The Skull villains are probably my least favorite villain group in all Bionicle. Here is a list of all things that I take an issue with
The most obvious one: Why skeletons? Do Okotains have bones? Is it an aesthetic thing? Are bones common knowledge in G2? Are there humans?
Who is the boss of what? Kulta and LoSS are at several points considered to be the boss of certain members of the skull army. But what is the relation between them?
How are the dead resurrected? Is it Makuta, does Kulta’s staff have any power? Are they animated by Skull Spiders? If there are different powers at play, is there any structure in the army?
Is Skull Basher undead or alive. The story never gave me the impulse to think about the guy as a character. He never speaks. He doesn’t give any sign of sentience.
How are the Scorpios created? Are they undead, where they something else?
The Scorpios are not good-looking.
Kulta is the most unproductive villain in Bionicle. He could have destroyed the mask decades ago, but only moves once the Toa enter the city.
Kulta is not an imposing boss. The fact that only Ekimu, the otherwise almost useless character has to defeat him doesn’t make it better, even though he copied Brutaka’s special move once.
What and why is LoSS and why is this thing involved in any of this?
If Skull Slicer is supposed to be an undead Okotain, why doesn’t he resemble one? Or the other way around, why is this set supposed to be something it really isn’t?
Is Kulta undead? He looks that part but it is never spoken out. Also his life span is way higher than most mortal characters in G2. He outlived the protectors by a long shot.
LoSS is a protector enemy inspired by the Rahi, yet he is barely big enough to be a threat to one protector at a time and his function does bare work for the mask game that was reimplemented in G2.
What’s with the golden Skull Spider mask? Why was that never mentioned in the story?
Why did the Skull villains feed of the mask powers?
While the LoSS set is clearly designed as a protector enemy, it take more than a year to finally get this showdown in the story. Instead LoSS fights the Toa. LoSS is clearly underpowered to face the Toa and the depiction of a first face-off between LoSS and the protectors could have shown the direness of the situation.
Why are corrupted masks even a thing. The problem is either not implemented into the story at all or just glaced over. Tahu and Gali don’t even get masks.
For a main villain Kulta gets barely any screentime or even mention in the animation. He could have been as well just another goon.
The Skull villains broke the entire world-building of G2. They had no introduction, no mystery and did not pose a threat. Except for Kulta nobody had a character trait.
How would I have tried to fix this?
Make the skeletons a bit more abstract, but enough to get the intention accross.
Make LoSS a pet of Kulta.
Show Kulta resurrecting the dead.
Give Slicer and Basher at least ten seconds for establishing the character.
&
Fix the Scorpios
Make Ekimu the only guy who knows where the mask is hidden. Build a competition between Kulta and the Toa. Alternatively, make Kulta a crowned king of the city, who watches everything and sends out his troops. The mask of creation is then used to create his army.
Make Kulta summen goons at a constant pace.
Again, as the pet/scout of Kulta it would make more sense.
See 4
Give Kulta time to introduce himself.
Give LoSS a better function
Make it Kulta’s alternative mask.
Let the Skull villains feast on mask energy, what then would be the reason why they invaded the city of the mask makers.
Make LoSS the protectors nemesis.
Make the mask draining thing important to the overall plot.
Again, give Kulta more time, let him be in the background all the time.
I agree that Skull villains are imperfect but many things can be explained (through these things were communicated very badly):
If Okotans and others are roughly similar to their set counterparts in anatomy, then yes. CCBS is based on placing armor on skeletons. In story, there is likely muscle inbetween. When people die, muscle rots away, exoskeleton falls away, and possibly rusts, but bones remain. Reason why Okotans have bones in addition to exoskeleton is that exoskeleton alone cannot support beings of their size, one of reasons why insects cannot grow large, if I remember correctly.
From my understanding, there is difference between army led by Kulta and spiders ruled by LoSS.
Good Point.
Good Point.
From their looks, it seems that they are attempt to create a scorpion from humanoid bones.
Thus, I find them looking strange fitting, through they could be improved.
From what I understand, there is no reason for Kulta to destroy the mask. Makuta wants to hoard masks to become powerful, and Mask of Creation is very powerful.
Good Point.
LoSS was created by Makuta using Mask of Creation to control the Skull Spiders. Skulls Spiders weren’t created by Makuta, otherwise LoSS would have no reason to exist.
We know that other species like Skull Raiders exist. As pre-Cataclysm Okoto was prosperous advanced civilisation, it seems reasonable that people other than Okotans could be found here.
He is, for reason you mentioned.
Could make him venomous.
From what I remember, LoSS uses it to control the Skull Spiders.
To strengthen Makuta.
He is one who rules Skull Spiders, therefore fighting Toa fits better IMO. Venom could solve the size issue.
Perhaps Makuta wants to drain power for himself, do Bohrok-Kal and rob Toa of their powers, or corrupt Toa and use them in his plans?
Excellent point. 2015 animations were utterly horrible.
I am currently really tired so I try to keep this short.
That isn’t really the case. Supposedly Skull Slicer is controlled by an ancient Skull Spider whose legs decayed. So he is LoSS minion, but he is a Skull creature. Skull Scorpios supposedly served both Kulta and LoSS, why?
The story though makes it look like Kulta just recently obtained the mask of creation. Ekimu remembered him taking it and leaving to destroy it. We don’t know anything about LoSS for sure. And that’s what I find frustrating.
But why is he not considered a Skull Creature?
Yet they brought that never up.
How? There wasn’t even anything established about Makuta’s actual presence or powers at this point.
Not when you consider the toy aspect. You want your toy heroes at their full strength when they fight the bad guys. The Toa villains in the first wave are the spider-controlled Toa. But I get that they didn’t include that in the story, because they even without such scenes barely have enough time to establish a character that you are supposed to root for.
That still does not explain the skull masks. The g2 heads don’t look as though there should be a skull inside them. Why are the Skull villains, even the skull spiders, modelled after something that does not exist?
You have good point, I was writting the reply at midnight, so many nonsensical things came up.
Perhaps the skull masks are used to reanimate the Skull Creatures. But yes, there is no good in-universe reason for the masks to look like skulls. They could made them look like maskless heads, as these could carry similar connotations (only time when you see them for prolonged period is when someone is extremely weak or in coma)
Concerning the mask of skull spiders, BS01 says that the thing about its power was in BIONICLE website entry on LoSS. I agree about the communication issues. Story of G2 was okay, but storytelling and communication in general was horribad.
I remember an incident where Story Team planned to have the island look drasticaly different before the cataclysm. But the show makers somehow did not know, and made it look same. Story Team then had to change the story.
My gripe is that the blue Skull Warrior/Archers as a whole had uneven/abstract armoring including the ball armor on only one shoulder and only one leg.
Except for the eyes… the random orange is distracting on areas like the leg claws and shoulder. Just look at it and you’ll see what i mean.
Either that, or maybe they could have made them more like traditional masks with corroded, rotten, or heavily damaged appearances, which could have made sense from the story’s perspective as they were underneath for who knows how long.
I’d like to imagine these masks to look something like the half-decayed Ignika canister lads of the Mistika sets:
I remember those. I had Tahu Onua and Krika. But it’s was a real nightmare opening these canisters are the stalactites/webbings fell off easily on the phantoka cover.
