The Top 10 BIONICLE Controversies

[@stevenlanzarotta9576]

As regards to Bionicle's brief mention in the Lego Movie, I think it was hilarious. I saw the movie with my friends, and they know how much of a Bionicle fan I am, so when we saw the Toa Mata on screen for a split second, we all freaked out in excitement. (Much to the confusion of many movie-goers.) And I'll always love how it was Bionicle that had a brief cameo, and NOT Hero Factory.

[@camthesaxman3387]

I think it was put in more of as a joke to get fans riled up. Lego Movie doesn't take itself too seriously.

[@notiddypunkgf2246]

I'm not even mad about the 2006 marketing. It gave us the freshest bonkle memes.

[@smugalice6206]

I assume you mean "dankest."

[@bonk9863]

YO YO

[@smugalice6206]

...PIRAKA!

[@lucinaaugusta7279]

Yo yo

[@Matoro-wp9hy]

2006 was when I first got into Bionicles, and the advertising was part of what interested me when compared to other toys at the time

[@HaloCanon]

Really? No mention of massive character redesign for the original film trilogy? That controversy was HUGE!

[@theeternalchronicler3072]

Canon! Your here I didn't think you were a bionicle fan as well

[@HaloCanon]

***** Big time BIONICLE fan!

[@theeternalchronicler3072]

+Halo Canon well that's a pleasant surprise

[@HunhowsShadowStalker]

+Halo Canon The inhabitants of the Matoran Universe were biomechanical, they're not robots. Having the movie models match the sets entirely would make them appear too robotic. I like the way they looked in the three movies (I don't consider Legend Reborn worthy of being a Bionicle movie) because they look like a decent mix between machine and organic. Besides, just _look_ at the sets for the Matoran and tell me how you can possibly animate them decently?

[@HaloCanon]

RED Soldier I'm not commenting on whether I enjoyed the change (which I did, I agree that using the actual set designs wouldn't have lent itself to a decent movie), but at the time MoL was announced, the BIONICLE community was ablaze with debate over whether the change was good or bad.

[@owenkonsmo1454]

"Hey Bionicle fanbase" "Teridax" Chaos ensues

[@slyninja4444]

As far as the Maori controversy goes, I think it is important that all languages (regardless of how commonly spoken) recieve public domain protection

[@SylviaMoonbeam1127]

Honorable Mention: the reveal of Teridax's name. People flipped their s***

[@arzaki460]

+Metagrossfreak Poor Greg. I feel like he can't do anything without 90% of fans giving him death threats. Like, if he went on twitter and said he was getting a mocha instead of coffee, I bet half his followers would be outraged.

[@TakumaNuva]

+Metagrossfreak It likely wouldn't have received such negative criticism if it weren't for the fact that it was revealed right after we learned of Tridax pods. Seriously, there's only one letter difference.

[@shayposting]

+bmrjw He's pretty much the George Lucas of Bionicle.

[@kylefrank638]

+Four Minute Warning Totally uncalled for. No one deserves to be compared to Lucas, in that context. :P

[@SylviaMoonbeam1127]

+Kyle Frank George Lucas isn't even that bad. people give him shit for changing things but they're really not that big of a deal. I may lose all street red for saying this, but I actually liked Jar Jar and thought Episode 1 was good

[@obotprime339]

The way I see it, quite a few of these controversies happened because fans who were around since 2001 just can't accept new stuff. Others were pretty stupid to get mad about. I do agree with the red star and the ending of G1, though.

[@GatorRay]

They pretty turned the Red Star into a Deus Ex Machina.

[@tuyet2bdead193]

Obot Prime but it was broken so who cares and it's secondary function was a jet pack and I wanted to know pohatu and kopakas adventure through it

[@MythicSuns]

I'm watching a video of lewa drinking a beer, it's like watching my childhood grow up right in front of me.

[@markwilburn1218]

Gotta link to that?

[@diegohehskd9626]

Think it means this vidio

[@sprinklesandtrumpettoots7151]

As a girl, I don't particularly mind Bionicle mostly featuring male characters, but rigidly gendered elements was a very strange choice. I'm basically limited to water, lightning, or psionics if I want to create a comfortable self-insert matoran/toa character (which I do with several fandoms such as Pokemon and My Little Pony as a coping mechanism). I would probably be less bothered, but blue isn't really my color.

[@garrettsattem4799]

You’re in luck. I can’t remember how recent this addition to lore was. But Greg Farshtey did say in a fan forum website that sometimes, new matoran are “miscoded” with male or female personality types. That means that having a female Toa of fire, earth, ice, air, stone, or any other traditionally masculine elements is now perfectly lore friendly.

[@smallboyahoy]

I mean av-matoran can be any color/gender

[@GinnyFan765]

Personally, I really loved the BIONICLE reference in The LEGO Movie, and I've been a huge BIONICLE fan since it started in 2001. When the Toa Mata appeared on-screen in the theater I had the biggest grin on my face. :D

[@hitrapperandartistdababy]

GinnyFan765 It did techbically start in 2000 but nvm

[@_whacky]

You must be fun at partys

[@raaston9761]

One of My fist left sets was a bionical set

[@johnwalker1058]

My personal reaction was basically the Leo Dicaprio "pointing meme" when that image flashed. I saw it on a KZbin clip, so I rewound that scene multiple times because it flashed so fast, I didn't initially believe what I saw and thought I might have just imagined it out of my own wishful thinking or nostalgia bias.

[@ToxicAtom]

I don't know if it fully counts, but the whole "Hero Factory killed Bionicle" thing was... rough to say the least.

[@philipmonihan8222]

I think the problem is that Bionicle just lasted way too long, or at least kept the same conflict going for too long. Having decided to keep the franchise going for so much longer than they had originally planned, Greg and everyone should have found new arch villains and left Makuta to rest after Mask of Light. After that, the whole thing just started to get ridiculous.

[@DiamondToa83]

I think the 2015 hero factory piece controversy should have been here.

[@spooks8878]

+Cooper B Wait what was that

[@spooks8878]

***** They were different?

[@spooks8878]

+Legored The Epic oh, that. Well, lego saw their flaws in 2010, and that's why they created the new system

[@ToaKoran]

+Artis ™ Well, not exactly 7, I think at most it';s been around for 5, maybe 6, but not quite 7 yet. Either way, I agree with you, and this fact makes things even more sad when you consider that with Bionicle parts, or the majority of them, not being made anymore makes almost all of them permanently finite. This means that one day people will run out of Bionicle parts and be unable to build another MOC out of Bionicle parts again if they break or such unless someone makes a way to mold all of the parts at LEGO quality and sells them to fans for higher prices. And if that day ever comes, then all that will be left is the CCBS system, depending how long LEGO makes that last before they replace that one day as well.

[@ToaKoran]

Artis ™ It's very possible to happen, but it is definitely more difficult now than it was before, that increased with Bionicle's slightly underwhelming return. The one's from 2001 to 2005 seem to be the hardest to come by, it's practically impossible to come by a Mata Tahu these days. I'm hoping one day someone does find a way to make LEGO quality Bionicle pieces, even if they will be about 2 to 4 dollars a part, it would be better than not having any pieces at all. Also, if I had a silver Hau I would give it to you since I probably wouldn't use it. I do have a silver Kaukau however, and Lewa's golden mask, albeit slightly damaged from me being a dumb kid.

[@devingendron2287]

1:54, the online serials waist time that could have been spent on character development or world building. Uhm.... What? The online serials were half the world building. They extended the world beyond just the current roster of sets and characters and build a complex layered world. People want bionicle to be simple, but I for one argue half the fun is that it is a fully fleshed out sci fi fantasy setting you get really immeshed in. Short 1 shot sci fi or fantasy settings can be great, sure, but nothing stands up to building an entire universe, an entire world. That is a triumph and makes bionicle as fascinating as it is. It isn’t just a toy line, it’s a whole Science Fiction epic.

[@valkyrion_ex1173]

So, in a nutshell, the fandom (or the older fans, anyway) was the bitchy wife whose husband can never do anything right. Most of these 'controversies' are down to fan neuroticism and overreaction more than anything else, imo. BIONICLE fans still don't seem to understand - even with the reboot - that that this is, and always has been, a theme predominantly for kids and preteens - and they do not care a whole lot about any of this. Still, a good video -- although I'm kinda surprised that the hubbub surrounding Teridax and the Maori names didn't make the list.

[@isaacwhite9456]

+The Gray Kirby me too gray Kirby, me too.

[@DrMadd]

I think the whole Teridax debacle was worse than the Lego movie controversy

[@KaltatheNobleMind]

+DrMaddWorld how makuta got a proper name? remeber greg witheld the shadowed one's true name because of thatXD

[@dooplon5083]

+Meir Teichman I was completely fine with Makuta's name when I first heard it, but when I found out about the controversy later and that The Shadowed One wasn't named because of it I felt shafted.

[@benjaminhuether3846]

+DrMaddWorld I don't get the whole hullabaloo over Teridax. Also I, always thought that the Shadowed One's name shouldn't be revealed anyway. It would kind of take something away from his presence.

[@DrMadd]

Jj Mallek People were upset because it made no sense. We called him Makuta for years and that was always meant to be his name. The whole Teridax thing was a dumb decision to justify calling Makuta's army the brotherhood of Makuta.

[@benjaminhuether3846]

So, your basically saying that you don't like it just because it was a change to what you had become accustomed to? No offence, but that is a bit of a lame reason.

[@yoshitotem]

Also, i have to disagree with number 9, as i generally liked the 2009/2010 sets and themes, the new lore introduced in 2009 expanded and changed what we thought we knew about bionicle. The complains about the enviroment are stupid, considering it was perfectly explained as to why Bara Magna was essentially all desert, and that explanation also ties into the main lore of the series.

[@JC-hp6pk]

every year for like 8 in a row every Christmas my grandma bought me all 6 bionicles in these cylinder tubes and I loved it. I didn't know there were so many issues. just sounds like whiney little children only I was the 10 year old at the time!

[@JohnDoe-wb6vl]

Grey Wizard Dude same, only after discovering these videos did I realize that people like this ever existed. It makes me feel ashamed to be completely honest.

[@brwntwn123]

Lucky

[@kiran1863]

I was quite happy about Korgot being female, although I don't know why as the gender ratio didn't matter much to me in the first place. Though I really do enjoy the concept of love between matoran. There's something cutesy about it, especially in mnog and the animations.

[@MythicSuns]

@the esquire, kinda sucks being a straight matoran, simply because the only way to talk face to face with your soulmate is by crossing an ocean.

[@acrowbar2394]

It's interesting because while having love in the story helps humanize your characters, it's not wholly necessary. At least maybe not for all characters, and least of all for media aimed primarily for younger boys who wouldn't care to see such things. Compare the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (books) on this front, for example. The Hobbit had no romance at all, probably because it was for children. Lord of the Rings, a more adult story, had some romantic subplots. Of course there are many exceptions to this convention like many of Disney's princess fairy tale stories but my point is that it's not really a requirement for these stories that are aimed primarily for young boys.

[@acrowbar2394]

Also I'd just like to say that the whole idea of the Matoran/Toa being sexless creatures created whole reminds me of the Time Lords in Doctor Who, who are generally asexual and created via machines called Looms (depending on your canon interpretation; the show in recent years has been sexed up and even confirms that the Doctor was once a baby and a child). Doesn't make these fictional races any less interesting, in my opinion. I'm okay with these weird beings mostly having platonic friendships. But if you have straight up humans or similarly-behaved species in the story, then romance stuff is totally expected if the story warrants it. It's still kind of weird that Jedi are like that though, because they are humans with every other emotion besides lust. Even Vulcans took wives-dah forget it. Funny though because Bionicle and Doctor Who are science fantasy stories for children that feature an entire functioning race of asexual immortals with vast cultures and insane technologies.

[@joshuafogg6600]

Also, love technically WAS canon. Hewkii and Macku, like in the video, as well as Jaller and Hali in The Mask of Light. It was cutesy, but that was okay.

[@joshuafogg6600]

+Tesla-Effect Ever heard of a platonic relationship?

[@xboxgamerJ16]

For Lego Dimemsions to not make any reference to bionicle, that very much disappointed me

[@BerylLx]

Am I the only one who preferred The Legend Reborn's art style?

[@GatorRay]

After seeing Transformerfanco328's reviews I can say that the art style in the Legend Reborn feels like a step backwards because in his review of the second film he mentioned that they are more cyborgs than robots & that the art style of the first three films showed off the organic aspects more.

[@BerylLx]

I suppose I preferred seeing characters that resembled their sets more.

[@GatorRay]

benjieboyhero I don't blame you because the artstyle in The Legend Reborn isn't bad just different.

[@ciaranhappyentriepaw]

I preferred the art style, but i still thought it was a bad movie, well i actually thought it was a decent movie, but a bad Bionicle movie.

[@johnwalker1058]

I might get cancelled for this, but I personally like the art style of The Legend Reborn more than the other movies, mainly because the characters matched their real-world set appearance most closely. I think the art style of The Legend Reborn was just fine, and I'm tired of pretending like it wasn't.

[@micshork]

7:30 I agree with you on #3. Love is a thing that exists in real life and should exist in Bionicle since many of the characters had strong bonds. I kinda wanted Tahu and Gali to fall in love. BTW they are not siblings, they are "Brothers in Arms".

[@MemesToa]

That's not even bringing up the amount I, as a 5-year-old kid, shipped Jaller and Hahli after MoL. Plus there's pretty much every scene Hewkii and Macku shared in the MNOG.

[@xuanathan]

I'm sorry, but Kopaka and Pohatu are defs otp!

[@deemcgann1695]

Homophobes LOVE the siblings argument when I bring up kopaka x pohatu

[@theSonicguy001]

I’ve always considered love to be canon… to a certain point. While they cannot reproduce like we humans can, they can still feel the emotion of love. Sides: if you can give your inhabitants free will, you need to expect love to be a part of it!!!

[@devingendron2287]

I for one still have my own controversy that never was adressed or made a fuss about I think. Namely, what exactly is the difference between Stone and Earth? How are they distinct. I mean, I’m not trying to be Somantic here (if I were I’d inquire why Gali can’t control ice, given it’s water, or how the powers of toa of Iron and Magnetism are different, or why a toa of lightning couldn’t use electricity to generate magnetic fields or vice versa). No I have a question that isn’t born of the fact I’m a physics major at university. No, my biggest issue is this: How the heck are stone and earth different minerals? Where’s the cutoff? Please Discuss.

[@DimoB8]

I always assumed that Stone is rocks and Earth is soil

[@markwilburn1218]

I think Earth refers more to the terrain of the Matoran universe, the foundation and composition of where we stand, whereas Stone is specifically manipulation of minerals. Stone Toa/ Po Matoran are generally hardier too, stony hided. It's kind of like the difference between rock and ground type pokemon.

[@devingendron2287]

Mark Wilburn This makes a degree of sense, but where’s the cutoff? Is it just that once you pick up a stone it falls outside earth’s domain? Or is it just a matter of scale, Onua can do large scale manipulations but can’t just levitate a rock, while Pohatu can levitate stones but can’t create fissures in the ground by pulling them apart? Vaguely related, what’s a nova blast of either element look like? We’ve only seen Water Nova blasts in person, so we know that’s a tsunami, but Onua can already creat earthquakes fairly easily. Is an earth nova blast “Collapse an entire dome of the Matoran Universe?” That seems even more dangerous than Gali’s Tsunami. And what’s Pohatu’s do? We know he can nominally generate solid protodermis, so would he just fill an entire cavern with a dome of stone, suffocating everyone within as they were literally burried alive in solid rock? And would an Iron nova blast do the same with steel?

[@Redn2000]

I'd say the entire list was fine, up to #1. Yes one could argue that the male to female ratio was a bit odd, but did anyone care? Honestly, 6 year old me didn't, and I still don't. I hadn't given it a second thought because I was too busy having fun with a badass line of constructible heroes. I didn't give a shit what they were as long as they were cool, which Bionicle delivered on in spades. This is why I have a problem with gender politics, and also why I now hope that nothing is severely hindered in the new story because a person was "triggered." There's nothing wrong with having more diversity, but the focus should be more on who the character is, not what they are. And the moment you detract from trying to develop quality characters because somebody whines about the male/female ratio, is the moment everything goes downhill really fast.

[@purpleflaminggoatsnakes9864]

Eh, people are dumb and they complain about E V E R Y T H I N G.

[@purpleflaminggoatsnakes9864]

+TheTeslaEffect11 I'm pretty open minded when it comes to gender and sexual and/or romantic attraction, but let's face it, tumblr has created alot of genders that don't make sense. And they also have thin skin as well. Alot of people do. Just remember: "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"

[@purpleflaminggoatsnakes9864]

+TheTeslaEffect11 exactly. That is still a big issue in our society

[@Redn2000]

Now I will also say that there isn't anything wrong with caring, if there's an issue. And I can definitely admit that, as of now being much older, it is odd they continued this theme. But it was most likely due to the grand success of the line. Lego most likely thought, why change what's already gotten us out of bankruptcy? However, I still defend my original statement that the focus should be on character development, not just that they're male/female. That said, I'm glad they added in a more diverse set of characters seeing that a larger range of people enjoys their line so much. Having equality is fine, but skewing it into overrepresentation of one side or another isn't going to help anything. And when a child is younger, there only thing on their mind is to have fun, which can definitely be said for both sides of the spectrum.

[@LiveGame555]

+Tesla-Effect You do know males and females think differently and like different things because of biology aswell as societal pressure, right? Throughout almost all of human history, females have done nothing but house tasks and trying to impress men with how fertile they look (fertility being shown by big breasts is actually why most men find them attractive). Men throughout history have done basically everything else, but most importantly, providing and showing their success and resources. You cannot undo hundreds of thousands of years of evolution by just saying things should be different, humans evolved into this biology and that cannot be changed easily.

[@purpleboye_]

I replayed the Inika commercial probably ten times the first time I saw it on tv.

[@theeddy9985]

The thing that shocked me the most was....Roodaka. When my parents bought me Whenua Hordika, there were the three titans and the ending page and I immediately loved Roodaka's style and scheme. But then, when I had for my 8th birthday my favorite bionicle being Voporak, I had all the three titans. I was about to build Roodaka but one of the most shocking thing were her feet being heels. K I said "nice feet" then I built her head and I understood that it was a little bit different than the pic and there I discovered that she had a ponytail. Then I started to think what exactly was that bionicle. Guess what was the most "thraumatic" part? HER CHEST! There I understood that those Rahkshi heads were breasts and then I finished building her body. That's pretty awkward but for a 8 years old boy, that was the most oversexualized Bionicle ever. I mean....heels, ponytail, long and slender legs, pronounced chest....damn son

[@Th3Soc1al1st]

You know, I'm surprised the controversy of the red axles thing wasn't on here *runs*

[@ChawkletStudios]

2006 was the edgy age of Bionicle

[@BerylLx]

It was my favourite year :l

[@leethompson-kolar6333]

Free the Band, yo!

[@phoenixkidlordoffire9904]

+benjieboyhero I'm still trying to get the piraka and toa inika, but they're just too expensive! :(

[@leethompson-kolar6333]

Phoenixkidlordoffire They are? Are you trying to get them in-box or used? I don't know the rates of BIONICLE sets these days.

[@lizardirl9488]

I have piraka and i'm pretty sure i got inika, will have to check. But i got piraka once on vacation and inika when i bought someone's giant bionicle collection.

[@Walrusman_180]

“Its time for alt-rock to make its appearance” I don’t know why I laughed so hard at that.

[@EfodsMovies]

Who could hate the Mata Nui robot? What could be more awesome than two larger-than-planet-sized robots duking it out while their armies go to war tens of thousands of miles below?

[@EfodsMovies]

Personally, I love the 06 marketing

[@juice2307]

+Efods Movies I could hate the Mata Nui robot. It brings the realization that the Matoran are meant to be slaves, despite developing self-awareness after the robot ceased functioning.

[@EfodsMovies]

Yeah that's a good point. I like the concept, but not how it works in-universe. Why couldn't Mata Nui and Makuta be powerful enough to operate it themselves? I mean they've been hyped up to be so powerful, so why would they need all the matoran to help them work?

[@juice2307]

Efods Movies I think what's even worse is that at the beginning they made Mata Nui and Makuta out to be intangible spirit gods. Beings of omnipotence and great power. It's a let down to find out that Mata Nui is just a robot AI that can easily be killed and has little significance. Truthfully, Teridax is technically more godly due to not having an actual physical form. It's like being told the truth about Santa Claus. It kills imagination, which is kind of counter intuitive because LEGO is all about imagining.

[@EfodsMovies]

+Blatantly Heroic that's a perfect way to put it

[@rolfrose4507]

I‘m surprised G2 and Makuta Teridax‘s name reveal weren’t on the list

[@Jman92854]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Red Star's ability like that of reincarnation (meaning you come back as someone/something else) or is it literally, you die, and it just brings you back?

[@KaltatheNobleMind]

+Jman92854 the latter i believe. complete ressurection. i would have figure that karzhani would have been the ressurection guy as being regarded as matorna hell that is where the dead go along with the broken but fuctioning.

[@toagradius8856]

Both. Either the "deceased" being's body is teleported to the red star to receive repairs, or their consciousness is transferred into a new body if their original one is too badly damaged.

[@joshuafogg6600]

+Meir Teichman If Matoran ever get into a fight, expect a lot of shouting "Go to Karzahni!" Yeah, we can pretty much assume the realm of Karzahni is Matoran Hell.

[@Matoro-wp9hy]

I still don't fully understand how the Red Star granted the Inika their powers

[@MarcusLangdale]

Wtf? I was 100% sure that the biggest actual controversy would be on here- the fact that Bionicle names were taken from the Maori language. Anyway great vid.

[@thedarkhorse2441]

9:19 Absolutely agree on that! I've actually had thoughts of coming up with a female Toa of Earth and based on an Onu-Matoran's lifestyle I can picture a female Onu-Matoran/Toa character as being tomboyish. Also Toa Inika Hahli's mask looked so much like an Italian male and Gali Mistika's mask looks manly (which is also why it works better for Kopaka if it was white).

[@HarryBillyBobGeorge]

The ending was good for what it was. I can't think of anything better than Mata Nui himself achieving his destiny while fighting Makuta in giant robots that ARE the universe. Come on, that's epic. If the sets were handled with any effort, it would've been even better. Imagine if The Lego Movie 2 had the Toa Mata in minifig form, and/or with the Mask of Light voice actors.

[@UnfaithfulServant97]

"Yo Yo Piraka! The gang is on the loose! Nothin' you can do!"

[@TahuMata1888]

there were three more controversial things 1) Roodaka's breasts especially at Bionicle 3 after Sidorak died, the camera got near her tits & the Makuta stone 2) Pridak's red markings, people might think he killed a human or something due to it looking like blood 3) Miramax's idea of CGI for the Toa Nuva who look like they are wearing underwear

[@Zesksaken]

TahuMata1888 ....... 1-everything has fanservice .-. 2-well.... The "its just his design" is a LIE, pridak possibly did kill someone, but bionicle had young fans too..... 3-huh?

[@jaxwarp8373]

What in the world are you talking about with number 3?

[@dr.ramilo84]

Ah yeah, always hated that in MoL the toa had those strange "superhero underwear"

[@TahuMata1888]

@@jaxwarp8373 It looks embarrassing for the male Toa and Gali looks like a bikini party girl, if Ninjago crossovers with Bionicle, I get sick if Nadahkan gets his hands on her

[@CunningCondor]

I've always been a Bionicle fan, and seeing them flash for like half a second in the Lego Movie didn't SHOCK me or anything. I've never understood why people would lose their minds when Lego mentions a franchise that THEY OWN in a movie THEY MADE, y'know?

[@CunningCondor]

Eh, I mean I love Bionicle, and I loved the Lego Movie, but I can live without em having a spot in the movie. After all, part of what made the movie so great is that it never tried to be a commercial, so I suppose it's best to avoid shoving merch in the film. :/

[@ciaranhappyentriepaw]

Personally i don't think the Red Star really makes death not the end, the way I see it is more it changes what death is. It will only revive you if your body is still capable of functioning, so if say, its destroyed to the point it no longer exists then it can revive you, bassicly what Im saying is i think (Yo can think what you want to think) that the Red Star simply makes it that death in Bionicle is more difficult as it involves the utter annihilation of your body, and doing from say, just being shot with a little sphere and falling over is more akin to being temporarily injured and recovering.

[@smugalice6206]

So nidhiki and krekka would be dead-dead, right?

[@ciaranhappyentriepaw]

I think? Im not really sure what happened with those two to be honest. I just assumed they died.

[@smugalice6206]

Ciaranhappy They were absorbed into Teridax so he could give himself more power before fighting the Toa Metru.

[@ciaranhappyentriepaw]

Yeah they are probably very dead, even if they survived the initial obsorbion (which i doubt) Makuta Teridax would have prably done something to whatever essence would have been left. Yeah they very dead.

[@toashawujinmon6913]

I expected Roodaka to be here or Sidorak"s death

[@noahin4205]

hahaha I got the Move along reference

[@VezonWireless]

I'm surprised the Maori lawsuit and Teridax's name reveal aren't on this list. I was also surprised that the Great Beings' species reveal wasn't mentioned, but then I checked the dates and realized that this video predated that information. 10. Oh boy, BIONICLE fans were just being whiny about this. Wyldstyle was correct that she did "not need to mention" BIONICLE in her exposition dump given that it had no relevance to the rest of the plot, so the fact that it was even referenced at all was clearly supposed to be a fun little tip of the hat to the theme. And, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense that BIONICLE wouldn't be in the film, but that's getting into spoiler territory. Besides, it was grouped with Fabuland and Friends, which were both successful LEGO themes in their own right, so it was by no means intended as an insult. 9. To be fair, I think most people enjoyed the first few serials in 2007 and the first half of 2008. It was in the second half of 2008 onward where the serials became overly complicated, squandered character potential by randomly killing them off, developed a nasty habit of bringing in alternate universes when they weren't needed, and introduced too many plot threads that were left hanging. 8. Faber's scale makes much more sense than Greg's scale. Greg may or may not be a scapegoat, but he's sticking to his guns and won't justify it beyond "BIONICLE physics aren't real world physics." (By the way, side note here: the grammar nut in me was really, REALLY bothered by the fact that "its" and "it's" were consistently spelled wrong for 8, 5, and 2. Every single time! Agh!) 7. Yep, 2006 marketing was stupid. Moving on. 6. It's a mixed bag. On one hand, we got some neat details that were universally accepted, such as Midak being the name of that one MNOLG Onu-Matoran, and the Fikou-Nui from the unreleased Legend of Mata Nui videogame was finally inducted into canon (so BS01 can stop insisting otherwise). On the other hand, it did open the metaphorical floodgates for everyone trying to canonize every little bit of headcanon they had, even if their headcanon was not shared by the rest of the fandom. The BIONICLE Story Squad was founded in an attempt to rectify this, but that hardly made a difference in the end when Greg switched from BZP to LMB. (It also turns out that I accidentally canonized Dezalk's appearance back in 2007 and nobody noticed until a few months ago. Well, at least I can cross "making some contribution to BIONICLE canon" off my bucket list.) 5. I still say, on the whole, 2009 was an underrated year. Too few fans were willing to give it a chance because it was different. The Glatorian sets were far better than 2008's Phantoka and Mistika, addressing complaints such as "too much silver" and "the weapons are too big". There was some real potential for worldbuilding in Bara Magna that I wish could have been given more time to really delve into. Besides, The Legend Reborn is just as much of a cheesy kid's film as any of the Miramax films... just without Nathan Furst's epic score to make you forget that it's a cheesy kid's film. 4. Lhikan is still alive. That's reason enough to hate what the Red Star does. Especially after Greg has gone on record saying that he hates bringing characters back to life because it cheapens their deaths... and yet, he's constantly doing that. 3. I don't care what Greg says. Hewkii/Macku and Jaller/Hahli are canon. Templar Studios said so. End of story. Heh, but in full seriousness, Templar Studios did such a magnificent job at memorable worldbuilding and characterization in MNOLG and the Wall of History animations, so it's difficult for some of us long-time fans to see Greg completely disinterested in their contributions to the early years of BIONICLE. His argument that "Matoran don't sexually reproduce so they'd never come up with the concept of love" has also fallen under a lot of fire. 2. Much like 2009, I still say that 2010 was woefully underrated. We got one last wave of sets (which BIONICLE designers reportedly fought tooth-and-nail to make, since LEGO wanted to cut the line short with the Glatoran Legends) celebrating classic characters like Tahu and Takanuva while releasing fan-favorites Nektann and -Samuel L. Jackson- Rahkshi of Heat Vision for the first time. We got one last book released for free on the internet, depicting new and old heroes teaming up to battle new and old villain. We got Mata Nui fighting Makuta one-on-one, brother-to-brother, and everything was brought full circle in the end. It was far from perfect... but, given the circumstances of this lengthy saga forced to cut itself short, it was everything I could have asked for. 1. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention The Yesterday Quest, although that might have been redundant with number 9. Basically, fans voted for the elements of the three Toa who would appear in TYQ, and Lightning and Psionics were both in the top three. Fans were excited that, for once, we'd see a Toa team where the male/female gender ratio was 1:2, not 5:1. And then... Greg came up with a controversial explanation to explain why Orde is the only male Toa of Psionics. This prompted a lot of angry arguments about gender stereotypes on BZP back in the day. (As a tangent, I know I've been harping on Greg a lot in this comment, but that's because this is a comment on a video specifically addressing negative aspects of BIONICLE's run. I just want to say that I'm not one of those anti-Greg fanboys. I do recognize that he has his own strengths and has made a lot of positive contributions to BIONICLE, such as Time Trap, and I appreciate what he has done for the fans.)

[@fredjones2170]

Well-said on every point, man.

[@RetroActionUK]

I liked the Story Serials, except from Tuyet’s comeback story, Ancient’s demise, Karzahni being wasted, and the incompletion of The Yesterday Quest and The Powers That Be. G2 should’ve brought the Story Serials back to expand on the history of Okoto and the Shadow Realm. And it could’ve helped make a more satisfying conclusion to the line with an actual battle against Makuta as well.

[@zephyrinfinity2082]

Personally, I liked the serials. I feel that they added a lot to the story. Maybe that's just me and my love of making things overly complicated when they don't have to be, though.

[@michaelconway4566]

I didn't want it to be in the lego movie it should have its own badass movie that makes your heads explode with epicness

[@trombonemain]

I still like the Bara Magna arc; but that might be because I grew up with them. It impacted so me so much that I'm in high school and still have the tear-out Legend Reborn poster from the October '09 Brickmaster issue (I got Brickmaster on my birthday month) on my wall, lol.

[@tornaghmalumenis6834]

Idfc what anyone says. The story shows me real, undeniable love and compassion, even of a romantic nature. To me, love was always canon and will continue to be

[@kasunex1772]

So honestly I think the love angle is under stated here. While the examples brought up are true, all three of the original movies had romantic implications. Jaller and Hahli's flirting in Mask of Light ("I know she likes Jaller" - Takua in the DVD extras"), Sidorak's want to marry Roodaka and Roodaka's suggestive dialogue towards Terridax in the Web of Shadows, and a throwaway line or two in Legends of Metru-Nui ("romantic drive"). I think those made it a lot harder for the fans to swallow, especially for people like myself whose interest in Bionicle peaked around the 2004 season.

[@Raptorman0205]

What would have made the joke in the Lego movie better would be if they had gone and said something along the lines of "we don't have nearly enough time to talk about some other worlds" and then flashed the bionicle image. It would've been a slight jab at how crazily complicated the series got, and would've been something that we could've laughed at too.

[@raghavramki9938]

Yo yo piraka is the greatest thing wver

[@yoshitotem]

The massive size of the great spirit robot isn't as big of an issue as some made it seem. It actually make sense when you consider that the great spirit robot IS the matoran universe. Every island we learn about in Bionicle (with the exception of Mata-Nui and Voya-Nui) is a part of the matoran universe INSIDE the great spirit robot. Metru-Nui, Karzahni, Zakaz, Xia, Stelt, Destral, Odina, Nynrah, Visorak (yes, that is the name of an island), Daxia, the northern continent, and the southern continent are ALL inside the great spirit robot, so being colossal in size makes 100% perfect sense.

[@rosyramona6246]

As a kid, the 2006-7 stories were my favorite. Also, can someone explain what was so controversial about Teridax's name being revealed? I wasn't really active in the fandom back then.

[@blib3786]

Personally, I always thought the spirit robot seemed too small, I mean, it's supposed to contain an entire world isn't it?

[@mrbioproductions768]

+DemoniKirk 2001 Well if you see bara magna in comparison to its moons its gigantic so there not really much problem of making it bigger than before

[@Creepypig7]

i read something about a contreversey that made some of the names change (huki > hewkii, jala > jaller)

[@rtfm9222]

a link to the picture in 02:40 please

[@ImForgivenButJesusWasForsaken]

what about Thok sounding like a vulgar word? especially for young boys who had a hard time prouncing th.

[@Michipicoten]

I wish they could have given protector of fire some elbows

[@LinuxMintTutorials]

I actually love the all american rejects and the 2006 marketing is why i know them lmao

[@kstanni87]

I liked the legend reborn, sue me all you want but i appreciate it for staying closer to what the sets look like.

[@DieselofAlrest]

Ya know, I'm kinda glad I never want to understand the ways to the BIONICLE fandom.

[@ChronicNOTAG]

Try to understand the way of any fandom. RWBY fans are all about them gay shippings of underaged characters. Destiny fans refuse to see the flaws of their game and cry nerf at every available opportunity. Undertale fans have a similar problem to the RWBY fans. Bionicle fans are all about that lore. Me? I was all about them bricks'n'builds.

[@ChronicNOTAG]

***** Hey, my brotha! Same here. Hell, I'm still not entirely sure what the story is about. Though they got a lot of cool new stuff now. :)

[@SuperGamefreak18]

+ChronicNOTAG hey I'm a fan of the lore and I overall enjoyed it even if it was all over the place...ok so I enjoyed the idea that was made with the lore and not the execution though how the stuff looks be a priority since it's a toy/collections item first and a large story second...

[@thereservationatdorsia2618]

Every fandom is bad, especialy the My Little Pony one, wich i think applies to you, judging by your profile pic.

[@SuperGamefreak18]

TiZiAnO Di Felice be glad its not as bad and shattered as the sonic fanbase

[@verapetridis1486]

Can I ask something what's the song in the backround?

[@TorridPrime217]

Actually, the Red Star doesn't really revive the dead; it just creates... sort of spiritual copies of the deceased. Y'know, like copying a file? In the long run, this means that dead characters don't actually come back to life because they are wholly new characters, despite wearing the 'spiritual skins' of those dead characters, and given time they will become different from their bases, unique, as all living individuals just do. For example: if Matoro were to come back, give him a few months and he would start to differ from the character we all knew, and given time he would differ completely

[@TahuMata1888]

The TTV Channel: The Red Star has said to resurrect the dead and Greg confirms it. Lhikan: So my motivational sacrifice is a joke?

[@ItsYaTrashboi]

I'm sad that we never got a set of the mata nui robot

[@ThrillaWhale]

+TheGamecubeBourgeois But holy shit did it inspire some epic MOCs.

[@ItsYaTrashboi]

***** true. did one myself

[@ec-de4ey]

Heeyyyy how was 2006's marketing controversial, 2006 recently became my favorite year And i LOVE the marketing they did, like i LOVE the like Gangster Theme of The Piraka and how they hid like mini sprites of Voya nui in the Background of the packages and stuff

[@FuzzyTA11]

As Av-Matoran were 50/50 male/female and hide disguised as Matoran in the standard 6 elemental groups, I always found it peculiar that this must have meant that for each Ga-Matoran there was a 1/3 chance of them truly being an Av-Matoran and that there would also appear to be 1.25 times as many Ga-Matoran compared to any other elemental group, thus making it theoretically extremely easy to spot a hiding Av-Matoran

[@sambutler953]

10:27 SPEAKING of Korgot, does anyone else think she one of those, "Do this or I kill you," people, or what?

[@josefarias5216]

+Sam Butler She does though! I really, really hope we get to learn more about the villagers. Crossing my fingers for next year's Netflix series! :D

[@juice2307]

+Sam Butler Korgot reminds of of Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

[@MrRmortiz23]

is the mata nui robot an actual set?

[@Captainmorgan0702]

I’m convinced it is bionicle but I had a build set as a kid and was convinced one had like a predator style mask with the dreads?? Am I confusing this with something else?

[@johnwalker1058]

Personally, I'm not too mad about the Red Star one. Because although technically the Red Star could be used to revive characters, I'm not too sure the extent of the revival capabilities necessarily fully undo the effects of death or the sense of the finality of death for Bionicle characters. This is because of the possibility that a person's personality or memories might not fully be restored, so their consciousness would be like "reset to factory settings" or something like that, so the original humanity and personhood of the revived being might still be lost and there would still be some lingering sense of finality in death for members of the Matoran Universe. Also, if you use the Mask of Dimensional Gates, you could steal a variant of a character from another parallel universe/dimension and sorta revive a deceased character in that type of way, so the Red Star wasn't even arguably the first way to be a potential deus ex machina for bringing back dead folks. For people who complain about the serials, I just don't understand. They made the Bionicle universe much more exciting to me *because* of the increased complexity, not in spite of it. It gave us fans so much more to explore with the characters by giving us more adventures with them and seeing how they navigated through them together. It made the settings of the Bionicle universe feel grander and fleshed-out instead of an entire 'universe' just being one tropical island and industrial city alone. It made the plot more beautifully intricate with more twists and turns, interweaving threads, backstories, and rich lore to explore. Ditto for people who disliked the 2009 setting of Bara Magna with the Glatorian and Agori. It just gave us more stuff to explore and appreciate about Bionicle lore. There's another planet of beings like the ones back in the Matoran Universe? The Matoraan Universe was a giant robot this whole time? Who were the Great Beings and how did they construct such things? How did things end up in such a way that a powerful spirit entity was made to control a giant robot with beings inhabiting it in space and what was the reason for all these things? And so on, and so forth. I get the feeling that this complain was mostly about people just being averse to change and missing the old things they like. Sure, we might miss the cool old stuff we grew up with, but the new stuff could turn out to be cool if you give it a chance. (Not to mention, with Mata Nui and his quest to finish his destiny assigned from the Great Beings in "Journey's End," it's not even like they killed off the old stuff anyway, and instead, everything was just combined together in a grander and more epic story). I like the Bionicle Stars, but I do wonder why they had to shink down the sets. Why did Tahu, Takanuva, and Gresh have to shrink down in size all of a sudden? I forgot the in-universe reason, but it just seemed like a weird way to sell new sets. And the villains were supposed to be the toughest and scariest opponents the heroes throughout the story ever had to face (minus the Makuta because they were nearly wiped to extinction due to Teridax's plan to take over the Matoran Universe in the first place). However, it was harder to appreciate the gravity of a supposed epic final battle when you have massive hordes of Rahkshi, Skrall, and Skakdi, but they're all miniature sized like the Av-Matoran of the Phantoka wave of 2008 or the Agori of the 2009 Bara Magna sets. If I were in charge of the design, I personally would have at least made the yellow Rahkshi the same height and size of the Rahkshi sets from 2003. I would have just reused the Skrall from 2009 (maybe having some of them be smaller like the bone hunters they were allied with). And for the Skakdi, I would have pretty much reused the Piraka sets with perhaps differing designs in the back spikes (as the Piraka were supposed to be a special, elite group of Skakdi).

[@timursikorskiy7281]

hey eljay when are the recaps coming back ?

[@salty_terminal_civilian5374]

2006 marketing is what got me into bionicle.

[@Bobbobson69420]

Wow, Bionicle must have very passionate fans.

[@The_Bionicle_Nerd]

I just realized taht the Stars ad was Cgi (the ones you used) Also good work

[@HunhowsShadowStalker]

I always felt it was annoying that every element was stuck with a specific gender (except for Light, which could be either, and Shadow, which are just corrupted Matoran of other elements). I'm glad G2 dropped the one-gender-element concept, and made Korgot, Protector of Earth, the female one. They gave us a badass female character with a chest-mounted minigun, for Mata Nui's sake!

[@double3259]

Where's podcast 169?

[@CoreyDDH2]

There should have been an end credit scene at the end of The lego Movie where Narmoto meets Tahu for the first time. Tahu would say: "Who am I?" and Narmoto would say: "you are the master of fire". The screen would go black as text would appear on screen. The text would read, "Tahu and the Toa masters will return in Bionicle Generation 2." This would kick start the Lego Cinematic Universe, or LCU. XD

[@TheManBehindTheSlaughter6669]

I don't understand why people don't like the great spirit robot, it was planned from the start and the whole point was that it was supposed to be the body that all the cells and immune system(matoran and toa respectively) live in just like us.

[@volatile5460]

HEY! I loved the online serials. Since I didn't have access to the books the serials were the next best thing!

[@Animicroman]

+Upright productions yeah, the story about sahmad, made him one of my favourite characters! federation of fear was also pretty cool. i really loved vezon´s quotes!

[@TonksMoriarty]

Mata Nui! LJ didn't mention the red & blue pins.

[@thomasliu5457]

Lego really dropped the ball with Bionicle's gender ratio, they went from having 3 female tribes to making a wave where only one named character was female & with G2, we have two named characters that are female.

[@ThatchMac]

Really? No CCBS system switch. I'm surprised.

[@juice2307]

+ThatchMac The people who consider it a controversy are in the minority. You know how a select few old people complain about how anything made now is terrible compared to the things in their day? Yeah, the people who complain about CCBS are the same type of people, and they'll grow up to be the same type of negative old people, and everyone will just be waiting for them to die off, but they won't because for some reason the spiteful negative geezers live the longest.

[@averagejoe6617]

Ummm hello?! What about the naming of the world being based on maori culture and them making a big fuss about it leading the tahunga to be renamed to matoran! That should've been number 1.

[@dovevanity4252]

was I the only one who was pissed off that the Brickumentary (a documentary dedicated to lego) didn't mentoin Bionixle like at all (if i remember correctly)' the worst fact? they mentoined the whole how Lego had hard times in the 90s and how apparently the Star Wars and Mindstorm (whatever that was called) lines kinda saved it BUT THEY DIDNT MENTOIN THE TRUE LINE THAT SAVED THE COMPANY. this pisses me off more than the lego movie cameo. at least in it the IP was MENTOINED in some capacity,even if it isnt in the way the fans wanted

[@Venom3254]

I'm new to this with only knowing 10 and 7, so what's the big deal with this?

[@DeisFortuna]

The mata nui size thing could have been due to a vareity of causes. Like for example, the artists all having slightly different ideas about how big Mata Nui was.

[@kierannicholson9983]

As a kid, 2006 marketing was awesome, it made me collect the whole 06 series! So I guess it worked

[@codylol8175]

Lol I loved 2006 and the darker marketing

[@TonyAHowes]

03:04 "It was in the story bible since 2000"

[@kirbyofthestarsfan]

I was expecting the whole Tohonga thing in 2001 to be number 1 tbh

[@dtinagliastudios]

Eljay not showing us his face yet

[@Adrian-su5jr]

CAUSE HE IS UGLY WITHOUT HIS KANOHI

[@purpleflaminggoatsnakes9864]

+repto gil aw come on guys, now you just being mean > _>

[@Adrian-su5jr]

purpleflaminggoatsnakes 98​ hey what if he's really ugly under his miru

[@Silverstroke123]

+DTinaglia Studios Truly the biggest Bionicle controversy ever.

[@TheBrickRookie]

Well DT there is a reason. :)

[@zacharykim295]

I had NO idea about the 2009 controversy.

[@SonicJrandSarah]

No mention of the Maori Language?

[@Cooks2712]

Why was Elgar wearing his cardboard Miru instead of his newer one?

[@EljayJohnsen]

+MasterD2712 I still use it, this was just an old clip.

[@juice2307]

+MasterD2712 Heh heh heh... ye ol' Elgar.

[@DeisFortuna]

IMO, what Starz should have been (and honestly the best possible version) would had rerun the original versions of the sets characters depicted (albeit changing takanuva into a standard canister set instead of also making his motorcycle)

[@LauraLowe]

4:36 Ohohoho, THIS aged magnificently!

[@ollienix3285]

I actually like 2010 it represents bionicles long run by having some of the most important characters and gresh getting turned mini making it seem like more of a struggle like the 9 years followed was filled with cliff hangers,drama,crises,and war along with a whole different perspective on them when the island of matanui got destroyed the moved to an all new planet with different terrain strange rahi and new characters by shrinking the heros down while having two humungous robots fight putting many MANY life's in dander along with a planet that is incomplete having what's left orbiting the new world having different species live in harmony them getting down sized are like the agori and they originally inhabited the planet

[@Kiteman78]

I think the toa Mata Nui set is the Mata Nui tobot

[@Xenronnify]

In 2006, I was in 7th grade going through my Emo phase. MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG, LIKE I KNOW YA DOOOOOOOOO

[@CriticalMOCer]

I haven't read the new Bionicle book yet. Can someone please spoil it for me and tell me who is this female character (and please be nice about it)?

[@zeliph]

About the last controversy, maybe there can be a female Toa of Water that has a bonus element of Fire/Earth/Air/Stone/Ice (for gen1)? Idk. :/ I mean Hahli Inika had element of water w/ lightning.