BIONICLE Retrospective: 2001-2003

[@Lavapasta]

Be sure to visit biomediaproject.com/bmp/ for the biggest archive of Bionicle media and faberfiles.blogspot.com for neat behind-the-scenes info & concept art- I highly recommend them.

[@sandroserrano9186]

Something else: Bionicle is not short for "Bionic Chronicle" but for "Biological Chronicle"

[@Lavapasta]

I always get it wrong lmao

[@bionic-tale4313]

What about Biomechanical Chronicle? Since the characters as well as the giant robot are mostly mechanical.

[@Luka1180]

@@bionic-tale4313 It's The Biological Chronicle because the whole story is actually a biological analogy. The giant robot, with small organisms living inside it and keeping it alive (Matoran) or making it sick (Makuta). A weird kind of Osmosis Jones. In fact, one of the OG creators, Christian Faber, came up with this one concept because he was sick with a brain tumor and had to take pills to get better. He imagined the pill capsules contained heroes (the Toa) that would fight a virus in his body (the Makuta) and then his body (Mata Nui) would rise and he would be well.

[@max84678]

while the females lack in elements they make up in awesomeness XD Gali alone is probably one of the most powerful characters in lore, being able to telepathically communicate with Takua and also calling in what was pretty much a tsunami on the island of Karzani completely flooding it for a time. Not only that but Toa Hahli was probably the only one who take control of a conversation durring the events of Mahri Nui. And lets not forget AU Toa Tuyet... literally created a TOA EMPIRE with the power of the Nui stone. This was just but one of many instances that Females in the Bionicle lore were probably some of the most awesome out there. edit: also should mention they are all from the SAME element of water, all having different personalities and goals in mind

[@Lavapasta]

Oh yeah, the personalities and internal mechanics for female characters in Bionicle are cool, but my point in the video is about how dumb it is that so many heroic female characters are locked into the element of water and only make up 1/6 of the Matoran population. If they were spread out throughout the elements and made up 1/3 or 1/2 of the population, then Bionicle would have a much better representation of women.

[@ironclaw3000user]

all 6 Toa were meant to be males until Lego said to add a female @@Lavapasta , It's great that you point out in the video you can just make your own Bionicle by pointing out that they're robotic in nature so they can be disassembled , since Bionicle ended, you can just wing it from their with your own Fire female Toa, or make your own universe. Tho ignoring what Greg said about coding there were more then the 6 elements in the stories, so in a sense it promoted you to take your sets apart and build those canon characters who have no solid idea of how'd they'd appeared, perfect for anyone's own interpretations. Many of the ideas planned from the beginning were done By Christian Faber not Greg Farshly, Greg kept adding to the stories while Faber had the concept. One's gives the marble stone, while the other is the carver. So at this point you can carve your own lore, even ignore Greg's "Love's not canon" and such. XD.

[@ltb1345]

Lavapasta The Va-Matoran (lightning Matoran), and thus the lightning Toa as well, were actually female, but they never appeared in the main story.

[@Lavapasta]

@@ltb1345 Exactly- they never appeared in the main story or toy line, so they don't really qualify as representation. It's neat that they technically exist in the canon as another female element, but they're so obscure that it feels like these female characters aren't part of the general Matoran population. However, if they were present as a seventh Matoran tribe introduced in Metru Nui or Voya Nui, then we wouldn't have this problem.

[@RaptorofRex07]

Max846 Heck yeah she my 3rd favorite character 2 is Krika and 1 is Tahu

[@bionic-tale4313]

So you come back to the Legend once again..........

[@potatolol4579]

I was about 6 or 7 when I got the Nuva line of toys, my first figure was Pohatu and the main reason why I loved these toys so much was because it was something you made yourself, you had a canister to take with you, they were perfect pocket money toys. You'd go to school and you'd see someone with the figure you've always wanted and have been looking for for an eternity, you go back home and beg your parents to get it and when you finally got it, you looked after it and nobody else was allowed to touch it. You made it. It's yours. Back then, I never cared about the story. It was about how they were constructed, their colours, how were the parts made, everything was bright but complimentary and wasn't the slight bit garish. When you look at toys now, they look really cheap and seem to be bright just for the sake of being bright. Maybe that's just me.

[@deetay59]

They made the water characters female cause it was a boy's line as in it was meant for boys specifically

[@sandroserrano9186]

LEGO's audience has always been mostly male, it makes sense to have less female characters in the product line as boys are less likely to purchase the "girl characters" and girls aren't likely to purchase the female characters as they look like robots, and thus, are not interesting to (most) girls. This isn't sexist, it's business. However, I will agree that it would have been neat to see female character in most if not all factions. On the other hand: Love isn't canon and they don't reproduce, so they don't really need sex, much less gender.

[@Lavapasta]

I'd say that LEGO definitely thinks that their audience is mostly male, but they're probably underestimating the amount of girls that are interested in their playsets as well as the amount of girls that would be more willing to buy them if more female characters were included in the action themes, not just LEGO Friends & such. Regardless of whether they look like robots or not, I believe that if more female characters were available in Bionicle sets, then more girls would be interested in purchasing them which would earn LEGO more money, so even if keeping a minimum of female characters is simply business (which reminds me of the villain's dialogue from the lego movie), it doesn't seem very smart. I know there's the cultural belief that girls only like products that are gendered specifically towards them and avoid "icky boy stuff" like robots, but that might be something that we've been engineered to believe, and perhaps what they're actually avoiding is media that fails to properly represent them. Maybe all that action stories need to appeal to girls is to have more women present in them.

[@Luka1180]

@@Lavapasta Pretty sure that at the time of its inception and the earlier years, it truly was the fact that there were way more males. Going by the statistics LEGO have talked about before, they had always had a difficult time selling toys to girls, until around the inception of LEGO Friends.

[@nickytembo4112]

@@Lavapasta yeah and not to mention MLP FiM is geared towards little girls and many Grown MEN and women loved that show so saying that a franchise that is made for a specific audience means that a different can’t love it is BS

[@Lavapasta]

@@nickytembo4112 exactly, girls are absolutely capable of being fans of BIONICLE and there's probably quite a few of them who do- but they would probably appreciate BIONICLE a lot more if their gender wasn't constantly being written as the water-type blue rangers. A lot of male fans of MLP FiM probably felt a similar way about their narrative, too.

[@legoawcstopmotioner9435]

Not gloating or anything but I have all of the 2001 Toa. I got them from a retro toy store. And how do you play the online game?

[@Lavapasta]

You can watch footage of people playing it on youtube, or you can play it here: biomediaproject.com/bmp/play/web-games/

[@metalstorm1027]

2:15 'Inspired' 😂 3:30 wtf man, why did you have to scuttle this great video with this.

[@ltb1345]

1:16 Hey, I recognize that Xenoblade Chronicles X music!

[@QuikVidGuy]

limiting females to the water tribe is interesting, because they didn't restrict when the girls and women COULD be like, except for their element I didn't even know all the water members were female until years after I got into bionicle because it just wasn't stereotyped

[@fanb1536]

>Yet another video that spoils Mata Nui Rising, in a retrospective about the early years Why does every youtuber do this? I don't care if "hurr the line is nearly 20 years old;" if it's a video targeted at newcomers, you do not just throw the biggest revelation in the entire series at their faces right then and there.

[@Lavapasta]

Alright, but I thought it would be a cool thing that would get newcomers interested in the franchise, and knowing the giant robot twist helps put the narrative into context. At the very least we can be glad that I didn't spoil the second, darker twist of 2008 in this video, so any newcomers who actually dedicate themselves to reading the story do have another revelation waiting for them.

[@fanb1536]

@@Lavapasta That's fair, but I feel that the story as is, with the implication that there's much more to discover, is more captivating of a hook than flatly telling them where it all leads to. Mystery is a much bigger part of Bionicle's appeal in comparison to most other franchises, I'd argue - it's like watching a mystery show and getting the revelation spoiled during the intro.

[@Luka1180]

@@fanb1536 I'm not sure that would work as a hook anymore today without any promotions from LEGO for potential newcomers to see and get drawn in by on tv or posters or whatnot.

[@RaptorofRex07]

I miss the supernatural elements of 01 to 02 it made Bionicle stand out more imo, Like why can’t Biomechanial beings be supernatural

[@Luka1180]

Avatar: The Last Airbender, Power Rangers AND Transformers. And possibly some other stuff, including real cultures too. Polynesian ones for instance.

[@benwasserman8223]

Bionicle was to me what Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers were for the 80's and 90's: AWESOME CHILDHOOD

[@Luka1180]

It's more than that.

[@DCUniverse816]

No offense, but 5:03 makes me glad that I got my Tahu Nuva as soon as I did when I was a kid (especially since red is also my favorite color)

[@broden4838]

I kinda agree that it sucks that there's lack in female characters, but if they _are_ making a GEN 3, then, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more female characters

[@DrWhatever]

I like that the boroak are so similar honestly

[@andreworders7305]

6:44 heavy Xenoblade vibes

[@Luka1180]

Not simply robotic characters, but biomechanical ones. Basically a form of cyborg, but mostly mechanical/robotic. They have muscles, organs and other stuff made of flesh. But even this flesh is artificially created from protodermis, a form of cellular substance which can become basically EVERYTHING. Programmable matter almost. And it is FUCKING weird. If it's purified through rapid heating and cooling and then superheated, it goes from water form to molten metal form...

[@SchazmenRassir]

My first BIONICLE was Turahk, the Rahkshi. He unfortunately got mauled by our dog at the time, so now is missing a blade, and has his spines mangled. But they give him extra character, I think. I couldn't afford the original Toa, but later got my hands on the original green-masked Lewa. I have 12 of them of various states of being, as the ball-joint slots kept breaking. While I wasn't well-versed in the lore before watching these videos, I always loved (most) of BIONICLE, and it's a shame they made some poor business decisions with them. Still, even now, I keep all of them up on my bookshelf, and all of them posed, because why not.

[@zorbaknecromancer]

Vote Bionicle on Lego ideas! Its coming back!

[@AdamAdver]

Damn.

[@deetay59]

You know you can get these bionicles on eBay right? Also the movies came out before Lord of the rings making Lord of the rings the rip off

[@ltb1345]

The Lord of the Rings was a book series written in the 1940's or '50's...

[@deetay59]

@@ltb1345 i only know the movies

[@max84678]

@@deetay59 yeah the guy who wrote them JRR Tolkein made a beautiful story that is more than just what you see in the original trilogy and its prequel. also he was best buds with CS Lewis, the guy who wrote Narnia

[@Luka1180]

@@deetay59 Only know the movies??? BRUH.

[@umakantang6393]

My favourite colour is red to

[@bruh-rr4le]

fuck yeah

[@LinkiePup]

Hell yee HD

[@AdamAdver]

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[@Mextlatec]

#BIONICLEDdidNOTfailLEGOfailBIONICLE

[@ceohadenough894]

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[@crossyfirezx9659]

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[@WolfPawArmoury]

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[@wyattbartlett3660]

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