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The Toa have separate "generic" Rhotuka spinners and elemental spinners. The former are uniform orange to contrast with the Visorak's green energy spinners. The Toa's elemental blasts have unique colors, except Matau and Vakama whose elements are orange and green by default.

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I love the reinterpretation of the boring silver LEGO spinners as fans within the launcher mechanism that spin to generate glowing energy discs. I also like the extra detail that they need some time to cool down after use, though this isn't consistent.

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The Toa Hordika's loose Rhotuka spinner holders are a huge nuisance on the toys. Visually, they're distracting. Functionally, the spinners fall off unless you pose them straight. I much prefer how the films gave them mechanical, retractable flip-out back launchers.

Nuju's mutant head was at one point proposed to have a sharp beak, perhaps a nod to how he learns bird language in the wider canon. This was sadly also removed for the final design. But he can make this weird kissy lip expression.

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I think the film could have explored more bold redesigns, like giving some of the Toa digitigrade legs. The homogeneous LEGO designs, budget and time constraints presumably limited creative freedom. To compensate, most of the Toa at least have different postures and walk/run cycles.

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The film's take on the deformed right arm is more inventive, with the tools permanently attached. Their "hand" sockets remain mere sockets rather than getting redesigned into fingered hands. I like this, it also adds to the mutation angle. The tools will get their own thread.

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Unlike the previous films that prioritized five fingers for the Matoran/Toa/Turaga, the characters in this film have only four, including non-mutated characters like Roodaka, Sidorak and Keetongu. The Toa also have two thumbs on one hand, which adds to their mutated nature.

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The Toa's newly added lower arms are based on the handle design of Nuju's tool, except with the blade replaced by a hand. It would have been nice if each Toa had unique lower arm designs inspired by their respective tools, but reusing the same arm for all was probably cheaper.

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The toys have a stumpy left arm with an implied elbow joint, ending in the standard ball socket acting as a hand. The film designs elongate the arm by adding a new arm section to let the Toa touch the ground, turning what was the wrist into the new elbow and the original elbow into a "second elbow".

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Other 2005 media implied that the Hordika have actual hands, able to grab different tools, or even each other's throat. This made the one-handed movie designs outliers, examples of the films putting their own spin on the characters and diverging from the rest of the franchise.

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Thread #2 on Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows' Toa Hordika designs. Their chief quirk is having only one hand, with the other mutated into a tool. They also have extra arm joints. These don't line up with the main canon, where the Toa have two hands and hold two tools.

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Shout-out to the distracting floating crotch panels. The models have some creative design elements, as I'll touch on in later threads, but they didn't account for the fact that the Hordika's hunched postures would let us see them from unusual angles, revealing some design cheats.

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Nokama's chest armor is just a little more flared-out, with a wide, round gap for the stomach. It has an additional recessed part below the upper pistons. The male Toa have less chest lines. This is barely visible, but Nokama having a unique chest armor is consistent with LoMN.

The Hordika all looking alike had the benefit of making the film crew's job easier. As in LoMN, they modeled one body for all five male Toa, and found other ways to make them interesting. Nokama is the only semi-unique Toa, having a different chest, hips and high-heeled feet.

At the very least, some Hordika could have their giant mutated arm on the left side rather than the right, for variety. Which is incidentally how some promo art depicted them. Even the playset minifigs, some of the most overlooked LEGO pieces ever made, changed up their arms.

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This relates to a broader conflict between set designers and focus groups, as reported by a 2008 German documentary. Designers experimented with more organic Bionicle toys. Kids wanted the toys to look more mechanical. I wonder if this divide already existed during the Hordika design process.

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I think the Toa Hordika were stuck in a rough spot where they had to be marketable as cool robot heroes who go up against the Visorak spiders, but they also had to be ugly mutants for the sake of the "quest for a cure" story arc. They fall somewhere in an indecisive middle-point.

The 2007 Barraki are more successful executions of the animalistic mutation concept. They're varied, colorful and recognizably inspired by wild creatures, but still retain an abstract alien vibe. The fact that they're villains probably allowed the designers to make them freakish.

The Hordika barely have any traits that read "animalistic". They have a hunched posture, but so do many "normal" Bionicle characters. They lack fangs, claws, extra limbs, wings, fins, any kind of obviously bestial anatomical feature. They just look like uglier Bionicle sets.

In past years, silver armor on Bionicle sets like the Toa Nuva or Bohrok-Kal generally denoted upgrades or technological advancements. Hordika are meant to be freakish bestial mutations, so the technological-looking metallic silver armor goes against this design tradition.

However, I don't think the Toa Hordika are good sets. They represent the entirety of the 2005 line and arc: interesting ideas, sloppy execution. These are meant to be Toa mutated into animals, so how come they look more uniform than the standard Toa Metru? Where is the variety?

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The creators also had better CGI tools to work with and probably felt more confident in their capabilities, allowing for more detailed character models. WoS's visuals in general show many improvements over the prior films, so it's no wonder the models became more elaborate too.

There could be many reasons for the shift in design philosophy. The Hordika are gangly mutants, so it's appropriate to keep the ungainly toy proportions and gaps -- although it suggests that the Toa paradoxically became more robotic when the Hordika venom turned them bestial.

Their organic tissue is minimal, confined to a few gaps in their armor. As in MoL and LoMN, the Toa still have muscles on their heads, but it's more is acceptable here. Masks having muscles is weird. The Hordika have mutated heads rather than masks, so muscles make more sense.

First, the good. The Hordika have scrawny, thin limbs with details lifted directly from the toys, like the gears moving their mutated right arms. Instead of gross organic innards, they have delightfully mechanical-technological details, pistons, tubes and wires under their armor.

I'm of two minds on the film's Hordika designs. I love that they reflected some of the most common fan complaints of the Crative Capers/Miramax designs and stayed more faithful to the toys. But I don't think the toys are good designs, and most of their faults were retained too.

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The WoS designs embrace the visual elements that Mask of Light and Legends of Metru Nui wanted to downplay or remove: overly thin limbs, see-through holes, empty hollow areas, gears. MoL in particular aimed to fill out the characters with organic tissue. WoS keeps them robotic.

Thread #1 on the Toa Hordika's movie designs from Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows. Compared to the stylistically somewhat drastic redesigns of the previous two movies, as WoS adopted a more LEGO-accurate character design style.

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All of these omissions, once-planned plot points and character backstories show an unfortunate recurring theme in Web of Shadows' development. Characterization, relationships and general world-building were stripped away, leaving the film ripe with unanswered questions that other media filled in.

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The brief touch causing Vakama to meld his mind with Makuta's and become fully evil is detailed in the novelization, adding a twist onto Vakama's character arc. He still sees himself as a hero until the throne's power fully corrupts him and makes him forget his purpose.

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The film doesn't establish that Sidorak's throne actually belongs to Makuta. Vakama laying his finger on the throne originally had a larger meaning, it made him "see" things. But in the film, Sidorak stops Vakama from touching it, so the throne doesn't impart its vision on him.

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Sidorak's origin as a Makuta-created "backup" servant didn't make it into the final lore. He was instead written as a member of an unnamed race from the island of Stelt who got hired by the Makuta Brotherhood. His incompetent film portrayal inspired his canon persona as an opportunistic liar.

As for Sidorak, he is loyal to the Makuta, but only to a point. The initial script has him admit he'd much rather sit on Makuta's throne as Metru Nui's ruler. Despite his ties to the Brotherhood, the final film doesn't give an ounce of backstory to him; he never mentions Makuta.

That said, Roodaka had already been reimagined as a member of a distinct species, the Vortixx, before the film came out. Comic 24: Shadow Play features her homeland Xia and another Vortixx (both names come from 2007). As the film doesn't give her a backstory, Greg made up a new one.

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Ironically, the Dark Hunters were also originally written as the Makuta Brotherhood's captains before they likewise became a fully separate bounty hunter faction. So in retrospect, Roodaka's reinterpretation under Greg's pen was out of line with the intents of the filmmakers.

As mentioned in another thread, at this writing phase Roodaka was fully devoted to Makuta, seeing him as her true love. Her becoming a conniving double agent who pretends to serve both the Makuta and the Dark Hunters, selling them out to each other, was Greg Farshtey's revision.

Another passage says Roodaka is in contact with "a Makuta" (not THE Makuta), allowing her to see "beyond her physical surroundings". Not sure if this is an allusion to Roodaka talking to other members of the Brotherhood or a mere typo. The bible does mix up terminology at times.

Roodaka knew of the Brotherhood's plan to wage a "Great Viral War" across the Matoran Universe. This was one of Bob's grand unrealized storyline plans he had been building up to, which would have taken place in the franchise's later years.

The "spooky Makuta whispers" described in the story bible made it into the film as some of Makuta's signature audio cues. (Also, I now realize that Miramax sounds like a Makuta name that could fit in well with the likes of Teridax, Tridax, Miserix or Chirox.)

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Roodaka's proposed movie role is intriguing. Like in the final film, she resides in the Coliseum's Makuta lair, where she hears Makuta's telepathic whispers from the shrine. Both the shrine and the Makuta stone (the one that split into twin sundials in LoMN) are present here.

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Comic 25: Birth of the Rahaga is a sort of in-between retelling of this backstory, mixing early with final lore. Roodaka, Nidhiki and Krekka are all depicted in their originally intended roles as the Makuta's captains. They clash with the Hagah, but Roodaka is not put to sleep.

In older concepts, the Toa Hagah were exposed to Visorak spider venom and gradually "aged" into Rahaga, essentially becoming Turaga Hordika. In the revised version, Roodaka herself poisoned them. Her poison ability was later changed to an all-purpose instant mutation power.

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As in the final lore, Roodaka mutated the Toa Hagah into Rahaga, but the Hagah managed to put her and Sidorak to sleep. How or when they woke up isn't elaborated on, but I guess this explains their absence from Legend of Metru Nui's events. Nidhiki and Krekka took their place.

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The bible mentions that there were seven Makuta at this point. Sidorak and Roodaka served one of them who had been beaten by the Toa Haga(h). The "main" Makuta (at this time he wasn't yet named Teridax) beckoned them to Metru Nui to be his close servants after the Vahki failed.

Sidorak and the Visorak spider army were specifically created by the Makuta as a backup plan in case the mechanical Vahki shorted out during their takeover of Metru Nui, and Roodaka was a "special breed" of Visorak herself. The latter point was completely ignored by the story.

The early 2005 story bible is one of the last hurrahs of Bionicle's original Bob Thompson era. There are fascinating lore connections and foreshadowing to unrealized ideas all the way to Bob's planned "Book 6". Sidorak and Roodaka are described as the former bodyguards of a (not "the") Makuta.

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Sidorak and Roodaka had very different backstories in early Bionicle 2005 drafts. Instead of one being an upper-class Steltian who lied his way into the Makuta Brotherhood's high ranks and the other a traitorous Vortixx from Xia, they were both unique beings created by the Makuta.

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Makuta getting squashed onto a cliffside like Wile E. Coyote instead of using his dozens of powers is easier to accept as a legitimate defeat when you consider that Makuta in the Thompson/Swinnerton/Gilroy/Faber version of the lore were not meant to have Kraata/Rahkshi powers.

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Makuta himself possessing these powers, plus over 30 extra ones, robbed the story of its originally intended thematic meaning and undermined the rest of the story as well. Greg constantly had to skirt around the issue of the Makuta nearly never winning despite having 40+ powers.