The boomerangs on mine are perfectly fine. They hold their position when I pose them, what more do you need?

I personally love Pohatu. Could he have used more brown? I guess, but the silver certainly doesn't do any harm. I think metallic colors only hurt when all the characters have it. Since Pohatu is the only one with that much silver, I just consider it part of his color scheme.

And, yeah. Low parts count. But I really don't see what they could have added/done to increase that number. He accomplishes what he needs to.

So I brought Lewa and Gali.

Lewa's colour scheme works wonderfully and his mask is great, but like the 4 other CCBS sets that I've bought, I didn't even bother assembling his poorly designed weapons as per the instructions. I really like his upper leg design and the 3L technic pin/axle piece is going to be very useful for MOCing. Interestingly, only his green shells have the new edge. 4 problems I have with him:

- Weapons: I've never found weapons to be a stong point in action figure sets and Lewa's axes are possibly the worst ones I've seen, halfly due to the mix of silver and gunmetal. I just used the swords without the axe part.

- Power up mode: While I would be okay with long arms, the length ratio between the upper and lower arm puts me off along with the technic connection on the back that became redundant due to my weapon modifications, so I used a shorter limb instead.

- Head articulation, and his head touches the gears:

- An issue with all toa: there isn't half a module of bare axle before the ball for their arm connection, so the articulation is slightly more limited. Also this makes the axle slide outwards a bit and it is annoy to push it back in.

I thought that Gali would easily be the best set of the wave, but she has just been a frustrating set for me. Her colour scheme works but it's too dark for my liking. I dislike how her legs are too long for her body; and the shoulder armour hits the body when her arm swings, and its weird how the armour only swings on one arm. I think her lower leg armour is too bulky, making her legs look big rather than feminine. None of my fixes work properly for her so far:

- Raising the gearbox by one module still has the shoulders too broad and her friction gears no longer fit.

- Narrowing the shoulders has her arms hitting the shoulder balls of the torso frame and her shoulder armour no longer fits.

- Sawing off the torso shoulders still has the problem where the only proper way to add friction to her gears makes her body have too much depth.

- A custom torso runs into issues with securely connecting the torso shell without messing up the hips or head.

- So now my Gali set has no gears, but I still think it looks bad because the torso shells don't match the full-on technic construction behind it that builds the shoulders.

While I like how the new gear system is has friction so that the toa can hold poses, and the ball joints take away the need to align the arms like with the toa Metru, I don't think it works well this the torso frame as it pushes back the arms by two modules, which is a lot for "small" sets like the toa. Subsequently, there is a large gap between the chest plate and the arms.I'm okay with the clean, simple shells, even though the toa no longer look nowhere near 85% mechanical. The problem that I have with the shells is that they look rather gappy as they are not flush this the bones like most of the G1 armour was. I still don't like the use of balljoints and and System pins to connect armour, which in my opinion is a lot messier, less secure (not "fixed" like axles or 2 pins) and annoying to work with. The masks are nicely designed, but the head doesn't catch as much light as the Metru one so the eyes are barely visible most of the time.The connection is also less secure than both the Mata and Metru head as the masks wobble a bit.

So far, I'm not feeling the hype and would rate the first half wave 5.5/10. Bionicle 2015 doesn't really appeal to me, but I guess that's expected because LEGO is aiming to draw in new (typically younger) fans as they should.

What if the Ekimu in the summer sets is not Ekimu, but Terridax in a disguise?

  On 3/17/2015 at 1:21 PM, Kalhiki said:

The boomerangs on mine are perfectly fine. They hold their position when I pose them, what more do you need?

its toy for children at first. it must not break from weakest touch.

  On 3/17/2015 at 5:11 PM, TheLastToaofLight said:

What if the Ekimu in the summer sets is not Ekimu, but Terridax in a disguise?

Do you mean G1 Teridax (unlikely) or G2 Makuta (slightly more likely)?

  On 3/17/2015 at 5:11 PM, TheLastToaofLight said:

What if the Ekimu in the summer sets is not Ekimu, but Terridax in a disguise?

I find that highly unlikely. Since TLG's trying to keep the story simpler this time around, I'm pretty sure there won't be any impersonations. Even when Teridax was impersonating Dume in Gen 1, his actions were questionable at best and therefore it was fairly obvious something was wrong. We have seen Ekimu do nothing to suggest he's not who he says he is. Mostly because he's asleep... But still.

  On 3/17/2015 at 6:16 PM, mysteriouspi said:

I find that highly unlikely. Since TLG's trying to keep the story simpler this time around, I'm pretty sure there won't be any impersonations. Even when Teridax was impersonating Dume in Gen 1, his actions were questionable at best and therefore it was fairly obvious something was wrong. We have seen Ekimu do nothing to suggest he's not who he says he is. Mostly because he's asleep... But still.

Not to mention the fact thatthe Ekimu in the set being Makuta (not Teridax) would scuttle a great deal of the set's play potential. It currently has a lot of easily understood play potential because it presents an iconic good vs. evil conflict. If both characters are evil, suddenly play gets less obvious and more confusing—is Makuta fighting Skull Grinder to fool the Toa? Is Skull Grinder somehow the good guy? Just what is going on there?

That's the same reason why I think we're not that likely to see a similar set with Makuta. On the face of it, it seems to be a simple substitution—just swap Ekimu for Makuta and Skull Grinder for a new villain! But such a set would not provide such an unambiguous play scenario, because it doesn't present two diametrically opposed characters and thus lacks any obvious conflict play.

I actually really like the amount of friction of Pohatu's boomerangs. They stay in place when they're still, but with a quick flick you can switch them from closed to open. Kind of like... switchblade boomerangs. :P

Granted, my family doesn't actually have the Pohatu set (I've just gotten to play with them since my brother got some of the boomerang parts at NYCC), so it could be that the looseness coupled with his gear function results in some awkwardness.

Saving most of my Pohatu thoughts for a full review (review copies <3) but I'm okay with the boomerang friction thus far. Just strong enough.

The friction on the jetarangs of my Pohatu is totally fine, so I'm surprised to learn there are some issues with it here and there. My only gripe about him is that the boomerangs aren't that great for posing as opposed to melee weapons, I guess.

But anyway, I intend to mash Pohatu with Onua, and I will most likely turn the boomerangs into some sort of jet engine wings, as which they'll work just fine, I hope.

Finally ordered my Hero Pack(damn procrastination) along with Gali, Onua, PoS, and PoE.

Now as on the topic of Pohatu's jeterangs mine have enough friction, though I would like to complain about Pohatu's legs, the thigh bone being larger then the leg bone gets a bit on my nerves, as does the lower gearbox. But he is growing on me the more I fiddle with him. As I don't like modding, with the exception for Xplode's and Witch Doctor's axe and staff, heightening Pohatu's gearbox works wonders in my eyes giving him the hunched appearance he had from 2001. Yes it does make head movement more restricted buuuuut :P he didn't have any head movement whatsoever in the Mata and Nuva days. XD

Edited March 18, 20159 yr by MakutaOfWar

Guess I'll throw 2 pennies in on Pohatu. There's nothing wrong with the boomerangs on mine, they do stay in place even when you rotate the gear knob a few times. But I can see why people might dislike them. They're a real headache to incorporate into a cool pose, whether he's holding them or wearing them. And yeah, he's the one with the least pieces overall, however I think his parts do go some way to make up for that. He's probably one of my lesser favourites of all the Toa, but by absolutely no means is he the worst set I have ever bought (quite a few of the Hero Factory Brain Attack sets for example were easily worse in my opinion).

What would have made Pohatu awesome would have been an integrated ability to enable Pohatu to throw the boomerang when the gearknob was rotated. But I understand that would have been near impossible anyway, so this is no more than useless post-release wishful thinking

  On 3/17/2015 at 5:11 PM, TheLastToaofLight said:

What if the Ekimu in the summer sets is not Ekimu, but Terridax in a disguise?

*I'll assume you mean Makuta.*: I doubt it, since Ekimu tells the Protectors of the prophecy of the Toa--why would Makuta tell them that?

But Makuta is somewhere, obviously......So here's my idea: the red pieces on all of the villain sets represent that they are being controlled by Makuta--sort of like infected masks from Gen 1. So the sets with the most red (LOSS and Skull Grinder) are completely Makuta controlled, like he has possessed their bodies.

Pohatu's weapons don't bother me much. The friction works pretty well, I think. Not that I've played around too much with him, but they aren't just flopping around breaking at the lightest of touches from my experience. I also like his design a lot in general. (not enough to not mess with it, but enough)

Pohatu's weapons aren't anywhere near floppy on my copy.

  On 3/18/2015 at 1:32 AM, LN-01354 said:

*I'll assume you mean Makuta.*: I doubt it, since Ekimu tells the Protectors of the prophecy of the Toa--why would Makuta tell them that?

But Makuta is somewhere, obviously......So here's my idea: the red pieces on all of the villain sets represent that they are being controlled by Makuta--sort of like infected masks from Gen 1.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. Theories like the "They used to be Toa!" don't fully work with any of them. But I'm really wondering where they've come from, with the four arms on Slicer, the giant horns on Basher... is Makuta capable of mutating stuff?

  On 3/18/2015 at 1:07 AM, MakutaOfWar said:

Now as on the topic of Pohatu's jeterangs mine have enough friction, though I would like to complain about Pohatu's legs, the thigh bone being larger then the leg bone gets a bit on my nerves, as does the lower gearbox.

Technically, a real human skeleton has longer upper legs than lower legs. In fact, the femur (upper leg bone) is the single longest bone in the human body, while the tibia (one of the lower leg bones) is the second longest.

I feel like if Pohatu's gearbox were raised like Lewa's, Onua's, or Kopaka's, he'd need some kind of shoulder armor to compensate, since it would make the distance between the torso beam and the shoulder joints that much more pronounced.

  On 3/18/2015 at 11:16 AM, Mandate said:

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. Theories like the "They used to be Toa!" don't fully work with any of them. But I'm really wondering where they've come from, with the four arms on Slicer, the giant horns on Basher... is Makuta capable of mutating stuff?

If it turns out they are actual reanimated bones, then they might not be "put together" the same way that they would have been when they were alive. The horns on Basher or the extra arms on Slicer might very easily be from different skeletons entirely.

Edited March 18, 20159 yr by Aanchir

My Pohatu's boomerangs aren't floppy, but it a lot of it depends on the friction of the pins (which tends to vary quite a bit).

  Quote

Strictly in terms of their skeletons, I think Lewa's colors are especially well organized. His "bones" alternate between black and grey/silver — his hands and feet are silver, his lower limbs are black, his upper limbs are Dark Stone Grey, his torso is black, and his head is silver. It's quite nice in my opinion, and I frequently use similar alternating colors on the MOCs I create on LDD.

Yup, Lewa's skeleton is the best organized one because it perfectly balances black and grey. I like to think of the grey bones as being covered by organic tissue (similar to the purple/gray parts on the movie characters' bodies), while the black (lower limbs, gears, etc) and silver parts (their "skulls") are pure machinery. It's arbitrary, sure, but in my mind it helps conveying the techonorganic nature BIONICLE characters are known for, so I've been modding my sets to follow this idea. In case of transparent limbs, they replace the black ones, like with Gali's and Kopaka's arms.

  Quote

Lewa's color scheme in general is organized rather nicely, with its three main colors (Silver Metallic, Bright Green, and Flame Yellowish Orange) spread out very well throughout the build. Of course, it's a bit frustrating that he is the only Toa without any transparent accents, and even though I haven't made any permanent mods to my own Lewa set, I have tested to see what he looks like with Tr. Bright Green in place of his Flame Yellowish Orange shells, and I have to admit it's one of the better-looking mods out there. The loss of contrast is offset by the flashiness the transparent shells add.

I honestly sort of wish that Gali's upper legs had been built with Dark Stone Grey 5M beams and friction joints like Lewa's instead of Black 6M beams. Not only could the extra friction be useful when posing her, but it would make the color blocking of her skeleton more consistent. But of course, her piece count is already higher than Lewa's and I believe the friction joints are a relatively expensive part to produce, so I can see why she didn't use them. She's still my favorite of the new Toa regardless.

I actually did both things! Tr. bright green on Lewa looks very vibrant and actually pretty close in spirit to his classic lime- what Lewa loses in contrast compared to keetorange and lime (the colour I initially wanted to use, for obvious reasons), he gains in looking more lively and powerful.

As for Gali, I went with that mod instead of using one of these in dark bley because I have very few of those as it is- it doesn't help that Lego stopped producing them after Worriz and Gorzan, due to their policy you explained in an earlier post. Also, her and Pohatu are the only Toa without any friction joints, and since I had to use those on Pohatu to make him taller, I thought "why not?" and so I figured using them on Gali would've been nothing but positive.

EDIT: Welp, as usual I read my post a few times to check for mistakes, yet I end up having to correct some dumb mistake I had overlooked anyway.

Edited March 18, 20159 yr by Shakar

Interesting, I never thought of replacing keetorange with trans-bright green on Lewa. I could have done with doing that so I could pinch the keetorange shells for an MOC I made a few days ago!

I still somehow wish that Pohatu was reddish brown and/or dark tan, because now I find myself needing lots of both these rare CCBS colours for an MOC. Typical!

I'll be honest though, the main weak point in all the Toa (and the Protectors to some extent, but not quite as bad since it's only present in gatling gun cores) is the use of yellow to indicate a function. It wouldn't be so bad if it was all covered, but it's not and I feel it jars with all (except Gali, since the blue and yellow do go well together). Needless to say, the first mod I did with all except Gali was swap yellow for black in the gearbox. Just personal taste of course.

So, BZPower has a news piece that might be of interested for comic fans...

Episode 7 is out in English!

  On 3/18/2015 at 5:10 PM, Agent Fusion said:

Episode 7 is out in English!

Can you give a link? I can't find it...

I can't at the moment, but check the LEGO YouTube Channel. The video is "LEGO Bionicle - Episode 7".

Oh ok, I got it.

Here's the link for everyone who's interested:

  On 3/18/2015 at 5:10 PM, Agent Fusion said:

Episode 7 is out in English!

Just watched it, and wow some of the voices were a bit strange, especially Pohatu, who now sounds like a murderer.

Also this:

#LewaIsAmused

Edited March 18, 20159 yr by AyliffeMakit