Concept art by Brian Andrew was released on his Instagram that shows a much more Greek inspired 2009 story line
Back in 2008, we were told that the end of Bionicle was on the horizon… My manager, Christoffer Raundahl, approached me to come up with a few concept paintings to take Bionicle in a radically different direction. Essentially, what could a potential Bionicle 2.0 look like? So this Mythic concept I came up with is heavily drawing inspiration from the gods and monsters of Greek mythology.
It’s difficult to say, since we don’t really know anything about this alternate version beyond these two pictures. This almost looks like it was intended to still be in the Matoran Universe, rather than on Bara Magna.
These characters all look really cool, though.
Also, could you link to the original Instagram post?
I’m guessing the hydra and centaurs could fit in with Bota Magna. The vorox on Bara evolved to be more savage, who’s to say the jungle tribe didn’t evolve four legs. Evolution gets pretty crazy when an ecosystem is isolated for as long as the GSR has been around.
If done right I feel like this version could be better.
There could have been many interesting builds, a Medusa style villain would have been cool. Or something like cerberus.
Storywise there could have been some pretty nice storylines drawn from the ideas of some stories in the mythos and many different settings could have been drawn from there too. Maybe the armour styles could have been inspired from the greeks as well.
And looking at some parts of their history, the Great Beings would make more sense too.
Looking back, I hated the 2009 story at the time for diverging so wildly from familiar characters and ideas. It’s only more recently that I’ve warmed up to it. So I can’t say that I would have likely enjoyed either one better back then.
I guess I’m glad Bionicle didn’t go too Greek - I already found all of the Latin words that started showing up to be distracting (I already knew some Latin by then - thanks, Catholic school). Still, maybe something more mythological than the grungy Mad Max-lite setting we got could have tapped into Bionicle’s core themes of mystery and the age of legends a bit better. I dunno
I think the reason I prefer this aesthetic is because it feels more culturally inspired which is something I like in Bionicle, albeit without the appropriation. It’s also easier to sell as a premise because “Greek robots” is easier to explain.
Of course, the problem with those parts is that neither is available in green (or very many colours in general), and the latter doesn’t really have any ankle-like connection points.
Also, maybe the centaur’s horns could be Part 57528:
