Aanchir
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Everything posted by Aanchir
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Pohatu and Lewa definitely have gear functions, so it would be surprising to say the least if Gali didn't.
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Onua appears to use friction joints, but I don't really think there's any reason for the others to, since their shoulders don't have to support a whole lot of weight. Additionally, you can clearly see in the pictures that Pohatu and Lewa do NOT use friction joints. What do you dislike about friction joints?
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I don't know specifically which prediction would be more accurate, but Pohatu's shoulders, at least, seem to be exactly lined up with the shoulders of the torso beam. NickinAmerica's concept would raise the shoulders of all the Toa up equally. I do have to say that I don't think the sets will use the same type of gears as the Toa Mata/Nuva/Metru/Hordika. Considering that Onua visibly uses a knob wheel on his back, I think it's most likely that all the Toa use said knob wheel for the gear functions themselves. Which, I have to say, I don't mind in the least bit. The knob wheels have more torque than regular gears, and are easier to line up correctly since each one will be rotated 45 degrees from the one it meshes with. Likewise, I think that the shoulders will each be attached via a 4M Axle with Stop and a Ball Joint with Through Hole.
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Presumably, the LEGO Group is worried that if they have BIONICLE and Hero Factory running at the same time, they might cannibalize each other's sales and neither will reach its full sales potential.
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Yes, they would certainly have been different. Even though the masks of the Phantoka/Mistika were very different from the original Kanohi Nuva, many of them had enough similarities that it was clear (to me, at least) that they were designed with those characters in mind. As for how different their designs would have been other than the masks, that's probably impossible to say. I do think in the very least some of the builds and tools might possibly have been switched around, so the design that eventually became Pohatu might have instead been used for Kongu, whose Toa Mahri form it resembles. -
Because the designers created the CCBS as a long-term replacement for BIONICLE's older building system. Personally, I'm quite happy with it. And I've seen some people more willing to give it a chance with these new BIONICLE sets than they did when it was chiefly used in Hero Factory, so hopefully we'll see more CCBS MOCs that deeply explore what is possible with the system.
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It will probably not be too difficult at all. If they look unfinished with or without the gear functions, that's nothing a little modding can't fix. The simplest way to remove the gear functions would probably just be to attach the arms right to the torso beam's unused shoulder joints, though for at least some of the Toa you'd probably also want to swap the original 7x9 torso beam with a 9x9 or even 9x11 torso beam.
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I've noticed the same, honestly. Today I dared to go on deviantART to see what people were saying about the new sets, and to be honest... there was not a whole lot of nastiness. There were some people who said that the new sets lack what they loved about BIONICLE, but for the most part, they were reasonably polite about it. Some even said they were not terribly fond of the CCBS, but that the designs were good and they would probably buy the sets and enjoy them. Honestly I think I saw more fanboy rage BEFORE this latest series of leaks than after. I even saw an oddly heartwarming image macro describing the situation.
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Canisters are expensive, canisters cannot collapse flat for storage, canisters are not very environmentally friendly from a production standpoint, canisters cannot be displayed on a hanging rack in stores, canisters cannot be printed on all surfaces from edge to edge... there are a lot of advantages the foil pouches have, all things considered. I think the pouches are both brilliant and beautiful, and their beauty has been increasing each year. The Invasion from Below bags are especially elegant, with art on every side of the package including the bottom! And the Legends of Chima constraction sets are fantastically colorful with flame or ice patterns covering the entire front of the package. Don't get me wrong, canisters were great for their time. But all things considered, I already have more canisters than I'll ever need and they're taking up loads of space in my room. The pouches effectively take up no room, unless I have stuff in them in which case they take up exactly as much room as they need to for their contents: no more and no less. That coupled with their light weight made it much easier for me to transport my Hero Factory sets to and from college than my previous BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets. I also feel like I'm getting more LEGO for my money than I would be if part of my money for each set were going towards a clunky plastic canister. Incidentally, I also feel like the pouches hold up pretty well. I have not had to worry about any of the graphics on my pouches getting damaged considerably whether in use or storage, whereas a lot of my boxes get bent out of shape and some of my canisters' labels are peeling. The new boxes look creative, but after the brilliant practicality and efficiency of the Hero Factory pouches, they'll have a LOT to live up to. Also, PLENTY of other themes did canisters. The Knights Kingdom II sets came in plastic or metal canisters. The Dinosaurs sets all came in plastic canisters, other than the baby dinosaurs. The RoboRiders and Throwbots sets all came in canisters, though in the case of the Throwbots the canister itself was inside a cardboard box. A lot of impulse-priced LEGO Creator sets came in canisters. There are probably other examples I'm not remembering as well. BIONICLE was hardly unique in that respect, or even a pioneer in that type of packaging.
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I actually think that could be a sign that these packages are, in fact, resealable. Looks like there might be a tab on the bottom side that folds behind that. But hard to say for sure at this point.
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Brickset has a lot of users who are hostile towards themes they don't collect or understand in general. The forums, which have an age restriction in place, are slightly better, but the news article comments can be a dire place. And even on the forums there are some people who are EXTREMELY vitriolic about sets or themes they don't like, regardless of how other people might feel. There's a reason my twin brother hasn't joined the site.
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Six out of nine of the new mixels are from brand-new tribes. I don't think we have to worry about them running out of ideas any time soon. And to be perfectly honest, I think they're going about this the right way. If they were to just come up with brand-new color schemes for every set of three Mixels, it wouldn't be too long before they ran out of ones that both looked good and made thematic sense with what the tribe in question represented. I think creating new members of existing tribes could help extend the life of the theme. I don't see it as missed opportunity, but rather the opposite. Just think of how much creative opportunity would be missed if the LEGO Group just made three Mixels for each tribe or theme and then abandoned that tribe or theme forever, never to return to it. Surely the Mixels we've gotten in the existing tribes aren't the ONLY creative ideas that fit those tribes' themes.
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I had forgotten about that. I kind of like Penkid11's theory that she has the power to use Spinjitzu and just hasn't unlocked it for her own use yet. Lloyd seems to indicate that Spinjitzu runs in the family, after all, and Sensei Wu tells Kai in the short story "In His Footsteps" that his father "could have (learned Spinjitzu), if he had chosen that path. But he did not." Perhaps the same applies to Nya — she could be a Spinjitzu master, but she instead decided to embrace her own unique skills and become a samurai. In any case, it will be interesting if the writers choose to touch on Nya's elemental potential in later episodes.
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Personally, my one biggest misgiving about Pohatu is more about how his colors are organized than what colors he has. Doesn't totally jive with the other Toa, who appear to have metallic chest plates and colored torsos. Also, I'm not totally sold on the asymmetry in his arm colors. It was awesome on CHI Panthar, but that had asymmetrical weapons to justify it: he had one regular arm for holding weapons and one powerful, energized arm with gold armor and a big gold claw. On Pohatu it's hard to read a lot of significance into it, since he uses the same weapon in both hands.
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No, they never said anything specific to that effect, but it's easy to see how the ninja (or viewers) might be able to assume it. You never see any other characters using elemental powers in a similar way, and Sensei Wu went out of his way to choose these four ninja. I don't know if Nya officially has elemental powers. What we DO know about her is what's established in the LEGO Ninjago Official Guide: she "does not know Spinjitzu or any formal martial arts, but has a fighting style that is uniquely her own." The trading cards featuring her all showed a lot of fire, but that was quite possibly just artistic license, the same way some of the cards depict the spinners themselves even though they're mostly meant to be symbolic for the tornadoes that surround a Spinjitzu user. Some of Garmadon's skeleton warriors (unspecified) are established to have Spinjitzu in the same book. But although the old website described them with titles like "the skeleton of ice" or "skeleton general of lightning", I think their elemental affiliations are more symbolic, like the elemental affiliations of the Serpentine trading cards. The trading cards never show them using elemental powers. The snake cultists are definitely not placeholders, as they appear in as humans in illustrations. I like that not only do the Anacondrai followers wear the skulls of dead Anacondrai, but one has what looks like an Anacondrai skin wrapped over his head. Spooky! There is at least one new Anacondrai (a purple one with a shorter neck than Pythor). Some people have speculated that this is Arcturus, but I'm hesitant about assuming that, in part because I haven't seen all of this year's episodes, so I'm even more clueless about how the Anacondrai might return than most people. Incidentally, one of the human cultists in both the promotional art and set 70747 has the same red shoulder pads and Sand Yellow sword as the mystery Anacondrai in 70748. Perhaps part of the way Pythor gathers these followers is by promising them the opportunity to become actual Anacondrai? I also like the color scheme and aesthetic of the Anacondrai vehicles and ruins. It's similar enough to the Serpentine vehicles and ruins to make sense thematically, but different enough that it doesn't feel like a rehash of the 2012 sets. All the bones are very cool, though I hope that in the final set these might be tan to match the skulls rather than white.
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There's a lot of disdain for the line as a whole on Brickset, for certain.
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I think you are right on both counts. Notice also that the shoulder joints of the torso beam on Tahu, Gali, and Lewa appear to be unused. So that means the actual shoulders are probably set behind the torso beams and attached to some kind of Technic contraption. I'm sure some people will consider this solution inelegant (I have never quite figured it out, but a lot of people seem to have an aversion to unused ball joints), but I think it's far preferable to the sets' actual torsos relying on bulky, overdesigned gearboxes. Also, yes, the new blasters work by rotating the outside section around the center or vice-versa. On the Protectors of Jungle and Water, at least, the outer ring is fixed to the "tool" and a gear behind it rotates the center section. Also, I was trying to figure out why Gali's weapon has spare pins on one side of it. Maybe the axe blades connect to her feet for some reason? The only other guess I've seen is for use in a combi model, but since there are exactly the right number of pins to connect them securely to her feet I'm starting to think that's the more likely possibility.
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gedren_y pointed out to me that the male character in 41074 is another elf anyway, since he has pointed ears that I hadn't noticed. In any case, he appears to be a supporting character. I agree it could be cool to see some more fantasy critters, but I like the ones who appear in sets. Not only are they generally based on animals that feature extensively in mythology and folklore, but I'm a sucker for wild-colored elemental critters. The fox and squirrel in particular are adorable!
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As some other people have stated, Treespeak sometimes made plenty of sense. Check out the original treespeak lexicon. Even back then, some of the words didn't make a whole lot of sense coming from an English-language linguistic perspective, like "lowduck" for "crouch" or "duck", but there were also plenty of words like "uptree", "downtree", "deepwood", and "topleaf" that make plenty of linguistic sense — in part because they express ideas that are particular to Le-Koro culture and that other tribes might neither have nor need a simpler way of saying. I should mention that most of Greg Farshtey's treespeak and the treespeak in the BIONICLE movies, was often terrible — using two redundant words together to express what could be expressed just as easily with one or the other. Though, of course, in some cases it could be explained as emphasis, much like how many actual Polynesian words will repeat the same word or root to convey a higher degree of that word's meaning. C.A. Hapka's treespeak was not a whole lot better in my opinion ("mystery-king of knownothingness", anyone?). To his credit, Greg seemed to be fully aware that he wasn't good at writing treespeak, and generally disliked having to do so.
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If you think headcanons like differently-gendered Toa Mata are anywhere NEAR as annoying and overused as "hype train" or "omega tahu", then I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Because this is the first time I've seen mention of a female Onua come up in weeks if not months. Meanwhile there have been several Hype Train/Omega Tahu references and you've barely batted an eye.
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Glad I'm not the only person who noticed those similarities. :P
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I think the treasures are meant to be keys, not hairbrushes.
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I don't think they would have designed BIONICLE specifically for older fans even if Hero Factory had continued. After all, BIONICLE has always been aimed at a similar age range to Hero Factory, and boasted a similar level of complexity. Reinventing BIONICLE for an older audience would not only have been unfaithful to the original theme, it would have greatly reduced the size of its potential audience. Personally, I find the new BIONICLE sets are plenty complex anyway. The Toa all seem to have gear functions, and plenty of them have more elaborate leg and arm designs than BIONICLE canister sets ever did, many of the "Protectors" ans some of the Toa have elaborately assembled weapons (rather than specialized single-piece weapons like most BIONICLE sets had), most of the "Protectors" have more articulation than BIONICLE's Matoran ever did, and even the Skull Spiders (which take the place of BIONICLE's various mind-control masks like Krana and Infected Kanohi) actually boast four points of articulation.
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For the record, I never ever saw the Faxon as feminine. It looked robotic, if anything — as such, I find it more fitting on the Toa Terrain Crawler than it was on Hahli OR Lesovikk. The only thing that might make it seem slightly feminine is its large eye holes, but even they were sharp and angular compared to the soft, round eyes that gave even the much-hated Kanohi Elda a slightly feminine touch. As for the new Gali's mask, all its shapes are smooth curves, even though some of them meet at sharp angles. It also maintains the triangular mouth that defined both the Kaukau and Kaukau Nuva in most depictions. And the forehead resembles the Kaukau Nuva as it appeared in BIONICLE: The Game and BIONICLE: Mask of Light, albeit slightly stylized. The only trait that strictly reminds me of the 2008 version of the mask is its elongated, pointed chin, which in this version is shaped much differently and doesn't come at the expense of a clearly-defined mouth or breathing vents. I don't see that as a particularly masculine or feminine trait — it's a trait that would appear heavily stylized on a mask or face of any gender. Are the eyes red? On every picture I've seen, they appear colorless, or even slightly greenish. I don't know where people are seeing red eyes, unless I'm somehow going color-blind and never noticed until now.
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I don't have any particular problem with Gali's new mask myself. It's more feminine than the original Kaukau Nuva, IMO. Sort of like slightly pointier version of the Kaukau Nuva as it appeared in BIONICLE: Mask of Light. But mostly I'd just consider it gender-neutral — certainly there's nothing overtly masculine about it. If you think that it looks kind of spooky and non-humanoid... well, they're tribal masks. That's kind of always been the point. A lot of the non-BIONICLE fans in my family think the faces have always looked freaky in general, so I don't know why Gali's mask is held to a higher standard. Granted, I don't love it as much as Breez's mask from 2013, which actually looked remarkably feminine. But there is in fact some sense to the argument that as interchangeable masks, Kanohi should be able to fit any character, male or female.