They bothered to setup all this shit, that is completely anachronist to the show own setting, mind you, but couldn't write a decent ending.
Creating real life social media accounts to the characters, just to get spammed by dumb fanboys, was the last thing the revival of western animation needed.
The strangest part is Jax in the real world didn't troon or I doubt he would have stuck with his double male deadname (so male it even flows into his last name.) He just goes to the queer bar, so is in some sort of cishet with a twist subgroup (he at least seems to primarily be attracted to women, despite his resentment, maybe he is one of the lesser seen male they/thems), but he's a good enough boy who learned to accept being mundane and just hanging out with friends and being okay with life. Trooning wasn't his one true answer, which you think it would have been with how his circus self got punished.
Maybe it was just made as an attack against Ted in the original story, who was the one who had to get left behind so that the others could know the escape of death. He got his mouthless, perma torture form that will go on for eternity, but the others are free. In this story, the others realize AM is actually great and they love him; "Ted" is still damned to the mouthless form of unending torture as the pet to the people who accepted their stagnant life.
I still can't get over how this group of people from I guess the same sort of large city with like 20 years between their ages just all end up casually knowing each other through the same gaybar, did they somehow accidentally all meet when they told the same weird story about visiting the abandoned building where the computer runs that weird game you can't play?
I guess even if they power goes out and they are just dormant on that harddrive, it won't be like they'd know. Your files on that abandoned harddrive don't have a capacity mourn. They would just start up again if it was ever turned back on but be unaware if it went to the incinerator instead. Maybe Scratch was just immensely wealthy and instead of donating that money to charity or willing it away he put it into running his 1990s computer for the rest of time believing his digital copy would stay alive even though it was the first abstraction.
Caine would do nothing but download bloatware and viruses the moment he realized how much stuff is on the internet.
A thousand fucking bonzi buddies beat the recently unabstracted Jax to death.
The strangest part is Jax in the real world didn't troon or I doubt he would have stuck with his double male deadname (so male it even flows into his last name.) He just goes to the queer bar, so is in some sort of cishet with a twist subgroup, but he's a good enough boy who learned to accept being mundane and just hanging out with friends and being okay with life. Trooning wasn't his one true answer, which you think it would have been with how his circus self got punished.
Maybe it was just made as an attack against Ted in the original story, who was the one who had to get left behind so that the others could know the escape of death. He got his mouthless, perma torture form that will go on for eternity, but the others are free. In this story, the others realize AM is actually great and they love him; "Ted" is still damned to the mouthless form of unending torture as the pet to the people who accepted their stagnant life.
I still can't get over how this group of people from I guess the same sort of large city with like 20 years between their ages just all end up casually knowing each other through the same gaybar, did they somehow accidentally all meet when they told the same weird story about visiting the abandoned building where the computer runs that weird game you can't play?
I said before and I'll re-iterate that I think Caine or some C&A rep has notified them it's time to go check on the Digital Circus. It's sequelbait, nothing more. Nobody stays dead, Jax comes back, Ribbit and Kaufmo will too, so there's even more characters for merch.
Bionicle has the benefit of being hard-carried by the vibes of the worldbuilding. The juxtaposition of high-tech robots in a primitive tribal setting has a lot of interesting philosophical questions baked into the premise that are never fully addressed by the story. They are artificial beings, undoubtedly the product of intelligent design, who have so thoroughly forgotten the purpose they were made for that nobody ever thinks to question their own utterly illogical existence. Their religious mantra - Unity, Duty, Destiny - is but a bastardization of their original programming: gotta work together (Unity) to fulfill the function (Duty) that you were designed for (Destiny). Their in-universe makers, the Great Beings, are also a rare example in fiction of unchecked creation being cast in a negative light: they’re neglectful gods who rarely spare their creations a second thought, preferring to go endlessly create new things instead, often with little regard to potential unforeseen consequences.
Overall the setting is kind of an inverse of the sci-fi post apocalypse you have in something like Blame, where technologically-regressed humans are living in the ruins of a long-forgotten great civilization. It’s something that surprisingly hasn’t been seen in much media before or since, Horizon Zero Dawn is the only thing that’s kind of tried a similar thing with its feral robotic “animals”.
I didn't get why you reacted this way until now lmao. Yeah guess old childhood memories stick forever. My fucking avatar and name being an example of that.
The juxtaposition of high-tech robots in a primitive tribal setting has a lot of interesting philosophical questions baked into the premise that are never fully addressed by the story.
They're actually organic aliens with cybernetic exoskeletons (and some of them aren't even supposed to be augmented at all) and you'd know that if you even so much as glanced at the actual media and saw them eating food and farming and shit.
Anyways Bionicle's big thing is that it doesn't do a "nothing matter they all not real" twist like this circus show and a lot of other things predictably have done the last decade even when they go into wacked out existential shit like the reveal of what the red star actually is.
They are really shit at storytelling (or maybe the sub wasn't clear) because it looked like Pomni had almost unabstacted jax when they pulled her out and if they had waited another five seconds he would've been back.
Maybe Scratch was just immensely wealthy and instead of donating that money to charity or willing it away he put it into running his 1990s computer for the rest of time believing his digital copy would stay alive even though it was the first abstraction.
They're actually organic aliens with cybernetic exoskeletons (and some of them aren't even supposed to be augmented at all) and you'd know that if you even so much as glanced at the actual media and saw them eating food and farming and shit.
Eating (directly absorbing the life energy of other beings through their hands) is just an emergency fallback they’re forced to resort to while stranded on the island, in their “natural” habitat of the Mata Nui robot they prefer to use charging pads and as far as I’m aware have never been implied to “eat” anything like they do on the surface. The actual lore is unclear on the nature and extent of their organic physiology but they’re definitely not organic beings in exoskeletons - at best they’re robots with a few fleshy bits inside. Personally I interpret that they’re robots made of technology sufficiently advanced that some parts bear more resemblance to living things than machines, with crystalline brains that are more analogous to a human meat brain than to a computer. I just don’t think having any truly organic components really jives with the established fact that they’re more or less biologically immortal and can live for tens of thousands of years without aging or degradation.
You do know what an exoskeleton is right? Also there's literally a plot point where characters get mutated into fucked up animal hybrid versions of themselves.
Imagine if abstraction was less just "ah yeah they're braindead monsters now" and more shit like the kind of implied thing with queenie of kind of still being "there" but reduced to animalistic form but for like all the characters that that shit happened to.
I just don’t think having any truly organic components really jives with the established fact that they’re more or less biologically immortal and can live for tens of thousands of years without aging or degradation.
They do degrade though I'm pretty there's literally a villain at one point that's deal is he's basically his own ghost holding his skeleton together lich style because his organic innards have rotted away and he's one of those makuta guys.
Them having long lifespans is just the same shit as knife ears or other fantasy races IMO.
Fucking dammit. I was genuinely invested in this gay little circus show because I found the characterization charming and the premise interesting. I was willing to overlook the cliches and occasional plot holes or missed narrative opportunities because I just genuinely liked the characters and wanted to see them continue their existential struggles.
This ending though? This bullshit? I wasted my fucking time.
SOMA theory is real. Not even a creative variation of it either. Just straight up "actually we're all AIs lulz" which utterly destroys any meaningfulness to Pomnis shit with Gummigoo in episode 2. Without the contrast of the circus characters being 'real' and the NPCs not the entire uncomfortable dichotomy that made that all feel so meaningful and genuinely heart felt is dead.
Call me a pussy faggot all you want but Pomni's entire arc with Gummigoo got me right in the feels. Caine deleting him with a snap of his fingers may have been to me the single most impactful moment of the series. The unfairness of it after all Pomni did for him was genuinely brilliantly done.
Now? ALL that impact is gone. Replaced instead with gay edgelord irony. "LOL GET IT? THEY WERE ALWAYS BOTH JUST AI! WAT A TWEEST ME R GENUS TROLLLOLOLO" I hate it so fucking much.
I could have dealt with a subversion; maybe they're all on life support IRL, maybe it's the afterlife, maybe it's all someone's fever dream.
Anything would have been better than this. For fucks sake Jax abstracts off fucking screen.
And don't even get me fucking STARTED on the 'blue AI' being the evil one and Caine just...plucking it out of his skull. If you were really going to go that route it'd have genuinely made more sense for Bubble to have turned out to be the blue AI and to absorb Caine or some shit.
This is shit. Utter dogshit from tip to bottom. Nothing is salvageable about this ending.
Yea I'm mad at the internet over my faggoty autistic clussy cartoon. I don't care. I welcome your tophats and puzzle pieces.
Nah, same. The Jax shit is really upsetting. Goose is literally just telling young mentally ill men to kill themselves. Cooper can go do it himself. I'd be lying if I said I'm okay with how the show ended. I cared about this project and I'm beyond disappointed. Jax was the only really interesting character, but of course, we can't have good things.
The Jax abstraction thing really is fucking with me. I relate too fucking closely to how his life went, including almost being forced into being a tranny. I feel like Cooper is just telling me to kill myself. Fuck you Cooper, you first.
Don't worry I already rambled about these points several times! The gummigoo shit isn't event he only thing this ending conflicts with! There's so, so much more!
I am 100% convinced this ending was changed in response to the male funnyman finding the nega shit funny. If only partly so. It's really really weirdly rushed feeling and conflicts with everything established for something that's supposed to be the epic conclusion.
