ScribeGT6817 wrote:
-shortened-
1) I am responsible for the line losing its "mystical tone" after 2003.
FALSE. The Metru Nui storyline came from Bob Thompson and the story team, not me. In fact, there is not a single year of main story that was created solely by me -- it all came from the story team as a whole. So if you love some part of main story, credit the story team, and if you don't, that's the story team too.
The notion that I had some ability to unilaterally change the story is just not accurate. EVERY word I wrote had to be approved in Billund before it went out. If the BIONICLE team had disapproved of something I was doing, they would have said so. I may have been the public face of the story because of being on fan sites, but I was part of a team, and proud of it. There is no LEGO line where the story comes from just one person.
2) There was something wrong with my not outlining my stories.
FALSE. A lot of writers, all of whom are better than me, do not outline. NY Book Editors recently published an article advising that writers not outline. To quote from it, "When you head into a piece of writing without the planning, the job of the writer is to create. Your writing can exist in a mutable state for a very long time. The best writing happens when the writer is discovering what happens as he or she is creating."
3) Some of the serials did not work.
TRUE. The serials, especially in 2010, were an attempt to do a favor for fans upset over the line ending and to hold on to the trademarks. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake, for a lot of reasons. I felt bad about the line ending, I felt others did too, and I wanted to make it easier. Didn't happen.
More later ...
I never knew you did not outline your stories. Neither do I. I think the BIONICLE books and serials turned out very well; your and the story team's work was and still is an inspiration to me.
keplers wrote:Question that likely was already answered or is common knowledge: Did Teridax maintain contact with the Brotherhood while on Mata Nui?
Yes
GBailey46 wrote:Hey Greg, hope you are well.
When the G1 story ended (a long time ago, I know), the chracter Voporak left the MU with the Vahi. I have three general questions regarding this:
1. Would he still be inclined to be loyal to TSO with his life objective complete
2. Would he know how to find TSO if he still is
3. and finally, can Voporak talk? I wasn't sure if his mutation from his original body robbed him of this ability.
Thanks.
1) I think so
2) Not off the top of his head
3) I don't recall if we ever said that he could or could not, I would have to check.
Lord_Dawnfyre wrote:1. Were sny female Makuta still alive during Teridax`s reign?
2. How many Makuta, roughly, died before the great cataclysm?
3. How many Makuta would have died in unfortunate rahi experiments, or weapon experiments?
4. How many Makuta did the OOMN remove from the universe?
5. Would the Pit have been equipped to hold Makuta before the great cataclysm?
6. How many Makuta would have been extinguished by toa?
7. How many by dark hunters?
8. How many by other sources?
9. How many by rival Makuta?
10. How many did Teridax off during his reign?
11. How many were used for rahkshi factories?
12. Did any Makuta die due to the GSR crashing?
13. Did any get wiped out by the forces opposing Teridax, in the moment of confusion after the core processor was smashed?
I understand you won't have exact figures for most, if any, of these, however if you had rough figures, eg. 1-5 Makuta, etc. It would be much appreciated.
1) No
2-11) I don't have this information
12) No
13) With the exception of Miserix, all the other Makuta had been slain by Teridax prior to his fight with Mata Nui on Spherus Magna
MooCowsRock wrote:In The Kingdom, the Takanuva of that dimension fulfilled his destiny when he helped stop the Makuta from escaping the Matoran Universe.
1) Is that Takanuva's destiny in every dimension?
2) If so, how would he fulfill it in the main dimension, since the Matoran Universe was destroyed?
1) No. There could be alt. universes where the Makuta were never created at all. Your destiny is going to be different in every dimension.
MooCowsRock wrote:In The Kingdom alternate dimension, Velika became a Toa. Though I believe this was written before it was confirmed that Velika was in fact a Great Being, what sort of powers would he have as a Toa?
If Velika had been a normal Matoran and became a Toa, he would have been a Toa of Stone.
ouberry wrote:Why did Vakama create the Mask of Time even after he knew Turaga Dume was really Makuta, and if Makuta wanted it, it couldn't possibly be good? In creating it, he essentialy created a doomsday weapon. If the mask derterioates (as all things do), wouldn't that mean the end of time? Or does the mask only control time on the GSR?
1) Maybe Vakama felt it would be the only thing that could stop Makuta.
2) My working assumption is that the slow down, speed up time thing would still work outside of the GSR, but I am uncertain that the "destroy it and time is wrecked forever" applies outside of the GSR, in the same way the Mask of Life countdown power does not apply outside of the GSR.
Today's topic is another of those thorny BIONICLE issues: romance in BIONICLE. Both I and the BIONICLE team caught a lot of heat for not putting romance into the stories. I'm not going to go into the story-based reasons for not doing it, because you have all heard those before. So let me sort of do an FAQ on this:
1) Was there ever romance in the story?
A. Yes, in some of the online games and there were hints of it in the third and fourth movies.
2) Was there ever a discussion among the story team about whether or not to include romance in the story?
A. Not at any meeting I am aware of. No one was making a case that we should do it, no one was asking us to include it, therefore no one ever had to make a case against it. Scholastic, for example, could have asked us to include it in the books, but they did not for reasons similar to the ones I will get to below.
3) Did I make a decision there would be no romance in BIONICLE?
A. No. I never had the authority to make a unilateral decision like that. If the story team as a whole had wanted it, it would have been in.
4) WHY wasn't romance included in the Matoran universe? It certainly adds things to other stories.
A. Yes, it does. And the story reasons for not including it could have been gotten around. But there was also a demographic reason to not include it, and it was the same reason Scholastic did not want it. Although the story was aimed at 10-11 year olds, the target for the sets and the books was 8 year old boys (third graders). Get a bunch of third graders in a room (as we did) and ask them about romance stories and the answer you get is "Yuck!" And their mothers' reaction was, "Why does the presence of a female character automatically mean there has to be a romance?"
The decision that this was not the way to go was based on research, not hunches. The story could be aged up, but not so much that we alienate the target.
ScribeGT6817 wrote:
ouberry wrote:Why did Vakama create the Mask of Time even after he knew Turaga Dume was really Makuta, and if Makuta wanted it, it couldn't possibly be good? In creating it, he essentialy created a doomsday weapon. If the mask derterioates (as all things do), wouldn't that mean the end of time? Or does the mask only control time on the GSR?
1) Maybe Vakama felt it would be the only thing that could stop Makuta.
2) My working assumption is that the slow down, speed up time thing would still work outside of the GSR, but I am uncertain that the "destroy it and time is wrecked forever" applies outside of the GSR, in the same way the Mask of Life countdown power does not apply outside of the GSR.
2. the only problem with that is that time, unlike life, was universal both inside and outside the robot. you can't effect time inside the robot but not effect time outside of it. of course we have the theory of relativity, but that doesn't account for the kind of time chaos that vakama was describing when he threatened to destroy it.
maletoaofwater wrote:
ScribeGT6817 wrote:
ouberry wrote:Why did Vakama create the Mask of Time even after he knew Turaga Dume was really Makuta, and if Makuta wanted it, it couldn't possibly be good? In creating it, he essentialy created a doomsday weapon. If the mask derterioates (as all things do), wouldn't that mean the end of time? Or does the mask only control time on the GSR?
1) Maybe Vakama felt it would be the only thing that could stop Makuta.
2) My working assumption is that the slow down, speed up time thing would still work outside of the GSR, but I am uncertain that the "destroy it and time is wrecked forever" applies outside of the GSR, in the same way the Mask of Life countdown power does not apply outside of the GSR.
2. the only problem with that is that time, unlike life, was universal both inside and outside the robot. you can't effect time inside the robot but not effect time outside of it. of course we have the theory of relativity, but that doesn't account for the kind of time chaos that vakama was describing when he threatened to destroy it.
True. On the other hand, do we believe that something so powerful it could affect a fundamental force in the entire universe was thrown together by a bit of nanotech inside a robot? Why would the Great Beings feel the need to make the creation of something that would affect the universe outside of the robot like that a part of Mata Nui? What need would the robot's systems have to affect time on a universal scale?
ScribeGT6817 wrote:
Today's topic is another of those thorny BIONICLE issues: romance in BIONICLE. Both I and the BIONICLE team caught a lot of heat for not putting romance into the stories. I'm not going to go into the story-based reasons for not doing it, because you have all heard those before. So let me sort of do an FAQ on this:
1) Was there ever romance in the story?
A. Yes, in some of the online games and there were hints of it in the third and fourth movies.
2) Was there ever a discussion among the story team about whether or not to include romance in the story?
A. Not at any meeting I am aware of. No one was making a case that we should do it, no one was asking us to include it, therefore no one ever had to make a case against it. Scholastic, for example, could have asked us to include it in the books, but they did not for reasons similar to the ones I will get to below.
3) Did I make a decision there would be no romance in BIONICLE?
A. No. I never had the authority to make a unilateral decision like that. If the story team as a whole had wanted it, it would have been in.
4) WHY wasn't romance included in the Matoran universe? It certainly adds things to other stories.
A. Yes, it does. And the story reasons for not including it could have been gotten around. But there was also a demographic reason to not include it, and it was the same reason Scholastic did not want it. Although the story was aimed at 10-11 year olds, the target for the sets and the books was 8 year old boys (third graders). Get a bunch of third graders in a room (as we did) and ask them about romance stories and the answer you get is "Yuck!" And their mothers' reaction was, "Why does the presence of a female character automatically mean there has to be a romance?"
The decision that this was not the way to go was based on research, not hunches. The story could be aged up, but not so much that we alienate the target.
It's kind of sad that most people don't realise this.
Dear Greg,
I'm very curious about the timeline of when certain story decisions were made, mostly so I can go back and try to find foreshadowing. Could you answer some questions I have?
1. How far in advance did the story team plan out each year's story?
2. I know that early on, BIONICLE was intended to only last one year, but then the team realized that the story needed more in order to be done right. How far ahead did that initial extention account for and were there any other points when you all realized that more story years needed to be added?
3. When did you all decide to reawaken Mata Nui?
4. Was Makuta Teridax's takeover planned at the same time too?
5. When did LEGO tell you that the line was going to be cancelled?
Thank you
Dear Greg,
I have some questions about Makuta Teridax's plan.
1. Initially it was stated that Makuta wanted the Mask of Time so that he could speed up the time it took for the Matoran to lose their memories enough to worship him, which supposedly would have take a while. However, the Matoran were only in the pods for about a month, maybe six weeks, yet they still lost their memories. Some reasons for this I could think of are:
a) What ever made them lose their memories still worked on them even if they were out of the pods, meaning for a time on Mata Nui they still remembered Metru Nui, but the eventually those memories faded
b) While they lost their personal memories, their memories of the Mata Nui were deeper in their conciousnesses so it would have take even more time for those to go away so Makuta could claim to be their Great Spirit
Are either those good solutions, or did you have something else in mind?
2. Did Teridax cause the Toa Mata's canisters to malfunction? This would actually make a lot of sense given what we know about his plan. He needed them to wake up the GSR, but only after Mata Nui had passed away and been revived, which he knew would take about a thousand years, so he timed them to come around then. I know that Takua gathering the Toa Stones brought them to shore, but I think he could have planned for this too. If I remember correctly Takua was told by the Turaga to gather the Toa stones because the Rahi attacks were getting worse than ever. Teridax could have made the Rahi increase their attacks so that the Turaga would feel the need to summon Toa.
3. Back to the Mask of Time, could another, alterior motive for him wanting the mask to be so that he could speed up the time it took Mata Nui to die? I know that this wasn't what was planned when the story was written in 2004, but it makes sense given later details that were revealed. Besides, he still seemed to desperatly want the mask even after the Matoran were out of his grasp.
HI Mr. Greg, I have a question for you...
In Doctor Who, who do like better, David Tennant, or Matt Smith
Also, why did they reboot the Bionicle theme, but chnage the storyline. The new sets are cool, but I liked the old storyline better!!! 