I love Kai’s climbing mech. Some Ninjago sets have endeared themselves to me because of the way they were implemented in the show, but the climber mech is one of the select few that I genuinely want just for the build alone.
And you know what? It genuinely resembles Nocturn to me. With Lego’s recent obsession with mechs and statues, plus Bionicle fans trying to cope about a potential G3 by considering Brickonicle, the climber mech feels like a genuine look into what a brick-based Bionicle might actually look like!
Four arms, plus the legs with the splayed toes and that particular piston piece for support… The lower arms wield blades, and one of the upper arms has a longer tendril to grab with! I even heard the designer for this set used Matoro’s claw piece as a placeholder for the climber mech’s golden claws!
I could see an extensive mod that turns this set into a Brickonicle Nocturn; The head would probably be brick-built and/or use the new dragon head mold pieces that Ninjago has introduced. Tbh, it doesn’t even have to be Bionicle G3 specifically; I’d just really like to see a theme where the sets ARE the characters, rather than the characters being within the sets.
The brick-built scale allows for so much more customizability for characters, and if Lego really wanted minifigures, maybe they could function as the smaller ‘Matoran’ analogue, who knows? There’s just so much character to convey with different builds. And Kai’s other mech this wave, which is the ‘base’ form of the climber mech in canon, is paired with a wolf mech whose hands and feet always remind me of the finned Piraka feet piece;
Look at that hand; That’s a Piraka foot. Lego seems really into mech builds lately in Ninjago and Star Wars, not to mention their attempts at superhero action figures. I want to see how Lego would do an original line of fully-sized characters on their own terms.
