Hello, boards.
I contemplated making this an ask greg but since it probably has been answered by him already I’ll just ask the community instead.
So as the title would suggest, I’d like to know which designs are canon? Is it the miramax movies looks or the set designs? I want to have an answer with a source that is up to date. Thanks in advance
//Tarkur
As far as I’m aware, the set designs are canon, which are the same designs we see in comics. The movies designs are not canon or “semi-canon” at most, for example: in some cases the movies are based on prototypes/concept arts of the actual sets and not relly on the sets themselves (like the Vahki in Legends of Metru Nui), another example is the Toa Hordika in Bionicle 3 having 1 normal hand and 1 weapon fused to their arm (which is not canon), they should have 2 hands wielding a weapon each, as the sets do. I would like to share a link with this information, but I don’t remember where I saw it, it is probably in Biosector01 somewhere.
I hope it was useful fro you!
EDIT: Here is a link to the Vahki page on Biosector01, if you look in the Trivia part, you’ll see what I was saying.
The movie depictions of characters or events are not canon.
Greg has specified that due to the conflicting visual/canonical info present in all four films and MNOG 1 and 2, the events that transpired in the films and games respectively are canon, but the films and games themselves are not. So no, the movie depiction of characters or events are not canon.
The sets have been set as the ultimate standard for canon depictions of characters.
I’m of the belief that all of the character appearances in bionicle are in a perpetual state of semi canon.
The sets are probably the closest thing to their actual appearances but they don’t have the fleshy bits.
@ToaOfPlastic I think this as well. The problem is that Bionicle has so many different forms of media depicting events and characters and not one medium can be used to gain the full experience. You read the comics and assume that’s the canon look, you miss out on events. You assume the movies are the canon look, certain events are just flat out depicted incorrectly, like Dume(Makuta) having a conversation with himself. You take the sets as the canon look, things get muddled with some characters like Kazi missing a head or the Ultimate Dume combiner looking nothing like his movie iteration. Bionicle doesn’t have a default canon look because it doesn’t have a default medium to get the full experience from. It’s up to you, essentially.
I’ve heard it said the opposite is true. Both set and movie depiction are canon, but the film appearances are slightly more canon. Because how is aToa going to pick something up with a ball socket hand? That said, events in the movies are semi canon. Gali levitating while meditating being a prime example, everyone talking about waking up Mata Nui being another.
This is what I’ve heard as well, though only applying to the biomechanical characters. So, the Toa in the movies are ‘more canon’ (excluding inconsistencies like the Hordika weapons), but the Vahki are less canon, since they should be completely mechanical. However, I think he said that just the organic parts are more canon, so I guess the most canon versions of the Toa would look exactly like the sets, but with the Mirimax muscles and organs on top. It’s really a case-by-case thing.
Even among the individual mediums, there’re inconsistencies- for instance, Makuta should look the same in Legends of Metru Nui & Mask of Light, sans wings. But, because of the description in Time Trap, we know that parts of this appearance should look as if they came from Krekka, Nidhiki, and Nivawk. So, basically, in this case, '03 Makuta gets retconned out of canon, with a wingless Ultimate Dume taking his place.
Actually Teridax shapeshifted at least a couple times between the wingless Ultimate Dume form and the form we saw in 2003.
After the wingless ultimate dume, Teridax shapeshifted into a Matoran/Tohunga, then at the front of the Toa Mata, he changed his appearance into the mass of levitating parts, then he took the form of the 2003 set.
I’ve also noticed that in the comics that the Vahki never have disks in their mouths.
True, but on BS01 (Teridax - BIONICLEsector01), it describes the 2003 Shadow Titan form as being " The form in which Teridax fought Takanuva. This is the same as the Winged Titan form that Teridax assumed on Metru Nui, only without the wings, as they were lost during combat with the Shadowed One."
Yeah, true, that is maybe because in the story the vahki had the ability to teleport the disk from anywere they were being stored directly to their mouths and be ready to shoot. Or maybe just it was easier to draw or the people drawing had the sets without the disks… I don’t really know the reason behind it but personally I stick with the first one
It’s probably just another misconception to be corrected, lately we’ve found a lot of them. Sometimes these are just misunderstandings of what happened. Like Pewku’s involvement in the 2004 story. Someone thought that her name on the chute meant that she was kidnapped, while her name was only used as a marker for Orkahm. Or that half of the answer was missing from the page, because someone only added the first part of the answer.
This probably came from the fact that when the Miramax made the LoMN they didn’t want to redesign Makuta, so the child audience would recognise him from the Mask of Life as the big bad of the movies.
You’re wrong on the parts of events. Everytime I’ve seen him asked about event descripencies between the four novelizations vs. the movies, he has said the movies take presidence, as the novelizations are based on earlier scripts, not the final scripts.
Still he had 2 forms between the 2 titan forms, which implies that Teridax changed his shape. And in the Time Trap, the Shadowed One recognised both Nidhiki’s and Krekka’s parts in Teridax’s new forms, which implies that the LoMN movie Teridax’s model is incorrect.