu. But the Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu allow them to use their element in other ways, like firing elemental energy blasts at their foes. And once they unlocked their true potential in 2012, they could enter their special NRG mode which, among other things, transmutes them into their element and gives them the ability to fly/levitate. They have lost and regained their higher-level elemental powers a couple times since then, but as of episode 31, it seems like they've finally regained them for good since Lloyd split what was left of his multi-elemental Golden Power between them. This would actually be a very interesting way of doing things, especially since it ensures that the Toa's secondary abilities are thematically connected to their element, which could make it easier to remember what each Toa can or can't do. Somebody pointed out an image of Kopaka where he seems to be creating some kind of shield. That's apparently his "Ice Sphere" ability mentioned on the new website, which is one of his secondary ice powers. Regarding the episode length, I'm not too worried. The were between one and five minutes each, but still told a compelling storyline with good characterization. I think many of the Mata Nui Online Game cutscenes (which were released on the BIONICLE website as individual episodes) were even shorter.
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It's not the same history all over again, though. It's using some of the most iconic and timeless elements of the franchise as a starting point, but which direction it goes from there is anyone's guess. To be honest, it kind of bothers me that people consider sets like Mata Nui from 2009 "clones" when in fact they borrow design elements from many other sets and don't feel like an exact repeat of any set in particular. To me, "clone sets" are things more like the Visorak or Toa Metru that are either completely identical aside from masks and weapons, or only have slight differences in their proportions. Using a generic skeleton build does not qualify a set as a "clone set" for me — even a generic "Toamod" or "Heromod" is a few steps above a true "clone set" in terms of creativity, provided it does creative things with its armor and equipment. I disagree. First of all, it won't be an issue of BIONICLE appearing "every weekend". Each Ninjago story arc has been fairly short — the entire 2011 story arc was crammed into two episodes, and the 2012 story arc spread across 13 episodes, and the 2014 story arc split into just eight episodes. A full 26-episode season is hardly a mandate of any kind. Besides that, I think a TV series often allows for more character development than a movie. That's not to say a movie can't have character development, but for a franchise with as many characters as BIONICLE it's easy for that character development to be spread a bit thin. Suppose the movie is 90 minutes long. If there are six central characters, then you'll only have 15 minutes average to focus on each one. If you have even MORE characters, like BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn did, it's easy to see how some like Tarix, Strakk, and Vastus get reduced to bit parts while others like Gelu, Malum, and Tarduk fail to appear at all. Dragon Bolt's red button honestly never bothered me, in part because it's very easy to imagine as a video game style weak spot. But then again, I'm rarely bothered by little splashes of color on a model. They are toys, after all. If you are bothered by the yellow gear, in most cases it's simple enough to swap out.
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Ehhhh... I'm not keen on the idea of six identical sets with identical functions priced at $15 each. Besides that, clone sets are pretty much a thing of the past nowadays and in my opinion they should stay that way. Besides that, I kind of like the idea of including a skull spider in each set, so that ANY set can become an enemy for the heroes. It's an efficient way of creating believable combat role-play scenarios without cutting down the number of heroes or making people "imagine" the villains. Really, the situation this year is a LOT better than it was in 2004 with the Toa Metru and Matoran sets being released half a year before the Vahki or Dark Hunters. Or for that matter, how it was in the United States in 2005, with the Toa Hordika and Rahaga being released half a year before the Visorak, Roodaka, or Sidorak. Even 2001 BIONICLE had the Toa and Turaga released months before the Rahi! I greatly prefer having real enemies for the heroes to fight. Making the heroes fight their own allies without any story-driven reason why they'd do so, or making them fight imaginary foes, is a lot less fun. I do not think "not getting Makuta until '03" was a good thing, personally. A lot of the fun of sets is role-play, and as I mentioned above, having to "imagine" an enemy like Makuta in 2001 or the Morbuzakh in 2004 makes that role-play a lot less fun. "Oh no, the Morbuzakh knocked off my character's mask!" *knocks off mask with hand* "Now the villager fires his blaster at it!" *shoots blaster at empty spot on the floor*. Granted, if Makuta only appears in the backstory and doesn't actually make an appearance for the rest of the story, we can probably do without him this year. Still, it'd be disappointing not to be able to act out that "legend"... especially since the longer we wait, the further the eventual Makuta and Ekimu sets are likely to be from the forms they appeared in in that video. As for Ekimu, he's not quite as essential, since we've got no shortage of heroes— but he would be the obvious set to wear the Mask of Creation, which is almost certainly getting released in SOME set this year. In both cases, the fact that we've already seen both characters means "building up mystique" is already more or less out of the question as far as the storyline itself is concerned, so comparing it to Mata Nui and Makuta in 2001 is not realistic. Back then, we hadn't seen EITHER character in ANY physical form... at least, not until Makuta showed up in the final cutscenes of the Mata Nui Online Game. But now, before the 2015 sets are even out and before the storyline has even formally started, we've already seen what both characters look like, and have an idea what to expect. I think a set containing both Makuta and Ekimu in their original forms would make a great retailer exclusive set. Like the Karzahni or Bulk & Vapour sets, it creates a complete play scenario, and like Toa Norik and Toa Iruini, the set would be somewhat detached from the current ongoing conflict. But unlike those sets, it would still depict a major part of the storyline. With that said, I think getting two or three exclusive masks in a single store exclusive set would be unlikely. It's rare for store exclusive sets to include even ONE mold that doesn't appear in any other sets. Makuta in his "transformed" state seen after he donned the Mask of Ultimate Power is definitely a very plausible candidate for a set. It's an incredibly significant villain in an unmistakeably villainous color scheme. One last note... even though it's clear from the press release that Makuta is going to be the antagonist whose influence drives the current storyline, we don't know for certain that he's the theme's ultimate villain. Makuta in the new storyline is jealous, ambitious, and bitter, to be sure... but jealous, ambitious, and bitter people can be easily manipulated. What if the Mask of Ultimate Power was itself the ultimate villain, or a manifestation of such a character? Not saying it's going to happen, but it'd be an interesting way to defy expectations.
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Are there any lime Bionicle joints from after the fiasco?
Aanchir replied to Toa of Gallifrey's topic in LEGO Action Figures
The foot joints? Yeah, there exist ones from before the fiasco. Can't guarantee perfect quality because even the old joints tend to become a bit fragile after enough use. The Nui-Rama and Keelerak both used them. If you'd had trouble with the double joints used for Hahli and Ehlek's arms and legs it'd be a lot harder to come up with a solution, since the 7M double joints have ALWAYS been more fragile than regular Y-joints, and the 5M ones weren't available until 2007. -
Regarding the shooter function, this MOC shows the shooters really well. They DO work like the click shooters. There is an outer ring that holds the six 1x1 round plates, and an inner section that has a single bump on it. As the bump hits each 1x1 round plate, they fire. That press release about the new sets is awesome, but oddly some of the piece counts seem to contradict the ones on the packages. Specifically, the Protector piece counts in the product descriptions have six more pieces listed than the packaging images! Last-minute change to include more ammo, perhaps? But in that case Pohatu's piece count starts to look even more pathetic. :P ALSO POHATU'S WEAPONS ARE CALLED JETERANGS WHEN ATTACHED TO HIS FEET AND STORMERANGS WHEN ATTACHED TO HIS HANDS. THIS IS GLORIOUSLY ABSURD. The fact that the golden masks just provide enhanced elemental powers is okay, I guess... I liked the characters also having specific mask powers, but I can see how giving a character so many powers and abilities could get confusing (especially in cases like the Piraka where the names and designs provided no clues to what the characters' powers were, besides the usual elemental color coding). And who knows? Maybe the next form the Toa take could give them additional mask powers as part of the upgrade.
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Unless your parts bin had different parts than mine, they are actually Tr. Fluore. Green. I have eight of them from that same building event on a MOC sitting in front of me. But of course, Tr. Fluore. Green does generally look more yellowish than greenish, particularly under certain lighting. Almost the same color as lemon juice. Nope. They showed the Protector of Fire at the panel and demonstrated the firing function (which, from the look of things, is a LOT more reliable than the Cordak Blaster). But the parts of the Protector sets were not included in the parts bins during the building event, so the only people outside of the LEGO Group who have actually gotten to handle them are people like DeeVee who signed an NDA and received parts from the LEGO Group a month or so ago.
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Okay, so I was right about there being different posters each day! Yesterday it was Gali and Onua, today it's Pohatu and... don't know who the second poster is because the back is facing the camera. I think there's something ridiculously amazing (or amazingly ridiculous) about the fact that the LEGO Group actually registered the domain http://mylegobioniclephoto.com/.
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Just holding the head by the sides of the mask tends to be effective, or by the front of the mask and the back of the neck when tilting it forward. One warning — if you're building a MOC with a gear function and are not careful how the shoulder armor is attached, you can accidentally make the character knock off his or her own mask. Doesn't seem like it should be a real problem with sets, though.