Aanchir

 

All Zamor colors from 2006 (other than the metallic ones from the Zamor Spheres pack) were semi-random blends of two colors. Some would basically be all one color, some would basically be all another, and some would be a mix of the two. I don't know what the exact colors used in the blends from the 2006 sets were. If I had to guess from examples I've seen, I'd say the Piraka Zamor spheres are probably a blend of 49 Transparent Fluorescent Green (Trans-Neon Green) and 28 Dark Green (Mata Green).

 

A lot of the Zamor spheres that appear in more recent sets are still blended, but it tends to be a much more even half-and-half "swirl", so I don't think it's as common to get one that looks all one color. These ones and these ones from Chima and Nexo Knights sets are a blend of 182 Transparent Bright Orange and 24 Bright Yellow. These ones from the Hero Factory Fire Villains and the Ninjago Fire Temple are a blend of 21 Bright Red (Mata Red) and 191 Flame Yellowish Orange (Keetorange). And these ones from Chima and Super Heroes are a blend of 42 Transparent Light Blue and 1 White.

 

But what about Jaller Inika's Zamors? I'm not sure if i recognize the color used for his spheres or if it's not so used anymore after 10 years of absense

 

The color of Toa Inika Jaller and Hahli's Zamors has always been the hardest for me to figure out. One of the colors was probably Dark Green, like the Piraka Zamors, since I believe I've seen some that were almost entirely that color. But I'm not sure what the other (sort of seafoam green) color was. For all I know it might've been a rare color like Transparent Light Green, which would have been in use in Clikits around that time but was discontinued soon after.

You know what color I just realized we need? Just regular, classic Mata Green. We have lime, bright green, dark green, and trans-green shells, but none in plain old green. That would be really nice.

On the one hand, you're right that that's a color that's pretty much non-existent in CCBS aside from the heads and Hero Cores of Nex 2.0 and Nex 3.0. On the other hand, I kind of like that green G2 Bionicle sets have taken to using Bright Green. For many years it was a woefully underused color despite basically being the green equivalent of Mata Red (Bright Red) and Mata Blue (Bright Blue). Instead, Dark Green (Mata Green) was used as the default green color for most LEGO sets. When LEGO City garbage trucks and the Green Lantern buildable figure started using Bright Green to a greater extent in 2012, a lot of people mistook it for a brand-new color even though it's been on the LEGO Group's color palette since at least 1994!

All Zamor colors from 2006 (other than the metallic ones from the Zamor Spheres pack) were semi-random blends of two colors. Some would basically be all one color, some would basically be all another, and some would be a mix of the two. I don't know what the exact colors used in the blends from the 2006 sets were. If I had to guess from examples I've seen, I'd say the Piraka Zamor spheres are probably a blend of 49 Transparent Fluorescent Green (Trans-Neon Green) and 28 Dark Green (Mata Green).

A lot of the Zamor spheres that appear in more recent sets are still blended, but it tends to be a much more even half-and-half "swirl", so I don't think it's as common to get one that looks all one color. These ones and these ones from Chima and Nexo Knights sets are a blend of 182 Transparent Bright Orange and 24 Bright Yellow. These ones from the Hero Factory Fire Villains and the Ninjago Fire Temple are a blend of 21 Bright Red (Mata Red) and 191 Flame Yellowish Orange (Keetorange). And these ones from Chima and Super Heroes are a blend of 42 Transparent Light Blue and 1 White.

I don't see anything suspicious about the way Ekimu woke up. He obviously knows some things he hasn't told the Toa, but then, so did the Turaga. I don't remember people theorizing that the Turaga were evil, but then again, I wasn't involved in the community back in '01–'03.

As it stands though, I don't think the "Ekimu is really Makuta/Ekimu is evil" theories have much credibility. It just seems like it'd be an out-of-nowhere plot twist that would invalidate previous victories of the Toa, as opposed to the Great Spirit Robot reveal or even the "Makuta's subterfuge" reveal that had several years of genuine build-up.

I think "____ was evil all along" twists are generally unfulfilling as multi-year twists because they make you (the audience) feel bad for liking and trusting a character who was consistently portrayed as likeable and trustworthy. So if you're going to pull a twist like that off, you have to make it clear from the get-go that the character has some issues regardless of what side they claim to be on.

 

There’s more than one voice actor!

 

There’s more than one voice actor!

 

There’s more than one voice actor!

 

The fact that we're excited about something so basic only goes to show how low LEGO originally set the bar.

 

Then again, back before Mask of Light we were used to Bionicle having no voice acting at all. I have to wonder if there would've been such an outcry to the webisodes if they'd just been subtitled like the 2002–2003 webisodes were. Perhaps having the characters voiced at all is the reason people were so quick to compare them to the G1 Bionicle movies and not to previous free web videos from Bionicle.com.

I don't think there was ever really much doubt that the Netflix series would have individual voice actors. So I'm more surprised at how unknown all these voice actors are. Hopefully this might be their big break, their chance to really show what they're capable of.

Is daemon the right word to use in the article? I didn't see it on the Lego page, I think demon would be the correct terminology here

All the news reports I saw around the internet (USA Today, Yahoo, TIME, etc.) spelled it this way.

 

Anything that's not human, honestly. I really don't think CCBS works too much with human figures.

I thought CCBS was intended for more humanoid characters, since it allows for a more smooth, uniform appearance. The Star Wars figures look pretty good so far, but it seems to clash with Bionicle's mechanized parts.

 

I don't think it particularly clashes with either style, to be honest — there have been some pretty good CCBS sets of humans and organic characters from Star Wars and Legends of Chima, of fully mechanical characters and battle machines from Hero Factory, and of biomechanical characters from Bionicle.

I think that overall the CCBS was designed with versatility in mind, so it wouldn't be locked into building JUST mechanical characters or JUST organic characters, and so that LEGO could use it across multiple constraction themes. That brings up something important about future constraction themes — their viability might have more to do with how well they stand out from the other currently available constraction themes than with how well they fit in.

Wait. Lava Beast's lower legs.

 

Are those ball socket connectors, but with a length of axle in place of an axle socket?

 

That would be... sweet.

No, they're just Y-joints and Glatorian necks connected with a regular 2M axle. You can tell in this pic from Zusammengebaut. The Glatorian necks do appear to be a new recolor, though (Bright Orange).

I'm sort of indifferent to Cryoshell's non-Bionicle music, but then, I'm sort of indifferent to most music that isn't associated with a series or fandom I like. The only artist whose music I'm really passionate about purely for its own sake and not because it connects with something else I'm a fan of is Mike Oldfield, and that's mostly because I enjoyed listening to his music with my dad as a kid and have loved it since I rediscovered it as a teenager. Other than that, the vast majority of the music I listen to is soundtracks, promotional songs, and fan music for series I love.

More of translucent blue in constraction... Preferrably the trans-blue matoro inika had, not the current watery blue color we've seen on Kopaka and Protector of Ice.

Oh right, how could I not mention this? Transparent Fluorescent Blue is a color I'd like to see a lot more in constraction. It's still on the LEGO color palette, but frustratingly it feels like in all constraction sets Tr. Light Blue has completely taken its place. Due to not being fluorescent, Tr. Light Blue doesn't work nearly as well as an eye color as Tr. Fluorescent Blue does, which results in problems like with the current batch of Toa where their eyes sometimes don't show up well behind their masks unless you light them directly from behind.

Old eye piece colors from for eyestalks, like Orkahm's transparent red and Gali/Takanuva 2002-03 transparent yellow (not bohrok eye lime green) and tahus old 2001 transparent pink or what its called.

Transparent Red is still available, though again it gets into the problem I mentioned above with non-fluorescent eye colors not showing up as well as fluorescent ones. It might be cool to see this color in other sorts of parts like shells though.

Transparent Fluorescent Yellow (Gali's original eye color) and Transparent Fluorescent Red (Tahu's original eye color) are both really cool colors, but unfortunately, they've both been discontinued for many years. They're just some of those colors LEGO introduced back when their color palette was expanding out of control, then hardly used and ended up discontinuing when they tried to get their color palette back under control.

Presumably, besides them being so scarcely used, LEGO might have considered them too similar to the much more common Tr. Yellow and Tr. Medium Reddish Violet. Now THOSE two colors could be interesting to see more in constraction, especially the latter.

 

 

It's a long serialized commercial that you need to pay for.

Minus the "serialized" part, that description could describe any of the Bionicle movies! Although it's a considerably less expensive commercial than those were. Those each cost $15–30 new, whereas watching The Journey to One will cost just $8 unless Netflix decides to hike up their prices.

 

Also, considering that Netflix is a service that features substantially more media than just these Bionicle episodes, the price comparison is even more uneven. That $8 doesn't just get you these episodes—it gets you that, plus all four original Bionicle movies, plus the entire Netflix movie and TV library, for a full month. And that's assuming that you're a new customer—existing Netflix subscribers are essentially getting these webisodes for no more than they're already paying.

 

Still, it would be nice to know if these episodes will ever be released on home media. From what I can tell from a quick Google search, it's not unheard of for Netflix original series to see DVD or Blu-Ray releases. But at the same time, the release of Journey to One as a Netflix series would presumably have been done because it's preferable to the costs and inconvenience of a physical release. And unlike other series where the series itself is the chief source of profit, I don't know if Lego would see any benefit to releasing this year's Bionicle story on home media after this year is up...

 

Actually I'm pretty sure the first two Bionicle movies at least got taken off of Netflix. I might be wrong though.

A home media release for the new series would be awesome!

Clay is Kai without the motivation.

I'm not sure how you see it that way. Kai is hotheaded and spirited, but he's also rebellious. He's not nearly as obsessed with self-discipline and doing things "by the book" as Clay is.

It's a long serialized commercial that you need to pay for.

Minus the "serialized" part, that description could describe any of the Bionicle movies! Although it's a considerably less expensive commercial than those were. Those each cost $15–30 new, whereas watching The Journey to One will cost just $8 unless Netflix decides to hike up their prices.

My only issue with it is I'm more interested in getting Lance or Macy. From the two episodes of the show I watched (likely the only ones I will watch for a while) Clay is just an unbelievable bore. So for that aspect alone I'm not that into it. Will probably try to pick it up at some point in the future though.

Clay definitely gets more interesting as the series goes on, in part because of how comically serious he is about training and fighting evil. He's something of a bore to his fellow knights, but it's increasingly played for laughs.

Lots and lots of metallic.  Dusky gold from the Sir Rascus set.  Gunmetal.  Blue metal from Santis.  Those metallic colors the Krana-Kal and Kraata used.  Orange gold from Jayko.

Also, you could have just said "those metallic colors the Krana-Kal used", since those basically included all the other colors you mentioned.

In my case, I mostly agree with the ones Lyi mentioned. More Earth Blue, Reddish Brown, and Dark Brown CCBS parts could also be nice. Glitter colors would be pretty new and different — the Disney Princess sets still use quite a few of those.

What I was initially trying to say is that to give the figures a new and different look you need new molds (and they cost). You may say one doesn't need new molds to do something creative. That's true, there is an high possibility of being repetitive soon. The heroes in Hero Factory are a major example. Also the main heroes that came after the Inika had that problem.

Post-Inika canister sets are a bad example because they actually didn't tend to have any fewer new molds than the canister sets that came before them.

Toa Mata: 19 new molds

Bohrok: 17 new molds (Krana variations all came off the same mold)

Toa Nuva: 15 new molds

Bohrok-Kal: 6 new molds

Rahkshi: 22 new molds (Kraata variations all came off the same mold)

Toa Metru: 23 new molds

Vahki: 12 new molds

Toa Hordika: 23 new molds

Visorak: 15 new molds

Piraka: 22 new molds

Toa Inika: 25 new molds

Barraki: 26 new molds

Toa Mahri: 23 new molds

Phantoka: 25 new molds

Mistika: 22 new molds

Glatorian: 19 new molds

Glatorian Legends: 18 new molds

Stars: 6 new molds

These numbers do not include canisters and count pre-assembled parts like the Cordak Blasters and Midak Skyblasters as one mold each, though realistically they would need multiples.

So as you can see, the number of new molds per series didn't really start to consistently decline until 2009. The number of new molds in the Phantoka sets was second only to the number of new molds in the Barraki sets. The number of new molds in the Toa Mahri sets was as many as in the Toa Metru or Toa Hordika sets and more than in the Rahkshi or Piraka sets. The Bohrok may have had "a lot of new pieces" individually (as in, more than 50% of the parts in any given Bohrok set were new molds), but as a series, they had fewer new molds than ANY series of canister sets from 2006 to 2009. And the Rahkshi had no more new molds than any canister set series from the Piraka through the Mistika. In fact, the average number of new parts per series from the Barraki through the Stars (19.86) is actually HIGHER than the average number of new parts per series from the Toa Mata through the Toa Inika (18.09).

tl;dr: the decrease in the number of new Bionicle pieces after 2006 is largely an imagined one.

CCBS has become quite a generic term, but for example they could try to produce a more complex main body piece.

More complex how, exactly? I'm not trying to shoot down your idea, I'm just curious what you mean by it. By "main body piece" do you mean a beam or a shell? We've actually gotten a few new torso beams this year, like this, this, and this. And the new torso shell on this year's Toa sets is definitely more complex than any previous ones visually, even though it's less complex in terms of connection points. Overall I think there are definitely plenty of possibilities for new torso pieces in the future even without stepping outside what would be considered "CCBS".

I'm a little surprised that they are using drawings the 2015 sets of Lewa, Kopaka, and Pohatu on the cover instead of their 2016 sets. Not that I think that they're bad. I think that its weird that a book coming out in 2016 would be promoting sets that came out over a year ago instead of the new sets coming out this year. 

 

But that isn't a complaint about this cover, as I think it looks really cool.

Often LEGO books come out a bit out-of-sync with the sets they tie in with. For instance, of the four chapter books tying in with the 2011 Ninjago storyline, the first two came out in September 2011 and the second two weren't out until January 2012. Likewise, with the new LEGO Ninjago graphic novels by Little, Brown & Co, the first one, The Tournament of Elements, came out in September of last year (when the next story arc, Possession, was already underway). The graphic novel focusing on the Possession story arc, titled Ghost Ninja, isn't coming out until March 29 of this year, at which point the Skybound story arc will be underway.

We've seen the same sort of delays happen with the LEGO Bionicle chapter books. Of the two chapter books tying in with the 2015 sets and story, the first came out in September 2015 and the second in late December 2015. So it'll probably be the same with the graphic novels.

Neat review! I kind of wish the lighting of the new and interesting parts photo were better, as it's difficult to tell the darker colors in that photo (Black, Titanium Metallic, and Earth Blue) apart from one another. Also, slightly confusing phrasing here: "whereas Ultimate Clay has blue (sometimes transparent) details, most notably his suit of armor and armor." Maybe you meant his special armor piece as well as the printed armor on his body pieces, but it's hard to tell from context. I'm glad you included the comparison between Clay and Ultimate Clay, though. Also, that Nexo Kevin minifigure at the end works out way better than it has any right to!

Overall I am really impressed with this vehicle. As you say, the four-in-one aspect adds a lot to the design, and the main sword flyer piloted by Clay is the kind of model where the medieval inspiration of Nexo Knights really shines instead of it just feeling like a typical sci-fi vehicle.

Personally none. I know it costs more money, but I'd like to see something new from Lego. If possible something that has less humanoid figures.

Non-CCBS non-humanoids wouldn't necessarily cost more money than CCBS humanoids, unless you mean introducing an entirely new building system from the ground up. I mean, say, 70123 Lion Legend Beast was just $10 for 120 pieces, 12 points of articulation, and a minifigure. It was smaller than a $10 CCBS figure like a Protector or Creature set, but still a pretty excellent value. Likewise, the new dragons from LEGO Elves (coming out in March) offer a pretty good value. The Water Dragon Adventure is just $20 for 212 pieces, a dragon with about 16 points of articulation, a mini-doll, and some scenery. It's not unreasonable to think that LEGO could potentially create a series of System-based "buildable figures" that could offer an even better value than CCBS figures. The only major issue is that System-based buildable figures need to take more care to ensure sturdiness, since a lot of System building techniques aren't designed for the same kind of rough action play as Technic/CCBS-based constraction sets.

I feel like Entry 3 would make the best cover photo, but Flickr cover photos are screwy and frustrating so really I have no idea. I voted for Entry 3 anyhow. Entry 11 is probably my favorite MOC in the competition, but "tall" MOCs just don't make as good cover photos as long or wide MOCs, from my experience. Unless there's some trick to making an effective Flickr cover photo that I'm not aware of.

Hate to nitpick, but Marty McFly's plaid shirt is definitely not flannel. Flannel is a material, not a pattern. Unless you were referring to the blue article of clothing, which is a jean jacket.

The other parts underneath the hoverboard are probably meant as a display stand of some kind, but really they're just there for the alt builds (same as the parts underneath the companion cube in the Portal 2 level pack). Speaking of which, a bit disappointed that this review doesn't discuss the alt builds, since the instructions are all available online.

I'd like a series of LEGO Elves buildable figures, though I don't know for sure if CCBS would be the best system for it or if it might be better to have something based on, say, the Mixels joints.

More Super Heroes buildable figures could be alright, though I imagine I'd only be interested in them for parts. There aren't any superheroes who are particularly close to my heart.

LEGO Ninjago and Nexo Knights buildable figures could be awesome. The biggest question would be how to portray their faces. Just larger minifigure faces would look pretty weird, but the characters have never really been officially depicted as anything OTHER than minifigures.

In terms of new licenses... umm... Steven Universe? Question mark? I don't know how well CCBS would be able to reflect the diverse body types in that theme.

Right now I can't think of any concept for a wholly original CCBS theme that would be all that useful while Bionicle is still running. Except perhaps something girl-oriented that could allow LEGO to enter the fashion doll market the same way Bionicle allowed LEGO to enter the action figure market. But even then, again, I don't see why that couldn't be done as a spin-off of LEGO Elves, and I don't know whether CCBS would be the ideal system for it.

I really doubt this is a protector. This is Tahu's 2015 combiner set and I think the label as "Protector of fire" is a mere error on the page (like so many other errors we saw there since the Generation 2 Bionicle page was first created). The characters page still shows the protectors to have their old models from 2015. I seriously doubt that the protectors would suddenly be made toa, just like that. It wouldn't be good for the story since the 6 toa that fell from the stars are supposed to be special. Besides, the 2015 toa combiners, labeled there as protectors, don't match the aesthetics of the original protectors the slightest bit - they look nearly exactly like the 2015 toa, which would be extremely confusing if they indeed were protectors. It would pretty much strip all of the 2015 characters from their identity.   

The posters labeled as "Protectors" are actually posters that show the Protectors, the Toa, AND the Protector+Toa "Powered Up" forms. Example. I don't think it's all that confusing, really. It's still advertising the Protectors, just one specific feature of them — their ability to "power up" that year's Toa.

what I don't get is why it doesn't have pc build. The game pad is usb and from my test from putting it in its pc compatible so why didn't they make a pc build. It would not be that hard they just start tt builder (the build app for game engines the have game api, LEGO api, and nu2 api) and make it!!

None of the major toys-to-life games are available for PC except for the original version of Skylanders (none of the Skylanders sequels are on PC). Keeping them on consoles might be intended to make hacking/modding more difficult, or it might just be that they feel like the console market is more lucrative.

P.S. Does anyone know were the gold head might have come from?  I got it at a LEGO resale store.

Like a Toa Mata head, you mean? That's from Visorak Battle Ram (though in that set it didn't have an eyestalk).