Lego Rewind Finale- Bionicle

[Music] greetings everyone and welcome to the end of the beginning listen to our fable of the bionic arm Bionicles my favorite Lego theme chimas my favorite system theme but Bionicles my favorite thing that was ever put out I was there to witness the violent explosion of his birth and I've watched it die twice over the last half dozen or so episodes I've gotten messages from people said that it didn't look like I'd get around to it but come behind Bionicle isn't just another theme I couldn't plop it in the middle of a Lego retrospective and wrap it up in 11 minutes I had to say before last make this an event I wasn't going to cover Bionicle when I started rewind but plans change I made this episode like any other just as much for people learning about Bionicle now as it is for longtime fans so I'm not gonna cover every side story every character every bit of post-mortem trivia so sorry of a few things you want to see mention get left out a focus of what it was like growing up with this theme that grew up with me the changing mood of each year and paint a simple and cohesive of a picture as I can and it's still an hour long let's do this I broke a socket Bionicle was a constructible action figure line construction for short released a test market in December 2000 followed by a full release in 2001 originally conceptualized as do heads to be just another of many cheap action figure lines liquid threw away after one year it shared many molds with slicers and Robo riders really just a next iteration of those it's hard to imagine a world war Bionicle concluded in 2001 but that was the plan until then most Lego lines didn't really have stories they were a springboard the beginning of a story left open for you to fill the gaps vallega want something more forward-looking this time a proper storyline with structure and drama continuity their Star Wars sets were successful but that license wasn't paying for itself fast enough so they looked inward for ideas some voices saw the potential in Bionicle and urged Lego not to waste it to have a whole roadmap of future stories ready for a potentially decades kind of funny how it looks like a face huh like a Big Bang Bionicle was a success a combination of good marketing super affordable products at a deeply engaging world the story is actually pretty simple in the time before time the Great Spirit descended from the Evans creating an island a paradise which is children named motto lui after the spirit himself Martin do his evil brother Makuta coveted the people's fealty demanding to be worshipped and striking Mata Nui down in anger with a cursed slumber the people turned their gaze towards the heavens awaiting the arrival of six heroes who would free the island from Baku - shadow and restore the Great Spirit all right all right that's enough to go by but it's clearly not the whole story and leaves us a bit of room like any good old Lego theme does the whole world was just so mysterious and the name Bionicle a perfect blend of science and fantasy it sounds like it could mean anything I'll tell you what it means later I still get annoyed when people call these Bionicles because that's not what they are but I still say let go so I don't have much of a leg to stand on here you had these mechanical looking beings you'd expect to live on some robot planet like Cybertron but here they were on a tropical island setting with very limited technology living like tribesmen wielding elemental powers like fire and water wearing masks that gave them other abilities and they had real names like Tahu and kopaka lifted from various real-world languages as we soon learned they weren't even robots despite appearances they were alive with organs and chunks of muscle holding their metal frames together they were people in almost every sense of the word they could drown they could eat differently than us but just imagine this guy with all the gaps filled in like an inside-out terminator the TOA show up in shambles cuz they were in those pods for so long all their flesh died and rotted away took some time to grow back when they put themselves together it was contradiction on top a contradiction a bizarre marriage of tropes and aesthetics that on paper should alienate everyone but elegant as it may be this world was unique and the characters themselves are ly endearing they were clunky like clumsy metal children there was nothing else like it all released around the same time you had the Warriors Toa the villagers Mattern their chieftains turaga and the animals rahi that ranged from enemies to harmless fauna fleshing out the world even more and they all had collectable masks even the beasts the goal being to unmask your opponent and weaken them they were planned to knock each other's heads off but that was too violent so masks it is this lion and white consistency made Bionicle a nice orderly sandbox everything you needed to tell a story all prepared for you just like that well except for makuta the biggest bad of all he didn't get a toy for a few years but the shape-shifter did appear in lore as a villager and a swirling mass of Bionicle pieces people can call that a cop-out but I think a mimic could have scarier he wasn't just another Mook you could knock over he was unknowable something beyond us and they did well building him up in those earlier years it was a force of nature the true master of the island nudging our heroes in exactly the direction he wanted them to go this mystique was mostly thanks to the mondo e online game Korea by Templar Studios released in chapters throughout the first year there was going to be another game a cd-rom release called The Legend of Mata Nui which features many of the same side characters and centers on the Toa but this game was cancelled I remember seeing it advertised another little CDs package with a TOA themselves say what you will about this theme but it had atmosphere despair from day one get a load of this sound design [Music] it was strange but inviting of right and proper alien world for a while I didn't even know the game was cancelled I just kept wondering where is it the man knew we online game which focused on why the villagers had to pull that other games weight and set the tone for the entire enterprise he is relatively simple as Bionicles started out there was no one place you could get the full story there is a website with everything lovingly compiled by fans the vile media project but that media was split across numerous formats there were parts of the story that the games left out that the comics left out and there were novels movies online serials all of which had their own pieces of an incomplete puzzle so no matter which version of Bionicle was your favorite you were always missing out on something the Templar Studios managed to tie it all together commendably for a time providing us insight into the lives of the islands denizens and of course giving us a colorful backdrop to insert our toys into and I cannot stress enough how important the accessibility of this line was $7.00 per TOA package in the st. pill-shaped canisters that delivered them to the island with rustic metallic hues slick graphics character art that just glowed on store shelves it screamed join me on an adventure and sure $7 in 2001 is 10 of today's dollars but that's still super affordable you could get the whole team in a matter of weeks with a decent allowance and despite their smallness and fairly low piece count even the TOA had good technic engineering built it like the slicers except this actually does something and the animals have more complex functions and came in pairs so you didn't even need a TOA to roleplay with a friend I like how they're all black and gray with one accent color it feels like yeah they're all part of the same ecosystem the Bionicle comics became a staple of the theme and of lego Magazine making it one of the most widely distributed comics of the era I love the early artwork all the scratches and dirt on the characters really make them part of the setting these releases combined with a wealth of readily available online content and exciting the lore made a near-perfect launch for back then I remember first seeing the tow in person kids just play with them on a table at Toys R Us that then happened often in my area the first I go was gali toe of water and my brother got kopaka toe of ice I didn't even know gali was a girl that was interesting although it is annoying that all the blue Islanders are girls and there aren't anything in the other tribes that's supid first day i got her i dropped gali two stories breaking off one of her hooks with a nub still inside her wrist I was a morose one thing I appreciate about the TOA this early on isla ko did try to give them some individuality with the arms and legs switched around different eye colors different shoulder widths or heights it was a commendable effort given the very small range of molds effect from in this still developing form of building and the loads of combiner models encouraged us to miss around with the system but being autistic I tend to just build them take them apart and rebuild them dozens of times all in all solid first year 2002 things got more serious returning to the surface after facing Makua the first time the tawa find their villages menaced by swarms are truly robotic borock this continued the awesome marketing the canisters this time stacking together like a beehive with a doorman borock sleeping inside you wake one you wake them all they have one mission to clean everything and must be clean and if you get in their way they'll just recruit you into their ranks with a mind controlling parasites they have no ill-will towards the villagers but Mata Nui apparently can't wake up with all these huts and temples and monuments in the way now it's all got to go the whole islands got to be swept clean Harlem is people were still living there at the time these curious monsters share similar colors names and abilities with a TOA like a distorted mirror version of them which fits because they're actually another part of mata nui sleep cycle like a different type of blood cell very much a part of the same system as a TOA they're not enemies the queens of the hive mind even called the TOA their brothers and don't understand why they interfere with this very necessary process it just wasn't time for them to wake up so the people postponed Armageddon arming themselves with mix built from destroyed borock parts while the TOA ventured into the hive with suits of their own to confront the queen's this year showed us more of the secrets lurking beneath the island but that only left us asking more questions who built this architecture what was this whole army doing stored here what is this island really it definitely helped that the animators a Templar continued releasing content with the same style characters locations and atmosphere of the online game that consistency really built Bionicles first years for people the Barack war ended with a to--it Duncan energized protodermis an unstable liquid version of the mineral their bodies are all made of the substance transformed them in the TOA nuva a slick upgraded mutant version of a stronger armor or amplified elemental powers and masks that could shield or strengthen the entire team not just aware but even these powers didn't compare to the elite boric house new abilities and increased intelligence and yeah it's the first two years of toys repeated the TOA at least got new limbs armor masks and weapons that doubled as skis flippers a friggin lava surfboard they do feel like a substantial upgrade from what came before as much as their previous selves were from other lines but the Borak hell really were just the same sense with some silver thrown in is pretty shameless this often forgotten part of the story was interesting though as a TOA finally faced opponents on their level now mindless troops or brainwashed animals but a squad of six that counter everything they did and were smarter than them they were the toughest of white blood cells stealing the tOA's powers and leaving them helpless the TOA once again prevailed but this chapter almost feels like an afterthought not the proper conclusion to a trilogy he come on this is getting repetitive what's next turns out the end-times makuta was out of options controlling the islands wildlife and waking up the bora ken worked so we hold on his trump card the demonic Rock she is children and these really were the next level they were dreadful with their giant feet lanky legs lizard Li features in her solo pilots their knees but the steps give them a more elegant air a grim reaper vibe like they were part of a higher purpose and they did more damage to the island than the Barack ever could as we saw in the first Bionicle movie mask of light just the fact that we were getting a Bionicle movie was crazy kids growing up today might be accustomed to legless anime releases but this output just wasn't feasible in 2003 the animation was too expensive we were lucky to get anything like it would never done anything this big before and Bionicle of all lines got the first honor text oh it doesn't count there were plans to release a Bionicle movie sooner but those fell through their lines still needed to prove itself but by now it certainly had no sugarcoating it 2003 was probably Legos worst a year they almost went bankrupt but Bionicle kept going strong experiencing one of its best years but could have finally had a figure of his own but for how more importantly soda takua the chronicler the hero takua was us the fans following the tow on their journey recording their adventures the eyes we saw this whole world through since the online game since earlier than that a meek but brave villager never content to stay still always driven by destiny takua was a demon the closest thing we had to a proper protagonist probably the most beloved character in the franchise and this was his movie we got to hear him speak we got to hear the TOA speak how was voiced by scott freakin McNeal scratches my village is gone the movie itself isn't that great I think it might be the weakest of the original three but it does well showing us the island in a light we never imagined the whole thing feels apocalyptic it's overwhelming to see the rock she destroyed village after village after village like it ain't no thing nothing could stop them until the TOA came together with Akua finding his place among them now rechristened takanuva toe of light that blew my mind as a kid and Legos reused this trope in lines like Ninjago and Chiba trying to recapture that magic on a side note there were rumors of a seventh toe in earlier years a purple toe of electricity named for Ikki yeah a Photoshop job like this one fool anyone nowadays well maybe some people I know some don't like the models in this movie or the masks moving like a real mouths because it isn't set accurate personally I appreciate these characters represented as the living beings they are you can see their flesh in the folds and cracks of their armor this is how they would look if they were real though I think the capture the balance between the biological and mechanical much more smoothly in the next movies characters the toys just couldn't convey this aspect of the story you had to imagine it so yeah the islands wrecked there's no recovering from this the Motorin way of life was over as we knew it anyway right from the beginning there had been subtle hints at the matura didn't always live here well little run down technology they had or understood seemed repurposed from other more advanced tech something happened as we soon learned the Chieftains had never told us the full story the island had been good to them but it was time that people returned to their true home welcome to Metro Nui a city coincidentally shaped just like the island and a fraction of the size curious 2004 took us back a thousand years to the peak of matheran society we had a new team of Toa to collect and liquids handling of this was so smart the reveal that Matt Owen could become TOA opened a new can of worms and we learned this year that TOA could become turaga those Chiefs what originally appeared to be three different species living together were actually the same species just different stages of the matura life cycle and this flashback showed us the Chiefs in their prime again so smart they could have just said oh don't worry kids these are still the same heroes you know it's just how and the others got upgraded again or thrown us a group of completely new characters we knew nothing about but they lifted other familiar faces from the lore to show us a new side of them to make them more interesting familiar but not pandering that's a good compromise if I ever saw one Metron do we change the game it made the Bionicle universe bigger altered our understanding of it but not too much there was still a lot of mystery the place was industrious but had this mythical spiritual vibe to it like Mount Olympus or Valhalla but this pristine gleaming city had a seedy underbelly Matawan were being disappeared the previous iteration of TOA nearly wiped out and a giant plant creature seemed to be the new villain but was really just a red herring in those first few months you know how the slicers and Robo riders always had some environmental monster attack them from the background met other sets just play enemies you had to imagine I think this was the last time they did that it turned on makuta was behind the city's corruption branding our new heroes traded to the state and seeking a law enforcement on them yeah Metro New Vegas cops and they are completely unfeeling drones with no oversight this commercial is great the way each winds movement flows to the next to the next really illustrates at the toe we're facing one giant enemy this time Bionicle commercials are art the toys aesthetic drastically changed the colors were darker slightly more muted and gave these TOA slick metropolitan feel incredibly distinct for the time they're probably the most beautiful toy I've ever looked but the builds were different too the TOA mentor still have the same gear function as other TOA but cleaned it up as much as i like the old TOA the lack of elbows and knees and necks is annoying and it wouldn't have taken much to afford them those simple luxuries the rock she raised the bar for these more refined TOA and he still holds up pretty well the matura slick to taller and healthier looking than it'd be in the future this is the last time we'd ever see those older style masks and heads used for figures it was also the last time we'd see those disks a hallmark of the 90s and the birth of construction the big gimmick of those early figures was their ability to throw the discs with a springy arm and this carried over to Bionicle with a first Matar in 2004 brought the discs back in spades the matura carried heavy duty launchers mccomus was even better the villains shot disks from their mouths it's things like then the final Templar animations and make 2004 feel like the true end of that first era of Bionicle to me this year's movie Bionicle - with the best of them all I think the story is concise the characters not the usual TOA and is probably the most emotional Bionicle production while masks of lice apocalypse was more bombastic and explosive this is just somber we witness an entire culture die the people survived more or less their bodies diminished and memories erased but they lost everything we see a people who once that ivory towers and airships the size of football stadiums reduced tom was nothing we see the moment makuta permit anui to sleep the day a thousand years of unrelenting hardship began for these humbled people destroyed by someone Korea to protect them and again the sound design really drives his help [Music] mokuba's curse had already been affecting the big guy for a few centuries by the time this generation of heroes was summoned it was too late they were never going to save the city but their job wasn't to protect a few buildings their job was to get those people off that sinking ship makuta took everything from them but they won by surviving Lego doesn't do stories like this this is incredible four years in Bionic land becomes so much more than anyone could have expected but this is where the honeymoon phase ends Bionic OVA continued to be great for years but it was a different beast it became less innocent only growing more violent and edgy with each year until you had characters with a Gore in their name expressing how much they loved cutting people open and wearing their dripping guts like a scarf turd razor litterers v4v fish textured I'm exaggerating slightly I wasn't like anyone would just be dismembered at any moment more like a guy might hit you with a mind-control sphere and tell you to walk into lava just to hear the amusing pop of your sizzling flesh or a guy made of microscopic bugs might stab you in the torso with this giant golden triple prompt scissor blade partially disassembled inside you and let the little guy start gnawing on your organs 2006 was hardcore 2005 we're still all right funny enough this whole year completely phoned in met renew his story was over 2004 had a beginning middle and end that wrapped up perfectly but um see they made a lot of assets for this place a lot and I want us to look at those back runs a little longer so a second year was tacked on another in-between story like the Borah cow after brings some of the captive matauri to the island the TOA meant to return to rescue the rest and for the city overrun by giant spiders which immediately overwhelm and mutate them in the horrible half Toa have beasts of course interestingly you could recreate those fears with two TOA metru canister lids the marketing continued to be solid the city was a husk all's splendor and meaning gone and our heroes were ruined the toys were okay the spiders themselves were pretty neat but the TOA hordika were more of a novelty these would be the last figures to include gears for sometime and it was all dumped in a one giant arm if these were your first taste of Bionicle i wouldn't blame you for dismissing the whole line they look cool enough but being ugly on purpose doesn't save them and they really were clones at this point only the masks and weapons to set them apart and the collectibles were weak in previous years Whedon masks not masks and discs this time we got spinners that really felt like a formality the third movie is another very somber piece to me it or even what's the matter too busy cooking up another master plan I'm through making plans well that's the first good thing I've heard since I've been hideous I'm sorry I let you all down the moodiness does get a little grating but the end actually wraps up very poignant li share we get a giant battle with a spider army but there's a smaller more intimate battle for the soul of metru nui it's people the future what it represents it just makes me sad like if these heroes failed here nobody would know the Bionicle story would end before it ever began it was their darkest hour in the movies and composer Nathan first music just reaches a whole new level here our strength comes from our unity [Music] [Music] we've got a job to do I think is his best work I just wish I knew what was here instead of Mattel given how much he dumped on the comet in the previous film it was pretty clear at this point that red and green characters sold more than brown ones oof the larger sets were cool but their combination models were even better it ended up being the villains of Time trap another in-between story in the in-between story an epilogue to an epilogue one less hidden chapter of this devastating era something to close the first five years of Bionicle and hint the developments to come in the second half this regard as the best novel by many to give you an idea how epic this is there's a being in it that ages everything he touches and the Kudus response is to summon an army of hundreds of Roxy that a rush the guy and crumble to dust just imagine that's spectacle in a movie but like this whole thing was starting to drag and if mid cools within prequels follow-ups to other follow-ups it's time to move on and see your toy in the gang are doing in the present the people returned to metru nui the cities all cleaned up and they go back to their old lies this seems like a decent place for Bionicle to end doesn't it everything turned out pretty okay except not only was mata nui still asleep he was dying and if he dies everyone dies one character sees it happen in a future vision and the text describes in such grueling detail it still shakes me so yeah the stakes have never been higher only the mask of life the most powerful of all massacres save the Great Spirit now and they had weeks maybe days to find and use a thing so the TOA nuva went to retrieve it and they got rekt say hello to the bad boys our 2006 the piraka [Music] yeah this is hilarious when I saw the comic tees are saying you won't be leaving ever and early images of them with their guns like real actual guns I cried I thought Bionicle was turning into something I could no longer recognize her love but it didn't if anything had continued the story in an awesome way it was a subversion of a tale familiar to us six canisters wash ashore mysterious island with the unique design this time the troubled people gleeful to see their TOA rescuers but something above these TOA was off they demanded statues built in their honor and like to flex their muscles in a mirror I kind of wish we'd gotten to see the Bionicle three that would have been made for this year at our 2005 not happened could you imagine these guys on film with their giant teeth and booming voices and rap music up at my teeth rocky I remember people saying these were the best Bionicle villains since the rock sheet not another mindless hoard for the TOA to waste just a few overpowered goons with strength of personality to spare but the funny thing is they were a joke to the rest of their species a dysfunctional collection of no-hoper bums looking for someone smaller to pick on and they're still stupid tough it took another team of TOA supercharged by a starter even the odds and the way they handled this was also pretty smart this time these TOA and Nika were some of the matura knew we'd known since 2001 I love that continuity and the Anika were pretty sweet figures the colors the weapons their body design people went crazy for them at first the masks were weird and rubbery and we were once again getting the same figure six times though there was some added variation in the armor feet and arms but we'll be getting back to the flaws of the Anika build later the Titans from this year are probably the most iconic in the whole line these on the seventh Baraka made a wild anti takanuva type and a Steve was already pretty insane but combining it with others made a gargantuan final boss for the year I love it when they worked these into the story accident portico with a complimentary colors weapons and builds were just great character designs and their own connection to the great spirit added more depth to the story in fact this whole world was trying to get weird boy you knew he was another Island on the surface like Montana we Metron away and some other places between the two islands were inside giant caves with fake skies the matura of this year were broken some remembering the time before time when Alma tarde lived in darkness and toiled away until the bodies were no good anymore not knowing what they were building not knowing anything else we found out the Toa canisters from 2001 did not fall from the sky and that you could just build them as we'd learn next year the red star that created these new Toa was a space station with people on it there were even murmurings of great beings whatever those were as if there could be a higher power than the sleeping god of this universe what did it all mean damn sure I'll come up again let's watch the TOA use the power of a rock to defeat the / huck who's a rep music 2006 was another huge year probably the biggest yet and that was all without a movie the whole year was one giant spectacle after another from scenes like Berta knocking out the TOA nuva with a single swipe of his sword to the villagers assuming the TOA nuva were imposters like the piraka and almost killing them to the Perico rounding up all the villagers and just shooting and shooting and shooting them those mind control balls had something else going on the fat they're made from screaming as Exxon destroys it Jesus you was intense after the strong but admittedly dragged out met her nuit arc this year was a breath of fresh air there was no time to stay our new heroes followed the mask of life underwater with only hours to go before the Great Spirit died and our old heroes were needed in parts unknown before you go any further I gotta mention the Bionicle playsets which mixed it with system these builds aren't that great there are ok but I really can't think of much to say about them I think the later ones were a little better but that's not saying much the first minifigures were like player pieces from a board game 2006 is were decent representations of the characters but then they just stopped trying and mixed everybody's colors and heads up I'm sorry if anyone's disappointed cuz they wanted me to talk about this more I just don't know where to go with this it was an attempt to appeal to people who didn't like Bionicle and i think there was a wasted effort that could have gone to developing other things but if they were a successful gateway for kids and older people who never would have appreciated Bionicle otherwise they'd know right there okay they did their job this was the best though we also got a lot of projectile launchers oh boy some of them are really like even if just in terms of looks but the pressure of constantly releasing new ones left us plenty of duds and I just don't like to see an entire team brandishing the same guns anyway a couple of them okay I mean if a guy came at me with a heavy pair of six barreled rocket launchers that better hope he's asking for directions now look I've been finding things to love in every single year so far and 2006 was pretty big but I'm not exaggerating when I say that 2007 may just be the most epic year in the entire franchise [Music] welcome to the pit the darkest dankest dreariest most oppressive environment we ever saw we're only the worst blessed Famers are sent for the crimes against God where the water who reversibly mutates you to not survive on land without some kind of reverse hazmat where the enemies this time are some of the most ancient strongest warriors ever created whose rebellion once brought the Great Spirit to his knees and inspired Makuta zone coup it's basically Matar in hell we learned so much about the world we never wanted to and I can't stress enough just how bleak this year was it feel like the Bionicle equivalent of a disaster flick a suicidal plunge to rock bottom with a whole world about to end just the way they opened this year my teens self could see that all bets were off to go over the sets of the matura no probably my favorite design out of all the years and the villainous Barack you blew the whole community away for several years now the sets had grown so homogenized and repetitive but these ghoulish lords of the sea were each very different it was a diversity we'd never seen before it was the first time in ages I wanted to collect a whole wave of buckles and not just one or two of them I remember people freaking out when I got this one they go can tell us all they want that this is his natural color but come on we all know what that is on his face get a bib the real freaky thing was seeing them commence sea life not just part machine Bionicle animals but mostly normal squids and sharks and eagles like ours implying that these were the natural creatures of the social planet and the matoran were not the veil is slowly lifting the tow returned with a decent variety of bills as well I really like Matt Aras hunched blades and skull like masts giving him his own Grim Reaper vibe a jealous design is one of the best balanced I've ever seen in terms of color placement proportions and flow the toe of water was naturally the poster child for this year and her build is appropriately very aqua dynamic but she was infamous for her brittle bones a sign of things to come man look at this poster seven years in and they still knew how to make Bionicle stylish don't get me started on the Titans we got a bolo to than this time and even these have impressive variety freaking look at this guy's teeth the odds had never been stacked this badly it really was the toe is most daunting trial of all pushing them to do things they normally find unspeakable especially mataró poor mataró was another gem of a character like takanuva another humble but committed soul who didn't think much of himself but would do anything to save his friends to save their universe if M&T could never forgive himself he knew the truth about mentor Nui the whole time always having to lie and keep secrets and feel removed from his brethren and he gets his really nice moment of validation from Jala towards the end but doesn't care what Matar was done just trust that it was right and all the while as if been on the joke Makuta just sits back and laughs at him yeah McCune is back in the story too he's not even the villain of this year he's just biding his time I remember being so shocked that he was back I thought he was dead since 2003 I remember thinking what the heck is he doing here turns out the last years of mind-control stuff was just my Cudas essence in a can everything was so uncertain had this air of desperation of course now as fans know what happens next but at the time in 2007 it was impossible to see where the story was going and I spent the whole year on the edge of my seat and then the worst came to pass the TOA failed the Great Spirit died the matura universe began destroying itself but the TOA refused to let this be jalen the other state too by mataró a few seconds knowing they would certainly die against the Baracus armies Mattel raced to the center of this universe a place we still didn't truly understand and made the ultimate sacrifice blending with a mask his body and soul turning into energy and the great spirits heart started beating again with his last conscious thought mataró whisked his friends to safety and healed them beckoned metru nui they lifted their wounds and celebrated the greatest of heroes I'm not kidding people still cry over matters death especially those of us who known him since the beginning for some like myself this is where Bionicle peaked it would never be this good again I'm surprised 2007 isn't considered more iconic but they done it they'd save their world from apocalypse our heroes finally got a win but there was still work to be done and while the new TOA completed their mission our old friends at OU Innova made preparations and other lands necessary for mata nui awakening taming volcanoes that raged for millennia overthrowing despots with their own pitiful agendas releasing the borax swarms to complete their task now that they couldn't hurt anyone also Boracay made from a Turin and it's as horrific as it sounds they really are brothers a final war was brewing between the Cudas allies the great spirits allies and every self-important one of the tyrant vying for power whose and said come now with powerful new adaptive armor that enabled them to fly the gang that started it all for us was headed to the world that fed all worlds Karda Nui this year we would finally learn the truth about this whole thing for better or worse so the practical but they were meatheads the biragi were proper masters of war who nearly took over the world that were sent to hell for it these were heavy hitters even the rock she once so feared we're now basically another horde like the others how the heck would they suppose a top recent villains with six or seven new randos what are the races without a pull from what could feel like a legit threat this late in the game well just make everyone in the kuda and they're all at least around as strong as the one we know that evil hand thingy they all do that most of this time we thought there was only one makuta but there was a whole species of them and they used to be side works like the TOA but gave up their flesh to become a gaseous form and shape-shifting armor even with their new armor the TOA were totally got matched this time the one advantage they had was when mataró fell down there and made a sacrifice some of the makuta trying to steal the mask from him were blinded by the resulting flesh they need Abbot orang helpers just to see mattone of light like takanuva was apparently were being rounded up drained of their light and turned into shadow matura the stage was set everyone was scrambling for the mask of life all according to makuta teri taxes design yeah that's his name I'm just gonna call him Terry I still can't decide if I like all this or not but I like the sets this time they mixed it up instead of separating each team's released by six months they released three TOA and three makuta together to keep the battle going the first wave is a strong start for most of Bionicles lifespan we've been getting sets in the darker metric colors which were cool at first but we kind of wanted a break from that while I normally wouldn't like this much gray I think there's just enough of each toe is brighter signature color that they compliment each other while having this elite I'm ready for war look Leah's got a lovely bright green and brought to his orange now because Bronn characters don't sell they've been making formerly brawn characters and any other colors they could those last couple of years even yellow the jetpacks wings and rotors gave each toe a unique feel and if you look closely enough you could see the similarities with their own masks I set out front on them basically making other characters and calling them the old Toa in 2004 but it was 2008 and the oldies hadn't touched she´ll since 2003 I could accept the changes the bat-like Makuta were sick the coolest thing was these guys wore masks just like the TOA only while TOA had more superhero like powers strength speed x-ray vision the Makuta use powers considered deeply immoral like making people deaf or mute or sucking the life out of them or making their own powers go haywire and kill them masks most TOA wouldn't be caught dead wearing this is such an underutilized concept all while this was going on lacunae terry was nowhere to be seen he ditched his last body what a critical time for a no-show but this was all part of his plan you see the other three toe and Makuta weren't quite as solid the mystique Oh wave or mistake as some would call it just fell apart these makuta will more insect-like in their case mutated by water leaking from the pith of the ceiling pooling at the bottom to form a cesspool of evil cricket was a cool design that got away with a scrawny limbs probably the most ghoulish Bionicle design ever fluids visible through a skeletal frame but the other two are garbage it also didn't help that by this time the old curved bones were faced out and the new ones while having slightly more friction were extremely brittle and would often snap if you use them more than once I've even met for anything made by Lego something meant to be reused that's just inexcusable and while the first three TOA channels some of their original character if you squinted these three are unrecognizable you could call them anybody and I just shrug just inappropriate for what's being marketed as a theme coming full circle the final battle tuck Anubis return was pretty authentic though there's clearly him with a heck of a growth spurt he got infected by the Makuta but stopped just before it could corrupt him completely so now he's a total with light and shadow powers I'd like to imagine him channeling one with each hand and tired of being tossed around like a hot potato even the mask of life decided to conjure a body and call itself a TOA for a while that's right I'm a strong independent master don't need no face and don't even get me started on the vehicles those were amazing and huge with the demise of gears the figure straight away from the Technic roots but these monstrosities appear Technica nearing were welcome we also got something next year I can't tell you how fun - what's a seat a figure in one of these and just take off and it's at this point I can't skirt around the lore anymore so bear with me in the previous year Makuta said that as a universe plunges into chaos if a time comes when all is in discord everyone's fighting the mask will change from gold to silver to black and abort the Bionicle universe drain everyone's lifeforce hold the plug shut it all down fade to black and what do we see here the masked turned silver keep in mind the myriad side stories running at this time were yeah all over the Bionicle world things were breaking down I sincerely thought things would end with a mask having a panic attack or something and our heroes and villains bending together to stop it from mercy killing everybody things didn't go that way though after investing eight years of our lives into keeping up with his story it was time to see the man behind the curtain the crazy thing looking at this from a geological perspective some people figured up a truth a few months early the big secret of this world the islands from those last couple years the pit those were pieces of the Great Spirit stomach Karda Nui was his heart metru nui was his brain the two suns in its sky were his eyes and the island named after him was a mask [Music] [Music] [Music] I can't think of many things this big maybe in scale but not ideas the Great Spirit was a giant robot crashed on this world has automated camouflage kicking in creating the island to hide his face even as he slept other locations like metru nui contained in spherical chambers at adjusted gravity to keep things stable a world within a world the matoran TOA Barak and all nano machines his cells the temple from the beginning a simple maintenance hatch the matoran tongue a programming language code Makuta skirts a computer virus the sleep a critical system failure this thing was 40 million feet tall an object that big touching down would sterilize earth the lighting really makes a scene for me parts have been moving hundreds of miles away from us in seconds all the moisture in the air making him hard to see cuz he's so far away chunks of continental shelf anywhere from the size of Maine to Texas sliding up as a body falling so slowly not too newly the Great Spirit robot was built on a world destroyed by war his mission traveled the universe and study other worlds their burgeoning cultures learn how to avoid the conflicts a toward the old world apart and when he was ready rebuild the old world good as new on his way back he succumbed to McCune as virus and landed on this fragment of the old world aqua Magna yep my old username and this wasn't pulled out of nowhere this was planned from the beginning originally set to be revealed in the first year there were so many hints throughout the story right under our noses they were rubbing it in our face as the whole time even in 2001 you had miners digging this incredible shaft and at the bottom hitting a layer that couldn't break through described as partly organic a mineral composition similar to a crab show we were gazing upon his face touching his skin mokuba's layer the Borak nests every time the toe went underground they were inside of a giant robot and this is where the name finally makes sense biological chronicle it was all about a body that was sick and needed to be saved from within inspired when Kristen favored the magnanimous art director Bynes so much of this amazing imagery required daily medication for a brain tumor and thought what if inside each pill tiny soldier and no I keep saying this but I can't adequately express what a mind blow this was and how cathartic it was to finally see the big guy wake up all the fighting all the doom and gloom it didn't matter anymore after 8 long years our heroes had finally done it and just like that makuta one see for the few minutes the Great Spirit was dead that gave Mukunda an opening to jump into his brain and take control of the robot Terry was the brain tumor he never wanted to stop our heroes from waking up the robot he needed them to succeed and now they'd given him everything he wanted in retrospect this makes the first movie an oddity Rin as if the TOA nuva story ended their dialogue like mata nui will be awaken this day Emma could have R in very differently than in later stories allow this was reckoned as the characters toying with each other makuta just biessing his way through but that clearly wasn't the original intent and I admit Makuta is much easier in later stories he wasn't so overbearing Li childishly left first he came off as being burdened with a knowable power and knowledge detached in his own little world for if you knew the things he does you'd be cynical too maybe taken over the robot wasn't always the plan but too late for that now mucuna was the universe his mug appeared in the stars of Metro newbies artificial sky his voice boomed everywhere he controlled everything about the matura surroundings there was no where they could hide but not all was lost it never was it would take him some time to get used to this new body like your eyes adjusting to the dark and despite all the marketing saying this year was the final battle that battle was just beginning somehow someway the TOA matura and anyone else who wanted in would resist and take down Makuta from inside matha knew his immune system kicked into overdrive against itself but 2009 wouldn't be about that not primarily we'd still see what Tahu takanuva and the rest were up to in serials but not the toys Bionicle is a toy line not a soap opera and it needs kids to buy it to survive but a lot of kids weren't because so much Lauren piled up by then that they couldn't get into it it was daunting the hand been there for much of those eight years and everything that could potentially be elegant eating about Bionicle was an let go knew what they signed up for they committed to this thing as long as they but they were ready to shift gears at least for a while tell a different story a fresh play to get new kids hooked and be a gateway into old lore but it's largely because of this that many friends couldn't stand 2008 sending really gonna slap us with a cliffhanger like that they couldn't just wake up the Great Spirit and have a happy ending had the teasers with don't worry there when some day to keep our attention as the mask with mutton no be spirited it is heated into space Tia sure but me I didn't mind much I held out and kept an open mind about where we were headed these creators these artists writers musicians designers had given us years of greatness it got a little crazy at the end but they given us one heck of a journey built up this huge world filled with iconic characters a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and now they would do it all again on another planet [Music] welcome to Berra magna the beginning of the end I remember people think in this teaser with Matar was model meant he'd been reborn on another world it's a placeholder but that actually wouldn't make a cool story a metaphor for the afterlife the world we got took some getting used to instead of nubs the new figures had proper fists with molded fingers this left fewer connections to hold things there were women in every tribe and water themed characters were no longer exclusively female they still didn't release any girl characters for those other tribes we were getting a whole new world of possibilities a big populous and box filled with the tools we needed to start our own stories just like 2001 they killed it in a year I saw the leaks in 2008 I think it was August we were spoiled and right away I could tell even from the glorious Timah jizz that something was different these were the most colorful figures in years very little gray or silver they even brought back gold colors like 10 and red and blue but on top of that they managed to do something no previous planica figures had they actually looked like their professed element oh sure Tahoe had warm colors and a fiery sword the malum cranked of the heat flames erupting from his body stretched him to have ice growing out of him like crystals brush was throwing like a plant kina had fish like fins extraneous was rough and rocky the help that their helmets yet helmets his time not masks usually match the texture and shape of their other gear making each character more cohesive distinct and elemental than any Toa we'd ever seen so of course they didn't have powers yeah hilariously the most elemental group of characters ever had no elemental ability to speak of these glatorian and their pint-sized Aghori counterparts were in fact much weaker than the toe in Matawan we were used to traveling with their very human-like foreign flesh and blood but enhanced over the ages with cyborg upgrades prosthetics organ replacements metal bones basically the total reverse of Toa biology this was not conveyed through the toys just a skeletal and a riddled with pistons as ever things like this make it evident there was some disconnect between the toy designers and the story team there a Magna once a chunk of the same plant aqua magnetics bloated from inherited the old world's deserts oh sure there were spots here and there that were livable at the occasional thicken or oasis but this was a brutally harsh Mad Max like world with very limited resources to stop themselves from wiping each other out the client's agreed to settle their disputes in the arena villagers would hire glatorian to represent them who'd then get a cut of the spoils and what a fascinating lineup of new characters up until now every wave aside from 2008 was self-contained a uniformed team of six heroes or six villains but this time four out of the first six characters range from ambivalent or neutral to downright murderous only Tareq's and garresh could really be called a good guys and it shouldn't surprise anyone that Gress has become quite popular in this cruel world he was the golden boy an arrow Flynn sort who loved a good clean fight then lose his temper in the ring and didn't need to be paid to help people out when you're in trouble he'll make the save because he's got his pride dang it chris is great life on Baron Magnum would only get harder as the rock tribe all named skräuss save its most noteworthy members start cleaning house they were a different cast altogether much stronger than musket Orion and when every single Maj until they decided to just destroy the arena and declare war on all the other tribes once again the stage was set and then Mata Nui landed on the planet yep just dropped in the middle of all these other people's story made himself a body and solved everything in the forth Bionicle movie The Legend reborn which is okay I like some of the dialogue but the actions a week the pacings off the environments are bad and they picked him now of all times to make the character models toy accurate so these organic human-like beings look even more robotic than the TOA did now I like the idea of mata nui this disgraced former god reduced to us a being who until now paid a little mind to the squabbles of the nanomachines inside him finally learning to appreciate the small things in life but friending a bug I also loved the idea of a car an aged warrior who knows every trick in the book but lost the people's hearts and minds ready to retire until this alien stranger a being of cosmic importance appreciates his guidance and gives them purpose what a fascinating relationship to explore and they didn't go anywhere with it and as great as a duel where the rock tribes leader could have been it's lame really this should be the most epic duel in the series you have this godlike being fighting for his life after losing everything travelling across the stars to face the toughest breasts about edy from the planet to worlds on the line bad just hit us back three times like it's a video game not to know why even starts handing out mental powers to his friends calling him Toa most of these are obvious enough firewater but why do you make Koresh a toe of air is it because he's green he's part of the jungle tribe me be a toe of plant life those are a thing is kind of astounding how eager they were to course-correct what they established in a single year is no small feat they put all this energy into developing a bull new world a rich chapter in the Bionicle saga and they couldn't commit to it and again it's not like they completely abandoned the old cast their story continued in the text and as much as I missed getting toys of them I respected this soft reboot I was really engrossed in the setting but just as things were coming together they wrapped it up as quickly as they could and then they did it again in 2010 a whole roadmap of Future stories were planned mata nui go into a forest world to fight giant cyborg dinosaurs an entire year would have taken place aboard the Red Star the story was going places it got cancelled sales continuing to decline year to year as more people outgrew the toys and the story failed to bring in new fans Lego put Bionicle to bed just like that but some people on the team protested and managed to convince Lego to release one more line of figures a little something for everyone to love if only to give us closure the story that played out from here was heavily abridged mantener we realized that the giant structures strewn across the planet's surface that the bear of Magma's used for shelter were actually parts of a giant robot body similar to his old one a prototype body that malfunction and exploded on the old world but could be rebuilt with the people's help at the other end of the solar system makuta was just beginning to feel at home in his brother's old skin and he'd conquered a universe of source sure but why stop there it was time to expand this operation start stepping on other innocent planets just had to take care of one thing first mata nui was still out there vicuna could feel the great spirits power growing at a rocketed toward that desert to finish him off and so unfolded the most titanic around of Rock'em Sock'em robots you could ask for people on the grunt panicked the sky was falling the world was ending armies of rocky and Scotty flooded on a McCune his feet and joined the scroll and wait what's this why don't they look why is Grace so short Oh No behold the Bionicle stars I think these figures speak for themselves they're maturing and Nagori with slightly more Armour I never liked this buildings down much it's even more hyper specific Bionicle usually is I don't mind the new stature of the villain so much those are mostly troops but this is supposed to be neck 10 the most powerful Scott D of all marketed as Tahu is rival in this final wave I like takanuva silver sheen it's like it's been purified but uh toh reverted from his mutated nouveau form to his original body sure and breast is short don't know how many surgeries were required to pull that off he just is now it was nice of them to pull a bit from almost every era Bionicle for this line and it's as colorful a bunch as ever it's nice to say Tahu looking like Tahu again but the limited poseability and extremely simplistic builds weren't the best note to end on each figure came with a golden piece of armor it's a one less fetch quest ensued on the ground while the real battle waged above this armor was conveniently designed to obliterate Makuta constructs like a rock sheet it also gave the where the powers of any destroyed assuming there were Roxy of all kinds present and not just these yellow ones ty we just gained all of the super powers you can think of the ensuing wave of destruction Finn the enemy's numbers generously like a disturbance in the force the shock of Tahu vaporizing all his children shook him a Cudas resolved giving mata nui an opening all things considered not to knew he had held his own pretty well careful not to damage the planet's surface but even more careful not to actually hit makuta less he killed the matoran still inside rather fortuitously a fragment of aqua magna had followed makuta all the way here scrounging up the last of his strength Munson knew he shoved his own head in the path of a meteor and brain damage oh yeah kill them just like that lacunae fell and all our beloved characters have migrated out of the only home they ever knew with with life force again left mata nui fulfilled the function it was designed for bringing the three worlds together at last everyone expected to die as the planets collided but miraculously the old world is furious Magna with all its forests and oceans was restored and with some parting words of his own in a heartfelt speech for Tahu mata nui departed this world wanting our heroes to learn to survive and thrive without him this was pretty sweet not the ending we were supposed to get but it was something it gave us the closure we didn't get in 2008 Makuta was gone and the toen Mattern once mere cells with no other options in life created to keep the giant robot working were free at last they could live lives of their own in a new eden but because no more toys were on the way didn't mean their troubles were over for a while grig Vashti continued writing the serials and the Bionicle section of lego.com stayed up a couple years and in that time we saw our characters adjust we saw the human-like Latour Egon and a gory forced to share their world with these aliens that looked and in some ways acted very robotic with their computer lens eyes that still blinked for some reason new villages were built a new culture was forming but there were still many enemies at large like the element Lords basically the great beings first attempt at creating TOA there were prototype borock built to end wars by slaying anyone carrying a weapon these great beings left a bunch of stuff laying around this more trouble than it's worth a few of these great beings were still around and had their own new designs for our heroes some of them did not approve the toe and Matar in these ants they built having free will and try to settle down and act like people I mean the Ghul of these things I called those characters nanobots but that's the exact choice of words these creeps used Tahu attack Anu of all the rest they were supposed to be shut down along with a robot once the planet was healed they're still around that's dangerous there was still so much we wanted to know where all our favorite characters wound up on the new planet who would live who died but Greg was a busy man he had a growing family to feed and numerous books he was still writing for lego ninjago hero factory you name it and so like all good things the serials too ended in time Greg would give us some idea of how the story would have continued and some things we may have been better off not knowing in this strange time we learned that velika a random atone from 2006 who talked funding and liked riddles was in fact a great being in disguise who transferred his mind into a matter and body hopped aboard the great spirit robot gave his denizens their soul just to watch the ensuing chaos play out and was secretly in contact with his agents on Baron Magna the whole time why not the last few serials built valleca up to be the new villain killing off the most powerful players left and right pushing everyone towards an all-out war this world would have nearly been destroyed a second time takanuva would have fulfilled his true destiny by stopping the fighting may become everyone down with a wave of light that turns him a nota roggers something out it would probably happen right about now if the line was still going then when we learned the Great Beings true nature I'd long to assume they were a third party a mysterious race of interstellar travelers who'd settled on the old world and shared their technology with a primitive locals now turned out they were just a few renegade Latour e'en these were the great beings they designed the matura course takua was the first and the toe ethically speared robot they built it all and any magic that Bionicle still had fizzled out we learned that lacking the ability to reproduce the matter and in no emotions like love that's a big ol middle digit ace people every know named Alistair was revealed to be a sleeper agent or a secret God or whatever nothing surprised us anymore people started bringing back Bionicle campaigns the fan base was in free fall it was not a good time to be a Bionicle fan heck I started my own continuation that picks up thousands of years later on a new planet just to fill the void many were to go back to a simpler time when it was just a few cute robots on a tropical island and half of these characters weren't lost in space are secretly evil the whole time but then the leak started up again and they soon got their wish at San Diego comic-con in 2014 Bionicle generation 2 was revealed Tahu gali and company were back and canceled again two years later [Music] where do we start I think I appreciate Bionicle g2 more than most people if my long rambling reviews from those years don't give that away the biggest thing that turned off some fans was a character creature building system which we went over in the Hero Factory episode I was made to be the action figure version of Lego bricks something comprehensive and endlessly reusable but very basic people wanted all the old pieces back but that just wasn't doable a few of the old most survived but most of the machines were junked buried it would cost a fortune to bring those pieces out of retirement but more the point they were Bionicle to have a system which it hadn't before now in early years each new wave was its own specific thing when Barack or Roxy or TOA metru came out you weren't getting six new figures you were getting one new figure in six colors which made collecting easy since you'd pick one or two in your favorite colors and stop your first time building a TOA metru of Borak is special every line was unique and fresh but the fifth or sixth or twelfth time around its tail and designing an entire new aesthetic each year leaving out most of the older parts was expensive in itself and it's just not how Lego does things in normal lines the TOA inika were the last time they completely reinvented Bionicle like this and for the next few years they tried to give Bionicle a more permanent system around the anika build it was a disaster some figures like the Baraka showed great variety and even in the final waves they tried to retain some variation in body type but most of these figures just look the same as much as I like some glatorian most of the budget for new parts went into their shoulder pads over and over another anika build with some negligible flourish I remember almost every review from this era sites like bzp pointing this out constantly how annoying a repetitive Bionicle became if you build one of these before you could build a new one without instructions in each year prices just shot higher and higher while the figures didn't change India to be reinvented top to bottom so while Bionicle was in sleep mode they developed CCPs hadded to it with various add-ons and adapters and when it was ready we got this it's a mixed bag the bills are more complex than ever combining CCB us with pure Technic bring him back gear functions from the days of old masks that can be knocked off and each tower has a more unique silhouette than ever before it wasn't just set design it was character design right down to color choices telling us how they fight how they move even what they're wearing vibrant blues greens and browns trans colored elements the contrasting in her skeleton really popped the smoothness well not typical of Bionicle gave these a more mythical quality like they'd been carved from marble and breathed to life the masks were nicely updated the weapons had great extra uses like older tools and with a golden mast and facehugger like skull spiders a great evolution of the concept these were packed they did have problems though the arms hanging back because the spine wasn't made for this something Star Wars figures fixed that I've since incorporated into my Toa the higher than ever piece counts made these less accessible and affordable than the likes of the original Toa and don't get me started on how lukewarm the villains were as much as I like the idea of metal skeletons twisted in a horrid inhuman shapes the goal with g2 was to streamline the story boil Bionicle down to his space elements that worked so well in 2001 to keep it simple stupid and this really was necessary you can't expect the average parent to find a TOA fan toka mystique of ohonta nova christmas shopping at Target you just can't so they simplified the terminology TOA were called masters or unites most of the time the turaga surrogates called protectors it starts out familiar enough to brothers a mystical Island an advanced city one goes nuts with power the good ones put to sleep the villages summon the Toa to save them we've been here before the tOA's journey was communicated through enemy a choice made to be easily watchable on smart devices there were some changes to their personalities I liked and some I didn't funnily enough they're all voiced by one guy and I distinctly remember confused people going W to UF why is jelly so like a man because they weren't familiar with a concept of a narrator but this simplicity fell apart as the lore quickly piled up again and became a disjointed web of plot holes retcons and conflicting information living it vague whether these were the original Toa reincarnated or pulled from another timeline or what characters having visions that contradict each other worst of all was their mentor akima was essentially reading the script ahead of time and leading our heroes to their doom because he already knows everything they're going to do I wish the writers saw that script it comes off like most of them didn't have a story Bible to stick to complicated sg1 jargon was it was mostly consistent it felt like most of the writers were on the same page but all the problems of older Bionicle media were needlessly exacerbated here Dinn held the leg open barely any capital or effort into advertising this theme expecting older fans to do the work for them and tell all the kids how awesome Bionicle was in the time before time whatever that means it had a smaller online presence and a weaker marketing than g1 liquid just expected it to sell and didn't follow through it was a perfect storm of the stars not aligning the exact opposite of the originals excellent launch and the next wave of Toa would be the last we'd ever see I like these Toa maybe even more but they had their own issues I'll bill to run a new tour so that worked well then made some wonky proportions with short stumpy limbs and I actually prefer a Noah being broad and chunky but I love the even more diverse colors the increasing focus on technic and more backwards-compatible old-school looking pieces what's amazing is these were fairly generic parts that could be used in many different ways so y-you had most of these Toa sharing the same crystalline blades shields etc they don't all look the same it gave them that stylistic cohesion between sets that you expect from Lego in general while still feeling like individuals while the first wave admittedly felt half-baked these were a big step towards recapturing that old Bionicle charm I especially like seeing a bigger emphasis on each Toa zone transparent color feels ethereal like chunks of their bodies are made of the elements their new masks are some of my favorites and the rahi like animals had even more splendor I've since modified these sets slightly not because I don't all right them it's just something to do with all my LEGO sets taking a scalpel to them till they're perfect in my mind they even released a more proper mini-series on Netflix that was yeah all right but it really fell apart at the end decent animation but all these strides in the right direction were too late the last sets a few more underwhelming villains yeah we've covered numerous lines that lost steam and ended after two and a half years but this didn't even make it that far if you want to hear my further thoughts on this whole debacle I'll link this video in the description I threw it together within days of the cancellation to summarize Lego dropped the ball canceling Bionicle the first time was actually really smart because the sails were still just good enough that retailers wouldn't be reluctant to carry them again can't say that now while Legos insisted g2 sold well if it did they won't have canceled it so quickly they wasted money on contest prices like masks made of actual gold that could have gone towards other forms of advertising but now Bionicles so deep in the hole they might never revive it again but it does make me wonder a bit is Bionicle an aberration a fluke that under normal circumstances by all rights wouldn't have a chance could it only survive in a time when Legos other products weren't very good and kids were desperate it's enough to make a bio fan feel gas slighted I don't want to be bitter but it really isn't cool how some people in the Lego community talked about this theme or people like me and I'm not just saying they should respect Bionicle for saving Lego from bankruptcy although it did there's this boomer like dismissal of Bionicle fans not knowing better it's just not seeing the clear merits of normal system there's a stereotype of a lego buyers Dark Age not the kind where they lose interest in Lego as a whole but may as well let us stray by these not real Lego and eventually come into their senses like who what was I thinking bungles thank goodness I've remembered how much better system is bricks are all I need and as someone who's grown up both a connoisseur of bricks and a Bionicle I find that very insulting not to mention the gross gatekeeping towards people who yeah may only ever have grown up with this and not tried out system yet as inauthentic Lego fans oh you'll get it someday Jimmy you'll see the light and stop wasting time and all that robot junk I also don't appreciate the sentiment that Lego Sternin make action figures because it's not what people come to them for but for all the promise CCP has had Lego barely uses it anymore at the time it made that other video construction was still going strong now even though Star Wars figures are a distant memory clearly the kids of today and even most people my age aren't interested in this sort of thing some believe that it's better that way that the course leg was taking now was the correct one and some days it's enough to make me wonder maybe I am crazy to like these figures maybe I'm in denial and Bionicle was illegitimate this whole time maybe I am an inauthentic Lego fan who just doesn't get it ya know the team of figures failed because there were already too many other Chima products at once the Star Wars figures had to compete with other Star Wars figures by other companies the kinds that realistically capture the look of those characters maybe a little cheaper and that of so many small pieces to lose a said back then that kids by those not for Lego but for Star Wars but most of them weren't characters people wanted they don't make good display pieces and they weren't providing anything play wise that you can't get somewhere else this is recent 941 that i don't much care for most licensed Lego products they dilute the waters that's half of their input now and yeah it's made them bigger than ever but do we really need so many placeholder bikes or helicopters in each franchises skin it's very different from the Wild West of the late 90s and early 2000s where Lego had to try a variety of new things and just hope for the best cross their fingers they were lucky Bionicle worked but Bionicle isn't something you can get from Hasbro or Mattel or anywhere else it inside isn't Ninjago isn't EXO force isn't that's Kingdom is it adventures isn't and that's what Lego really should have focused on creating a unique new world for kids to get sucked into maybe they didn't even need to do it this way sure G to add a lot of surface level trappings and plot beats of old but I think Bionicle needs room to grow to experiment it's why I respect 2009 so much it didn't need Tahu or kopaka or even mata nui to hook me in i think there's enough material here to be a self-contained reboot and I wish g2 was more like that another world another story another cast of characters I think Bionicle is a potential for many stories I could just share a few similar aesthetics colorful cyborgs elemental abilities detailed imaginative worlds but those basics being the only connective tissue this is why Nova Orbis was important to me and other people in the interim it wasn't the names or old characters and Mayor nostalgic for us it was a sense of discovery of being welcomed into a world completely alien to us goaded to explore once again and isn't that the most fascinating thing but the real nostalgia of Bionicle isn't the familiar elements for that sense of newness and mystery that ever-present uncertainty of what's around the corner is exciting and I think that's what g2 Stoli lacks it's just a watered-down version of something we already had that we already know about and noted ended on flushed all the possibility for new stories away can Bionicle as it was work today I don't know but I refuse to accept that it can't work in any form even if it became a system FEMA whatever people can say it doesn't mean anything then that had just be Bionicle the name and I'm admitting defeat but I don't know I'd feel hypocritical ruling that out after everything I just said about telling different stories with a Bionicle moniker I hope people who have followed me through this series even if they never liked Bionicle can appreciate what they've seen today that it is valid every bit the real legitimate leggo that everything else we've looked at for three seasons --is one thing I've tried to do with leggo rewind is teach people to appreciate the things they have or had in a healthy way and part of that means learning to let go of things while they're still good while you can still remember them fondly like Lego did the first time and like I'm doing with this series but an interesting runoff effect has cropped up something I can only call secondhand nostalgia I've tried my best to represent the subject matter plainly and untended to show what the world was like at the time the trends the vibe of each theme their synergy with other themes in this wider landscape of Lego their successes and their beautiful failures and many adult fans of Lego who tuned out long ago or tane fans who just missed out the first time have told me they find themselves awash with nostalgia for things they've never seen before that they're just discovering through this show because they could imagine what it was like to be there because they get it and I think that's powerful that this show has had that effect that's all I ever wanted to communicate ideas and daunting SS episode was to produce I hope I've managed to convey what made Bionicle great for its time and place what it means to me I hope that people will be something more hesitant to dismiss it as a dark stain on Legos history something so uncharacteristic and strange that we should forget it ever happened and I hope I've shown that yeah you can love all those other Lego themes and loving this doesn't undo that it doesn't mean you have to hand in your card because you're not a real lego fan or whatever as much as gee to strain me killed my passion for continuing Nova Orbis I am still glad I have these nostalgic as I may be for the Toa the Nova hakuna matata this is a definitive version of these characters in my eyes and at least for now they get the top shelf this is how I like to imagine they ended up on Spheeris Magna years after the series trailed off that they're gonna be alright I've also mixed some of my g1 figures with C CB s giving them that more story accurate fleshy look if only to show that yes the old and new modes can coexist as seamlessly as any two LEGO pieces and I think that speaks to the strength of construction as a premise sure it's not easy turning these parts into a house or a piece of furniture although fence I'll always find a way but I like being able to customize these figures on a level far deeper than anything will ever see with minifigures or anything another company would make I said at the beginning of the season the meaning of these pieces were designed with one or two specific uses in mind but while Lego may not intend for you to find a less orthodox rolls for them you absolutely can Bionicle may have its own built-in limitations but we're bigger than that people saying it can't do anything with this they just haven't tried I think the vast wealth of mocs made over the years and to this day a test of that I'm using a light saber beam to hold all this together you can make any character you want or any version of a character you want with a few of the right parts and that's how I look at all of Lego the build is never really finished you can always come back to it and make adjustments to your liking as you grow make your own story it can't be overstated just how impressive the bio community's dedication to preserving this tie-in for future generations of Bionicle fans is or how profound an impact that left on us it was that once-in-a-lifetime theme well you know what I mean we may never see imagery this epic from Lego again stories this Moody but that's okay just as Montana we wired his children to build a new life for themselves it's up to us to keep looking ahead but if we do want Bionicle to return the best way is to support projects like these on lego ideas they actually do a pretty good job of capturing the world's mystique apparently this was one of the fastest pitches to hit that required 10,000 mark that's great and it's not like Veronica went anywhere not really just fairly recently after the time it takes to raise a child some friends got that cancelled PC game working in fact they're modifying it to improve the gameplay now it'll be better than it would have been if Lego had released it as a dream come true there's even a reference to it in hit aside which I kind of take as a thumbs-up to the community from whoever threw that in as much as people may tire of it as much as some may want us to move on completely and stop talking about it Bionicle is important to leg history to pop culture that image of toys mask with a screaming mall and iconic scowl is not going anywhere and this video is far from the last word on the subject not necessarily because we can't let it go but because it never stopped giving so maybe we don't need a g3 maybe what we have now is enough but I've been surprised before I guess we'll see how quickly this video becomes out-of-date as for me before YouTube forced my hand and I cranked out the remaining rewinds back to back with no brakes I was working on the Toa my own reimagining of the good old days with a twist what if you only had the first year to tell the entire story well keeping it simple and easy for newcomers to understand how do you make a Bionicle story that even people who don't like Bionicle can enjoy which parts would you keep what would you leave out what's most important it's about a third of the way done and so far I've played things pretty straight but trust me you have no idea where it's going now get back to work on it soon and you're gonna see some crazy things as a veers further and further away from the original timeline and someday after this is over I do hope to get back into Nova Orbis I might even do an alternate take on Baron Magnus someday imagining if things happen differently as for this what we've done here it's been fun we've covered close to a hundred themes at least 90 and there's not much left to see and if I do keep going it's gonna stop being fun I don't think it's the last time you'll ever see a video like this I plan to do a year in review each December similar to my seasonal recaps showing how things change you to year and maybe someday years from now if there's enough new material I might make a fourth season I owe a lot to lego rewind I have learned to make my scripts more concise this video notwithstanding to pack more punch into every line I've learned a lot about editing and creating an atmosphere to bring people into my world and I'm gonna carry this quality this presentation into what I'm making 2020 but most of all I have this series supporters to thank for my Chandler's recent growth when I started this show I think I had around 7,000 subs it was a combination of earlier episodes and that'll eat a video I may in 2017 that really got the ball rolling and in that time - December's later I've risen over 33,000 maybe 34 by the time this goes up almost 5 times what I used to be recently going through my backlog I found one video where I was just thankful they had 30,000 views and I remember the exact sub-county i had when my original channel from the old days of YouTube was accidentally deleted by someone I know 342 at the time I felt lucky to even have that much of a following I thought that was the most I'd ever get but as of this writing are nearly a hundred times that size and it's all thanks to you I didn't ask anyone to subscribe to stick around for more of this I just have lowered the content and I can't thank you enough for the support the feedback the ongoing conversation we've had these last couple of years as this community's grown continuing what I said last episode I'm happy we could have this time together from people who lost interest in the Hobby falling in love with it again to the occasional Lego store employee who just appreciates my takes sharing stories discovering things we never knew we were looking for rediscovering things we'd forgotten I'd say it's been a successful experiment I don't know what's gonna happen to this series in January I have a good idea but just in case everything else is affected I'll do what I can to keep this episode from falling into the dreaded made for kids box so people who stumble on this series of weeks months or even years from its end will still have a place to reminisce here we'll just have to see our January ghost it doesn't matter if you follow the series from the beginning or a few months ago or a week ago it doesn't matter if you've been watching me for over ten years or you're just discovering those ten years from now if you stuck with me through all my ramblings of today and you're still here I have something to tell you you are Lego rewinding you are Lego rewinds you are Lego rewind you are Lego rewind you are Lego rewind and you are Lego rewind you are like a rewind you are Lego rewind you are Lego rewind well you made it this far thank you for indulging me as I rambled about old dead Legos for 40 episodes I don't typically stick to any series for this long my channel has always been pretty experimental Lego rewind is by far the biggest most comprehensive commitment I've made on this channel and it could have ended for measly episodes in back when it was just another Shawn the dark I had no idea could be taken this far I want Lego rewind to be this special self-contained thing a time capsule I want to remember us just like this and the people who get that who can appreciate the ephemeral nature of the series the message you're awesome we appreciate things because they're temporary because we're temporary but it's never too late to appreciate them and I wanted to at least preserve some of those things so other people can enjoy them for a little while but if anyone else wants to make their own Lego retrospective be my guest all I ask is that you don't use a Lego rewind branding Lego rewind itself is over as it ought to be please respect my wish for the series to end you can make a similar style similar format just have a different intro your own assets call it something else and we'll be peachy cuz whatever you make no matter how different it is there's no reason it shouldn't be as good as what's happened here just be sure you know why you want to do it cuz I wasn't even completely sure walking into this but here we are and I hope you've had half as much fun as I have my brothers sisters they didn't be siblings it's been a bash I'm not going anywhere my channels not going anywhere I'll just have to adapt to change as always so stick with me and see how things go once you even if not even if you've had enough of me and this is the end of our journey together I'm still glad you came along for the trip this is the way of the Bionicle special thanks to Jang bricks just too good I'm a tower productions brick attacked bricks are ljd Tenaglia studios and maniac for bricks I wasn't sure who'd be on board everybody came through and I can't repay them enough that's it for today if you want to support my work please consider my graphic novel series Planet ripple you can buy the books on Amazon or beat an early draft of the first book for free won't be long now before volume fives released and for the Bionicle fans in my audience and maybe even non fans there's the TOA my ultimate love letter to the original series which depending on when you watch this might be completed links to everything in the description and now goodbye discover their skills use their mosques Bionicle find the power live the ledge hey guys today I went to try out something new as a side thing to go along with my game reviews welcome to new Kanako mangas lego rewind despite whatever impressions including aqua magnum my username might give people Bionicle is not the only lego theme I like and I felt like showing my appreciation for a few of Lego as many other things the ones that have really clicked with me some of these will be themes I collected while others will be before my time that I later discovered and one to reduce the next generation - in this episode

Channel: Nick on Planet Ripple

Views: 721,497

Rating: 4.962996 out of 5

Keywords: Bionicle, documentary, lego, rewind, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2025, 2016, G1, G2, mata nui, metru nui, toa, sets, matoran, makuta, piraka, rahi, bohrok, rahkshi, barraki, glatorian, bara magna, movie, episode, finale, nick, on, planet, ripple

Id: vYjGvQJmpqA

Length: 79min 20sec (4760 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/MrWr4th]

Bye bye babylon

[u/ToaTom]

Considering how much you like the sound design, maybe a little more bionicle soundtrack would have been cool instead of playing halo over the cool bits? Lol

[u/KitharaTheRider]

Quite shocking how Halo music works well with Bionicles