Hero Factory 2011

[Cyrix]

Darn shame about the chest piece, but the new jungle update is pretty cool. I just wish they had the combi-elements in more colors; Nex's orange, or Raw-Jaw's red.

On a Recon sidenote, did anybody get a letter with their original orders, signed by some Hero named "Vic Tory"? I've seen a few references to it, but I can't find any pictures of the letter, and I sure didn't get one with my original order.

I did get a letter from "Vic Tory" with my first Hero purchase, and I think I still have it stashed away somewhere.

[Aanchir]

Darn shame about the chest piece, but the new jungle update is pretty cool. I just wish they had the combi-elements in more colors; Nex's orange, or Raw-Jaw's red.

On a Recon sidenote, did anybody get a letter with their original orders, signed by some Hero named "Vic Tory"? I've seen a few references to it, but I can't find any pictures of the letter, and I sure didn't get one with my original order.

Dorek, my man! Didn't even know you had an account here!

I'm also a bit disappointed by some of the lacking colors. I suppose, though, there had to be some sort of compromise to keep the parts palette relatively small despite now having two waves of parts. I'm personally grateful that Hero Recon Team seems to have been successful enough that they didn't have to retire any parts besides the exclusive chest piece.

[Dorek]

I did get a letter from "Vic Tory" with my first Hero purchase, and I think I still have it stashed away somewhere.

If you could pull that out, and copy/scan it, I'd be very grateful. I've been trying to hunt it down everywhere, and I can't figure out why I didn't get one to start with =P

Dorek, my man! Didn't even know you had an account here!

I'm also a bit disappointed by some of the lacking colors. I suppose, though, there had to be some sort of compromise to keep the parts palette relatively small despite now having two waves of parts. I'm personally grateful that Hero Recon Team seems to have been successful enough that they didn't have to retire any parts besides the exclusive chest piece.

Haha, yeah, I've had the account for a few years; mostly used it for technical stuff. I remembered that I still had the account, and figured it'd be fun to get back in the forum experience again, what with BZP going belly up.

Yeah, they're really rocking the HRT. It's supplemented well by the PAB, so I'm really hoping that gets updated too; it's nice to order small pieces that they don't use in HRT, like lower arm armor, and the lightsaber bits. I want to order stuff to make a Fortis claw.

[Cyrix]

If you could pull that out, and copy/scan it, I'd be very grateful. I've been trying to hunt it down everywhere, and I can't figure out why I didn't get one to start with =P

That's odd, because the message seems like something that would be mailed with every order. I'll be able to scan it tomorrow.

I guess you'll be heading off to HS01 with this. =P

[Dorek]

Maaaaaybe.

I don't know why I didn't get it; some crazy mixup, or alternatively, I threw it away, but I would have noticed something like that, I hope. TLG isn't above omitting paperwork things from my orders/magazines, so I'm not terribly surprised.

[Mesonak]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

[Aethersprite]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

Thank you so much! I'd kiss you if I could.

Could someone refresh my memory - are the VAs for Bulk and Stringer same as their 1.0 counterparts, and is Nex's VA the same as in OoF? He sounds a bit different.

[MontanaVista]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

You sir... are the man!! Thanks for the upload!

[Mesonak]

Thanks... I suppose

They are the same; their execution has improved, however. I think the lines are delivered much better than in previous movies.

[Aethersprite]

Just watched it. Storyline-wise, though, I didn't quite like it. It was too kiddy for me, I think I liked OoF better.

However, the character development of the Heroes was very nice to watch, especially between Furno and Rocka. Also it was nice to see Stormer continuing his role as leader, I like him even more after watching this. Makes me want to pick up his toy.

[Ceroknight]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

Thanks!

[Vinyl Scratch]

Thank you Meso

Eh. Can't you separate it into two parts or something? PC gets a bit laggy

God I wish the soundtrack for Hero Factory gets released someday.

[Zeon]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

Thank you, my son have been asking for it on a daily basis since it was announced to be aired at july in wikipedia. (So you can get a picture of how excited he will be :))

[Front]

A bit unfortunate that the movie is squeezed in aspect ration, making every character looking short and fat.

[Aanchir]

Hero Factory: Savage Planet has been uploaded to my youtube channel in high quality.

Thanks for that, just watched it. To be honest, I was extremely underwhelmed. Perhaps it's just because RotR got such negative reception and so I was expecting the worst with it, and then this got a lot of positive reception in comparison, but this time I felt the script was really, really lacking. Hardly any of the Hero banter and jokes struck me as in-character or even funny. And while I had no problems with the voices of the various creatures, it seemed like many of them were added for the express purpose of letting them join in on the unfunny banter.

Stringer disappointed me time and time again. The voice isn't a problem for me... he had a southwestern American accent for the whole of the story, including RotR and Hero Factory FM. But this episode had him utter the completely inexplicable line "This is just like wrangling cattle back home!" or some such, thus reducing him to a mere cowboy stereotype (he's always worked at the Hero Factory; what on earth could he be talking about?). It also struck me as a major missed opportunity when he issued a plasma blast from his claw. If he'd been given, say, a sonic roar, it would have both tied in with his former sound-based powers (which shared the same visual effect in RotR anyway, so it's hard to think everyone's forgotten about them) and his new bear form.

In fact, most of the animal forms weren't used in outstanding ways. Zib's introduction of the new forms lacked even a hint of drama (His voice is still the only one in the series I extremely dislike), and most of the powers and motifs were never touched on again. Not even in the hero banter, which is where they'd have made the most sense (as demonstrated in the quotes here). On another note related to set design, Furno never used his bow as a projectile weapon, no matter how often other story content has emphasized the importance of it in a team with mostly melee attacks at their disposal.

The "hero parts in the cave" scene bothered me, too. I had expected something more like Rocka XL's box art, although maybe a bit less morbid, with Hero parts littering the ground or something. Not a bunch of Hero parts with colors that look like brand-new, arranged in a neat pile. The animators could also easily have had Furno hold up a part other than a Hero torso (which wouldn't even be needed to build Rocka XL, since Rocka 3.0 already has one) and had it be much more convincing that these were "ancient armor pieces". Especially considering I don't think the Hero Factory is more than 100 years old in and of itself, so even if you treat the modern armor design as a place where sets and story are inconsistent the Hero Core is a glaringly obvious sign that it's Hero armor.

I found it ironic that the set names for the enemy creatures were never uttered, suggesting that the script was written before the final names were settled on, but this wasn't really a flaw. Frankly, I was afraid they'd be treated like given names, which would have been awful. So that's one strong point in favor of the episode.

Now what was amazing, much of the time, was the animation and cinematography, although there was a lot of shaky-cam... I couldn't tell if it was a result of the recording somehow or of the actual animation, but it was bothersome to say the least. I liked the jungle atmosphere, including the Quaza temple, the teleporters, and the tree branches. These all felt right at home in the sci-fi Hero Factory universe.

The Heroes were rendered well also, with little splashes of color on some of their armor parts to make them more interesting. I loved Furno's jets (he's like the only character who made really good use of his animal powers), even though I had hoped his flight might be more graceful. It was a bit of a shame that the big shoulder armor pieces on Stormer and Stringer were shrunk down. While it fulfills the practical function of more often letting you see the characters' faces, as well as possibly simplifying animation, it also makes the character designs less imposing.

And what I did like about this script was the fact that there was at least some character development. Bulk's vocabulary and reading didn't seem at all in-character to me, but his statement "I'm more than just the big guy!" brought that full-circle, showing that he's actively trying to improve on his intelligence. It's very heartwarming especially because some of our earliest info about Bulk mentioned that he was self-conscious about not being a particularly bright hero, which was never followed up on until now.

Rocka and Furno didn't seem to show their character development that well, so it's possible they'll appear next year, still as rivals. But in the very least the fact that they teamed up to rescue Stormer was believable as a cause for which they could put aside their differences and give each other full support.

Witch Doctor was possibly the best-written character. He had very stereotypical mad scientist lines, but do you know what? They were all well-delivered, in-character, and most importantly, intimidating. His evil laugh might have seemed a bit odd in that video clip we saw a while back, but at the end of his dramatic monologue it was wonderfully bone-chilling.

Overall, this probably seems like an extremely negative review, especially coming from a person who tends to look at things from the most positive perspective possible. And truth be told, it was a fun episode to watch. But I was still, as I said, underwhelmed, and couldn't help but grimace at some of the things like the banter which I felt detracted from the experience.

EDIT: On a side note, Raw-Jaw's lower jaw kind of resembled a Rahkshi head in that episode. Has anyone tried that idea? I'm away from my BIONICLE collection now, but I'd love to see photos if it really works.

Edited September 9, 2011 by Aanchir

[cylex7]

I liked the movie overall, and the characters were well done, especially Witch Doctor. Fred Tatasciore steps it up from the hammy voice of THE MIGHTY TUMA!!! to the more controlled Witch Doctor. Heck, I like him a bit more than Von Nebula! However, I don't like Waspix and Raw-Jaw's voices, though. It's understandable that they are just animals under WD's control, but they could have given them an eviler voice like they did Scorpio (who gave me Nidhiki flashbacks! <3 ).

I also applaud Tom Kenny's voice work. It seems more mature than some of his recent works, and the rest of the team was voiced wonderfully, and the characters seem more fleshed out this time, with each of their own quirks. Sad that the Animal Powers didn't get put to ANY use, and I still think that Breeze would have been great in this wave. Judging from her mask style in 2010 she could have been some kind of insect.

All in all, I loved the entire thing. There were a lot of jokes and shout-outs to other movies and media (HeroPedia, "How about a little fire, Hero?"). This was a little better than Rise of the Rookies and leaps and bounds over Ordeal of Fire. I can't wait to see what HF has in store for us next wave, and hopefully this series will last for a long time.

On a side note, the DVD says 88 minutes, but the youtube video says 42 minutes. I know that Ordeal of Fire is around 20 minutes, so there's an extra 20 or so minutes lying around. Anyone know what it's for?

[The Crazy One]

On a side note, the DVD says 88 minutes, but the youtube video says 42 minutes. I know that Ordeal of Fire is around 20 minutes, so there's an extra 20 or so minutes lying around. Anyone know what it's for?

Apologies for the utter drivel that was Savage Planet?

I didn't enjoy any of it, even though I wanted to. Major problems were that the fighting was appalling, at least something vaguely epic coul have been attempted. And the Furno Wasix scene was laughable. Don't get me started on how irritating Nex is and how ridiculous the idea that the monsters can talk. Stringer was cheesy, Furno and Rocka's banter was forced, and I think the only thing I didn't cringe at was the credits.

But, I'm not the target audience.

One other thing, I want the return of the old better than set movie versions we saw in Web of Shadows and stuff like that. So much more life like and easier on the eye. I had a huge problem watching Fangz walk past the screen with a gaping hole down the length of his back separating his armour.

[Zwen]

First I want to say THANKS, I was waiting for this. Second, I'd like to know about some colors: Rocka is brown, so do you think that the designers were trying to make a "stone hero"? Graphics, here, I got to say that they did a terrific job. I can't say that is the best I have ever seen. Because I would really like to see heroes fighting for real, there is a lack of action that makes me feel dissapointed. But let's think that this is a "good try", and they are getting better, so, next time I'm sure that we are going to see a very good episode. It was fun guys, but it could be better...

[Mesonak]

I, unlike most of you, think they did exceptionally well. The majority of the combat was hand-to-hand, which is refreshing; lasers were scarce. I found the jokes and one-liners to be humorous, in stark contrast to their previous series where I did not enjoy them at all (Breez/Surge). The graphics were wonderful, I enjoyed the voice actors of all of the characters, and I found Witch Doctor to be refreshing in terms of his motives and intelligence. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but I consider it on par (and slightly better than) TLR as well as RoTR and OoF.

Feels good to be in the minority

[Vinyl Scratch]

I, unlike most of you, think they did exceptionally well. The majority of the combat was hand-to-hand, which is refreshing; lasers were scarce. I found the jokes and one-liners to be humorous, in stark contrast to their previous series where I did not enjoy them at all (Breez/Surge). The graphics were wonderful, I enjoyed the voice actors of all of the characters, and I found Witch Doctor to be refreshing in terms of his motives and intelligence. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but I consider it on par (and slightly better than) TLR as well as RoTR and OoF.

Feels good to be in the minority

That's the same thing I was thinking about this movie.

I KNEW that Nex had feelings for Breez

[Studs Not On Top]

Thanks for the upload! I have to say I enjoyed Savage Planet. I liked the jokes, and I'm glad they made several connections between the heroes. The plot was interesting, and the action was pretty good, but I think I enjoyed the OoF fights more (better camera angles). I'll give them a plus for more close-combat, something the first four episodes barely had. Overall, a great addition to the series and probably my favorite so far.

And has anyone mentioned the Hero Recon storyline update? It seems that Fortis is on a mission of his own.

[Dorek]

Absolutely loved the HRT update; Fortis 3.0? Heck yeah. Gotta order him from the Recon Team. Good to see they took away his signature chest armor. He can suffer like the rest of us.

Anyway, I had mixed feelings about the episode. I actually liked the humor. Very self-aware, satirical, which is way better than the campy one-liners that plagued RotR.

The story had it's hits and misses. The ending was my least favorite part; Rocka becoming XL was mostly predictable (although the way it actually happened was astoundingly trivial and completely exemplifies the deus-ex-machina concept that people often misapplied to previous related features, and in general was just poorly executed), and every iota of Witch Doctor's power coming from the staff was very disappointing. However, the journey they take to confronting Witch, as well as the rivalry between Furno and Rocka, were all very enjoyable plot points. The animals talking was okay; makes sense, allows for some extra dialogue, but not completely necessary.

The animation was also pretty solid. More glossy than RotR, and OoF for the most part, but a lot of the color went into the background, as opposed to the characters, and I kinda miss that from the first episodes. The fight scenes were also very well choreographed, even if they were a bit short. When they actually bothered to use lighting at all, it came off very well, though it was avoided more than it should have been.

The voice acting was also pretty good; Witch Doctor is a fine step up from "I AM THE MIGHTY TUMA", and Tatasciore brings his A-game to that. I was also moderately surprised with Tom Kenny as Rocka; less squeaky than I would have thought, although his voice still cracked at some cringe-worthy times. Stringer was disappointingly southern, but Stanton did better when he had dialogue with other people, as opposed to one-liners (cattle wrangling should never be mentioned again). Chris Duncan (Dunkan Bulk lol) was much better this time around, really got a chance to play with that deep voice that works, since he was given more lines. Olsen and Schneider do their customary work, which is good, and Henry Winkler always cracks me up at Zib (even if his dialogue in this episode was less than stellar). I enjoy Jason Canning's Australian Nex for some reason; he would be a lot more generic without the accent, and I think it gives a personable touch.

So, on the whole, it's no masterpiece, especially when you look at RotR as one whole miniseries, but dedicating a solid hour to it helped avoid a lot of the rushed feeling of OoF, even if it didn't feel like the stakes were as high (which they pretty much were).

[Gahrak]

Thank you, Meso for the episode!

The best HF episode since OoF !!!

Thank you very much! ;)

[Aanchir]

The story had it's hits and misses. The ending was my least favorite part; Rocka becoming XL was mostly predictable (although the way it actually happened was astoundingly trivial and completely exemplifies the deus-ex-machina concept that people often misapplied to previous related features, and in general was just poorly executed), and every iota of Witch Doctor's power coming from the staff was very disappointing. However, the journey they take to confronting Witch, as well as the rivalry between Furno and Rocka, were all very enjoyable plot points. The animals talking was okay; makes sense, allows for some extra dialogue, but not completely necessary.

I kind of disagree. Rocka becoming XL was IMO one of the best parts of the episode, seeing as it reinforces the importance of building to Hero Factory. This is one of the reasons I really like Hero Factory's story-- the importance of building keeps its values close to those of the company it's a part of.

I kind of interpreted Witch Doctor's staff as letting him control his Quaza powers, not just giving them to him. And seeing as he doesn't shrink back to civilian-size when the staff is broken kind of reinforces that for me. Speaking of which, if there had been more time in the episode it might have been cool for them to see them put him through the malfunctioning teleporter to shrink him so he could be more easily brought back to the Factory. Another real missed opportunity.

And the plot points you mention liking didn't bother me much either. But the banter was oh-so-horrible to me. I much preferred the banter and one-liners from RotR. It was campy, but it was usually in-character, which I prefer to some of this episode's jokes.

The animation was also pretty solid. More glossy than RotR, and OoF for the most part, but a lot of the color went into the background, as opposed to the characters, and I kinda miss that from the first episodes. The fight scenes were also very well choreographed, even if they were a bit short. When they actually bothered to use lighting at all, it came off very well, though it was avoided more than it should have been.

Eh... Some of the scenes had colorful backgrounds, and some had more colorful characters. I kind of wish everything were a bit more colorful like it is on many of the hero box arts. A lot of the backgrounds just felt grittier and dustier than they do in promotional art elsewhere. As you mention, the lack of lighting could have something to do with this. A lot of the box art has an eerie greenish glow which is largely absent here.

I didn't really like all the fight scenes-- the Furno vs. Waspix scene was rather annoying partly because of how awkward Furno was during it. Which, granted, is plot-relevant (he's supposed to be seeing that leading isn't as easy as he thought it would be), but for me wasn't very entertaining.

The voice acting was also pretty good; Witch Doctor is a fine step up from "I AM THE MIGHTY TUMA", and Tatasciore brings his A-game to that. I was also moderately surprised with Tom Kenny as Rocka; less squeaky than I would have thought, although his voice still cracked at some cringe-worthy times. Stringer was disappointingly southern, but Stanton did better when he had dialogue with other people, as opposed to one-liners (cattle wrangling should never be mentioned again). Chris Duncan (Dunkan Bulk lol) was much better this time around, really got a chance to play with that deep voice that works, since he was given more lines. Olsen and Schneider do their customary work, which is good, and Henry Winkler always cracks me up at Zib (even if his dialogue in this episode was less than stellar). I enjoy Jason Canning's Australian Nex for some reason; he would be a lot more generic without the accent, and I think it gives a personable touch.

Absolutely disagree about Zib's voice actor. I much prefer his voice in web media like Hero Factory FM. It can be either funny or dramatic, as opposed to here where it has this uncharacteristic seriousness without any sense of dramatic timing. And when he's excited about something it's even worse-- he has the same sort of bubbly excitement as Kiina in TLR, except not on a character where that sort of attitude makes sense. His elaborate high-five with Quadal was pretty awesome, though. And I'm probably being too hard on poor Zib-- he was perfectly OK in RotR and OoF, but here it's like they concentrated all the worst things about the character and voice actor into one script.

Other voice acting was all good, although I agree about some of the awful lines Stringer had to work with. It's those awful metaphors like chocolate milk, cake, and cattle wrangling that really made me grow tired of the banter very quickly.

So, on the whole, it's no masterpiece, especially when you look at RotR as one whole miniseries, but dedicating a solid hour to it helped avoid a lot of the rushed feeling of OoF, even if it didn't feel like the stakes were as high (which they pretty much were).

Good point about the less-rushed story. Still nowhere up-to-par with some of the episodes like The Enemy Within, though. Then again, some might argue that if The Enemy Within had been more rushed they could have worked in some more story info on Von Ness so that his motivations in Episode 4 didn't seem so inexplicable. Overall, none of these episodes have been up to the same level of storytelling as Clutch Powers or the Ninjago TV episodes. Here's hoping they work a bit more on that.

Also, no idea what the other 22 minutes of content on the DVD will be.

[Studs Not On Top]

After watching Savage Planet, I knew I had to give Nex another makeover. Here's Nex 3.2, ditching the tiger stripes and instead sporting a movie-accurate paint job:

Front

Helmet

Chestplate

Shield

My painting could've been better, but for now it'll do. Since getting rid of the Sharpie stripes proved harder than I thought, I had to give a coat of orange to every orange piece; compared to Nex 2.0, he's a bit lighter in color. I'll definitely repaint Stringer when I get him, too.