Top 10 lists

When covid was in full swing earlier this year, i started compiling a large amount of top 10 lists for my tumblr, many of which bionicle related. figured i post them here and others can give input or add their own.
NOTE-sorry about the post format, attempting to fix now :slight_smile:

Top 10 things a Bionicle G3 reboot would need

  1. Better structure to the elements. It has always been redundant that of the core 6 elements, we had water and ice as well as earth and stone. It just didn’t quite make sense. And don’t get me started on g2 swapping air for jungle. G3 should try find a better balance. My ideal list is energy(evolved from lighting in G1), fire, water, earth, air, sound and metal(evolved from iron in G1).

  2. More focus on mythology and fantasy. Many fans agree that in G1, though the continued story and lore did grew, the fantastical elements of the series were diminished by the more sci-fi setting/direction.

  3. Better definition of mata nui and makuta. Their relationships and status were an ever changing facet in G1 one that grew less special and complex over time as more light was shed on it. I think a more clear interpretation, like the first years of G1, would be appropriate; they are brother deities, one representing light, the other darkness.

  4. A consistent design for makuta. Bothe g1 and g2 have done this. I just feel like the main villain should have a constant, recognizable appearance. Not always changing so we are unable to identify with them, or sometimes not even recognize them(the maxilos robot in g1 through me for a loop for a while)

  5. Breaking from the standard toa team. The toa mata are undoubtedly the main characters of the franchise but like the elements, I think after two series a change is needed for a fresh start. I have my own team roster, based on other toa from G1, but that isn’t the focus here. I’m just saying that an update would likely be in the franchises best interest.

  6. Focusing more on the main island. As the main setting, I think the primary island, whatever it may be called, should remain the primary focus. It can be any size and could have so many locations and plot possibilities. Seeing and exploring other islands is fine but I feel like mata nui, like many things from the early g1 years, was abandoned and forgotten fast.

  7. Toa armor/designs reflecting their elements. In both g1 and g2, the toa were very generic or non-distinct mechanoids in design. If you took away the colors and weapons of the toa, there was no identifying their elements or tribe. Many, including myself, liked how the looks of the glatorian incorporated armor parts associated with their elements(ice shards, vines/leaves, rocks, fins). I feel like more distinct and element specific looks should be designed for the toa. It would also bridge that gap of just robots to something more in tune with nature.

  8. Emphasis on masks. I believe that masks should be very special and rare things with more ceremony and importance on characters who have special ones. I did like the G2 idea of all the islanders having a uniform one, though I think something more tribal would be more appropriate, and special individuals earning new masks being a big deal. I can also go either way on the idea of masks having powers or not.

  9. Not forgetting what worked. That last thing a reboot should do is everything different and forget the past. There were a lot of great things that worked in g1 and even some in g2. They should be carried over an improved on, not forgotten or diminished like other franchises have tried to do.

  10. Canonize romance. G1 basically denied it existed and g2 might have had it but lets face it, it never told compelling stories or went into characters developments of any kind. I know it can be a groaner but any sentient race, even if it doesn’t reproduce, will develop relationships akin to love. It doesn’t need to be a focus, but it is always a good factor of telling a story. Hewkii X Macku forever!

Top 10 Favorite Kanohi Masks

  1. Kraahkan-great mask of shadows
  2. Avohkii-great mask of light
  3. Kakama-great mask of speed
  4. Huna-great mask of concealment
  5. Jutlin-great/noble mask of corruption
  6. Great Mask of Possibilities
  7. Ignika-legendary mask of life
  8. Hau-great mask of shielding
  9. Hau Nuva-kanohi nuva of shielding
  10. Kaukau-great mask of water breathing

Top 10 Bionicle characters who deserved real sets

  1. Makuta teridax’s true form
  2. Toa Tuyet
  3. Lariska
  4. Toa Helryx
  5. Karzahni
  6. Velika’s true form
  7. Toa Zaria/Orde/Chiara
  8. Sister of the skrall
  9. Insane matoran builder of the Toa canisters
  10. Varian

Top Bionicle characters who should have lived

Makuta Krika -the best written and most sympathetic makuta, there was so much potential there

Nidhiki -the first known bad toa in the series, now monster dark hunter, it felt like they ditched him to soon

Makuta Icarax -felt like a well-intended rival to teridax, plus he had the mask of shadows when he died and that certainly should have lived on

Makuta Spiriah -as an outcast makuta and the only other besides miserix not with rebuilt armor, it feels like there were a lot of directions he could have went, fore good or bad.

Sidorak -felt like we didn’t get to know him as well as we should; an oafish king looking for makutas approval and roodakas affection

Krekka -I just thought he was fun, looked cool and worked good with nidhiki

Ancient -his death came out of nowhere and felt pointless, especially with his background.

Top Bionicle characters who deserve justice(on them)

To clarify, these are characters I hate because they are written that way, well written and meant to be bad people that you want to see get justice and go down(the king Joffrey’s and Ramsey Boltons of bionicle). Clearly this will be only characters that were still alive by the end of g1.

Helryx . Every conflict has these “only sees black and white” extremist leaders who look to fill their own sense of duty rather than accept that they are wrong or aren’t seeing the big picture. I say she is one of the most intense and drastic characters in the series and if it continued, really wished to see her get put in her place, maybe even by mata nui himself.

Velika . By the end of the series this guy really had the makings of a new teridax. A great being, incognito as a matoran for years, and with a bunch of agents enforcing his agenda. He was killing off matoran universe beings that could be threats, and some were very powerful ones, and planned to claim rule over spherus magna. He had some big plans unfolding in the events at the end of the series and I think if it hadn’t been cancelled he would have been the new main antagonist.

The shadowed one. Another just big bad on par with teridax. Already on the new spherus magna he was recruiting an army to do unspeakable evil, and he did a hell of a lot already through the whole series. The fate he gave toa Varian still leaves me feeling uneasy.

Roodaka. The definition of a stone cold â– â– â– â– â– , she betrayed and screwed everybody she met and by then seemed to still not have gotten what she deserved. Working both the makuta and dark hunters, getting sidorak killed(I really liked him) and trying to strike a deal with miserix are the worst and there is so much more. The brief punishment she got was far from enough.

Ahkmou . This little weasel of a matoran was a bit of nuisance and flew under the radar for a while before reaching new levels of bad. Becoming makutas appointed turaga, he implemented a strict dictatorship and really rose his hatred stock. Its slightly tragic because while he was always a bad egg, it was makuta who brainwashed him to be this bad long ago when he awoke him from his pod.

Tuyet . It was a rare occurrence when we had a bad toa, and when we did, they were real bad. Tuyet really set the bar for that. Wanting to use the nui stone to become an authoritarian god, she set her allies and enemies against each other to give herself time. Worse, she murdered a bunch of matoran to set it in motion. Plus all her schemes and manipulations after that just kept building. And let’s not even get into the oppressive warlord her alternate reality self became and turned the toa into tyrants.

Takadox . Like roodaka, this is a guy who has a pathological need to betray anyone he is around. He betrayed the other barraki warlords to the makuta, and as reward got imprisoned and mutated with them. He still tried manipulating them and continued a lot of back stabbing as a member of the federation of fear and after that. Now on spherus magna, his mutation is reversed and will likely start scheming again, if not join with one of the larger villains.

Miserix . While at one point he may have seemed like a tragic character, I get the sense that there was always darkness lurking deep below the surface in him. Now he is just a murderous brute obsessed with nothing but revenge on teridax. So much so that he is willing to kill the matoran universe to get it. i feel like if the series continued he would have gone further down that dark road, even with teridax gone.

The elemental lords . these guys are â– â– â– â– â– . put in charge of ruling their respective people and given amazing power by the great beings, they let ignorance and greed force them into war with each other that decimated their people and caused the shattering of spherus magna. Their even worse if you take the treatment for the 5th movie into account and the fact that Velika planned on making them his generals.

Real life and mythology always have impacts on other fiction. So, I do wish that more mythical elements had been somehow integrated or inspired elements in the bionicle series. So, here are the top 5 fictional things I wish bionicle had delved into.

  1. Gods: it is strange that the series never explored the concept of beings of the matoran universe having faith in other deities, either for lack of faith in mata nui or losing it after his slumber.(we had the great beings for a while but the tail end of the series revealed they were just glatorian scientists/leaders)

  2. Ghosts: death was a pretty strait forward and planned process in the matoran universe; if you died and your body was intact, you were reborn on the red star and meant to be teleported back in a new body. But what about those that lost this opportunity (eaten, damaged, disintegrated, absorbed). Yes they may just no longer exist, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity not to explore the strange and unnatural existence after death for those who did not make it to the red star. C’mon, toa against malevolent spirits would have been an amazing plot line.

  3. Amazons: not to get to woke, but outside of the toa of water, bionicle never really had strong female representation (only 3 ½ of the 15 matoran tribes are female). I know gender was never a big deal for what the series was, but when it’s such an imbalance, it might as well be. I feel like it would have made a difference to show a more strong female presence. We got a weak attempt near the end with the sisters of the skrall, but I feel like the matoran universe should have had a more explored concept of this.

  4. Monsters: due to the systematic nature and purpose of the matoran universe, there were very few surprises when it came to creatures, at least after their intro(rahi, bohrok, rahkshi). Most were revealed to just be other species of the universe. It was rare that we ever really got spontaneous monstrosities or beasts besides rahi or other beings. Can anyone argue that a random unexplained bigfoot or chupacabra type beast would have been interesting.

  5. Headless horseman: yeah, this may be specific and fall close to the ghosts point but can anyone argue that a headless, undead being rampaging about the matoran universe would not have been cool as hell.

My Top 10 Bionicle species

  1. Toa
  2. Glatorian
  3. Makuta
  4. Matoran
  5. Skrall
  6. Rahkshi
  7. Vortixx
  8. Stelt bruiser/laborer
  9. Kikanalo
  10. Tahtorak

My top 10 hated things about Bionicle G2

  1. the overuse of golden masks. I mean all the powerful masks are all gold, the toa happen to have golden masks just like theirs, then there is another set of golden masks that looks like their recent upgraded ones. It was just all ridiculous and blown out of proportions and diminished the specialty of the phenomenon. Plus they wore the golden mask through a majority of all of g2 so why bother even giving them regular colored masks anyway. They should have ditched the gold mask part in “journey to one” and juts made it about finding/merging with the creatures.

  2. Diminished characters. While the 2d web series was pretty good with characterizing the toa, though rather simply, they all had distinct traits and personalities. That was just all trashed in the Netflix show. Almost all the toa now felt like angsty teenagers. I think lewa was the only one that stayed fairly consistent, though he transitioned from playful and free spirited to the teams wide-eyed kid brother. Or pohatu from a quiet moody ninja to loud emo brawler. It just showed the lack of care or interest in the characters or writing.

  3. Generic villain. While g1 had this as well, there were always reasons and history and lore behind them. Each wave of enemies(spiders/zombies/beasts) had no point other than being an obstacle. Even umurak, the most important villain, had no history or drive other than doing what makuta tells him.

  4. The backstory and history of the toa. It felt like no thought was put into it and they went with what we were given so as little thought as possible had to be put into it. Lore and history were never part of g2 and that is prominent nowhere more than the toa themselves.

  5. Ekimu being a pointless ■■■■. Marketed as a powerful being and sage, he really never showed himself to be so. He acted fairly obnoxious and he told the toa a lot, but never anything they wouldn’t have figured out themselves eventually, which would have been more interesting. And we find out that all he knows it just what he read in prophecy, and is so up his ■■■ honoring it that he never reveals things the toa should know. Okoto could have been saved in a day if he came clean with them. And quite frankly not telling them that defeating makuta would mean their own end is the definition of a ■■■■ move. All and all, as the g2 successor to mata nui, he was a piss poor replacement.

  6. Voice acting. In both the web series and the Netflix show, voice acting really was a second or third thought. The web series has all the character voiced by the same ■■■■ person, and though he did try to differentiate all the characters, it was still a bit jarring. Heck, casual watchers would prob never even realize gali was a women. Still, it was better than the Netflix series; if I closed my eyes and listened to the web series, just by the detail of the mannerisms and character acting I could tell who was who. I don’t think I could ever do that with “journey to one”. Aside from gali and maybe lewa, all the toa sound generic and similar, and as I said before, there are so few defining traits or personalities to them now to pick out. I don’t know if they modded the voices to much or just got all deep voiced men but it was just not handled well.

  7. Not releasing the makuta set or the mask of ultimate power. Makuta was the main villain of the series and they actually said “we areent going to release him”. Makutas backstory, while cliché, was one of the better written and more nuanced part of g2. Again just shows how little the creators cared for the franchise.

  8. Figure looks and proportions. Compared to the last 2 years of g1, the first set of toa were kinda disappointing. They have their good points and highlights, but it felt like they focused more on grasping g1 nostalgia than making sure they were descent figures on their own. Tahu had the slung up back blades which seemed so awkward and clunky then there’s his legs, which were bulky and covered by literal copies of his chest armor. Then onua, the largest toa of the group, ends up being the smallest toa set, effin really. The uniter sets were no better in proportions; overly long one piece torsos, arms that if not to long were to short and legs that seems either to short or too long. The uniters all felt like scarecrows.

  9. Lack of side characters or additional sets. Unlike g1, g2 did not stray at all from the absolutely necessary characters and sets. They did not expand the story from the main plotline so we never got to meet other important individuals or characters or goings on in okoto.

  10. Never exploring okoto. Okoto was the main setting of the story and like mata nui in g1, one of the most interesting parts of the story should have been exploring it. Instead we get the smallest glimpses of each region and everything else it just important location to important location.

My top 10 Bionicle sets/lines

  1. Glatorian/glatorian legends
  2. Mask of light(takanuva/makuta/rahkshi)
  3. toa mata
  4. Mcdonalds tohunga
  5. Toa inika
  6. Dark hunters(nidhiki/krekka)
  7. Toa metru
  8. Toa nuva
  9. Rahi
  10. vahki

My top 10 issues with bionicle G1

  1. Breaking focus away from the toa mata/nuva. I get that the lore and story needed to be expanded, I get that. Lore is what makes a great series. Still, for being the main franchise characters and fabled heroes, I think too much focus was pulled away from them to the other teams, especially the toa metru, which leads me to my next one.

  2. “Web of Shadows” as the 3rd movie. As I said, while seeing the expanded history of the turaga as toa was great and fun, I think it was a huge mistake focusing 2 films on them. to much time spent on past events rather than present ones. It could have possibly been another prequel to the beginning of the series when the mata arrive or, if held off for a year, best should have focused on the matoran becoming the toa inika and fighting the piraka to free the toa nuva and get the mask of life. Though it wouldn’t have been seamless, given all that happens after, it would have been a much better lead in to the beginning of “The Legend Reborn”. One good thing it did was give us roodakas amazing on-screen design.

  3. Takanuva feeling irrelevant. It may not necessarily be true, given the other adventures he had, but to me he felt pushed aside and not as big a deal as he was originally presented to be. I feel like he should have been a permanent part of the toa nuva after his introduction. This also leads into my next point

  4. The golden armor being made for tahu. I really really didn’t like the extra focus put on tahu over the rest of the mata/nuva. It just really struck me the wrong way. I feel like, with the special circumstances and hype build around him, as he was also included with the allstars line, it should have been takanuva that donned the golden armor. It would have been very poetic as he previously defeated teridax and now was also aiding in doing it again.

  5. Constant changes of mask/body designs. I get that they need new looks and figures to sell the toys but story-wise, it was kinda off putting and jarring that the main characters always looked different. Especially the mata/nuva in my opinion. If they had their karda nui upgrades but with their regular nuva masks it would have felt better to me. Bionicle is hardly the only franchise to be guilty of this but I feel when your characters change appearance so much they become harder to identify with or get attached to.

  6. Killing makuta Krika. A fan favorite, a cool design and clearly the most complex written makuta. It just felt like such a waste to kill him off in the series.

  7. The evolution of makuta in the series. I have many mixed feelings about the changes to both makuta teridax and the makuta race over the series. There are pros and cons all over. The expanding of the lore is great and exciting and interesting depth but in some ways I also feel it diminished the threat and mystery in some ways. Makuta went from a spirit/god, to a fiend/warlord to just some persistent presence to just an ambitious member of a race of similar beings then to a god again. Much like the toa changes, constantly changing of teridax felt like it kinda diminished the character in some ways while also expanding him. It’s all very complicated and I’m still unsure about my feelings about it. It is scary to have an enemy being an ever present force, but also it felt weak that he never had a consistent form or look, hell we never even had an original look for him(the one we thought it was was just his shadow titan form made from the bodies of nidhiki, kreka and nihvawk)

  8. Upgrading the matoran design. I loved the original “tohunga” appearance of the matoran so much and thought it was so much more interesting. The feats and progression they had in the series, I think, would have been much more amazing and fulfilling coming from the apparently small and frail villagers. Again, I just loved the original design so much more and it felt very stand out and special in the early years and I wish it had remained.

  9. Killing Nidhiki. I just feel, like krika, he had so much potential as a character if kept alive in the series. A rouge former toa, now a mutated monster with the dark hunters. It just seemed like another missed opportunity.

  10. Eliminating romance in the matoran universe. I’m not saying be a vital point or a big deal but it felt kinda a cop out. Other non-human fictional races that don’t reproduce, like transformers, have displayed romantic feeling which just feel like an eventuality in some interactions. I think it would have been a good world building method to see a few instances that we could see. Hewkii/macku forever!

Honorable mention: ditching the idea of turning ahkmou into a toa of shadow.

that’s it, sorry about the rambles :slight_smile:

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Yo, nice lists, made for very engaging reading. I’ll edit my comment later to discuss the points I liked.

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will you now?

wait… the Makuta are gas… do you want to sell gas to little kids. (Or adults)

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personally, Von Nebula set is to me how Velikas true form would look.

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In my head-canon continuation of the main G1 story, Tuyet, Helryx, Axonn and the matoran escaped the collapsed building while the rest escaped through a portal made by Vezon. Helryx finds the carving Velika made and Tuyet convinces her that the glatorian and agori are responsible for the attack. In reaction they declare war on them and turn New Atero into a fascist dystopia like the Dark Mirror Universe. Toa are split in half, with some fighting to protect the agori lead by Takanuva and the rest fighting “for” the matoran lead by the order of Mata Nui (at some point Axonn gives up on the order disappointed by how Helryx allows Tuyet to rule over the matoran). The fighting awakens the Marendar, that after the battle is ended kills almost every Toa and all creatures that stand between them. I haven’t decided on Helryx future but Tuyet would probably die horribly.

a smidge to menacing i think, since the great beings are members of the glatorian race, but cant say i hate the idea either

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