Three words:
Elbows and Knees.
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I think that the Bohrok Va and Rahaga are small enough that not having knees can be excused. The Av-Matoran, however, couldâve incorporated moving knees and elbows, like in the Stars commercials.
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y y e e s s
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But the question still remains, how exactly are you going to do that? Design a new mold that has movable knees and elbows? Could that even have realistically happened? The Toa Mata are around the same size and price as the Av-Matoran, and nobody ever complains about their lack of articulation.
The toa Mata were made in 2001, and a lack of articulation was expected at the time. But even then, the lack of articulation is one of the most talked about cons of the Mata.
I think it could be done. I imagine it to be like this piece I saw on shapeways.
There could be another piece reminiscent of a cccbs upper limb to connect to it
The av-matoran are pretty good as they are, but the addition of elbows and knees would also definitely be good feature, in my opinion.
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compared to the slizers the toa mata had the same articulation points so they were not a down grade. but by the time that we get to the av-matoran we have a standardized system (inika build) that has all the articulation you need.
either that or you could do something similar dividing the limbs using a pin (those short ones) as a knee.
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What baffles me even more is that no Matoran in any year had knees and elbows, yet people only seem to complain about the Av-Matoran like it wasnât the standard for small sets already.
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In my opinion, the bigger the figure, the more joints it needs to not feel stiff. As I said in my last post, I donât think itâs a huge issue, but it would be an improvement nonetheless.
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Not to mention, in this hypothetical âhow would you you have improved the setsâ scenario, I (and I believe many others) wouldâve liked for the Mata to have knees.
Something like this thing I made in 10 minutes, of course with a socket and ball, instead of a double ball to fit the av matoran body something similar could be used even on a toa mata or nuva
with the power of tinkercad because I donât want to learn blender, everything is possible
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Iâm curious how loose the joint is, though - if it just flops around, it wouldnât be useful for the knees. Youâd need enough friction to hold up the rest of the body, and Iâm not sure any of those small pins have have good friction.
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the pins are a little loose, but thatâs not a problem. all you need to do is to adjust the tollerance of the hole so itâs a little tighter than normal (I belive that there are some examples of lego adjusting a piece so itâs tighter or looser). like instead of making it 5mm you make it 4.98mm or something like that and you fixed it. all and all it isnât much of a problem.
or you could totally design one of the two pieces with a built-in pin a little tighter than normal
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why do that when you can use a sharpie, the most powerful earthly item besides flex tape and gorilla glue that isnât a book
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I actually think the YouTube channel CallanLoF has done a great job at improving the old Toa Mata. Because obviously, in order to do stop-motion sketches, those characters needed many additional joints that the original toys simply didnât have (knees, ellbows, torso, heck, even the heads couldnât be turned back then).
They also found a great way how to integrate the old tools of Gali and Onua into a form where they would still have normal hands, as in their later Nuva form. And the Toa look a lot âbeefierâ than their 2001 versions, which were somewhat âskeletalâ. Yet, you still recognize them all, because of their colours and tools, but most importantly, because of their masks, of course. âKanohiâ (=Maori for âfaceâ) really was the appropriate term, after all, because the standard mask for a given character makes up 90% of their recognisability.
This was one of the major problems with the constant âtransformationâ of characters throughout the Bionicle storyline. Even the Toa Nuva, in terms of face/mask structure, basically look nothing like their Mata counterparts.
I think if Lego had released such improved versions of the old models later down the road, instead of constantly ditching the old toys for new ones, the story could have been much better:
The new kids getting into the story later (e.g., 2006 or so) could still have gotten access to the same Toa Mata characters as those kids who started in 2001 or 2002, and the older kids might have gotten those new versions, too, simply because they would have been more flexible - literally.
With Star Wars and superhero toys, this has worked for decades. In contrast, with Bionicle, the Hordika transformation was the straw that broke the ussalâs back for me. Granted, the Hordika were âdeliberately made to be uglyâ (whoever in marketing thought that was a good idea?). And the movie about them being a somewhat pointless insert nested entirely within the second movie, with the Hordika being the only Toa ever to experience a backward transformation to their old forms at the end of their story arc, I was even more convinced they were a purely optional add-on that werenât in any way integral to the overarching plot.
I liked the design of the Toa Inika a little more again - I just wasnât fond of the idea of Bionicles having batteries (the Manas had been the only ones up to that point, as far as I remember). I also enjoyed playing Bionicle Heroes a lot, and I even shortly got âback intoâ the toys in terms of acquiring Axonn and Brutaka. (I had plans to build an actual Mata Nui figure out of them, which didnât exist at that time).
However, then Lego pulled a Hordika 2.0 on the Inika by turning them into the Mahri. In some sense, this was even worse, I think, because moving the entire plot underwater first and then up into the air with Phantoka / Mistika kind of eliminated the âelemental categoriesâ the franchise had been relying on so far.
And while I was happy to finally see the original Toa Nuva re-appear with Phantoka / Mistika, to me that was essentially what Episode VII - IX would later become for Star Wars: The Toa Nuva were transformed yet again in something completely unrecognisable. And the plot was headed towards its ultimate âsubversion of expectationsâ (robot gets up and destroys the island, and btw, Makuta wins) that for me retro-actively ruined the entire mythology which had made the 2001-2003 era so alluring.
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We do not speak of him here.
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i was gonna say that
although me and him are on fairly good terms
Why?
I, personally, like his videos and MOCs.
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He is, uh, vocally negative toward TTV.
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Me too 
. And Iâm not going to stop enjoying them on the grounds of a personal feud between different sub-communities. The Bionicle community at large, that is, those who continue to stick around after all those years since it ended, already seems to be âsmall enoughâ.
I could launch into some pseudo-Turaga-like speech about âUnityâ here, but Iâll spare you that this time⌠After all, weâve just heard one yesterday. 
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