I just ordered the Viking ship this morning to get mine, but as some folks have physical LEGO stores nearby, I wanted to get everyone’s impressions on it. I’m looking forward to the set coming and will give my own thoughts once I have it in-hand.
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I opine that this is clearly another screw you from Lego. Never (as a Bionicle fan) have I been more offended, insulted, livid, belittled, humiliated, shunned, abused, or horrified. I will pay scalper prices for the GWP and pay four times that amount for the next Bionicle tease. Lego can go to Karzahni.
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I will pay one trillion dollars to scalpers before I pay lego a dime for their disrespect to my precious Bionicle!
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Really wish I could just purchase the thing
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its mainly an excuse for me just to get somthin i was gonna buy anyways
i just like the fact it exists and hey its better then nothing, and we as a community have done just fine with say skrunkle tahu
if i were you, i would just wait for the hype to die down and nab it on bricklink, or just peice it together with your own parts and order the printed slopes on their own
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Not piecing together that “GWP” meant “gift with purchase”, I was considering buying fifty copies of the set and distributing them to my coworkers to help support the notion that BIONICLE fans would put their money where their mouth is.
I’ve learned that $5000 is not enough money for me to spend to prove a point. Not at this stage of my life anyway.
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Doesn’t have the same feel as opening it up yourself and having a brand new one for yourself. I want that nostalgia to hit
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Besides the box and that one mctoran inspired poster using the wrong background asset I’m pretty thrilled. 6/10
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We’ve waited for any sort of proper acknowledgement of Bionicle for a very long time, and it finally came. After LEGO outright refused to do anything for the theme for such a long time, I for one can’t really complain at this point. The designers clearly did the best they could with the materials they were given, so I don’t think it’s really fair to us to complain too much.
However, I will say, locking the set behind such a big paywall and limiting it to certain themes only wasn’t the best choice on their part.
Another personal opinion, but out of the prototype ideas they tried out, I for one would have preferred to get this instead of the one we got:
This one feels much more substantial, and actually does a much better job at recapturing the Bionicle aesthetic, instead of being just a glorified mixel build. If there is any chance for Bionicle coming back as a system theme going forward, this is the direction I would want it to take.
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I mean the blacktron gwp threshold was twice as much as this.
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mr faber says that you could draw a face onto the mata nui (rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-AK733I9gc
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For the set itself, it’s fine. Tahu is nowhere near as intriguing as the 22 year old set, but he’s charming in his own way. Takua’s model however is much more impressive, more closely resembling the Mctoran build while actually able to pose! There’s a lot of charm with both models and they compliment each other well. It’s nothing like the Bionicle of old, but it’s clearly not really trying to. It’s an abstraction that places its source material on a pedestal without trying (and inevitably failing) to equal it. It’s not a proposal for a new line of sets or anything, and it’s not trying to to usurp or mock the Bionicle of old. It’s just a fun and complimentary reminder of the time before time.
However as charmed as I am by the set itself, I’m not very charmed by LEGO. While the GWP’s intended to be (as I described) a fun and complimentary reminder of Bionicle, LEGO turned this into a bit of a nostalgiabait cash-grab. By adding theme restrictions, they cut out many sets that are more closely related to Bionicle in spirit, and made getting this GWP a $100+ chore. And us suckers are jumping through every hoop they’ve got. As much as I appreciate the concept of a free Bionicle GWP, after all the recent fiascos I would’ve preferred just buying it for $17.
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Went to a physical store yesterday to retrieve Takua (and Tahu I guess), got them alongside the three Lego City Mission sets.
I love Takua, he’s pretty much perfect with existing parts. He may or may not be serving up the story stones like a waiter. But I’m highly biased towards small sets, they’re usually my favorite and the first thing I get in every wave, even in themes outside of Bionicle.
As for Tahu himself, which for some bizarre reason is erroneously listed first in the set name and the primary image on the box…he’s fine. Need to mess around with him more, but he does what he needs to do. Looking charming, a decent desk display piece.
When images for Tahu where coming out, I stated that the set reminded me a lot of the Burger King Tahu Nuva.
And while this new Tahu does look better, they both hold the same amount of charm to me. I don’t even have this BK one, I’ve considered hunting it down for a desk display purpose, so this new Tahu does suffice. Might end up building a MOC to more closely resemble the BK toy just for the lols. Though if I go down that path, I might end up recreating all the fast food toys and not just the BK ones.
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Personally? I think it’s a miracle from Mata Nui that we’re getting a set at all.
Sure, it’s very different from Bionicle all those years ago, and sure, It’s kinda weird looking, and yeah, it isn’t the best set (I probably would’ve preferred that Takanuva), but let’s face it:
This is most likely the last time we’ll get a new Bionicle set for the forseeable future.
Heck, it might be the last Bionicle set ever. While I’d love to be proved wrong, and for Lego to release a series of collector’s edition Bonkles, It doesn’t seem likely that Bionicle will get any more set representation after this.
What i’m trying to say is: I think we should enjoy this while we can, we may never get the chance again.
Gee, that post ended up being a little sad didn’t it
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I definitely agree with this. While Tahu is generally a better figure in terms of overall size and articulation, I think Takua is a better McToran than Tahu is a Toa.
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Personally, I’m of the opinion that a standalone set would have been better, as then I wouldn’t have to spend so much money, but I was planning to buy some Ninjago and Monkie Kid sets for parts anyways so it wasn’t too bad (funnily enough, I was considering the Viking Ship. I hope you enjoy it!). I don’t have the GWP yet because my order hasn’t arrived yet, but from what I’m seeing, the GWP is pretty good as a display piece.
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It seems to me that Lego has been turning top entries of their 90th anniversary poll into gwps, which seems sensible to me since this is a way to commemorate all of them for a low-risk basis. My ■■■■■■■■ also hasn’t arrived, and I fear the frosty weather in my area may delay it.
@Mod_Squad why is the word “sh-pment” being censored?
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The swear filter removes any word that starts with “s”, ends with “t”, and has an “h” and an “i” in that order in between.
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Just got mine yesterday, and I couldn’t be happier.
All the praises of the set have already been sung, and I don’t have much else to add.
Like everyone else, Takua has the most charm of the two characters. I think it’s the posability and the shapes in the arms. It captures the quirkiness of the MNOG Matoran perfectly, and all of the personality of those designs comes through perfectly.
I also really like Tahu, especially the design of his torso. It’s a weird praise to give, but it captures the essence and shape of the original Mata torso extremely well. I love the curving shapes and the slopes, and the small details like the piston rods on his sides. I’m finding myself wanting for ankle articulation, but he needs the stiff legs for the board pose, and since I plan to keep him there as a display piece, I’m okay with it.
I agree that it was a really bad play of LEGO to have the theme restrictions, but it ultimately didn’t factor in much in my decision to get the set. There was a Creator 3-in-1 I already had my eye on that already took up half the $100 minimum. In an ideal world, the other set I really wanted, the Bonsai Tree set, would have put me just under the limit to where I could have just bought a keychain and spent maybe only $105 or so. Instead, I had to peruse the other theme offerings, found nothing I liked, and opted instead for just a $60 Classic bucket of bricks.
So, the theme restrictions wound up costing me a total of $160, but I’m not complaining. I wanted the Creator 3-in-1 set anyways, a bucket of bricks is always nice to have, and the Bonsai Tree was a birthday gift for my wife. And I got a free Bionicle set on top of all of that? I’ll take it.
I would have much preferred there was no theme restriction so as many people could get this set as possible, but that’s my only real complaint, and it has nothing to do with the set itself. Not too fussed about the price threshold either; it’s been explained many times that GWPs almost never go as low as $100, and regardless of what the set actually was I don’t believe that Bionicle fans would have shelled out more than that for it.
I will never understand the people screaming and crying that it’s System built or that it doesn’t use CCBS or the G1 system. I think it’s ridiculous to believe they would have done anything otherwise. I think System has a lot of benefits (consider the curved slopes that just make Takua) that any other pieces wouldn’t have done. I’m not saying that System is perfect for Bionicle or that it wouldn’t have been cool to see the old system return, but it’s very very clear that this is the best possible compromise on every front. And I don’t think anyone can support saying that the designers of this set didn’t care, or try.
I’m grateful we have this, and I’m thankful to the designers who made it happen.
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As much as I like the system campiness of the final set, seeing this revamp by Hachiroku really makes me wish Tahu had more technic in him.
I have my issues with this design, and I’m unsure of its reproducibility as an official set. But its aesthetics speaks to what made Bionicle special in the first place. And it still does that without becoming too much of a caricature of the 2001 set. Not sure if it’s necessarily better than the campy cartoonishness of the overly flexible GWP, but it’s definitely worth sharing.
And hell, I liked the thing so much it inspired me to make my own revamp of the revamp, with a working gearbox and a cleaner look. I’ll probably post the whole team when I’m finished!
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