Be honest... would you say this year's Bionicle is the best year..

[Lord Admiral Helden Ravensdorn]

WORSE then the front of the mask is the BACK of the mask. Always it has been a mask on a head (Exept for the Hordika, but at least they had an excuse) Not this time! Now, the "head" is a cheesy peice of glow-in-the-dark plastic. Yey. T_T

Umm. Did you actually get any of the new sets?

The Inika heads don't glow in the dark. At all.

... Oh. Thought they were. My bad. At least I know that the heads that arent glow in the dark dont fire lasers.

I'm split in two on your overall appraisal.

As far as story goes, all the movies they put on cds and dvd and junk... none of it is still as cool as the original online game from like 2001.

The Tohunga characters, with all their wit and humor in movement...gone forever I'd say.

In the movies, they were SUPER annoying. I was expecting them to say stuff like "radical" and "totally tubular" while jumping on skateboards & blaring boomboxes.

I concur ENTIRELY here. MNOLG I is, and forever shall be, the greatest multimedia thing in all of Bionicle, followed by, IMHO, LoMN. The Matoran just sucked in MoL, and havnt been properly portrayed since Templar stopped doing stuff in 2003. My point IS, However, that they shouldnt HAVE to be gone forever - If the story was better written in that respect.

So, their lack of presence in the current series was welcome. They've been "dead" for years.

But I'm not a man of story, I'm a man of parts.

I am glad to know that you acknowlage it :) Some fans wouldnt >_>

However, I must say, we are opposite on this - I am a man of story, not parts. In fact... I am utterly terrible at Bionicle MOCs :P Thats why I bulid pirate ships.

Yeah, the heads leave alot to be desired, as do the bodies, as do the swirly-colored, useless-to-moc-with armor in 2 of the sets... but there's alot of other good stuff. FOUR joint beams in each Inika? And the armor bits are a little better than in recent years, WAY more able to be used in mocs.

The heads, while far from the awesomeness of the 2001 plastic masks, at least have room for more customization than all the years since 2001.

You can actually put stuff through the eyeholes this time. It might not sound like a big deal to you, but to me, it means the mask isn't just a mask.

Music? Bleh. I approach it the same as I do the story. Don't care. Nothing compares to the 2001 online game.

While I will agree with this, the music is, to me, what sets the background feel for the whole setting. We go from the utterly unique and origional Metru Nui to weird pseudo basketball stadium lights, chainlink fences, and the AAR.

One could complain about weapons all being swords, but think back to 2001... who was the coolest Toa? Oh, Kopaka, with his sword. EVERYONE made at least 1 moc holding that sword I think. :-D

It's only logical that it'd be emulated further on down the line.

I know what you mean about the gimmick sets.

In 2001, it was impossible to go into a store that carried Lego and NOT see mask packs falling off the shelves. It was great.

But even though the collectibles since then have increasingly sucked harder and harder (well, the spinners were the worst), Lego has at least had the decency to hide them within the confines of shop@home, with few exception.

I have yet to see any of the poopy plastic marbles where I buy Lego. Thank goodness.

I never saw the silly rhotuka spinners there either.

I THINK I saw those worthless Kraata tubs there for 1 week, in super-small quantity.

Haha, I will agree with you on this - If your collectibles have to suck, put them on a need-to-buy basis for your fans :P

So, it's good to know they're not allocating time and money away from the sets in that regard.

To each his own though. I miss the smaller pieces used in the titan sets of 2005, but at the same time I don't miss the illogically butt-ugly set designs or some of the super-worthless <insert that tiresome argument> parts.

It really started in 2005 and has fully matured now: Sacrificing a good story for pure Inika vs Piraka Shoot 'em up Blow 'em up. It fits with the bland characters since in this story you dont need more then bland characters because the story is bland. "Blow up Piraka, rescue the Toa Nuva, get the Mask of Life, and rescue the All American Rejects".

You mean in comparison to the years before it, where things that were clearly weapons were constantly called "tools", where the showdown of their first movie against the big, evil enemy was... a hockey game?

I'll take mindless violence over insultingly veilied, politically correct violence ANY day of the week.

I was reffering more to the feel of the Toa Metru, where their tools WERE actually tools, and real combat was kept to a minimum (Such as the Matau vs Vakama fight). I will agree that the Makuta vs Takanuva Koli match sucked hard, though. My point is is that you CAN walk the fine line between bad junorized combat and Grand Theft Auto and still make it all around goodieness.

[JINZONINGEN73]

My point is is that you CAN walk the fine line between bad junorized combat and Grand Theft Auto and still make it all around goodieness.

Indeed, indeed.

Though when I think about it, nothing comes to mind as to examples of it. I know there have been, but my brain's malfunctioning. The Metru kind of went there, but there was still a certain blandness to it.

One thing's certain though. If war toys CAN'T walk the fine line without falling over, violence is more fun to observe than them sipping a cup of tea. But that's from a builder's point of view. Yours is from the reader's view, and something intellectual SHOULD be the desired image.

...we're babbling, aren't we?

X D

[Lord Admiral Helden Ravensdorn]

Rambling and what all is more like it ^_^

At least I can have a good ramble with you :-)

[Clone comander Nodra 999]

i havnt been to happy with the ignika heads. Best toa were the metru worst were the hordika. They looked like dinosaurs or somethin. This years titans are perfect though the tlc has come a long way since the original rahi, Muaka and kane ra took a very long time to make then disasemble and recobine into their kaita.

[Dino_Bot]

2001 was the best.

2006 is the second best.

I love this year.

but nothing beats good old style Technic Bionicle.

[Clone comander Nodra 999]

I feel that the new masks seem more organic. Thier apeart to be ribs under hahlis eyes.

[Turaga of Force]

The best years were 2001 and 2002. :D Storyline, sets, and promos.

[snefroe]

i'm not a bionicle fan, but i was really impressed when they were first released in 2001; there was a really good back story to it and the figures were just great! 8-

[JINZONINGEN73]

If they do get around to canceling the line, it'd be an awesome excuse to debut them all over again a few years later, but done right ...right from the beginning.

I'm not sure how they're selling abroad, but here in my little section of the US, the Inika sets (unlike the Piraka) FLEW off the shelves.

The larger, $80,000,000 sets with the System parts sit on the shelves, mostly.

[Dino_Bot]

This was a good year 'till they ruined it with boy bands and ridiculous to an extreme elements like Free the Band and blah, I mean, why the heck the Piraka would be kidnapping dorky emo looking guys? And why the hell would the Inika be saving them instead of looking for the MoLi or fighting the Piraka? That All American Rejects thing was totally, extremely unneccesary, therefore I gotta agree with the music thing, speaking of music, do you have the main theme for Bionicle one? I'd greatly appreciate it, that was some great music, which should have been continued, and not some dumb boy band looking to get Promotional.

[snefroe]

i feel they've gone a bit too far with the playability aspect. sure, these small balls are quite cool on the box but in real life they look a bit... well... like an ordinary plastic ball... do you guys really see this fire mechanism as an improvement to the line?

[herrluke]

I must agree with you on that point. I mean come on, Who can't like colored strobe lights???!!!!! *wub*

Luke

[Optimax X]

No, i'd say 2001, bionicle seems to be geting darker and moving away more and more from kids toys to teenager toys, with the darkness touch.

Cheers m'deers! *skull*

Optimax!

[xenologer]

I don't think this year is that great.

05 I got the little Rahkshis, cause they're cute funny little guys, and are made using mostly 'normal' technic bits and techniques. Same situation for last years Matorans, they were pretty good.

But these new ones are almost totally custom parts for each character. And just snapped together with like 7 ball joints, no complicated technic rods and connectors to build up anything.

They seem to be moving more towards 'action figures' and playability than construction. But you know what? we already saw that with Galidor, and that sucked. -enough said

[hewkii9]

Why do so many people here dislike 2k4? It was my favorite year. Lhikan, Nidhiki's snapping claws[when the joints were fresh and stiff, you could hold a Toa Metru in the air], great canisters, and Golden Disks-A promotion that could be wrangled into canon- The Metruan are holding a lottery to win a Golden Kanoka. Wow! And the best movie.

--And DON'T say they brought us cookie-cutter personae. Jaller, for all his caution, doesn't look back and regret his decisions. No Stone Toa but Onewa feels comfortable in the air 'Onewa swings from buildings. I fall off them' Whenua, BC#2. And Matoro seems a bit too wimpy to be like Nuju.

[Zaktan of the Shadows]

I would say its the best. Even if 2007 rocks, 2006 is still great!

-ZotS