Aanchir

This is the whole reason why there has to be "hope" in the first place. You are all literally ignoring the facts and trying to remain hopeful. But we learned in the Inika saga, that hope is fragile.

Kinda ironic since I remember that when Bionicle G1 was discontinued and it was well understood that it wouldn't be back for a while, many running "bring back Bionicle" petitions would obnoxiously quote the Axonn line from the Inika saga about how lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. So I guess when Bionicle is still running, the lesson of the Inika saga is that hope is fragile and it's better to be a Debbie Downer, and when it's gone, the lesson is that anything is possible and hope should be maintained at all costs?

All I can tell anyone who has hope for bionicle, get your hands on as many sets as you can, before they all disappear forever. It angers me constantly that Lego didn't really even try for the new bionicles like they did on the originals.

I've MET a lot of the people who have been involved with the new Bionicle, on numerous occasions. I've heard directly from them how much effort they've put into making the new Bionicle the best it could be. If the new Bionicle doesn't appeal to you, I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's something you'll just have to come to terms with. Playing the blame game and insisting people you know nothing about "didn't even try" just because the many ways they DID try don't interest or appeal to you is both insulting and profoundly ignorant.

Any other bionicle fan who DOESN'T use Bzpower will tell you the exact same thing, and look at the comments on their photos on the bionicle FB page, you will see many people like me who are just as upset about what has happened, and what is happening.

I've seen plenty of comments on the official LEGO Bionicle Facebook page that have been very positive about how the new reboot's been doing.

That said, I agree that the "Bionicle is like oil" comparison is fairly weak, because it's a product and not a commodity, and also because frankly the oil business is still one of the world's biggest industries so "shrinking", in its case, isn't the same as with something that has already fallen into relative obscurity compared to other themes like City, Friends, and Ninjago. Whether or not Bionicle is still popular enough to be sustainable, there's no denying it's not the monumental craze it was in 2002, and that other themes that resonate better with new generations of kids have surpassed it.

Furthermore, Bionicle's fate is already being debated at length in other topics. Creating a new topic about it, no matter what the first post's perspective might be, isn't going to put the arguing to rest; it'll just put more fuel on the fire. And frankly, I'm tired of discussing this. Bionicle G2 will end when it ends. There's nothing to be gained by predicting when it will end or how close it is to ending — whether you have a positive attitude about its future or a negative attitude, you don't win any kind of special points or prestige for being right, and when it finally reaches its end it won't matter who saw it coming first.

Instead of endlessly quibbling over how much Bionicle G2 we have to look forward to, better to just keep enjoying whatever we enjoy about it while it's here — and if you don't enjoy anything about it, then go back to doing whatever you DO enjoy as a Bionicle fan, or even just start spending more of your time on other interests, because nobody gains anything from you getting personally invested in the status of something that doesn't even interest you.

My brother and I got Muaka and Kane-Ra at BrickFest in 2006. That's the only time I can think of I've picked up a long-retired Bionicle set that I missed out on the first time, though. Since I had two siblings, between the three of us we usually had a pretty complete collection, and if any of us skipped certain sets it was usually for a reason.

Keep smiling y'all, bionicle is being retired.

 

Bionicle wave 2 at my Lego store was there for a day, before being shipped back. All of the villians and Ekimu. Shipped BACK.

 

Not trying to be mean, but everyone needs to understand why the line is not doing well. Quit trying to put on the mask of positivity, because that will not save bionicle now. Think about the rest of the world, beyond this community.

I don't know anything about LEGO stores shipping sets back after one day, that sounds kinda fishy and it makes me wonder if you have all your information correct. But it's true, LEGO Brand Retail stores will not be stocking the summer Bionicle sets (in fact, I'm surprised yours got them in the first place). From what I've heard on the Brickset Forums, they will not be stocking 76056 Rescue from Ra's Al Ghul from LEGO Super Heroes or some of the summer LEGO Friends sets, either. All these sets will still be available from LEGO.com, but not from LEGO stores. And it doesn't have anything to do with any of those themes being retired.

What do these sets have in common? They are store-exclusive sets. Now, you obviously don't know this, and they don't talk about it much, but LEGO Brand Retail has a… testy relationship with other retailers. The reason for this is obvious: LEGO Brand Retail is owned by LEGO, but it competes with other retailers like Target and Toys 'R' Us that depend on LEGO and vice-versa.

This is a big part of why the LEGO VIP program exists — it's difficult for LEGO to offer markdowns on new LEGO products online or in stores because undercutting other retailers' prices would compromise their relationship with those retailers. However, LEGO wants to give buyers an incentive to shop at LEGO Brand Retail without offering the same markdowns as other retailers do. The solution? Give members of a special program "points" for their purchases which they can later "redeem" for markdowns. That way buyers have an incentive to shop at LEGO Brand Retail even though their hands are tied when it comes to the prices marked on the shelves.

What seems to have happened here is that some store (probably Toys 'R' Us) got upset that LEGO Brand Retail stores are selling sets that they agreed were supposed to be exclusive to Toys 'R' Us, and it reached the point where LEGO was afraid of Toys 'R' Us becoming less cooperative on that and other agreements that both companies benefit from. So LEGO decided to change LEGO Brand Retail's policy on store exclusive sets and no longer stock things that are intended to be exclusive to other retailers. And the new policy just happened to take place partway through this year.

We'll probably never know the exact terms of the new policy, because I'm sure that's the sort of thing both companies would like to keep confidential. But this seems a lot more plausible than "any sets LEGO Brand Retail is open about no longer stocking are lines that are about to be cancelled", because while there's no telling how long Bionicle G2 will last in the long run, LEGO Friends is a gold mine for LEGO and they wouldn't dream of cancelling it when it's still one of their top five themes and has been for years now.

And I don't know what you mean about a "mask of positivity" (as cool a mask power as that would be). If somebody is optimistic about Bionicle's future then that's their business and nobody else's. I have no expectations that this generation of Bionicle will (or should) last ten years. I still think Bionicle MIGHT last past next year — however, I know it's not inevitable. If Bionicle G2 ends after 2017 that'd be kind of sad, for sure, much like when it seemed like Ninjago was only getting two and a half years. But it wouldn't be the end of the world, and I see no point bemoaning things outside our control or throwing around blame for why it couldn't last longer (the sort of negativity that made this community so unpleasant for me the LAST time that Bionicle ended) when it's more fun to just enjoy this generation of Bionicle while it lasts. No matter how long G2 continues, I'm happy that Bionicle got a second chance and that once more, I was able to experience it from the beginning.

Oh yeah, I'm not denying G2 has plenty of colors. For me, it's more a matter of distinction.

 

With the early years, you could easily grab any of 72 masks and make a character. Nowadays, (and 2004 onward in the original run as you mentioned) it's just Pohatu's mask or Umarak's mask or whatever. The room for really distinct MOCs is gone, at least in terms of masks.

 

As for your question, I'd be fine with just putting more masks in sets, but random blind bags would be really cool. Maybe 3 or 4 dollars for a single mask?

3 or 4 dollars for a single masks sounds pretty excessive! It's true that LEGO prices are pretty much always increasing at least somewhat due to inflation, but a mask pack in 2001 was $2 for two masks and a head, eyestalk, and axle to use with them, and $2 in 2001 dollars is still less than $3 in today's money.

But 3 or 4 dollars for a single PACK is not nearly so unreasonable — you'd just have to include more per pack than just one mask. Thinking of random mask packs as $4 sets like the Collectible Minifigures is probably the most realistic thing, since LEGO has few other sets that contain randomized contents or cost less than $5. $4 could potentially be a high enough cost to include two or three masks plus some other more generic pieces. Like, say, enough to build a head, or maybe a Skull Spider or similarly simple creature so the set has some play value on its own instead of being just a lifeless accessory for the larger sets. That's one of the big issues I see mask packs facing — the CMF craze is fueled in part by the sense that a collectible minifigure is, on some level, a complete toy rather than just an accessory, whereas a mask is just a mask. Not an insurmountable obstacle but definitely one to bear in mind.

There's also something of a stigma against blind-packaged products in general, especially those with a "collect them all" message attached, which might be good to address. While the expectation is generally for kids to trade the things they don't want with friends who have what they DO want, it's still frustrating for people to feel like they're paying for something they might not need. Some early Bionicle collectibles (especially the Kraata) were also a bit insane in terms of what it meant to "collect them all", which could discourage many kids from even trying. Even if you were lucky enough to have friends to trade with so duplicates wouldn't just be money wasted, the cost of a full set of Kraata was $.67 cents per Kraata (since Kraata packs were $2 and Kraata were 3 to a pack) times 36 color combinations times 6 shapes/power levels, or 144 dollars… plus, the Rahkshi had their OWN Kraata color combinations that were only in those sets, so you either had to buy six of each Rahkshi or hope your friends would trade one of their Rahkshi Kraata for your considerably less expensive Kraata pack Kraata.

Of course, Krana and Kraata had a considerable disadvantage to masks in general since the variations didn't tend to have a big impact on the look of a model. "Usefulness" can play a big role in separating purchases that are significant on their own from ones that only matter in the context of reaching a complete collection. That's part of why trading card games (where the cards all DO something besides just letting you check them off your wanted list) tend to be more popular nowadays than trading cards without any kind of game attached. Masks, just by virtue of their cosmetic significance when building, already have an advantage in purpose over slugs or brains that are mostly identical and tend to be hidden away inside most models that use them.

One thing I thought a bit about in 2014 was the possibility of $5 non-randomized product collections like the Mixels, with creatures or villagers wearing differently-colored masks. The Mixels theme generally includes three waves of 9 sets per year, or 27 sets. Assuming one mask each that would go a long way towards offering more mask color variety, and having them as buildable, non-blind-packaged figures could help fight the "not a complete toy" stigma as well as the "forcing people to buy more and more packs just to get what they want" stigma, since people could get the sets for the sake of the set itself rather than just for the sake of a collection. But unfortunately the general size of constraction parts compared to System parts might make this a challenge. Most "small sets" in G1 used mostly cloned designs, as opposed to the Mixels which sell largely by virtue of the uniqueness they offer at a low price point. It'd be tricky to create even nine visually distinct constraction figures at such a restrictive price point, let alone 81! And how many would a typical buyer even be willing to buy if masks, simple weapons, and colors were pretty much the only things setting them apart, as with the old-school small sets? It's a puzzle for sure.

Sorry for rambling again. I know this is kinda off-topic (I already generally like G2, so my musings probably aren't what the OP is seeking), but it's something I've given a lot of thought to.

As far as "darkness" in the story is concerned, I agree with some of the commenters who feel G1 was not as dark or mature as many people make it out to be. There was some gratuitous violence in the serials and some cringeworthy one-liners from cartoonishly evil villains in the books and serials (like Mantax's classic "I have no friends. Just enemies I haven't killed yet"), but the visual media generally avoided showing characters suffer graphic or violent deaths and injuries, and even the few times the bad guys won, the overall message was that the good guys would keep fighting on until they prevailed. That's not to say that there was no darkness at all, just that it's often overstated (and that the examples often given tend to include many of the story's weaker moments).

Furthermore, if G1 is the threshold we consider "dark", then the G2 story easily qualifies in its own right. The post-apocalyptic overtones of G2 are presented with a lot less subtlety than they were in the early years of G1, when Mata Nui felt more like a paradise with occasional crises than the desperate remains of a great civilization fallen into ruin, with the capital city as a ruined ghost town where evil now lurks. All six Toa have been stripped of their powers, some of them twice (and that includes their masks being literally shattered, something that hardly ever happened in G1, and certainly not during a climactic battle). And the villains in the second half of 2015 were literally presented as the undead, a concept that was pretty much never broached in G1! In 2016, we've now seen an ancient evil corrupted by power beyond his control into a personification of chaos and destruction, and the aftermath of that looks like it will cause tremendous damage to the very fabric of the island. Overall, the G2 story isn't constantly dark (which is good because frankly a story that's all darkness with no brightness or humor is generally no fun) but it certainly hasn't been all rainbows and sunshine.

* Masks in different colors. I really loved the collection aspect of the early years, and it opened up a lot of MOC potential.

I don't have a problem with this idea, but I have found it interesting that overall, we've gotten a LOT more color variety for masks in 2015 and 2016 than any year from 2004 onward.

I mean, think about it — most new masks from 2004 or later only appeared in one color. Of the 50 Kanohi molds introduced from 2004 onward, only nine of them (great Ruru, Kiril/Pehkui, mutated Huna, Kualsi, 2006 Ignika, Hydraxon faceplate, 2008 Ignika, Faxon, great and noble Shelek, and Crast) came in more than one color or color combination. If you count non-Kanohi mask/helmet molds as well, that adds 22 more, only six of which (Hydraxon mask, Berix mask, Gresh mask, Crotesius mask, Perditus mask, Sahmad mask) ever got a recolor.

In fact, if you want to look at G1 Bionicle as a whole, we got 72 Kanohi shapes and 22 non-Kanohi mask and helmet shapes. Additionally, there were 232 discrete Kanohi (not counting misprints, precious metal contest prizes, or same-color variants) and 28 discrete non-Kanohi masks and helmets. On average, there were 9.4 mask shapes per year and 2.76 colors per shape.

Conversely, in G2 so far, we've gotten 21 mask shapes and 59 discrete masks (excluding precious metal contest prizes). The new version of the Mask of Control worn by Umarak the Destroyer is the only mask that hasn't been available in more than one color. This means that on average, we've had 10.5 mask shapes per year and 2.81 colors per shape. You read that right — G2, on average, has had more mask shapes per year on average AND more colors per shape on average than G1! For the record I chose to exclude misprints, same-color variants, and precious metal contest prizes, but if I HAD included those, it would've actually tipped things further in G2's favor, with 3.19 (67/21) colors per shape in G2 versus just 2.67 (251/94) in G1. So rest assured I'm not making arbitrary exceptions in hopes of making G2's track record seem better than it is.

With that said, I don't mean to try and silence or invalidate anyone's desire for MORE mask colors, particularly if you're nostalgic for the early years of 2001–2003, when there were 147 discrete masks in only 22 shapes, or a whopping 6.68 colors per shape on average! Out of curiosity, for those who want more mask colors, how would you prefer them to be released? Blind-packaged bags or boxes like in G1? Featuring "bonus" masks in the small sets just like in the medium or large ones? Packs with specific selections of masks in specific selections of colors? Or something else entirely?

The Mahri are the main series I remember changing my opinions on. When I first saw pictures they bugged me for what, in hindsight, was a pretty silly reason: two of them used Piraka torsos. Up to that point, in my Bionicle drawings and headcanons, I thought of Bionicle armor as being somewhat like a uniform. And while we'd seen the same style of armor worn by multiple Toa teams, and plenty of other parts shared between heroes and villains, it took me some time to warm up to the notion of Toa using what had previously been a non-Toa style of torso armor, let alone one that was visually different from any of their teammates. But by the end of 2007 I had a much better appreciation for the variety the Toa Mahri brought to the table. They weren't flawless sets, but IMO by breaking free of cloned designs they were taking a step in the right direction.

The media that the link pointed to has been removed.

Guess it was removed because of spoilers. Hopefully the artist will post these pictures again once the new episodes have aired.

Putting a poll like this in the Ninjago section of the forums might skew the results — maybe a mod should move it to LEGO Discussion.

That said, I voted Ninjago. Though I've also been enjoying Nexo Knights so far. I never got past the first three episodes of Legends of Chima, but I might want to give it another shot sooner or later since I hear the storytelling improves later on.

Last but not least, the existence of a magazine in Europe doesn't really prove anything about the state of the line in the Old Continent. The graphic novels did pretty bad in the US, the cancelation of the third volume isn't a good sign for sure, and as someone who is involved in the publishing industry you can trust me when I say that when you pay for something to be made (just like LEGO did with the comics) you try to gain a profit in every way conceivable. Thus the magazine was born: a cheap way to distribute the comics in an area where you hadn't sold it already. The US won't get the magazine simply because all it contains is just the comics (I bought it myself so I'm not theorizing, there's literally nothing else in it), and LEGO has already tried to sell it there. Without great success.

It goes without saying that the U.S. won't get the magazine (we haven't gotten ANY of the magazines like this, not even for the more popular themes like Star Wars, Friends, or Ninjago), but I think it has less to do with the comics already being available here in graphic novel format and more to do with American kids not buying as many magazines as British and European kids. After all, other toy brands like Transformers and My Little Pony have also had magazines in Europe that never came to America.

Lego.com/shop now has a

• Free Classic Knights set with purchases over $50.  If they can do that, why can't they have a promotion that comes with Tahu Mata or something?

Not only is there a major difference in size there, but also, the Classic Knights Set doesn't require re-introducing any discontinued molds, while the original Tahu would require at least nine (head, eyes, mask, torso, arm, leg, foot, hand, tool).

 

Makuta did create a mask of (Nature) Growth by combining the elements of Water and Earth, but the strain is can be dangerous to the user and we do not know if these masks can be "stable".

Where was that? JtO?

 

The second graphic novel Battle of the Mask Makers, actually.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the answer is. It could be that there are masks without ANY elemental affinity (it wouldn't surprise me if the Mask of Control and Mask of Creation fell into that category). But it also wouldn't surprise me if masks made by Ekimu and Makuta like a Mask of Speed or Mask of Strength have an elemental alignment but not necessarily actual elemental powers.

Let's not forget that the Toa's elemental powers that they unlocked with their Golden Masks in last year's story include some G1-ish powers, like Kopaka's Frost Sphere which is similar to the power of the Mask of Shielding.

 

 

 

It's worth noting how we got like five new pieces and several recolors, so it seems that they had enough of a budget to make better sets had they focused their resources there, but that's not known for certain at all.

Budget doesn't equate to set size. If LEGO tells you "OK, you can make a lineup of six sets at a $8 price point, here's a budget, go crazy," you still can't make 6 $13 sets, even if you can somehow stretch the money that way, because LEGO only wants $8 sets on the market and $13 BIONICLE sets are going to cannibalize the Ben 10 set sales.

 

 

But creating new parts does take up a lot of money and I would think reduces the amount of money you have left to develop the rest of the set with.

 

You do have a point, but I think that it's possible more money could have been put towards building up the set and giving it more pieces that are more readily available but make it a better built set overall.

 

I think the big cost comes from creating new molds more than it does recolors.  Five new molds isn't much compared to the, what, 45 new molds of 2009?

 

New molds definitely cost a lot more than recolors. The main factor that makes recolors cost money is that they are considered a new element on the production line, and LEGO keeps their number of elements closely in check. Introducing a new element generally means taking an existing element out of production, so recolors are introduced at least SOMEWHAT sparingly (any time you think there should have been a new Bionicle recolor in a given wave, ask yourself: "what Bionicle recolor DID we get that wave that I'd rather have gone without?").

But a new steel mold at the level of precision the LEGO Group demands (tolerances of ±.01mm) and their expected operational lifetime generally costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, in addition to the general cost of adding a new element to production. And the more complex the mold (which depends on things like how many separate sliding parts it takes to mold the details on every side of the piece), the higher the cost.

Now, how many new molds are within the budget for a set or series of sets depends on a number of factors, such as the price point of the sets, how many sets the mold will be used on and how big a batch of those sets will be produced. This is why, for instance, LEGO Ideas sets are not allowed to include new molds. They are typically produced in batches of 20,000 units, whereas a typical Ninjago set might be produced in batches of a million or more units. If you split $200,000 between 20,000 units, that adds an immediate $10 to the cost of each unit! But if you split $200,000 between a million units, that adds just 20 cents to the cost of each unit — arguably less, if the cost of the mold is distributed across a full wave of sets that use that mold.

All things considered, six new molds across six sets (or to simplify things, one new mold per set) is not a lot. Sure, the Bionicle Stars might've been able to be somewhat bigger with fewer new molds, but not by a whole lot. The only way one new mold per set would amount to even a dollar of each set's budget is if 200,000 or fewer of each Stars set were made. And how much more size or complexity would one extra dollar in each Stars set's budget really buy? Not a huge amount, I don't think.

I also always wondered about that weird floating gold mask in MNOG underneath the Onu-koro mines. I keep forgetting if there was ever any canonical explanation of it but I imagine around 2003 lots of people were thinking it had been a sign of the coming of the seventh Toa.

I don't think the golden mask ever had a canon explanation — it was just an easter egg to use in the "Quest for the Golden Mask" sweepstakes (similar to others that appeared in LEGO Mania Magazine, on Bionicle.com, and on Bioniclemusic.com).

Overall I'm kinda disappointed in Quake Beast. It's not that I don't like the off-kilter, asymmetrical rock monster look, but I feel like Bruizer pulled it off better. As it is, Quake Beast's right arm is set an entire three modules back from his left arm, uses an awkward hand-crank mechanism rather than a simpler lever or trigger, has considerable gaps between its purple crystals, and worst of all, has a function that can easily make Quake Beast bash himself in the face with his own shoulder! Plus, unlike Bruizer's rigid arm or the 2015 Toa's articulated shoulders, Quake Beast's crystal arm is articulated, but not along the gearbox's axis of rotation. This means that if it gets knocked out of alignment by the recoil of one of his punches, you have to reset it to the angle you want it at.

Overall, I appreciate what the design was going for. Giant overgrown crystal arms are cool! A shoulder-mounted shadow trap is cool! A yellowish green and purple color scheme is cool! A "right hook" function as opposed to the usual uppercut/downward smash is cool! But I just don't think Quake Beast pulls any of these concepts off quite as effectively as the other beasts pull off their own core concepts.

Surprised that in the description of the box you didn't mention one of its most unique aspects — the fact that his shoulder spikes are stickign THROUGH the Bionicle banner at the top! I thought this was extremely clever.

What exactly is meant by "wide release" cancelled? If it just means it's becoming exclusive to a certain chain of stores or something like that, then I wouldn't see that as reason to panic. I believe the same thing is happening in the United States, with Bionicle becoming a Toys R Us exclusive line like Technic was in 2012 and 2013, or like Speed Champions is now.

There's little doubt that Bionicle sales are nowhere near what they were at their peak in 2002. That said, a product line becoming exclusive to a specific chain of stores is not the end of the world, so if that is in fact what the article was referring to I don't think it's cause for alarm. Frankly, it might be the most effective way to extend the theme's lifespan.

That is not 148 bricks

The number used in the article is 64,148 bricks (sixty four thousand one hundred and forty eight) bricks. Is the comma what confused you? Some countries use spaces or periods to separate the thousands place from the hundreds place but I was taught to use a comma, which is also what the original Facebook post used.

Tough choice between 2, 3, and 8 (weird, entry 8 ended up being a standout for me in all three polls).

Entry 8 in this poll succeeds even with an extremely monochrome design in part due to its eclectic use of textures. It's reminiscent of many prototype Bionicle sets from over the years, but unlike those which are mostly cut and glued and then painted with a silvery finish, this one is purist, achieving the same use through the use of greebly details both small and large. Its rotund, somewhat cartoonish proportions set it apart from any official sets and even from most MOCs. It feels sorta like a video game enemy.

2, on the other hand, really exemplifies the old-school "riotflea" MOC craze, plus has a dynamic color scheme and textures that don't call quite so much attention to themselves. Its proportions are spindly, aggressive, and alien like I'd expect a "riotflea" to be. The biggest drawback of this one is that its build feels almost more "timeless" than "old-school" — flares and curves like this model has are about as pervasive in System and CCBS MOCs as they were in G1 Bionicle MOCs, and so it's really only the "riotflea" concept that dates it.

3 stands out in its own way — it is not as ambitious in its building techniques as 2 or 8, but it has a distinctive G1 feel with its clumsy, machine-like build, and the yellow Jack Stone elements used as accents go a long way to balance out the grey, black, and silver. As the builder intended, it feels like it could fit in the Dark Hunters guide, and yet it feels like it could fit in among that guide's best entries, or even among some of the official G1 Dark Hunter sets and combi models.

After much debate I settled on Entry 8, which is both the most impressive for me visually and elicits the most nostalgia. Rather than just an old set or an old MOC, it feels like an unfinished PROTOTYPE of an old set! That's, like, double the old! And yet in spite of that inherent roughness that would feel horrendously out-of-place on a finished set, its neutral color palette and unconventional materials are reminiscent of a mixed media art piece.

So I guess I ended up voting a straight 8-8-8 ticket. Ah, well.

Entry 2 seems like it does a good job recreating that old-school Rahi aesthetic, but the photo makes it tough to judge the back section, and any functionality it has is not obvious. Plus, its color scheme is kind of monotonous. Entry 5 has beautiful colors, good color blocking, and a good use of greeble, though I think the 1x1 round plate on the mask is superfluous. Entry 8 has a unique build and uses greeble in a way I think even die-hard System mecha builders would appreciate, and it's got a cool color scheme to boot. Entries 5 and 8 also both have very distinctive silhouettes. It was a tough choice between those two entries but I ended up going with 8.

Entry 8 is by far the best entry here in terms of both looks and functionality, and while it doesn't quite nail down that "old-school" look throughout, Entry 3 is the only one in this poll that I think does so well enough to balance out its faults. I voted for 8, but I encourage people who would prefer a more greebly-looking entry to take a good long look at 3 before casting your vote!

Some people certainly got angry about it because they saw it as an insult to Bionicle for Wyldstyle to say it was a world they "don't need to mention". However, I think that's a rather silly way of interpreting it, considering that the other themes they "didn't need to mention" include LEGO Friends and LEGO Ninjago, some of the LEGO Group's biggest success stories of the past decade. If this scene were meant as an insult or put-down don't you think LEGO would've taken issue with it referencing some of their all-time biggest hits instead of failed themes like Galidor or Jack Stone?

Others were angry about the brevity of the reference rather than its context. But honestly, I think it's an honor that Bionicle was alluded to in a movie that genuinely didn't have time to delve into the lore of any individual LEGO theme, and certainly not a discontinued one. As Wyldstyle said, they didn't need to mention it — but they included it anyway, in the same context as more recent success stories.

Sure, it also would've been great if an actual Bionicle character had gotten a cameo, but I can understand why the creators might've wanted to focus on themes that would not be distracting or confusing for general audiences. With the world now firmly established, the sequel might offer a better opportunity for a more substantial cameo.

Remember also that during G1, Bionicle's creators were generally pretty keen on avoiding direct crossovers between Bionicle and other LEGO themes. So having Bionicle appear as a mere reference rather than having Bionicle characters interacting directly with other LEGO characters could be seen as a way of respecting its creators' wishes.

Bionicle was an important theme. There's no denying that. In LEGO CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp's own words, "Bionicle is the theme that saved LEGO" — and he wasn't even involved in the theme's creation or rise to power, having only joined the company in 2004, so he's not just being self-congratulatory with that statement. So anybody who thinks LEGO looks down on Bionicle, just because it doesn't get the special treatment they expect, is profoundly mistaken.

 

And while I'm not super familiar with Addams Family, the show seems harmless enough from the little I've watched.

There's a couple of reasons why LEGO shouldn't make The Addams Family for a set:

 

1. The show is incredibly old, and making a set of a franchise from something so long ago and barely re-lived in this day and age won't popularize well for sales.

 

2. While it may be harmless enough for you, be aware that you're 25, and you don't exactly have the same outlook on things that a six year old would. I'm not saying that a six year old is !00% sure to buy this set, but perhaps a six year old shouldn't have the option. It's also a monster-based comedy show, and rather dark in some areas, not as friendly as The Munsters was. Then again, LEGO also decided to make Beetlejuice, so I'm suspicious on their kid-quality judging they boast of.

 

Generally I don't see how the Addams Family was any scarier or less kid friendly than Star Wars or Harry Potter. The LEGO Group's standards for kid-friendliness mostly tend to mean nothing that's strictly for adults. Broadly speaking, that means no shows rated TV-MA or higher, no movies rated R or higher, and no video games rated M or higher.

Also, of course, the LEGO Group exercises discretion in what ASPECTS of certain brands they represent — so, for instance, they were OK making Simpsons (TV-PG) sets, but the sets themselves don't include alcohol references even though the show frequently does. They were OK making Indiana Jones sets, but didn't include any Nazi imagery from Raiders of the Lost Ark (PG) or The Last Crusade (PG-13), or the human sacrifice scene from Temple of Doom (PG-13).

The original Addams Family TV series, which is what the Ideas project is based on, is rated TV-G, or "General Audience". For reference's sake, this is the same rating as a lot of the LEGO Friends, LEGO Elves, and LEGO Star Wars TV specials.

Lego employees are only allowed to communicate with fans officially via Lego Message Boards last I heard. This is to allow protection and monitoring against false accusations, a nessessity when communicating with children. Mind you I don't know how strong this rule is, as many Lego designers have Brickset accounts were they have lists of all the sets they have designed...

Slight correction: LEGO employees are only allowed to communicate with kids via the LEGO Message Boards. Employees can communicate with AFOLs either via social media or forums — provided those sites have an age limit so said employees can be sure they're not communicating with anyone under age 13. This is in order to adhere to COPPA regulations.

As it stands, BZPower does not have a strict age limit. Brickset's main site does not either, but it also does not have any form of private messaging — the only form of direct interaction between members is news comments. The Brickset Forums, which do allow for more forms of discussion, are strictly for users ages 16 and up.

EDIT: Ninja'd by my brother.

Maybe the Great Beings realized that Matoran faces were generally hideous and, with the deadline fast approaching, decided masks were the easiest patch for the issue.

Seeing as I still haven't seen the Frozen yet, I doubt I'll get much out of this. I guess I have until November to fix that.

It's probably not the best movie to come out of Disney Animation Studios. Its themes are simpler than Zootopia's, though that might be partly due to having to fit the fairy-tale tone, and friends of mine who have seen Tangled seem to think that movie told a better story. But I definitely enjoyed Frozen and would recommend it to others.

 

 

Oh I'm sure a lot of world-building and characterization is done, but sometimes I'm left with questions that I don't think will be answered. Where did the labyrinth of control come from? What were the skull creatures when they were alive? Snags like that make me question the G2 story's integrity.

This page released on Bionicle.com back in March explains where the Labyrinth of Control came from, and the next chapter book seems like it will go into the origins of the Skull Creatures.

 

The description of the labyrinth feels like a bit of a cop out, but it looks like we will have the skull creatures explained so I'll give the story that.

 

"Cop out" or not, it's more explanation than we ever got for the origins of the Kini-Nui, outside of direct answers from Greg years after its introduction. For that matter, it wasn't until 2008 that we learned the origins of the Bohrok. So it's kind of weird to treat not knowing the full backstory of the Toa's enemies or Okoto's landmarks as "snags". Frankly, we've gotten a lot more backstory for G2 than we had in the first couple years of G1.