Just here to say, that in order to preventing leaks, designer team did not know that they are working with Toa Nuva. So they got ideas of aero and swamp themes and played with designes and colors
9:52 this is a prototype of Vamprah. The designer made this since he was into horror. This was during the end of the Mahri line and didn't even get to see this idea come to life till very recently as he moved on from Lego. Someone at the Lego HQ saw this and brought it to life which is so cool to see.
I believe he has also mentioned in the past that the Toa of this wave were originally intended to be the next phase of the Toa Mahri/Inika. Which is why there is no white Toa prototypes (matoro being dead and all)
Okay, I just made a comment about how much better the prototype Chirox looks. Wow. How could they have NOT gone with this one for Vamprah either? The final one just looks like Chirox with Lime Highlights. This one looks legitimately amazing
The wings on the prototype for what would end up becoming Kopaka are probably from something else because the T1-7477 decal matches a sticker used on the big helicopter set from Dino Attack. 7477 was also the set number for that Dino Attack helicopter.
The last prototype was made by Brian Ellis, who also designed a couple sets from 2007 He has a RUclips channel and he has talked about the design process behind his sets (The channel name is simply his name)
The wings have numbers and letters because they are aircraft model kit parts. Probably chosen from what the designer has available due to the shape and size. They were most certainly ignoring the lettering.
I remember playing the Bionicle games on the LEGO website in 2008 that rewarded you with those Battle for Power prototype images. It was the first time I ever saw behind the scenes type stuff from LEGO. I never would have thought that would be so openly revealed at the time. Like, everything could have just remained secretive, but they wanted us to see some of the design process! It was really neat.
These prototypes have convinced me that the Toa Phantoka/Mistika were never INTENDED to be the Toa Nuva, but a whole new team that LEGO later decided to make the Toa Nuva. Kopaka was meant to be a Toa of Water. Pohatu was intended to be a Toa of Earth. Gali's design is more fitting for a Toa of Air.
@@Kalhiki I wonder if Takanuva would have been the sixth Toa for them then, since he also has a white colour scheme. Could be that Matoro's death was what made them switch to the Nuva, though
I've heard this theory thrown around before, but from what I've gathered from what Brian Ellis has said, it seems that it was less "these figures were made to be different characters" and more "it was just the design process at the time for them to create character designs disconnected from story context. The designs would be made first, and then applied to the story after the fact, the design brief was just the colour/element and the theme of the year (water for 2007 air for 2008 etc.) He was specifically talking about 2007 in that video, but it tracks with this too.
@@voidaspects9173The 2008 weren't designed with any specific characters in mind. I have a direct quote (I think it was a question Greg got asked on a forum) where he says "the set designers weren't told to make them look like the nuva because we figured none of the current fans remembered them by that point." He even said they made versions of the 2008 sets that actually did resemble the nuva and they were rejected by focus groups in favor of the ones that got put out.
@@BenCossyOfficial I think it was pretty much confirmed by Brian Ellis on his channel, during his time there (Barraki-Phantoka) they designed the sets before even knowing what characters they were going to be, so they probably decided what the color schemes should be based on who looked the closest to the originals once they learned they were going to be the Toa Nuva He's actually also responsible for that last bat-like prototype as well, it was the last thing he worked on while he was there
Greg Farshtey has mentioned in QnA that the designers of the 2008 toa sets weren't briefed to base their characters on the original nuva/mata sets. From what we know basically all bionicle sets were designed completely agnostic of the story, so in the design phase every set was effectively treated as an entirely new character, regardless of who they turned out to be when story was written about them after the fact.
On the point of the colors, the designers weren't told what characters their builds would be representing. Benefit being the design isn't constrained by what came before. Con obviously being that the characters look nothing like their previous versions.
There's a photo of all six toa closer to their final designs with the only big difference being Gali and Tahu's colors are switched. It's likely that the different colors on the characters here are because the designs were intended for a different toa rather than them changing the color associated with each element.
I think it's possible that they were considering swapping which toa and makuta would be in which waves. The prototype Kopaka and Pohatu being blue and black respectively, as well as Vamprah and Chirox being white and green respectively, could've instead been meant to be Gali and Onua as Phantoka, while the green Gali could've been Mistika Lewa at one stage
I heard that the Phantoka and Mistika waves of Toa were actually supposed to be the Toa Mahri, which is why they don’t resemble the Toa Nuva at all, especially the Mistika (though I do think Pohatu has some resemblance to his Nuva from with his spinning blades resembling his old claws) The blue prototype that became Kopaka might have originally been a prototype of Hahli, so the wings on the back of the model would provide some lineage between the Mahri and Phantoka variants of her.
The prototype gali actually uses a silver maxilos mask, my theory for why the toa had different colours is probably because they were going to be separate characters
My jaw literally dropped when I saw the Chirox prototype. The final version just looks so similar to the red one; the prototype looks AMAZING. How could you not go with that one? There must have had to be some technical or logistical problem preventing them because that design is AMAZING.
Not sure if it’s true, but I heard a rumor that the 2008 sets were suppose to be the Toa Mahri, but when they heard they were on the way to canceling bionicle early, the story team decided to use the Toa Nuva to make a conclusive start to the end of the story. Maybe that’s why Kopaka has a different color scheme. With Matoro dead, maybe that model would have been a complete different Toa.
3:55 While I am certain that this red creature is what became Antroz, notice that there are two of them on screen! I'm kind of curious if this was originally supposed to be some sort of Rahi! Or perhaps there were going to be multiple Makuta who look like this? I mean, the BIONICLE Wiki shows what looks like three Teridax on the page for Makuta (Species), though I don't know the origin of that image. 5:09 Look at Vamprah's front wings! I love that design! Whilst the final design certainly is more efficient and affordable, using an already existing mold for the hooks and the same mold as the arm-wings, the design is really cool!
with them switching colors on the 2008 Toa just reminds me how annoyed I still am with the 2006 Matoran using the same color Metru masks. I wish they were switched around like the Metru Matoran masks!
I love the cobbled together look of these prototypes! Please cover more! Also a lot of those strangely colored peices were just made for work shopping different designs. From what I'm heard it was much cheaper to mass produce certain colors for prototypes
wow, surprised i've never seen some of these, especially that fantastic render at 2:44 '08 was the absolute peak of my Bionicle obsession as a kid, these things were a blast to see on BZpower. I even made Halloween masks of prototype Antroz and Radiak that year.. definitely somewhere lying around in my childhood room, lol. thanks for the great vid.
5:07 THANK YOU! I knew I saw Vamprah's prototype with wing-claws as a one weapon but couldn't find an image. I already thought it's some Mandela's effect
From what I remember, the 2008 Toa weren’t initially conceived as the Toa Nuva. They became the Nuva later on in production. That could be a reason for the odd prototype colors, but it’s probably also because the prototypes were more about structure than color, so they didn’t care what colors they used at that stage. Also, prototype Gali had Maxilos’s mask and I think the “Chirox” with cloth wings was actually Vamprah. He had the more bat like proportions with the giant wing hands and stubby legs
The last one from Brian Ellis is so good. He did it in early EARLY stages, before leaving the Bionicle team but he basically gave them the blueprint for most Makutas from 2008 imho: I can see traces of Vamprah (obviously), Chirox and even Krika. We're so lucky he got to share this early pictures in his three-part series on YT. Nice stuff!
Great to see more ptorotypes these always are amazing! also few things thath you forgot: vultratz's vehicle has 4 engines in a diffrent placement and gali mistika has a maxilos mask with the eye thing.
Rocko T3 pohatu head design really does it for me. Just replace the forearms with the legs so he can have a longer frame. Man it looks good. Still remember looking at it.
For kopaka, the wings were probably from a plan model kit, amd they jusg glued them on, same for solek's wings. They were probably from the same plane model. We could try and search for it.
These toa prototypes and especially these colors support my theory that the designers didn't know they were supposed to be toa nuva so they just designed new characters. I have no idea if this has ever been confirmed or denied, but it would explain a lot.
theyre called Nynrah Ghost Blasters because Nynrah Ghosts made them. Though considering squid launchers, i can understand the assumption, that they shoot ghosts at people. (A metal as hell conscept)
The Toa colors are interesting. Makes me wonder if the split teams were initially reversed (Phantoka Tahu, Onua, Gali and Mistika Lewa, Pohatu, Kopaka).
According to Brian Ellis the 07 designers had no idea which toa they were supposed to make, so I imagine it was the same for 08. I honestly would have been interested in seeing a new toa team just because the 08 designs didn't embody the nuva in my opinion. Oh, Brian Ellis is one of the old Bionicle designers and he has a couple interesting videos about designing and prototyping in the inika era that no one seems to talk about.
Hey ben! I just wanted to ask, for your BIS series, can we submit a moc again if it was revamped/ changed a lot? I wanted to sumbit a new version of my moc that appeared in episode 110 at 7:55. (also because it was a triple changer and I had so many photos i sent a 2nd email and you never saw the other photos with the 3rd mode)
i always thought mistika pohatu and onua would have made more sense as the opposite characters. funny to think even the designers considered that to some extent.
So, from what I understood and I'm probably wrong. but lego designers have no idea who the characters are when they are designing them. The story and names come after. As well if I recall, the Toa Marhi were supposed to carry over one more year, giving them the place for Phantoka and Mistika instead of the Toa Nuva.
Were the Mistika/Phantoka Toa always supposed to me the Toa Mata characters, or at one time were they their own characters before the narrative changed?
I think you are taking these prototypes too literally. To me, it looks like they were testing for a general shape to go with, using whatever pieces they had available. Hence the mismatched colors and lore inconsistencies.
Just here to say, that in order to preventing leaks, designer team did not know that they are working with Toa Nuva. So they got ideas of aero and swamp themes and played with designes and colors
9:52 this is a prototype of Vamprah. The designer made this since he was into horror. This was during the end of the Mahri line and didn't even get to see this idea come to life till very recently as he moved on from Lego. Someone at the Lego HQ saw this and brought it to life which is so cool to see.
I believe he has also mentioned in the past that the Toa of this wave were originally intended to be the next phase of the Toa Mahri/Inika. Which is why there is no white Toa prototypes (matoro being dead and all)
@@kronosaur417 That would make a lot of sense actually.
Okay, I just made a comment about how much better the prototype Chirox looks. Wow. How could they have NOT gone with this one for Vamprah either? The final one just looks like Chirox with Lime Highlights. This one looks legitimately amazing
can't forget how the name he originally came up with for the tridax pods was "napalm maggot bomb"
The wings on the prototype for what would end up becoming Kopaka are probably from something else because the T1-7477 decal matches a sticker used on the big helicopter set from Dino Attack. 7477 was also the set number for that Dino Attack helicopter.
The last prototype was made by Brian Ellis, who also designed a couple sets from 2007
He has a RUclips channel and he has talked about the design process behind his sets
(The channel name is simply his name)
The channel's pretty dope. Apparently, his Pridak design comes from his experience in a diving tank. The shit you learn
The wings have numbers and letters because they are aircraft model kit parts. Probably chosen from what the designer has available due to the shape and size. They were most certainly ignoring the lettering.
I would KILL to have Dekars mask in orange
I remember playing the Bionicle games on the LEGO website in 2008 that rewarded you with those Battle for Power prototype images. It was the first time I ever saw behind the scenes type stuff from LEGO. I never would have thought that would be so openly revealed at the time. Like, everything could have just remained secretive, but they wanted us to see some of the design process! It was really neat.
These prototypes have convinced me that the Toa Phantoka/Mistika were never INTENDED to be the Toa Nuva, but a whole new team that LEGO later decided to make the Toa Nuva.
Kopaka was meant to be a Toa of Water.
Pohatu was intended to be a Toa of Earth.
Gali's design is more fitting for a Toa of Air.
I believe the original plan was to have the Inika/Mahri for '08, but don't quote me on that.
@@Kalhiki looking at Gali's original design, that's definitely supposed to be Kongu.
@@Kalhiki I wonder if Takanuva would have been the sixth Toa for them then, since he also has a white colour scheme. Could be that Matoro's death was what made them switch to the Nuva, though
I've heard this theory thrown around before, but from what I've gathered from what Brian Ellis has said, it seems that it was less "these figures were made to be different characters" and more "it was just the design process at the time for them to create character designs disconnected from story context. The designs would be made first, and then applied to the story after the fact, the design brief was just the colour/element and the theme of the year (water for 2007 air for 2008 etc.)
He was specifically talking about 2007 in that video, but it tracks with this too.
@@voidaspects9173The 2008 weren't designed with any specific characters in mind. I have a direct quote (I think it was a question Greg got asked on a forum) where he says "the set designers weren't told to make them look like the nuva because we figured none of the current fans remembered them by that point." He even said they made versions of the 2008 sets that actually did resemble the nuva and they were rejected by focus groups in favor of the ones that got put out.
That Vortigaunt style chest-gun for pohatu is sheer genius! I can't believe they didn't go through with that!
I'm thinking that at one point the Toa in the Mistika and Phantoka sets *weren't* the Toa Nuva.
Hadn't considered that idea, but honestly it makes total sense haha
@@BenCossyOfficial I think it was pretty much confirmed by Brian Ellis on his channel, during his time there (Barraki-Phantoka) they designed the sets before even knowing what characters they were going to be, so they probably decided what the color schemes should be based on who looked the closest to the originals once they learned they were going to be the Toa Nuva
He's actually also responsible for that last bat-like prototype as well, it was the last thing he worked on while he was there
Greg Farshtey has mentioned in QnA that the designers of the 2008 toa sets weren't briefed to base their characters on the original nuva/mata sets. From what we know basically all bionicle sets were designed completely agnostic of the story, so in the design phase every set was effectively treated as an entirely new character, regardless of who they turned out to be when story was written about them after the fact.
Replying for visibility because this is right
@@thecianinator There really needs to be better resources for this type of meta info to combat how much misinformation/false assumptions get around.
On the point of the colors, the designers weren't told what characters their builds would be representing. Benefit being the design isn't constrained by what came before. Con obviously being that the characters look nothing like their previous versions.
There's a photo of all six toa closer to their final designs with the only big difference being Gali and Tahu's colors are switched.
It's likely that the different colors on the characters here are because the designs were intended for a different toa rather than them changing the color associated with each element.
I think it's possible that they were considering swapping which toa and makuta would be in which waves. The prototype Kopaka and Pohatu being blue and black respectively, as well as Vamprah and Chirox being white and green respectively, could've instead been meant to be Gali and Onua as Phantoka, while the green Gali could've been Mistika Lewa at one stage
I heard that the Phantoka and Mistika waves of Toa were actually supposed to be the Toa Mahri, which is why they don’t resemble the Toa Nuva at all, especially the Mistika (though I do think Pohatu has some resemblance to his Nuva from with his spinning blades resembling his old claws)
The blue prototype that became Kopaka might have originally been a prototype of Hahli, so the wings on the back of the model would provide some lineage between the Mahri and Phantoka variants of her.
The prototype gali actually uses a silver maxilos mask, my theory for why the toa had different colours is probably because they were going to be separate characters
Yeah originally they were actually gonna be the toa Mahri again adapted for the sky
My jaw literally dropped when I saw the Chirox prototype. The final version just looks so similar to the red one; the prototype looks AMAZING. How could you not go with that one? There must have had to be some technical or logistical problem preventing them because that design is AMAZING.
The stickers are from the helicopter set of dino 2000 :)
0:42 I think those wings and possibly the lettering were just taken off a (non Lego) model plane to test the look of the prototype
Not sure if it’s true, but I heard a rumor that the 2008 sets were suppose to be the Toa Mahri, but when they heard they were on the way to canceling bionicle early, the story team decided to use the Toa Nuva to make a conclusive start to the end of the story. Maybe that’s why Kopaka has a different color scheme. With Matoro dead, maybe that model would have been a complete different Toa.
3:55 While I am certain that this red creature is what became Antroz, notice that there are two of them on screen! I'm kind of curious if this was originally supposed to be some sort of Rahi! Or perhaps there were going to be multiple Makuta who look like this? I mean, the BIONICLE Wiki shows what looks like three Teridax on the page for Makuta (Species), though I don't know the origin of that image.
5:09 Look at Vamprah's front wings! I love that design! Whilst the final design certainly is more efficient and affordable, using an already existing mold for the hooks and the same mold as the arm-wings, the design is really cool!
To be fair, Krika was arguably the least evil of the Makuta in general. The argument can be made his design doesn't really reflect his character.
with them switching colors on the 2008 Toa just reminds me how annoyed I still am with the 2006 Matoran using the same color Metru masks. I wish they were switched around like the Metru Matoran masks!
Any Metru mask in trans-dark blue would look sick on Dalu
I love the cobbled together look of these prototypes! Please cover more! Also a lot of those strangely colored peices were just made for work shopping different designs. From what I'm heard it was much cheaper to mass produce certain colors for prototypes
wow, surprised i've never seen some of these, especially that fantastic render at 2:44
'08 was the absolute peak of my Bionicle obsession as a kid, these things were a blast to see on BZpower. I even made Halloween masks of prototype Antroz and Radiak that year.. definitely somewhere lying around in my childhood room, lol. thanks for the great vid.
5:07 THANK YOU! I knew I saw Vamprah's prototype with wing-claws as a one weapon but couldn't find an image. I already thought it's some Mandela's effect
From what I remember, the 2008 Toa weren’t initially conceived as the Toa Nuva. They became the Nuva later on in production. That could be a reason for the odd prototype colors, but it’s probably also because the prototypes were more about structure than color, so they didn’t care what colors they used at that stage.
Also, prototype Gali had Maxilos’s mask and I think the “Chirox” with cloth wings was actually Vamprah. He had the more bat like proportions with the giant wing hands and stubby legs
Man these prototypes are wild!
Very different colors, ideas and builds, very cool stuff 👌
The last one from Brian Ellis is so good. He did it in early EARLY stages, before leaving the Bionicle team but he basically gave them the blueprint for most Makutas from 2008 imho: I can see traces of Vamprah (obviously), Chirox and even Krika.
We're so lucky he got to share this early pictures in his three-part series on YT. Nice stuff!
Great to see more ptorotypes these always are amazing!
also few things thath you forgot: vultratz's vehicle has 4 engines in a diffrent placement and gali mistika has a maxilos mask with the eye thing.
0:50 those appear to be the Dino Attack font letters, or even stickers from the Dino Attack Copter
The prototypes shown for Krika and bitil where shown in a german tv show lol
Rocko T3 pohatu head design really does it for me. Just replace the forearms with the legs so he can have a longer frame. Man it looks good. Still remember looking at it.
I love ur videos, fav videos to watch while eating lunch
The wing numbers might’ve been from model plane toys.
Chirox's final mask was one of the prototype designs of Kongu Inika, I believe you even showed it in your Inika video
For kopaka, the wings were probably from a plan model kit, amd they jusg glued them on, same for solek's wings. They were probably from the same plane model. We could try and search for it.
5:18 forgot to mention the claw and wing are all one new peice
I also like the different wing piece for Vamprah on the white prototype
These toa prototypes and especially these colors support my theory that the designers didn't know they were supposed to be toa nuva so they just designed new characters. I have no idea if this has ever been confirmed or denied, but it would explain a lot.
I bet kopaka's wings were repurposed model or toy jet parts that already had the writing.
the colors of certain character probably reflect how they didn't know which returning characters were going to be in which wave.
theyre called Nynrah Ghost Blasters because Nynrah Ghosts made them. Though considering squid launchers, i can understand the assumption, that they shoot ghosts at people. (A metal as hell conscept)
I love All the prototypes
The chest canon thing on the orange pohatu prototype reminds me of the big guns that the marines had in Aliens
In one from the 1084 series of the TV show "Russian Galileo" Pushnoy killed (broke) Gresh 😢
The Toa colors are interesting. Makes me wonder if the split teams were initially reversed (Phantoka Tahu, Onua, Gali and Mistika Lewa, Pohatu, Kopaka).
It's like Michael Bey transformers vibe, soo cool
Phantoka my beloveds
According to Brian Ellis the 07 designers had no idea which toa they were supposed to make, so I imagine it was the same for 08. I honestly would have been interested in seeing a new toa team just because the 08 designs didn't embody the nuva in my opinion. Oh, Brian Ellis is one of the old Bionicle designers and he has a couple interesting videos about designing and prototyping in the inika era that no one seems to talk about.
Hey ben! I just wanted to ask, for your BIS series, can we submit a moc again if it was revamped/ changed a lot? I wanted to sumbit a new version of my moc that appeared in episode 110 at 7:55. (also because it was a triple changer and I had so many photos i sent a 2nd email and you never saw the other photos with the 3rd mode)
how did it take me this long to realize Pohatu Phantoka was inspired by Big Duo from the big O lmao
Can't help but think these where the Toa Inika/Mahri in the prototype stages
I wonder if the prototype of Toa Tahu was any better
i always thought mistika pohatu and onua would have made more sense as the opposite characters. funny to think even the designers considered that to some extent.
So, from what I understood and I'm probably wrong. but lego designers have no idea who the characters are when they are designing them. The story and names come after. As well if I recall, the Toa Marhi were supposed to carry over one more year, giving them the place for Phantoka and Mistika instead of the Toa Nuva.
Were the Mistika/Phantoka Toa always supposed to me the Toa Mata characters, or at one time were they their own characters before the narrative changed?
Is it just me, or would the prototype Kopaka Phantoka make a great Hero Factory set?
Fair
The Toa were originally going to be a completely different team and not the Toa Mata.
Pohatu's prototype mask looks a bit like a bat.
@9:22 his name is not pronounced CHEER ROCKS, it’s pronounced KAI ROCKS. After the scientific name for bats; Chiroptera
The letters on Kopaka's wings are likely stickers from Exo Force.
I think you are taking these prototypes too literally.
To me, it looks like they were testing for a general shape to go with, using whatever pieces they had available. Hence the mismatched colors and lore inconsistencies.
in terms of body i wish they stuck to the prototype because these beta av matoran look much less likely to break upon play
Really glad to see these images of early Bionicle sets from russian source❤
If I had to guess, LEGO was playing around with the idea of reworking Kopaka's colors because white and grey are.. a pretty generic color combo.