Aanchir

I love Jyn, even though her outfit doesn't wow me as much as Rey's did with its more exciting colors and that stylish textile element. Kinda frustrated that she'll be $25, since she has mostly the same proportions as Rey, but I guess it makes sense since Jyn has more elaborate weapons, more stuff built onto her back, and more new molds. She still has a better piece count than previous $25 figures.

Her head sculpt is great, though I'm frustrated that LEGO chose to give her headgear, since as with Rey and Poe, it limits the head's potential for reuse. The new torso shell seems about as limited as the previous Star Wars torso shell, but it has good proportions and good printing, and should be useful for future female characters in this series. She has some nice recolors too.

K-2SO has an amazingly creative build that makes heavy use of Technic, which is probably why he's got the best piece count for his price point out of all the Star Wars buildable figures to date. This article is the first thing that really sheds light on his function, which sounds about the same as Skull Basher's, which I loved. I appreciate the variety in functions!

The Death Trooper is the one figure I'm sort of "meh" on. As classy as they look, monochrome trooper builds bore me, and while this figure mixes it up with a decorated pauldron and some sort of ammo or explosives over their chest, it doesn't overcome that bland color scheme. Even Phasma and the First Order Stormtrooper had more contrast, plus a more nostalgic look.

The new thigh shell used on all three figures is interesting, though its benefit over existing shells feels kind of limited. I don't know if the curves are necessary, and I don't like how it's mounted to the sides, which makes the thighs seem very narrow from the front. At least this shell has connection points besides the ball snap, unlike the shin and torso shells on previous Star Wars buildable figures.

Overall, Jyn is the character I'm most looking forward to. All three figures are well-designed, but Jyn is the only one with an exciting color scheme, which has played a big role in all my Star Wars buildable figure purchases so far. I know monochrome troopers are very much A Thing in Star Wars, but I hope future series of buildable figures feature more color variety than this series does.

The price increase is definitely daunting but, as Lyi said, more than half of that is just catching up on eight years of inflation. And I can see why they wouldn't want to make monumental changes to a set that sold well enough to keep around for eight years. The minifigure updates are excellent (probably the best versions of these characters to date), and there are some other nice updates to the build, like using the new smaller spring-loaded shooter instead of a giant Technic shooter and improving the accuracy of the Emperor's throne room. The Dianoga and torture droid look a lot better than they did before, too.

So is it worth $500? Maybe not, but that's less than 10% more than what you'd expect based on the cost of the previous version. And while it's frustrating not to get a truly "new" UCS set, this is a set that has long been out of date and in need of refreshing. I'm in no hurry to get this set, but if I were in the market for a Death Star in the first place I'd probably have bought the previous one. I guess we'll see if this one manages to stick around as long as the last one did!

I really hope 2017 re-releases the UCS Falcon to make up for this year's UCS sets.

So you're saying LEGO should make up for two sets that feel like repeats of stuff we've had before with… a repeat of something else we've had before? I can definitely understand being underwhelmed by two repetitive UCS sets in a row, but I don't see how a third would solve that.

Eh, it's a nice update, but jacking it up to 500 dollars is ridiculous. Also, this is one of the very few BZP reports that actually feels real. It always seems every update is way too scripted and happy; this one only feels less so because I genuinely think Black Six was upset when he wrote it.

A lot of us on the news team write LEGO news because, for the most part, it's something that excites us and makes us happy. Frankly, the BZPower news would feel a lot less real to me if I had to write everything with a stiff, unfeeling attitude. We're not writing about fluctuations in the cost of kitchen appliances here — we're writing about toys, games, and cartoons from a brand we enjoy.

Yeah, I think it's pretty inevitable it'll come back. You see at this point BIONICLE isn't a Lego theme, it's a franchise. BIONICLE is a product with a massive following (despite weather people wish to admit it or not). It has one of the most vocal LEGO communities out there. I hear a lot of people like castle, yet I never see any forums about it. Ninjago is HUGE and it doesn't have nearly the fan support and content of BIONICLE. G2 didn't sell well because a lot of fans didn't buy it for their own reasons.

Concerning recent themes like Ninjago, it's worth remembering that they came about in the age of social media, so a lack of dedicated forums shouldn't be taken as evidence for a lack of fan engagement. I see way more Ninjago-related activity on sites like Twitter and Tumblr than Bionicle-related activity, and I hear there's quite a large community of Ninjago fans on Instagram as well.

That's not to say that the Bionicle fan community isn't still unusually strong. Just as one example, the Makuta contest on LEGO Rebrick has generated over 1500 submissions, far more than any previous Rebrick contest since the site was relaunched. But other themes shouldn't be sold short in terms of fan engagement just because their fan communities aren't organized in the same ways that Bionicle fans are. Frankly, even the Bionicle fan community is organized much differently than it used to be, and even if Bionicle returns to its former greatness at some point in the future, that won't necessarily mean a return to the type of forum culture that was typical a decade ago.

For my part, I think hypothetically Bionicle could come back in the future, but that's with the condition that we have no idea what kind of cultural changes are in store in the future. LEGO wasn't able to bring Bionicle back in a way that really resonated with kids this time around, but that doesn't mean there won't ever be a strategy that will work better or a generation of kids that's more receptive to Bionicle's core concepts. So I'd go with "could go either way".

As for whether I'd want it back… probably not right yet. Bionicle will probably always be important to me, so I'd definitely be open to it coming back in the future, but I don't see any kind of urgency to bringing it back when for all I know, entirely new concepts might be even more promising. Bionicle is a great theme, but not necessarily the greatest theme there's ever been, and certainly not the best theme there ever COULD be. So I'm not going to be waiting at the edge of my seat for new Bionicle when I could be enjoying whatever else the future has in store.

Has anyone seen any full scans of the supposed European exclusive Bionicle magazine or pictures of the polybags that came with it?

Never seen any full scans. I have seen pictures of the first issue and its gift set (Skull Scorpion) on the Brickset Forums (German edition, UK edition).

I don't think I've seen any photos of Issue 2 yet, though I know some people have managed to build Agil (Ekimu's Falcon) from the preview pics in Issue 1.

 

You seem to be missing my point. I didn't take issue with you calling the reboot half-hearted, even though I disagree. Rather, I took issue with you saying that this video showed how much more effort went into G1 than G2. Those were your exact words: more effort. And frankly, even if there was more effort in G1 than G2, this video doesn't show it. What this video showed was a brilliant portfolio of G1 concept work, but we've seen just as much concept art per year of G2 as this video shows per year of G1.

 

While I have immense respect for Christian Faber's creative vision and how it enriched the core concepts of Bionicle, we've seen nothing to suggest that the Bionicle G2 concept artists put any less effort into their work than Christian Faber and his colleagues put into these samples. You seem to want to agree on this, and yet you don't seem to realize that your earlier comment said exactly the opposite.

 

People can argue about the effectiveness of any creative work all day and all night, but it's when people start insinuating that a lack of effectiveness means creators didn't make enough of an effort that I get particularly bothered. And this is not me putting words into your mouth: you're the one who turned a discussion of an amazing video by a G1 concept artist into an indictment of his successors' efforts.

 

Go back and re-read my initial post, I didn't make a single comment whatsoever about the concept art or "how much more work went into G1 than G2". I have continually hammered in my point that it's not that the teams of one worked harder than the other, but that they didn't truly understand the concept of Bionicle.

 

I'm not sure if you even reading the same posts I wrote, because I never even mentioned the video either. I have consistently given a qualified argument about how one can put a lot of work and effort into something, and still not have the understanding to make a full hearted product.

 

My main point, the first thing I posted about here was that we can't judge a product based on the concept art we've seen of it or what what we never got for the theme. A story should be successful enough to tell the story it wants in the medium and time it has. That was all I said.

 

Again, it feels like you're putting words in my mouth and drawing conclusions based on things I've never said or even implied. I agree that they probably put a lot of work into the theme, and when going back and re-reading all of my posts there is nothing I ever said to imply the opposite.

 

My apologies. I finally figured out what happened: I mistook Wazdakka's original post (the one that started this whole mess of a thread) with one of yours. He's the one who asserted that there was a lack of effort, not you — you just joined in partway through without me realizing that you were a newcomer to the conversation. It was complicated for me to keep track of who was who because up until around 6:00 yesterday evening I was browsing on my phone, which made it harder to scroll through previous posts as I was replying. Still, the fault for this confusion, and my subsequent misplaced frustration, is entirely on me. Please disregard my previous replies to you, and I hope you can forgive me for getting mixed up in this way.

 

Your exact words were "Sadly, this video also goes to show how much more effort went into the original Bionicle than the half-hearted reboot." That's what I was replying to. YOUR implication that there was a lack of effort. How can you sit there and accuse me of putting words in your mouth when all I'm doing is responding to the exact words of your post?

 

What I had meant by half-hearted was that there wasn't any real heart to G2. Not that their efforts were any less, but that it was lacking the spirit and understanding of what Bionicle is about. A reboot can be half-hearted even if the effort is not, because it's one thing to put work into something, but another to put the care and understanding into it necessary to make it feel alive and real. Again, that's not anything on the people working on it themselves. Yes, you took the words out of my post but without any real understanding of what they mean or what I'm trying to say.

 

You seem to be missing my point. I didn't take issue with you calling the reboot half-hearted, even though I disagree. Rather, I took issue with you saying that this video showed how much more effort went into G1 than G2. Those were your exact words: more effort. And frankly, even if there was more effort in G1 than G2, this video doesn't show it. What this video showed was a brilliant portfolio of G1 concept work, but we've seen just as much concept art per year of G2 as this video shows per year of G1.

While I have immense respect for Christian Faber's creative vision and how it enriched the core concepts of Bionicle, we've seen nothing to suggest that the Bionicle G2 concept artists put any less effort into their work than Christian Faber and his colleagues put into these samples. You seem to want to agree on this, and yet you don't seem to realize that your earlier comment said exactly the opposite.

People can argue about the effectiveness of any creative work all day and all night, but it's when people start insinuating that a lack of effectiveness means creators didn't make enough of an effort that I get particularly bothered. And this is not me putting words into your mouth: you're the one who turned a discussion of an amazing video by a G1 concept artist into an indictment of his successors' efforts.

???

 

I never said anything at all about the people who worked on G2 in that they didn't work hard on the theme or care about it. I never said anything about their talents, abilities, or suitability to work on the project. No offense, but it feels like you guys are putting words in my mouth as an excuse for why I or many others didn't like G2.

Your exact words were "Sadly, this video also goes to show how much more effort went into the original Bionicle than the half-hearted reboot." That's what I was replying to. YOUR implication that there was a lack of effort. How can you sit there and accuse me of putting words in your mouth when all I'm doing is responding to the exact words of your post?

Look at the Rakhshi, the Bohrok, the Piraka, the Barraki. None of these species'/villains were the same. They were and still are unlike anything I've ever seen before and are original and part of the spirit of what Bionicle was. What did G2 have? Skull spiders? Skull warriors? Beasts?

 

I mean seriously you cannot lie to me and tell me those don't sound silly. They're ridiculous, and unoriginal.

To me they just sound sensible, not silly. There's no need to make up a contrived-sounding word like "Skulverzahk" or whatever when you can just call things what they are. Mashing syllables together doesn't automatically make things sound more clever. Besides, to me, "Shadow Horde" sounds just as epic as a made-up word like "Rahkshi" ever could.

It's not that having a lexicon is always bad. It can be, in excess. But this type of alien jargon is certainly not a necessary part of creating a an epic and legendary story. I've never known ANY story that ended up alienating me or my friends and family by using real words, but I have witnessed firsthand how storytelling can stumble into alienating or cringeworthy territory by using fantasy names for everything, whether or not it enhanced the story.

But what peeves me is that suddenly I'm just assumed to be a blind and stupid hater because I'm honest. I don't hate the team, or think they're bad. In fact, if they were here in front of me right now, I'd be thanking the ###### out of them just for bringing back Bionicle, just for bringing that extra bit of hope for a moment and making an amazing moment where I felt happy to see a bit of my childhood come back, but that does not diminish the reality that they may have well destroyed the brand for what we know.

I don't think you're blind, stupid, or a hater. I do think you were quite careless with your words if you can blame Bionicle G2's faults on lack of effort, and then a day later claim you never said the people making it didn't try hard. I don't particularly care if you dislike Bionicle G2, but don't blame it on a lack of effort if you don't genuinely believe it was a lack of effort, and don't get mad at me for assuming what you said was what you meant.

It just honestly makes no sense to me to defend G2 for what it could've been because in the end it just wasn't what we got, no matter who's or what's fault it was.

You don't have to defend it. But it'd be nice if you and others stopped condemning it for lack of care or effort, when we've seen all kinds of evidence of the hard work people put into developing it. Even if you think the end product was a severe letdown, even if it might never have lived up to G1 in your eyes even if it had continued, can we at least agree that the people making it put forth a solid effort?

But given Bionicle's "special" condition, I don't think LEGO wants anything to do with the line. I mean seriously it felt like they were hesitant just to release the instructions for the Makuta build, let alone show anything else, which is why I joked that they were "burying" it all. Deep into the future LEGO might show us some things, though likely they'll bounce around until they hit eBay or something. I dunno. I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure what goes on with prototypes.

The apparent hesitation to share the Makuta instructions mostly seems to be because they didn't really exist at first. LEGO generally doesn't make instructions for models that aren't intended as sets, aside from select combi models or alt models. Makuta from The Journey to One was not intended for retail, so even the sort of "half-instructions" LEGO shared with BS01 are an extra step the designers seemingly took in response to fan demand, not something they'd done or planned to do but were for some reason withholding.

Sadly, this video also goes to show how much more effort went into the original Bionicle than the half-hearted reboot.

Not sure how you get that sense considering the abundance of G2 concept art we've been shown through the NYCC presentation, BrickFair New Jersey presentation, the Facebook page, designer videos, etc. Loads of effort was very clearly put into developing the design and feel of the G2 characters and world. Suggesting otherwise when we've seen so much of that concept and development art, and there's so much more we HAVEN'T seen, is an exercise in self-delusion.

Obviously I don't meant that to diminish the importance of the concept art here, particularly since the G2 creators had ten years of precedent to base their concepts on and the G1 creators had to create their concepts from the ground up. And truthfully, a lot of G2 concept and development art began with research into Bionicle's roots and how to reinvent those iconic concepts for a new generation.

And of course, it's worth remembering that while Faber did not play a leading role in developing Bionicle G2, he DID play a leading role in developing Hero Factory. And in his own words, "Having worked on both Bionicle and HF from the very beginning I can tell you that the work that went into creating the HF universe was much more deep than the early foundation of Bionicle." Just because Bionicle fans often fail to appreciate the LEGO Group's more recent themes doesn't mean any less work or effort went into developing them.

Well, my hope is that the people who stuck around might become more receptive to other LEGO themes. But that might not be all that realistic. We on the news team will continue to keep this place a reliable source for general LEGO news, but Bionicle's the only theme that's ever commanded consistent activity on the forums. Even without new Bionicle media or sets to discuss, I still think it'll remain the focus of this site's most active discussions and fan works.

Too bad I deleted my Netflix account after my free month expired... I guess I'll have to wait for the movie to come out then.

 

Anyway, I'd also like to symbolically buy one single Ninjago set. However, I can't afford the big sets you mentioned in your previous post in the topic and I'd like to buy some sort of impulse set instead. What would you recommend in this case? It'd be nice if it included both a hero and a villain or more than one Ninja (which would be even better but I doubt it's realistic) but that's not neccessary.

Hmmm… Tough call! Depends on what you consider "impulse". If you mean, like, $10 or less, there aren't a whole lot of options. Your best bet would be either an Airjitzu flier ($10 each, but they're a year old so you might be able to find them cheaper), or Cole's Dragon. If you're willing to push to a $20 price point, Anacondrai Crusher is nice, but it's a year and a half old so might be tough to find. Sky Shark is more current, and has a great steampunk look and nice play features.

But the set I'd most recommend to somebody who just wants a taste of Ninjago yet doesn't particularly care about the characters or story is definitely still the Master Wu Dragon. RRP is $40, but Target, Walmart, and Amazon currently all have it marked down to around $31 online and possibly even lower in brick-and-mortar stores (someone on the Brickset forums found it at a Walmart for $19 earlier this month). Not only is it a great model and a great parts pack, but it's designed by a BZPower member (Brickthing/Nicolaas Vás). Even at RRP, 575 parts including 5 figures is a steal. On clearance, it's even harder to turn down!

 

Sure, go for it! In my opinion there's never been a better time to be a Ninjago fan! The storyline has been going strong, and there have been some fantastic sets in the past couple years!

Well, personally, the story is one of the reasons why I find it difficult to get into Ninjago. I guess that's what the people who wanted to get into Bionicle around 2007-2008 must've felt...

 

It can definitely be a bit daunting, but fortunately it doesn't seem to be hurting Ninjago as much as it was hurting Bionicle by that point. It probably helps that Ninjago made a bigger splash from the start, and the Ninjago storyline, while still continuity driven, has been a lot more linear. It's followed more or less the same main characters since day one, and the main story is told in one consistent format in a mostly chronological sequence.

If you're interested in getting started on Ninjago for the first time, I'd recommend Netflix as a first option. You can watch the pilot and first three seasons — 36 episodes and 4 years of story — by getting a $8 monthly subscription ($10 for HD). If you have time to watch two episodes a day, one month should be more than enough time to get through everything there, and it should be enough to give you a sense of whether you want to follow the series any further.

Seasons 4 and 5 (the next 20 episodes, telling the 2015 story) will probably be added to Netflix sometime this fall, and are also on DVD for less than $15 apiece.

Alternatively, if you would rather start on the same page as everybody else, you could skip the current series and wait for The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which seems like it'll be an entirely new take on the universe and characters.

The only thing that bugs me about the licensed themes is how they seem to get top billing at times, like lego wants THAT to be the first thing kids see when they walk into the lego aisle, or at least retailers do. There is a section of the market of kids that are only interested in seeing lego's representation of existing characters and properties they already like, and don't care at all about Ninjago or City or Fiends or whatever. It might not be a big chunk of the market, but I do see it being catered to as a priority sometimes, and I'd be lying if I said that sort of marketing didn't bother me. I've always seen lego as "That company that takes you to amazing new places you never knew you wanted to go to and makes you imagine things," first and foremost, not "That company that makes things you already know about and already knew you wanted."

Well, I can't speak for stores everywhere, but this February upon entering my local Toys 'R' Us, you'd have been greeted first with a big LEGO Nexo Knights arch over the main aisle. Then, at the front of the LEGO department, which faces the entrance, you'd see giant panel displays advertising (from left to right) LEGO City, LEGO Nexo Knights, and LEGO Ninjago, with the corresponding sets shelved immediately beneath them. The center Nexo Knights panel even had a scannable Nexo Power. So I feel like in my area, at least, the LEGO in-house IPs get a fair shake.

 

That's definitely a concern I have. Of course, it's also possible that the LEGO Group just hasn't hit upon the specific combination of factors it would take to make constraction resonate with today's kids again. Or that the shifting interests of kids might wind their way back to being more receptive to constraction themes on their own. In the very least we know the LEGO Group is definitely committed to exploring what the future of constraction might hold moving forward. But who knows when, if ever, we might see another constraction theme become as big a hit as Bionicle was in the early naughts?

Maybe when/if System sales aren't performing well? Surely it isn't coincidence that the original Bionicle was a huge hit when almost every other Lego line was faltering, and now the new one has faltered whilst System lines are selling very well.

 

I wonder if - in the aftermath of The Lego Movie and in the midst of Ninjago and Elves, and the Star Wars, Jurassic World and superhero licenses - the new Bionicle just got a bit lost.

 

Maybe. In any case, I don't think it makes much sense to go about anticipating some point where the LEGO Group's crisis in the late 90s and early naughts repeats itself, considering that the reasons for that crisis are now well-understood and the LEGO Group has taken many steps to ensure they don't make those same mistakes again. Bionicle is actually one of the things that helped teach LEGO how NOT to make those same mistakes, and its development has been adapted into a roadmap they use when developing any new IP.

I just want to see some new themes that aren't licensed, and could be comparable to Bionicle. Nexo Knights and Elves are the first original properties they've released in a while.

I dunno, I think there have been quite a few new original properties in the past several years. 2013 had Legends of Chima and Galaxy Squad. 2014 had Ultra Agents and Mixels. 2015 had Bionicle and Elves. 2016 has Nexo Knights. So yes, this is an off year in terms of having only one new original IP… but that might be to make up for the fact that so many IPs (City, Ninjago, Friends, Elves, Mixels, and Bionicle) continued from previous years.

You might not consider all of these examples "comparable to Bionicle", of course, but all things considered the LEGO Group probably doesn't WANT all of their original IPs to be comparable to Bionicle — they want to differentiate their properties as much as possible so they cast as wide a net as possible.

Furthermore, licensed products only make up roughly a third of the LEGO Group's business, and that's been the case for over a decade. While LEGO may be acquiring a wider range of licenses than in the past, particularly considering things like Dimensions and Ideas allowing them to use licenses without building entire themes around them, they aren't making up a substantially larger part of the company's market share than in the past.

True, but I think this and the rest of your post sort of ties into my main point; that is, the actual quality of the marketed material. Method and quality shouldn't really be confused (which I'm probably not helping with since I don't know how to word this right).

 

Lines like Galidor and Hero Factory didn't fail because the marketing was lazy; I think they failed because the material being marketed just wasn't very good, and I think that applies to G2 as well. You can market a dog turd with as much money, effort, and tie-in promotions you want, but in the end, you're still working to promote a dog turd. Now, G2's actual product wasn't the turd; the toys are probably some of the best Lego's ever produced. The problem is that the toys were marketed as part of a storyline that wasn't very interesting. If you're a kid, would you rather have a toy that you really have zero investment in, or a toy that comes with your favorite superheroes/characters/whatever? From my own personal experience as a kid, I would've chosen even a poorly-made interesting toy over a well-made boring toy any day.

Fair enough. But then the issue becomes how to make material that resonates with audiences. I say "that resonates with audiences" because I'm not convinced there's some objective aspect of Bionicle G1's storytelling that made it "good" and less successful themes "not good". I'm sure there are a lot of fans of Bionicle G1 who might consider LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Friends no better than Hero Factory when it comes to storytelling, but they're some of the LEGO Group's most successful ongoing IPs.

Creating successful story material is certainly not just a matter of putting people with a track record for success at the helm. As I mentioned about Hero Factory, Christian Faber and his colleagues at Advance had considerable involvement in Hero Factory's creative direction, and Greg Farshtey wrote comics and chapter books for Hero Factory just as he had for Bionicle G1, but nevertheless, Hero Factory never achieved the same heights that Bionicle G1 had. And the Galidor TV series was helmed by Hollywood producer Tom Lynch, who the New York Times had praised as "The David E. Kelley of tween TV" for his streak of successful shows for 8–14-year-olds (he's still creating shows for Nickelodeon to this day). By contrast, the LEGO Ninjago TV special in 2011 was literally the first thing Dan and Kevin Hageman wrote that actually got produced: LEGO actually only offered them the gig after they were pulled off the writing team for The LEGO Movie so Phil Lord and Chris Miller could take over from them. I can't tell you how many people I've heard say "Bionicle can be great if they just hire *insert famous and successful person here* to write it!" but even if you do get a big-name writer on board, that's no guarantee that it'll take off.

So back to the main question of the topic, sure, Bionicle could become a successful brand/IP once more with the right combination of factors. But that doesn't make it any easier to identify what those factors are, or how many are factors the creators of new Bionicle sets and media can control versus more capricious factors like what today's kids are interested in. The LEGO Group's successful IPs certainly don't become such purely by chance, but all the best writing and marketing in the world can't change the cultural landscape back to what it was in 2001.

Aanchir, you state that Hero Factory got solid marketing, but despite that, the line's success declined, if fairly slowly, and that from this experience, Lego decided that lots of marketing isn't a good idea, and so launched the Bionicle reboot with very little...and now that line's declined to the point of being cancelled after less than two years.

 

In light of this I ask - is the success of constraction bound to decline with and without marketing? Does constraction have much of a future if so?

That's definitely a concern I have. Of course, it's also possible that the LEGO Group just hasn't hit upon the specific combination of factors it would take to make constraction resonate with today's kids again. Or that the shifting interests of kids might wind their way back to being more receptive to constraction themes on their own. In the very least we know the LEGO Group is definitely committed to exploring what the future of constraction might hold moving forward. But who knows when, if ever, we might see another constraction theme become as big a hit as Bionicle was in the early naughts? The failure of recent constraction themes to really be sustainable in the long term is definitely troubling for me as a fan of those themes.

Remember, the LEGO Group's interest isn't in bringing back Bionicle specifically. There are definitely people at LEGO who would like Bionicle to get another chance one day, same as with other discontinued themes like Legends of Chima or Classic Space. But what initiatives they focus on in the future will be grounded on which seem the most promising at the time, not which ideas of the past "deserve" a second chance. If constraction gets its next big break through spin-offs of System IPs, that's not necessarily a bad thing as far as the LEGO Group is concerned, though I'm sure they'd like to make sure some of their own IPs like Ninjago and Nexo Knights are a part of that equation instead of just licensed ones like Star Wars.

Bionicle could definitely survive as a brand if Lego knew/cared what they were doing. G1 started out so strongly because Lego was failing pretty badly at the time, and it was a last-ditch effort to keep the company going. They threw everything they could into it, with massive multi-media marketing we haven't seen before or since. And considering the fact that we're still here talking about it 15 years later, I'd say it worked.

I think a level to this that a lot of people neglect is that Bionicle G1 isn't the only huge new initiative that LEGO invested heavily in around that time. LEGO was pushing and heavily promoting new innovations left and right in the late 90s and early naughts. Bionicle G1 is, however, the only successful new initiative they invested heavily in at that time.

Let's not forget that they followed up Bionicle G1's launch with Galidor, which remains pretty much the biggest failure they've ever had. Galidor wasn't at all lacking for "massive multi-media marketing" — it got a LEGO Club Magazine comic that was intended to be the start of an ongoing series, a 20-episode TV series, a month-long McDonalds promotion including toys and a mini-comic, an extremely detailed website full of mystery and world-building, an online adventure RPG, and a video game on several platforms. Galidor is what happens when LEGO attempts a marketing campaign like they had for Bionicle G1 without first taking steps to ensure that there's a big enough and receptive enough potential audience to justify that kind of campaign in the first place.

Since then, the LEGO Group has been more cautious with their new innovations and look long and hard at what precedent can tell them about any new initiative's potential. LEGO Ninjago, for instance, started with a 44-minute TV special, not a full TV series, and probably wouldn't have gotten even that if its predecessor LEGO Atlantis hadn't done well with a 22-minute TV special, which it might not have gotten if Power Miners hadn't done well with a shorter 3-minute mini-movie, etc. Also, rather than rushing LEGO Ninjago to market ASAP, its launch was actually postponed a year so the creators could manage to get everything just right. There was extensive kid testing to make sure it really had the makings of a hit and wasn't just something "conventional wisdom" said would be a hit. And all that diligence paid off, with it achieving better single-year sales than any theme before it. The LEGO Group waited two years before launching another "big bang" theme like it, Legends of Chima, with a marketing profile further bolstered by Ninjago's monumental success.

"But why didn't LEGO follow the same procedures in developing Bionicle G2 as they did with Ninjago?" some might ask. Well, in many respects, I imagine they did. But Bionicle G2 didn't come about at a time when its product category was seeing one success after another with both sets and marketing. It came about after Bionicle G1 had experienced a long decline and its intended replacement, Hero Factory, had declined even further. It would've been foolhardy to market it the same exact way Bionicle had been marketed in 2001 or even the way Hero Factory had been marketed in 2010. Rather, its marketing had to be informed by the most recent precedent for what resonated with today's kids and what didn't.

Quoting from a post I made about Hero Factory on Eurobricks last week…

…for its first wave in 2010 — which was not even a full year of sets — it got four twelve-page comics (drawn by the same artist as the first Bionicle comics, no less), 15 sets with 31 new parts, at least two online games, a twelve-episode "Hero Factory FM" podcast, and a four-episode TV series. That's 88 minutes of animation, longer than ANY of the Bionicle movies, and twice the length of the 2011 LEGO Ninjago TV special! They even set up a call center to take live phone calls from Hero Factory fans, some of which they then featured in the podcast.

 

It's true that there were no books for Hero Factory in its first two years (in the United States, at least — I think Poland may have had a couple), but the same could be said for G1 Bionicle. Hero Factory got a pretty substantial promotional campaign prior to its launch, including a detailed teaser site and a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. And Hero Factory was supported with contributions from some of the same people and agencies who made Bionicle G1 what it was: artists like Christian Faber, writers like Greg Farshtey and designers like Christoffer Raundahl.

 

LEGO clearly invested a huge amount in Hero Factory. And that huge investment was apparently not rewarded the way they hoped it would be. I guarantee you it was no accident that Hero Factory's marketing profile and number of sets per wave got smaller in year two (and each year after that), instead of bigger as happened with Bionicle G1, LEGO Ninjago, or LEGO Friends. 88 minutes of TV episodes in 2010 to 66 minutes in 2011 to 44 minutes in 2012 to 22 minutes in 2013. Four comic issues written and drawn in 2010 to three in 2011 to two in 2012 (some of which didn't even see hard-copy publication). Fifteen sets per wave in 2010 to eleven per wave in 2011 to nine per wave in 2012 to seven and a half per wave in 2013 and 2014. This is not a theme that LEGO never invested sufficiently in — it's a theme that, in spite of a huge upfront investment, never performed well enough to justify the same investment each year as the year prior.

 

Honestly, I often hear people say things about how G2 Bionicle should have been handled — more people from the original Bionicle team, a broadcast TV series starting in year one, detailed character bios and backstories, a series of free comics in the LEGO Club Magazine, more story-driven online games, less marketing targeted toward adult nostalgia, impulse-priced sets for the main protagonists, etc. — and all I can think is "Hero Factory. You literally just described Hero Factory." But it didn't work the way LEGO hoped back then, so is it any surprise that LEGO was in no hurry to promote Bionicle G2 using the exact same strategies? Is it any surprise they decided to go back to the drawing board and approach the Bionicle reboot from a decidedly different direction? As much as some people would like to believe Bionicle G2 failed due to being "Hero Factory by a different name", many people's best suggestions for what Bionicle G2 should have done differently are the exact same strategies that Hero Factory used in the first place!

 

Wait... They actually got Jackie Chan to voice one of the characters in this movie? And I thought getting Morgan Freeman to voice Vitruvius in the LEGO Movie was impressive.

 

If anything, getting big-name actors for this and future Lego movies is probably easier than it was for The Lego Movie, now that Lego is a proven brand in Hollywood. Before The Lego Movie's success, a lot of high-profile actors would probably be apprehensive of doing a movie based on a toy, especially one like Lego that didn't originally come with any sort of story. But after The Lego Movie released to massive audience and critical appeal, actors who might otherwise be concerned about a Lego movie being a shameless cash-in or box-office poison will likely have a little more confidence in what the role has to offer.

 

Besides that, it's important to remember that Jackie Chan appears in a lot of movies. He's appeared in over 100 different movies over the course of his career, and in the past decade he's taken on a fair number of voice roles, perhaps in part due to his age — it's tough for him to take on as many live-action, stunt-heavy action roles as he was once known for.

I always thought that the MoUP just made G2 Makuta really really strong, and that the evilness came from within.

The specific line from the video "The Legend" is "When Makuta put it on, it took control over him". And in the graphic novel Battle of the Mask Makers, when Makuta first puts on the Mask of Ultimate Power, he proclaims that he will use it to help the people of Okoto: "New land will rise from the surrounding waters! New forests will provide more food! New cities will be cleaner and safer! Never will an islander want for anything! And I will control it… I will control… I will control… I WILL CONTROL… EVERYTHING!" It's at that point that Ekimu arrives and knocks the mask from him with his Hammer of Power. Judging from that sequence, Makuta's intentions when he put on the mask were very different than when it was finally knocked from him.

As for G2 Makuta, I see less megalomania and more someone who thinks - and may possibly be right - that they can run things more efficiently. The GSR is really just a machine, internal islands and sentient nanomachines notwithstanding. I think the Barraki were the "evil for evil's sake" baddies who promptly failed. Makuta Teridax was happy to do his thing while keep his ideas and malcontent to himself until the league gave him the idea that maybe taking over the GSR was actually possible. The way his backup plans had backup plans did get a tad tedious in later years, but overall I think he's less of the mustache twirling dastardly villain who wants a million dollars, and more of a cold and calculating individual who genuinely thinks he'd be better at running things, but keeps up the whole bond-villain act to convince his henchmen to follow him (well, when convincing was needed).

In the arcs where the villains were minions of Makuta, like Rahkshi or the infected Rahi, his grandiose evil-villain monologues probably served to intimidate his foes (though obviously the guy has an ego), while in the case of, say, the Barraki or Sidorak, he needed to illicit the "wow, this guy is really evil! let's follow him!" effect. 

I mean, sure, this isn't exactly conveyed by the canon, but so rarely do we get a first person glimpse of what goes on in Teridax's head that it might as well be true. It really is up for interpretation.

We did get a thorough first-person glimpse into Teridax's head, though, in Makuta's Guide to the Universe. And in that, it's made clear that his actions are evil and without remorse. Thinking he could run the universe more efficiently is one thing, but the things Makuta did were more than just a facade to look tough and scary to his followers. He genuinely did not care for the lives of anyone but himself, and delights in crushing anyone from his most loyal followers to those who he perceives even the slightest disrespect from. And frankly, nothing ever so much as implies that he did once have a heart — rather than being a good person who turned evil, he was an evil person who just happened to work with the good guys for the several thousand years it took him to realize that there was an alternative. This is reinforced when we encounter The Melding alternate universe's version of Makuta, who despite ostensibly still serving the forces of good is just as ruthless, spiteful, and uncaring as the main universe's counterpart. When the only thing it takes to put together a scheme to take over the universe is realizing that you can get away with it, nobody can claim you were ever anything but a self-absorbed monster. You were compliant once, maybe, but never good.

Now, in the early years, there was indeed some evidence that Makuta might have had some deeper motivations than just run-of-the-mill megalomania (including the style guide that got posted here on BZPower a few years ago). But by the end it's clear that any plans to give Makuta any kind of moral complexity had been abandoned — his only reason for turning to evil was realizing he could get away with it at no cost to himself. And no, his evil was not purely in service of the "goal" of running the universe. In the last pages of Makuta's Guide to the Universe, he plainly considers all his goals achieved. And yet, does he boast of how perfect and benevolent his new reign will be? Of course not. Rather, he gloats that he has "an infinity of years with which to torment Tahu, Jaller, and all the rest," that the Toa would be "reduced to huddling in fearful anticipation of when I would end their pitiful existences, and that "I have nothing more to fear from Mata Nui. But this universe and its people have everything to fear from me." That's not evil in the service of a goal. That's evil for evil's sake, taken to utterly cartoonish extremes.

While I generally defend G2 ferociously, I must admit the handling of Makuta is one thing I'm not too fond of. He was devolved into the greatest stereotype human society has ever spawned, while in G1 he was a villain from the get-go pretty much. An opportunistic tactical genius who saw a change to impose his order on the world. In G2 he was like "My masks aren't as good as my brother's? Well screw everyone then!".

I disagree. From what I've seen, Makuta in G2 didn't turn evil due to jealousy alone. Rather, his desire to prove himself equal to or better than his brother made him bitter and reckless, leading him to take a huge risk in creating the Mask of Ultimate Power. It was that mask's corrupting influence that turned him from jealous rival to ruthless megalomaniac.

Conversely, Makuta in G1 was eventually revealed to not actually not even be remotely related to Mata Nui except as a high-ranking, much less powerful follower, revealing his jealousy of the Matoran's praise of Mata Nui as nothing but delusions of grandeur. He somehow (it's never sufficiently explained how or why) convinced himself he was more important and more brilliant than the universe itself. He risked destroying the universe time and time again in the name of taking control of it, and yet the only justification ever provided for these insane schemes was "I think it'll work, so why not?". This made him utterly unsympathetic, and yet the story proceeded to unfailingly prove him right by repeatedly giving him the upper hand, not because of any major failings or mistakes on the part of the "good guys", but rather because he was Just That Good At Scheming.

There were definitely some interesting things about Makuta in G1 — like the cult of personality that his naive followers built around him, and his tendency to toy with heroes like Vakama, Takanuva, and Matoro, and of course the hints dropped early on and abandoned later that he might be more than just evil for evil's sake… but by the end, he was just presented as an obnoxiously hypercompetent evil overlord with no meaningful weaknesses, few compelling motivations, and not a shred of moral ambiguity.

Wait, didn't Bionicles technically not have hands at all?

I thought they magnetically grabbed onto items or something. Which logically of course doesn't work very well if you're grabbing something non-magnetic, but I thought that was an explanation.

 

I think you can even see that in effect when Takua grabs his Koli stick in Onu-Wahi in Mask of Light.

The lack of hands or fingers was never a strict rule, though. Besides the Toa Mata's non-weapon hands generally having fingers, and Onua's claws of course having discrete fingers of their own, the 2001–2002 Matoran had obvious molded hands with three-fingered right hands and more mitten-like left hands. The magnetism aspect was basically a hand-wave (no pun intended) to explain things like how Tahu could hold his fire sword in his right hand when only his left hand had fingers, or how any of the Toa Nuva or 2003 Matoran could hold things.

But then when Bionicle: Mask of Light came out, the characters were given hands with discrete fingers anyway to make it less awkward when characters waved, pointed, gave each other fist bumps, or used other gestures that normally involve specific hand movements. Magnetism may be able to explain how fingerless characters hold things (and, as you mention, was given a nod in the movie when Takua was in Onu-Koro), but a lack of fingers still greatly limits the characters' ability to use many familiar forms of body language.

Which brings us to a very sad trend that has seemingly manifested itself - Bionicle is iconic, original and interesting, yet got minimal marketing - the result? - it was a huge unsuccess. Ninjago is uniconic, unoriginal and boring, yet it got absolutely huge marketing - the result? - it is a huge success. I mean this trend, if indeed true and not affected by other, possibly unseen factors, seems to indicate that you could make a potato a bestseller if you gave it enough marketing (LOL, just imagine a line called LEGO Potatoes   ).

I disagree on this for a number of factors. First of all, most Ninjago fans would disagree with you about Ninjago not being iconic, original, or interesting, and with how many Ninjago fans there are I think their opinions on this matter have to be taken into account on some level. It's kind of sketchy to act as though Ninjago fans are just slaves to marketing without any genuinely good taste in toys or storytelling, particularly since there are probably plenty of AFOLs who thought exactly the same thing about Bionicle fans ten years ago. The LEGO Group didn't become as successful as they are by assuming that kids are stupid and have to be told what to enjoy.

Second, we've seen LEGO invest heavily in marketing when launching new themes like Hero Factory and Legends of Chima, yet neither of them took off the way Ninjago did (let's not forget, Ninjago launched with a mere 44-minute TV special; whereas Hero Factory launched with an 88-minute miniseries and Chima launched with a full 20-episode TV season). Furthermore, last year we also saw LEGO Elves launch with scarcely any more marketing than Bionicle got, and yet it seems to have had considerably more success, with more sets and media in its second year than in its first. Clearly, that sort of heavy marketing investment isn't any kind of silver bullet. You can't turn a concept that doesn't resonate with kids into a timeless success just by spending more and more money on marketing, whereas a concept that DOES resonate with kids will often be able to prove itself even with a much less extensive marketing campaign than proven themes.

The first idea (CCBS Exo-Force) worries me.  I don't really think CCBS even could be used to make mechs without it looking bad.  If anyone can prove me wrong here, please do, this is one of few situations where I would enjoy being wrong.

Well, here's one counterpoint:

Battle Mecha Breeze - Mass production unit by John Ho, on Flickr

John is one of the designers who worked on Bionicle G2, and I think this is a good example of a nice-looking mech build that might work even at a low, $15 to $20 price point.

This one is not bad either, and would probably hit more of a $30 or $35 price point:

Breez XL Machine by Living Legend, on Flickr

On the whole, I don't think even the actual Invasion from Below mechs were bad-looking — they just had more of an industrial look than many of the Exo-Force mechs, a little closer to things like the Aliens Power Loader than more streamlined Gundam-esque look of many Exo Force mechs (given the other Aliens parallels that year, this was probably intentional). In my opinion, Furno Jet Machine, Evo XL Machine, and Breez Flea Machine were some of the standouts from the Invasion from Below series, but considering the advancements to constraction that have taken place since then, a future CCBS mecha theme could be even better.

I'd say Lewa and Uxar are the best Toa and Creature pair. Uxar has great colors, a great build, great articulation, a great function, and a nice Shadow Trap design. Lewa has nice proportions and weapons that suit his personality, a good color scheme, an awesome mask, and creative builds for his arms and legs. Together their design is very strong, maintaining the usefulness of Uxar's core function, strengthening Lewa's similarity to his previous form, and generally looking really coherent. I had great fun photographing these two for my New Elementary review!

Storm Beast is the best beast, in my opinion. It's got a creative and unprecedented function, a strikingly dynamic color scheme, a suitably monstrous physique that helps convey it is neither person nor animal, and great articulation — love the design of its claws! By comparison, Quake Beast's build strikes me as cluttered and inconsistent (its beefy, crystalline right arm and shoulder are interrupted by spindly joints, and the gearbox sticks out obtrusively), while Lava Beast is stylish and coherent but not quite so exciting in terms of functions.

I'd say Umarak the Hunter and Umarak the Destroyer are about equal as titans. Umarak the Hunter has a more interesting color scheme with great contrast, but Umarak the Destroyer has a more interesting build. They bear a striking similarity to one another that really conveys that they are different forms of the same character, but also substantial differences to make it clear that one is a cunning villain and the other a monstrous brute corrupted by power. Sort of like the contrast between Ganondorf and Ganon in The Legend of Zelda series.

This is sort of a duplicate of this topic ("constraction" is the LEGO Group's term for their buildable action figure themes like Bionicle).

Anyway, in the immediate future, I anticipate LEGO focusing more on spin-offs of other popular themes they have, like the existing LEGO Star Wars buildable figures or possibly buildable figures for some of their other successful IPs like Ninjago or Nexo Knights. Nexo Knights in particular seems like it'd translate fairly well to constraction, since each of the main characters has full armor, a striking color scheme, and a signature weapon. Even as minifigures their physiques are somewhat varied (here's looking at you, Axl), so giving them builds that stand out from one another would not be too difficult, either.

It might be a year or two before we see another fully independent constraction theme like Bionicle or Hero Factory, both because new themes generally take at least two years to develop and because LEGO would probably want to spend some time figuring out how to avoid the same pitfalls Bionicle G2 encountered.

I do not anticipate LEGO attempting to reboot an earlier constraction theme like Slizer/Throwbots, Galidor, or Hero Factory. Bionicle was a big enough phenomenon to give LEGO the confidence that it might fare better than an entirely new concept tailored to today's kids. Those other themes never became a hit on anywhere near the same level, and thus LEGO would probably be much more comfortable creating something entirely new than rebooting something that only ever experienced middle-of-the-road success (or in Galidor's case, outright failure).