Aanchir

 

Is the spiky shoulder armor on Lava Beast transparent-black? That's kinda neat.

 

Also, does anyone else really like the chest printing on all the villains? Umarak's is especially awesome.

Yeah, I mentioned that in a previous comment.  I called it trans. brown though, because that's what it's called in LDD (I don't now it's official name).

 

Transparent Brown is the official name (LDD generally uses official color names). Trans-Black is the Bricklink name. Peeron calls it "Smoke".

I believe this is only the second Bionicle set (other than playsets) to use this color. The first was Carapar, who blended it with Flame Yellowish Orange to create his distinctive crab-shell color.

That minfigure in the wheelchair bothers me because of the mismatched hands.

That's probably preliminary. That torso has had Light Nougat hands in past sets, but there's another fig in the Airport sets with the same torso but Bright Yellow hands.

I'm excited for the wheelchair as well as the new baby minifigure. I had thought that the Microfig part from the LEGO Gamesmight be ideal for a LEGO baby (it's even identified as a baby in the name of many microfigs in the LEGO Group's customer service database), but this new baby design might be even better!

Overall, the theme I'm most excited for at Nuremberg Toy Fair has got to be Elves. The theme has a great variety of new brick-built dragon designs, not to mention some amazing locations like the Starlight Inn, the Secret Market Place, the Precious Crystal Mine, the Dragon Sanctuary, and Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle. It wouldn't surprise me if once again I end up getting the entire range of sets for this theme, although it's looking like skipping the Elvendale School of Dragons might be an option.

Ninjago also looks phenomenal, but I'm still going to have to think long and hard about which sets I get from that theme. And according to some reports on Brickset we haven't even seen all the summer sets yet! My poor wallet!

Bionicle didn't really wow me, aside from Umarak the Destroyer, who is a GREAT evolution of Umarak the Hunter. In fairness, the beast sets were not shown from the best angles and I still can't figure out some of their functions. Ekimu seems interesting but seeing his new design mostly just leaves me wanting some story context. How does he transform? Is it permanent, or temporary? Etcetera. I don't think his colors are as unbalanced as some people make them out to be, and if he is a "supercharged" version of Ekimu that's great because I love characters like that (the NRG ninja from LEGO Ninjago, the Ultimate knights from LEGO Nexo Knights, etc).

The Friends hot dog van looks like a cute set packed with humor, and the other amusement park sets are nice in their own right, though they don't wow me as much as the Pop Star, Jungle Rescue, and Adventure Camp sets did. Maybe that's because by now I'm used to Creator Expert amusement park attractions, so these new ones feel rather simple by comparison.

There's no doubt that there are big secrets in G2 we haven't learned yet, but nothing on the same scale as the Great Spirit Robot. The story was only designed to last three years. If BIONICLE does well and LEGO chooses to continue the theme, I'm sure that's when they'll develop a new GSR-scale story element.

Let's be fair, though. The Bionicle G1 story's ten-year lifespan wasn't planned from the get-go, but the giant robot reveal WAS. The writers had plans in place to wrap the story up after one year, or three, or however long sales lasted, at which point they'd reveal the "big story engine". If Bionicle hadn't performed so well, maybe we WOULD have gotten the Great Spirit Robot reveal in 2003.

Well, IDK about anyone else, but it seems Umarak the Destroyer has the same case as the 2008 Toa Nuva, in that both look almost nothing like their previous forms save for a few small similarities. Small similarities being the shadow-traps. 

 

How exactly did his cool antlers become boring horns? Why did his nice transparent green go to that sicklier, much more ugly looking green? If they're the same character, it would make a lot more sense for the transparent colour to be the same, right? Because, you know, they're supposed to be the same character. Where did the brown and dark red go? Umarak looks extremely boring in 'Destroyer' form. He's basically 'Generic LEGO Beastly Enemy Number #3274878'. Whereas Umarak the Hunter is quite unique. 

 

Not sure how I feel about the rest. Gotta say, though: their limbs are extremely awkward-looking.

Gotta disagree with you. His colors have changed and he's become even more beastly, but there's still a lot of continuity between the designs of Umarak the Hunter and Umarak the Destroyer, from the very similar build for his legs and feet to the Shadow Traps on his shoulders to the skeletal ribcage (but now with a much beefier chest) to the way he now wears a more beastly version of the Mask of Control. If he's lost something about who and what he was, maybe that's a good thing, as it shows how taking the Mask of Control has corrupted him.

Also, I love the gear functions for his claws! It's simple but still unlike anything we ever really got from previous sets. That's not to say he's flawless. His horns don't feel very continuous (this could have been a good place for a recolor), his upper arms and legs feel kind of bony, and his color scheme is a bit monotonous compared to the more mottled colors of the Hunter. Nevertheless, I love the design both visually, as a "titan" build, and conceptually, as a corrupted version of Umarak.

I prefer Trans. Neon-Green for him because it's closer to his previous green, which gives off a better sense of transition from his previous form.

It also nicely resembles the green energy that surrounds the Mask of Control on this year's packaging.

Boy, it seems Bionicle is gonna be dead last to get any coverage.

Bionicle has already gotten more coverage so far than Elves, Ninjago, Friends, or Mixels, so I wouldn't be so quick to assume it's going to be relegated to last.

So they are pronouncing Lewa differently than they used to (LEE-wah instead of LAY-wah). The change doesn't bother me at all, but it is weird that they changed it.

"LEE-wah" is how it was pronounced in last year's webisodes, as well as how it was pronounced in Bionicle: Mask of Light. Since those are the main places I'm used to hearing it out loud, it would probably be more jarring to me if they had used the official G1 pronunciation "LAY-wah".

I actually quite like the interplay between the detailed character designs and the more expressive backgrounds and effects. The backgrounds are reminiscent of the ones from last year's webisodes, which adds a nice feeling of consistency from year to year, but now with more dimension to them so the 3D Toa don't feel totally out of place.

I definitely like that the Toa are set-like, but just stylized enough to feel more lifelike. For instance, Tahu's Bright Red and Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange parts are basically treated as the same color in the animated version, and his hips and thighs are a lot less bony. It is a bit frustrating though that subtler details like the runes on the Toa's masks aren't as noticeable in this style.

I do kind of wonder whether the Toa's masks will be able to convey emotion as well as the more stylized 2D designs used in last year's webisodes. So far we've mostly just seen action scenes that don't really do a good job showing that, but if we see the Toa having an actual conversation, I would want to be able to see what they're feeling.

Hmm. I was hoping to enter a pic of my latest MOC (Iolana - Champion of Sky), but it's probably not worth it. I've tried and tried but I can't manage to come up with a pose and/or scenery for the pic that ends up looking good as a cover photo. Frankly, this is something I have a hard enough time with when trying to come up with my own cover photo on Flickr. Pictures of tall humanoid characters (like the majority of Bionicle characters) just don't tend to work well as wide horizontal banners. :/ Maybe there's a trick to it, but if there is I don't know it.

I even tried to take a picture of her lying down out in the snow that got dumped on us, but it still didn't end up looking good as a cover photo...

Entirely transblue? Ehh... I like solid gold as the 'power colour' with trans being the energy beneath. Entirely trans feels like they're trying to hard. It has to look better in person.

Brickset's report mentioned some of the sets looked like they were supposed to have printing in the final design but didn't in the models on display. Maybe some of Ekimu's Transparent Light Blue parts will have gold printing.

I'm definitely curious about whether Ekimu's transformation is a permanent one like most Toa transformations, or a temporary one like Rocka XL or the LEGO Ninjago "NRG" forms. The amount of transparent blue being described definitely gives me an "supercharged" vibe, kind of like the NRG ninja or Korra's giant spirit form from The Legend of Korra season two finale. But making this his permanent form might make more sense from a toy perspective so that if he shows up again in the 2017 story it won't be as a two-year-old set. I also wonder whether the transparent color of the Mask of Creation signifies anything special.

 

Brickset has posted a much more detailed report on the summer Bionicle sets at London Toy Fair. Discuss away!

Hurrah! I'm still reading through it, but does anyone know what those prices will convert to in USD? They seem way cheaper than I expected.

 

Based on the prices for the sets from the first half of the year, the three beasts and Ekimu will all be $15 sets.

Hard to judge with Umarak the Destroyer, because his price is smack in the middle of Umarak the Hunter and Kopaka & Melum Unity Set's prices, but in the U.S. those sets are priced $20 and $25 respectively, and U.S. prices are usually at $5 increments except for the smallest (<$10) sets.

If they do another reveal, even another giant robot reveal, I feel like they'll have to make it different somehow. I mean, technically speaking, they'd have to, since the story so far doesn't allude to any mysterious figure who could BE a giant robot. But besides that, the image of a giant robot rising from the ocean has kind of been done. It wouldn't have the same "oomph".

I think if there is a big reveal in G2, it might have more to do with masks, which are a recurring theme. The Mask of Time specifically is shrouded in mystery to a similar extent that Mata Nui was for most of G1, so I'd keep my eyes out for it to become relevant again in the future.

Speaking of which, ought to get back to work on my G1/G2 crossover fanfic. I don't want it to end up being another fanfic I never finish...

[quote name="Kid Icarus" post="1041178" timestamp="1453

Any pictures at the fair of the two?Pictures of the inside of the LEGO booth are not allowed at London Toy Fair. Nuremberg Toy Fair is coming soon, and we tend to get more pictures and video there, but not a whole lot. The best Toy Fair pictures and video clips generally come from New York Toy Fair in mid-February.

Well, they're not trying with the new Bionicle. The only reason 2001 was so immersive was it was either that, or Lego going bankrupt

I don't think it's fair to say that they're not trying, or that they couldn't come up with a great and immersive story except out of desperation. LEGO Ninjago is nearly as in-depth as Bionicle was in 2001 if not more so, but it came about after the LEGO Group had largely recovered from their turn-of-the-century slump.

I think all things considered, the biggest differences in "immersiveness" between 2001 and 2015 can all be chalked up to the Mata Nui Online Game, which was extraordinary even for its day. Outside the MNOG, characterization for the Toa, Turaga, and Matoran in 2001 was not really any deeper than characterization for the Toa and Protectors in 2015. Nor was there a whole lot of world-building in 2001 aside from MNOG — all we got were short snippets describing the regions/villages, same as in 2015.

LEGO has never had any online game as immersive as MNOG, and to this day I wonder if there's a reason for that. None of us are aware of internal details like how much the Mata Nui Online Game cost, how much activity it brought to the website, or how many Customer Service calls LEGO got from players who got frustrated. What we do know is that the developers of MNOG struggled to meet deadlines, that the Mata Nui Online Game was complicated enough for players that LEGO added an in-depth FAQ and walkthrough (something I don't think they've done for any other game), that future versions of MNOG had to make changes like giving you the lightstone from the start to simplify it, and that the sequel to MNOG was riddled with bugs.

So is it really any surprise that nowadays LEGO online games tend to be so much simpler and less cerebral? A point-and-click fighting game or platformer may not be great for world-building or characterization, but nevertheless they're probably a lot easier to develop than a story-driven adventure game, and kids of all ages can play them without a whole lot of hand-holding.

 

Fikou is Rotuman for "hermit crab"

 

*looks at the mask on the back of the fikou*

 

they... weren't... spiders at all? it makes so much more sense this way when i think about it but... i'm having a hard time believing it.

 

Hey, it's not the weirdest surprise about old-school Rahi/creatures. Hapaka was an elephant, in spite of their story description clearly describing them like dogs.

Gunhaver and I had an extremely long message chain a while ago documenting every foreign word Matoran name (and other things, like masks) we could think of. I've been meaning to compile it and post it at some point, but I felt like it didn't need its own topic. Spoilered because it's really long. Lots of Finnish and Maori:

show

Orkan is the German word for hurricane. Orkahm is a Le-Matoran.

Boreas was a Greek god of the wind. Boreas is a Le-Matoran.

Agni is a Hindu god of fire. Agni is a Ta-Matoran.

Tiribomba is Spanish for bonfire. Tiribomba is a Ta-Matoran.

Pakastaa is the Finnish word for freeze. Pakastaa is a Ko-Matoran.

Talvi is the Finnish word for Winter. Talvi is a Ko-Matoran.

Pelagia is a Greek girls name, meaning "of the sea". Pelagia is a Ga-Matoran.

Nixie is a German name and word for a water spirit. Nixie is a Ga-Matoran.

Kapura, from Hungarian to English, translates to great. As in like a part of a title. That's something.

Matoro in Maori, means "revisit"

Onepu in Maori means "sand"

Akamu form Igbo, means "jelly"

Kantai in Dutch means Butcher

Kivi in Estonian means Stone. Kivi is a Po-Matoran.

Tuuli in Finnish means Wind. Tuuli is a Le-Matoran.

Arktinen in Finnish means arctic. Arktinen is a Ko-Matoran.

Jaatikko in Finnish means glacier. Jaatikko is a Ko-Matoran.

Kylma in Finnish means cold. Kylma is a Ko-Matoran.

Piatra in Estonian means stone. Piatra is a Po-Matoran.

Kaukau is Maori for swim.

Pakari is Maori for strong.

Kakama is interesting, because in Maori, it means a number of things such as active, alert, capable, and aware.

Ruru is Maori for owl.

Mahiki is Maori for certainty.

Huna in Maori means hidden.

Hau ALSO means external force or essence.

Rau means to gather or to put into place. Like a puzzle, I suppose.

Miru mean alveolus, a part of the lung.

Tahu means ignite in Maori.

Kopaka means ice or frost.

Huki means... epilepsy?* It also means tide (Lego you cheeky..)

Maku means wet, damp, or moist.

Kongu means cloudy or overcast.

Tamaru also means to shady or cloudy.**

Kopeke means to be cold.

Taipu means sand hill.

Wahi means location or place.

Rama means lamp or torch, like a bug would swarm around.

Mata means face or surface in Maori, Nui means big or great. We should have seen it sooner! Mata Nui's big face was under the surface of the island of Mata Nui!

Olisi in Finnish means would. As in what could or would come.

 

*Possibly a reference to the Po-Koro plague

**As opposed to "sunny", implying on the treetops. Tamaru was afraid of heights.

And that's all we could think of.

Nice list! I have my own here, though it only covers 2001–2003 since those are the main years LEGO is known to have plucked words directly from other languages rather than changing their spelling and the like.

Some notes on name origins that might be more likely than the ones you have listed:

And some name origins your list didn't include:

I have to disagree. The Protectors may all have the same mask, but they're the most unique villager sets that we've had since 2006, and the most complex we've ever had. Also, other than the Turaga in 2001, villager sets generally didn't have unique masks prior to 2008 — they just reused masks from other sets. The Protectors may share their masks with each other rather than with other sets, but that doesn't make the cost of new molds any smaller. And while the story definitely takes a "back to basics" approach, I don't think it's fair to call it "cheap". Not when in just one year we got more free animated content (both in terms of number of webisodes and total amount of new footage) than any year previously.

Rather than a cash grab, I think the LEGO Group's approach to the Bionicle reboot shows that they're "playing it safe", on some levels. They have tried not to go overboard with new molds, one of the things that made the later years of G1 so much less profitable than the earlier years. They also sought to return to a web-based storytelling strategy like they had in the theme's early years, and create sets and stories that re-imagine some of the most timeless aspects of Bionicle. Overall, I think that shows a lot of effort to try and make the Bionicle reboot the best theme it can be.

it's also of note i guess that this trend only started 2007-onward. as 2001-3 used Maori names, and 2004-6 used mostly made up names. o:

2001–2003 names weren't just Maori. 2001 names came from a bunch of different Polynesian languages, and 2003 Matoran names from the Mata Nui Online Game II came from all over the world (the name "Nixie" even came from English).

2006 also had some names that seemed to have fairly obvious derivation (like "Axonn" and "Brutaka"), but you're right that most 2004–2005 names seemed to be cut from whole cloth.

 

I just found out that the red Barraki named Kalmah is named after a heavy metal rock band that has the exact same name

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmah

 

Does Lego know about this or did they ever realize it when it was too late?

Well, Lego has based their names off of existing things before and very often at that. Makuta is a plural measurement of currency, Botar is the name of a radio station, and Lehrak is a last name.

 

Those are all also complete coincidences (especially since you spelled "Lerahk" wrong — I don't think anybody has the correct spelling as a last name).

I wish BS01 went into name origins the way other such wikis do, Bionicle has a lot of em and i kinda like those sections for their fun trivia. o:

I do too. However, this topic and some of the comments here help demonstrate exactly why they don't. Unless Greg or another member of the story team provides an official explanation for where a character name came from (which they rarely did), then it's very difficult to establish a policy for separating plausible name origins from random coincidences like this. What seems like common sense to some people might seem dubious to others, and that would just end up leading to edit wars.

I'm thinking it would be great to get a Nexo Knights chess set! We've had chess sets for other themes like Pirates and Castle before, and Nexo Knights has plenty of "army builder" characters to choose from.

I'm thinking (just as an example):

• White king: King Halbert
• White queen: Queen Halbert
• White bishops: King's Soldiers
• White knights: Brick-built (like the heads of one of the hover-horses)
• White rooks: Nexo Power shields
• White pawns: King's Squirebots

  .

• Black king: Jestro
• Black queen: Lavaria
• Black bishops: Ash Attackers
• Black knights: Brick-built (with similar head design to the enemy vehicles from Fortrex and Merlok's Library sets, maybe)
• Black rooks: Evil Nexo Power shields
• Black pawns: Scurriers

It wouldn't surprise me if the movie (and any possible sequels) end up with a separate continuity from the TV show, the same way the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had a separate continuity from the current TV show. Yes, I know that in that case, one was animated and one was live-action, but I think it's still a fair comparison.

With that said, what they do after the movie in that case is still up in the air. Would they just resume the TV show where the last season left off, like TMNT did, leaving the movies as their own separate thing? Or would they create a new TV show that shares a universe with the movie, in the same vein as some other animated movie spin-off series like Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness or The Penguins of Madagascar? Or would they reboot the TV series with a separate continuity from the movie OR from the previous series?

In any case, I doubt they'd just choose NOT to have new Ninjago stories until the movie gets a sequel, because Ninjago is still hugely popular and LEGO would presumably want to continue to make and promote new sets without a lot of interruption.

That policy just makes sense. While I understand LEGO's intent to distance itself from certain messages, I don't think for anything else used in art, the seller asks what the buyer is.

 

"This copy of Photoshop you're buying. Are you planning to modify copyrighted work for humorous effect, and you expect me to sell it to you? I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

 

©1984-2016 Toaraga EAM

Let's be fair, though — other things used in art aren't often as instantly recognizable as LEGO. You create something in Photoshop and people usually aren't going to be able to just look at it and tell what you used to make it. So it's not as likely that it'll come back to bite Adobe if the things you use Photoshop to create are controversial.

2. Contrary to Lyichir's answer, we actually do see the Stone village defense force wielding weapons in the beginning of the first book. The Stone tribe's fortress scene on page 11 (in my copy), the village defense force is gathered against a Skull Spider attack, and they are stated to be "armed with short swords and spears." So, the villagers use weapons, for sure. Pretty clear that they are not unarmed.

This actually seems to back up Lyi's theory that the villagers might use non-elemental weapons. Perhaps the reason the Protectors' weapons seem so much more advanced than the other villagers' weapons is because they have been passed down from generation to generation since before the Great Cataclysm, when Okoto society was more advanced and less scattered.

4. Actually, if you look at the design of that figure, his armor does not match Narmoto's. It could be him, yes, but that would mean he has a second set of armor just lying around. Ekimu and Makuta seem to be special cases, as they have lived for centuries where the other villagers' age limits are unknown. This is the only question we still don't have a decent answer to.

The villager narrating "The Prophecy of Heroes" and addressing the child villager as "my son" does not appear to be Narmoto. However, the child's armor (specifically the armor on his forearms and lower legs) DOES closer resemble Narmoto's armor than the armor of any of the other villagers, including the parent shown in that episode. So it seems most likely to me that the child is Narmoto's son, and that the parent shown in "The Prophecy of Heroes" is Narmoto's spouse.

new blends for dragon wings? and they fade to TRANSPARENT this time, WOAH! O:

 

also the elves changed outfits... after i got used to drawin their old ones? greeeat.

Technically some of the old ones blended to transparent also, namely the ones in these three sets, but it wasn't all that noticeable since polypropylene (soft plastic) parts are more opaque in general than typical transparent parts. Compare with the Vahki eyestalks, which were also technically transparent colors, but due to their material ended up just slightly translucent.

The transparency in some of these images is definitely more pronounced than it is in some of those older examples, so maybe LEGO has made some slight changes to their materials since then.

Note also that the dragon wings in these sets come in two different sizes! Zonya the Fire Dragon uses the same size as older LEGO Castle dragons, but Thorne the Earth Dragon and Merina the Water Dragon use slightly smaller wings.

Also, the two new baby dragons' wings and spines are also transparent! I thought that was neat since looking at the original baby dragon (Miku) it'd be easy to think the wings and spine were just painted, but now you can see that they're actually molded in different colors of plastic.

I still haven't gotten used to drawing the elves' old outfits!