Alyska

And now we have Modular Western Town, too!http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/1787

New update! My theory about the movie studio replacing the musicals is confirmed. Also...

Okay, here's a test.Firefly contains references to things that cannot be discussed on BZP. Not violence, sexual content. One character being a "companion" and all. I can't elaborate on what that means because I would almost certainly lose proto if I did.Now, if something can't be discussed here on BZP, I think that makes it pretty clear on whether it's appropriate for LEGO or not. Violence has absolutely nothing to do with this.The unfortunate thing is that LEGO didn't actually specify why they rejected it, which has lead to all these silly assumptions about violence.

Ugh. Just been looking through some other forums. I find it amazing how people can spend ten pages arguing about whether the protagonists are wearing wetsuits or not...So, what do people here think of Professor Swirlyhair? Evil or not?

>bring back from the graveDoes that mean this toyline has existed in the past?

Not sure if that's what they meant, but there was another Lego line very similar to this.

actually, there was a lego studios subtheme that included monsters. The old werewolf set is quite similar to the new one:

That werewolf is doing it wrong. You're supposed to bust out of your shirt when you transform and keep your trousers on! Geez...Hopefully the werewolves in this theme will at least be dressed decently...

See, that's the thing- kids should not be becoming desensitised to violence. They shouldn't be able to watch a 12-year-old girl get brutally murdered in a film and just go "Meh." So should the death of said character be somehow censored so that children can watch another kid die without being traumatised?I'm not going to tell people they shouldn't enjoy the books or film, but if they are, I would expect that they take in the overall horror of the situation, rather than just go for the spectacle, the costumes or the action sequences. Because when you forget that the story is about tragic, horrific things happening to kids, you become no better than the in-universe audience that watches The Hunger Games on TV. I found the events of the book horrifying, and the ending left me temporarily with little faith in humanity, but I got the impression that that was the entire point of the book. That I was meant to feel that way about the entire premise and the people involved.I read an article recently about a rise in comments on Twitter along the lines of "Why did they cast a black kid as Rue? She's not black in the book!" (actually, the book does explicitly describe her as having brown skin, but that's beside the point) and "Call me racist, but Rue's death didn't seem as sad when I found out she was black".Now, the latter comment is possibly the result of desensitisation towards violent acts happening to a particular group. Certain ethnic minorities- African Americans in particular- tend to get killed off a lot in action and horror movies, and generally, their deaths are not treated as being particularly tragic or as having much emotional impact- they're really just there to show the audience how dangerous the monster is. Once you notice this, you can't un-notice it. You start predicting which characters are going to die simply based on the colour of their skin. You automatically know that these characters are not worth paying much attention to or investing emotional attachment in because they'll be dead in twenty minutes. And that's horrible. I shouldn't be thinking like this, but I do, and I'm right 90% of the time. My little brother has even made a game of pointing out which characters are going to die, and snarking about it.But I think that if you don't consciously notice patterns like this, it's even worse. You start devaluing characters of certain ethnic minorities, and you don't even realise you're doing it. You are subconsciously taught that people of certain races are not worth getting emotionally attached to, because they're expendable. And I think that subconscious desensitisation is a big part of what causes those kinds of comments from ignorant teenagers on Twitter.Now, The Hunger Games, to its credit, did treat Rue's death as being suitably tragic and heartbreaking. She was far more than just another expendable ethnic minority, and I'm not criticising the book in the slightest. But, the thing is, because of past experience with film and TV, the impact was lost on a lot of people. In this case, it's desensitisation to violence against a particular group of people, but in some cases, I'm sure that a lot of young people get desensitised to violence and death in general (the aforementioned little brother is a definite example)....Ugh, I got onto a ramble and forgot what my original point was. Anyway, I look forward to further discussion/arguments on the subject...

@ Dorek, Yes the camera work was pretty bad. But the only reason why was because they wanted to make it child and family friendly.

I haven't seen the film yet, but I've read the first book. I can see why they would do something like that, but I'm going to raise the question of whether they should be trying to make a movie like this "family friendly", given the content....

Love this strip! I think the snowman strips are my favourite.

While not resistant to Psychic, I reckon Multi-Scale Dragonite with Extremespeed would probably counter Zam quite well, since HP Ice variants are rare.EDIT:So, from the trailers and screenshots of B2W2 so far, it appears that there's some sort of movie studio. We've seen the outside of a building decorated with film strips and cameras, an interior of a building featuring a green screen and an NPC who seems to be wearing a Mo-cap suit, as well as what appears to be an animatronic Tyranitar. Replacement for the Musicals, perhaps?

I'm sorry! Please don't cry...I was thinking about the content of the proposed story, and whether it would be okay to post on BZP, when I got to thinking about characters in their underwear... Hear me out.See, a male character being caught in his underwear (or completely naked, for that matter), for whatever reason, is generally treated as relatively harmless and funny. But if it's a female character, even if they're in the exact same situation, there's all those inherent sexual connotations of the female body, and I'm guessing that such a thing would be considered inappropriate for kids (when you think about it, in family shows, male characters winding up naked is is not uncommon, while the same thing happening to female characters is extremely rare). I guess it's all that male gaze stuff again- the viewer is assumed to be male; most men don't see other men in a sexual manner; men are expected to always see women in a sexual context; yada yada yada. Also, if some of the female audience IS seeing the undressed male character as a sex object, this is considered an anomaly and either a) not common enough to be worth worrying about, or http://www.bzpower.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.png a ridiculous thing to do that should be frowned upon. I think this can be used to explain why the later Twilight films were so unsettling to the male audience- seeing naked male torsos objectified, and being expected as an audience member to see them in a sexual light, is something that was relatively uncommon in mainstream film until then. Now, I'm not going to comment on whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the effect it's had is certainly... interesting, to say the least.

And there it is again, the infamous Tekula. If the a and o keys were right next to each other, I'd probably understand. The fact that they're on opposite sides of the keyboard just leaves me dubious to such a mistake. XP (Hah, that'll be my toa counterpart's nemesis. The evil Tekula; a female villain that can never be tracked and never leaves any sign of her existence aside from a calling card at the scenes of her crimes. XP)Anyway, it sounds like the story will be interesting. ^^ Marcus sounds fun already.

She's evil? Huh, I just thought you were getting Rule 63'd as a result of spending too much time in the Girl's Corner...Speaking of gender bender stories, I've been tossing around the idea of writing something about a literal gender bender. As in, instead of characters getting their biological sexes swapped, they get their gender identities changed by some sort of reality-warping device (So, the female character, Brooke, is now convinced that she's meant to be Brock, and her friend Chris is insisting that his name is Christine) At first, wacky hijinks ensue and all that, but then their friends realise that these people are not just Chris and Brooke having been brainwashed, but two completely new people- the original Brooke and Chris are gone (And a few of Brock's antics go from funny to creepy when you realise that he's a complete stranger in Brooke's body, not just Brooke acting loopy). So, now they're faced with the dilemma of whether to use the device again, which may or may not get them back, knowing that doing so would possibly destroy "Brock" and "Christine" in the process.Not going to spoil the ending, but what do you people think of the premise?

That's totally not the Batman logo on that rock there. No siree...But the bit with Lord Vampire snuggling up to it in his sleep (Complete with angry Mrs. Vampire) was brilliant. Even though I wish they'd named him a little more creatively...

Based on earlier interviews, I think the "frozen together' thing is actually more along the lines of the Lego bricks themselves being stuck/frozen together; as in, destroying Lego's ability to be modified, rebuilt, and, y'know, played with.One of the writers in an early interview mentioned something about superglue being evil in the Legoverse.

I have watched episodes in front of my brother, but he doesn't know I like it. He thinks I'm just trolling him.

Actually, come to think of it, Taka initially appears to regenerate as Takua, before transforming back into Takanuva (He's kind of bathed in golden light and stuff, so it's hard to see). The machinery using two Matoran to re-create him actually makes sense, (since it re-created him in their image), and it was the power of the mask that transformed him into a Toa again.I think Greg was going to expand on Jaller's revival in one of the serials, (something to do with the red star?), but it's unlikely that we'll see that resolved...

I don't think Greg is sexist. He may be a little proud, and not want to admit to making a mistake, but the number of good female characters that outright contradict the stereotypes mean that he is certainly trying to work some sense of gender equality into the inherently patriarchal Bionicle universe. Greg is self-aware enough to know that the universe he's writing for is inherently screwed up on the gender front, and I don't blame him for wanting to provide an in-universe explanation for it. As a nice touch the in-universe explanation for Bionicle's gender issues tend to mirror the real life ones- for example, it was mentioned that there are barely any female Glatorians because the Agori perceive females as being inferior and don't want them (the Agori could be seen as a stand-in for Bionicle's target audience, 8-12 year old boys) and that the Great Beings expected female Matoran and Toa to serve as gentle peacemakers (which is EXACTLY how LEGO used female characters in the early years).But I do agree that that chapter was a low point in the Bionicle story. Greg never said it was a mistake, but some of his comments were along the lines of "You guys should just be grateful I didn't decide to retcon the entire Psionics tribe into males!", which implies that it was. I don't think Greg was willing to admit it, though, which was the real problem. Then there was the clumsy cover-up, which, while it contained some interesting ideas, overall wound up making things worse. My main objection to the scene is actually Chiara's " ZAPPA DA LIZARD!" moment, which was quite badly done. There seemed to be absolutely no reason for it other than to wind up an awkward conversation, and establish Chiara as violent and psychotic (Which, allegedly, she isn't.) Given that characters like the Toa Nuva- even Tahu- have been reluctant to hurt Rahi unless it was absolutely necessary, she comes across as being completely psycho. now, Greg's stated that the "lizard" may have actually been a giant, cyborg dinosaur that was a potential threat, but where was this crucial information in the story? Sounds like more cover-ups to me.I think a lot of people misinterpreted the point of the chapter. There seemed to be two camps, one consisting of "Greg said all females are gentle! He's sexist!", and the other consisted of "Yeah? Well, females ARE gentle, what's the problem?" Maybe it was actually too subtle for some people. But then Greg said he wouldn't apologise for the chapter. That, in my opinion, did the most damage. There's refusing to admit that you made a mistake, but I think that if you know your work has hurt or upset people, you should at least demonstrate that you care. But like I said before, I think Greg did care, but he was just a bit too proud to say so...

Well, the concept of disease is not unknown to them, since they referred to the thing that wiped out the Iron tribe as a "plague".And Greg did say they have blood, but he mentioned it may not necessarily look like ours. He also said they're "a mammalian species", so we can assume that most things that apply to mammals apply to them.

Well, The Winchester didn't make it. Can't say I'm surprised...

@ JC- Generally speaking, transgender is being the opposite gender to your body, transsexual is getting your body changed to match your psychological gender.@Alex Humva- What about another female character in there somewhere- someone who outright contradicts the Great Beings' hypothesis? (Although, for the love of Mata Nui, please don't just make her "feisty". ) She could be another old friend of Marcus, but he might be more reluctant to reveal his identity to her for various reasons (He might not be as close to her as he was to Brutus, Marcus might have secretly admired her, or he might just think she'd laugh at him and never let him hear the end of it. ) . Although, if she saw a female Toa of fire walking down the street, she'd probably be curious enough to go and say hello, leaving Marcus with the options of either bluffing his way out or running away. (If he chooses the latter option, he might take it as one of the first signs that his mind has been altered.)

I'm going to say something very controversial.Charizard's design is overrated.Yeah, dragons are cool and all, and Charizard's design is nice and dynamic, but I don't see it as being all that original. What's there to differentiate it from every other cartoon dragon, ever?To a lesser extent, this applies to Dragonite, too, although combining the Western and Eastern styles of dragon was probably something fairly unique at the time. I happen to think it's adorable, and in-game it's one of my favourite Pokemon, but I'm not going to claim it's any better, design-wise, than the newer Pokemon. In fact, if Dragonite hadn't been released as a first-gen Pokemon, but one of the designers suggested it for fifth/sixth gen, I'm pretty sure the response would be "uh... so? it's just a generic dragon..."I also happen to think that garbage-bag Pokemon are considerably more original than those two puddles of purple goo we had back in Gen 1. Yes, they're ugly, but that's kind of the point.

Any hints as to what the mental issues involved would be?As for the transgender thing, it's probably fair to compare him to a trans-man (male mind, female body), rather than a transsexual, since transsexual implies willingness to change from one to the other, while transgender is really just being in the wrong body.

Just watched the episodes. The zombie bridesmaids scene was just brilliant.And for those looking for more Jaller comparisons... Shining Armour's specialty is a shielding spell...And which mask did Jaller have as a Matoran?(Granted, he couldn't use it, but still...)

Does "Marcus" (genderbent Toa) run into any of the canon characters? Meeting Orde or Helryx might be interesting.I'd also be interested to see what the gender change actually involves, since the GBs' experiment implies that they completely reprogrammed his mind, leaving only his memories and possibly a few basic personality traits intact. So, there's the whole issue as to whether there are any personality changes involved. If there are, it would be more incentive for him to want to change back, (as opposed to relatively benign changes to voice and body shape) but you'd have to be careful how you handled that...

Back in DPPt, I used to abuse the Feugo Ironworks like that- you make the character run into a pad that sends them back in the opposite direction, then you tape the button down and leave it overnight. It was slower than the bike, though, so I generally used it for levelling pokes in the daycare up rather than hatching.

Yes, apparently... Even the word filter hates him.@Tekulo- That's the thing about most of the female characters in Avatar- they transcend "feisty". They're competent fighters and interesting characters, not just loud-mouthed ankle-biters. I'm not saying I dislike hotheadedness in a female character full stop, it's just that it's common to see it abused in a very lazy manner with little thought put in.