How To Bring Back Bionicle

no no the way to bring back bionikel is by petioning lego forever!!!!

You actually expect me to wait that long? What if lego forgets Bionicle ever existed after all that time? That's what they're trying to do!

Someday, in many years, when you are rich and in your summer home, you will be strolling alongside a riverbank.

You'll decide to take a swim.

You won't come out because of this entry.

The cult of Don't Bring Back BIONICLE works in mysterious ways....

=P

Makuta_of_Oz: Okay, don't take this personally, but seriously, this isn't the first thing they've ended, and it won't be the last. Bionicle lasted ten years, and it's story had a somewhat ending(since the serials are, or at least were, still going on. Who knows about that state now, it's in Greg's hands). That's more than most things, even TV shows and game series. I can quote a couple examples, but I'm just gonna say Megaman Legends 3 and let my point rest for that case.

As for LEGO related examples... Let's see...

EXO-FORCE
LEGO Universe
Mars Mission(Arguably)
Rock Raiders
Throwbots
Roboriders(both Bionicle's predecessors, keep in mind)
Whatever one-off theme they put out.

Honestly, Bionicle got the best deal, and at least LEGO ended it when it still had a ton of fans that could leave a legacy like they have.

Do I want Bionicle back? Definitely wouldn't be opposed. But think: Teridax died, there's only one Makuta left and he looks to be blown sky-high shortly if TPTB continues, there's Marendar, but he's more like the Bohrok than Teridax... Really, the Murderer's the most Teridax-like villain we have right now, which was one of Bionicle's charms.

Plus, the sets would probably be the same as the HF sets are now, and anyone who objects should look at natural progression, and see that they were headed that way even in the Bionicle days.

Basically, you got ten years. You got an ending to said 10-year-long arc. Would 20 or 30 years with a resolution to a second or third arc be nice? Definitely, but it's still more than other stuff got. Given that I'm still thinking of themes that cut before the end of their third year and didn't get a true ending... Yeah...

I think Parugi's idea might work. Maybe not drop all discussion of the theme itself(Which isn't what he means anyway. =P), just stop the "Oh, woe is us, our series is dead!", is what is trying to be said, and after a few years(even 2018 or so would work, though Parugi's being fair with that.), bring it back... With a different setting and characters.

All in all, we are lucky. We got a resolution. We didn't have Tahu or Mata Nui getting stuck on a moon for 10 years. We didn't get trolled into thinking there'd be a conclusion before it was pulled away. We GOT the conclusion, however anticlimatic it may seem now. Come talk to me when the return has been stated to happen in 8 more years, and then yanked away because "no-one participated" in a silly publicity stunt(to those who couldn't contribute, anyway), without even releasing the first wave of sets that would've gauged interest in the theme. Because until then, nothing that happened will be equal to the trolling Capcom put Legends fans through last year. >_>

How to bring back Bionicle: Time Machine.

You actually expect me to wait that long? What if lego forgets Bionicle ever existed after all that time? That's what they're trying to do!

Basically what Blade said. What it boils down to is that, frankly, the constant scheming and overly ridiculous idea-processing that is being used to try and get Lego to bring back BIONICLE right now is getting tiring.

Yes, BIONICLE was a great part of a lot of peoples' lives. It was unique, it had a great story, it was fun, it was mysterious, it was a whole lot of other postiive things wrapped into one, and it's a shame that it's over. But it's been two years since it ended; it ran for ten consecutive ones, eleven if you count the ongoing serials. The fact of the matter is, it's grown old enough to need a break. There is no point in constantly complaining -- to LEGO and especially to BZPower -- that the line needs to be brought back, because it doesn't and it won't, at least not right now.

Consider it akin to a cat or a dog. It has grown old. It is tired. It needs a break. At some point in the future, the canon story has potential to return, be it in the form of a continuation -- the old dog wakes up -- or a reboot -- the dog's offspring. For the immediate future, however, it is not coming back. The BIONICLE canon and sets are gone for the time being; the best way to get it to return is not to try and get it renewed prematurely, but to keep on working on other, fanon aspects of the story -- contests, RPGs, stories, art, MOCs, literally ANYTHING else -- so as to show LEGO that there is still interest from older fans once new kids -- ones who have absolutely no knowledge of BIONICLE's past sets, who won't be put off by the complexity of the story, who will actually be EXCITED by the prospect of something that is new to them -- are around.

The current fans of BIONICLE and the current generation are not the key to its return, otherwise LEGO wouldn't have canceled it; future generations are. Current kids are bored with it. If you want BIONICLE to return, then you need to keep its spirit alive long enough for new generations to see it.

Frankly, thinking otherwise is disrespecting what BIONICLE accomplished. It had a good run -- that's more than can be said for a lot of other things that people have loved over the years, such as Jericho; now it's time for it to rest. Would you force a dog that has grown old, sickly and tired to run -- or even walk -- the same six mile route that you run every day? I wouldn't. Everything needs a break at some point.

Also, just to mention, even if this plan happens as Parugi suggests; there isno real guarantee that it'll work. To beta a dead horse here; look at Megaman Legends 3. It was considered dead, no chance in heck of being made, for all of ten years. Then, it was put into development, a viral campaign was started, everything looked perfect. Then Capcom canceled Megaman Universe, putting the fanbase into caution mode, but everything still seemed alright. Then they dropped the whole 'oh, sorry, not enough interest, we care too much about money being made from other franchise, but wait! We still like Megaman, so here's a TON of merchandise with his name on it! But, well, no more games, at least for a while, because they won't sell a million units each single time like Resident Evil or Street Fighter.' ball, and the fanbase outraged. A lot.

Think; do you want that to happen? Even if LEGO brings Bionicle back right now; what are the outcomes going to be? Will you like that outcome? Will it be so bad they have to cancel it a year after it starts, if that? In fact, for an example of that, look at the Ben 10 sets. Everyone hated them except for specific parts; it was never seen again after Hero Factory appeared, and Hero Factory's now incorporating the more popular parts from that line. Who's to say the same wouldn't happen to Bionicle, especially now...?

Again, I'm not against the idea; but you guys have to think... Is it in LEGO's interests to revive a theme, simply for a site about the theme, that probably doesn't even represent 2% of the fanbase, or even potential buyers?

/EDIT: Wrong word at the end, fixed.

Your guy's huge responses are so funny. If you oppose MoZ's idea, just ignore him.

Admittedly, my huge response was by accident -- I lost track of how much I was writing. xp

Regardless, it's not specifically MoZ or anything that he has said that I -- and probably Blade, SA and most other people -- have a problem with; I read his blog and such and he seems like a nice guy, so I have nothing against him personally. It's the continued complaints by a large number of people -- which I have ignored for the longest time, and am only now saying something due to the recent increase in people doing so -- that I have an issue with.

Quite simply, it's tiring and annoying. At some point, venting needs to happen. =/


BioGio: Algebra 2. Standard stuff for a standard Junior. Although for someone who doesn't consider himself to be good at math... 100% is amazing. xp

2026 or something would genuinely be a good time to expect BIONICLE to come back. Maybe a few years sooner would be possible, but some people's expectation that it will come back anytime soon is just unrealistic given how much time and attention it would take to actually bring it back.

But on the other hand, a lot of people seem to think that BIONICLE coming back would most depend on it seeming "brand-new and exciting", as if the reason it went away is because people were just tired of hearing about it. And that doesn't make sense no matter how you slice it.

The reason BIONICLE had to be cancelled is that it wasn't bringing in new fans, and new fans probably wouldn't know or care much about how long it had been around. The reason it was not bringing about new fans was related to its age, but it wasn't a matter of overexposure, but rather a matter of it piling on new story details every year and having each new story continue to depend on older ones for maximum enjoyment. There were attempts at rebooting the story, in some way or another, at two main points: 2006 and 2009. Neither was extremely effective by my reckoning. The new stories continued to depend on the older stories even with the move to radical new settings, lots of brand-new characters, and changes in the main "mission" the heroes were moving towards.

I think the best thing TLG did to keep BIONICLE alive was the redesign of BIONICLEstory.com in 2008 to feature a relatively complete list of characters, settings, and story developments up until that point, with lots of pictures and videos to help fans immerse themselves in what had gone before. But it was still a lot of stuff for new fans to learn. In the meantime they had to also be learning all the new stuff at the same time-- lots of difficult-to-remember names. People who became fans in 2001 had it easy-- stuff was only coming at them at the same rate as they could take it in. Not so with fans in the later years.

So in my opinion, it isn't a matter of whether or when BIONICLE will come back. That sort of stuff is out of my control and it's not my business worrying about it. For me, it's a matter of -how-. Not only how will it be brought back, and what form will it be in when that happens, but how will it avoid seeing the same decline in sales that it saw in its first iteration?

I wouldn't want to see it completely eliminate its epic, always-building storyline, because that's what made BIONICLE what it was. You could make new Hero Factory sets, and make them look exactly like Toa, and call them Toa, and have the same settings and characters as BIONICLE had every year, and only keep Hero Factory's episodic, one-mission-at-a-time storytelling format, and it wouldn't be BIONICLE, it would be a shoddy facsimile.

Ninjago is currently testing what it might take to tell a continuing story in a LEGO theme, and I think it's doing great. So far, it's every bit as enjoyable for me as BIONICLE was-- rich characters, exciting stories, and of course a decent share of humor. And it's been incredibly successful, perhaps just as much of a phenomenon as BIONICLE was in 2001.

But will it last? I certainly hope so. I'm sure it'll last a decent length of time, since it's been going strong for a year and a half and I expect it will make it past three years with no sweat. But outlasting BIONICLE's nine-year run? That's too ambitious to expect, and in fact I have my doubts whether TLG has even tried to plan for such an eventuality. And if it can't manage it, there's no reason to think a BIONICLE theme revived with the aid of the lessons TLG has learned since it ended could do any better, at least not for several years to come.

My apologies for rambling.

I apologize if I've laughed throughout this entry.

Now I'll be serious and say, "Yeah, what they said."

Also:

Congratulations!

What Parugi said. =P I didn't really plan for it to be that long, and it was mostly to reconfirm what Parugi initially said, so I wasn't intending for anyone to take it personal, as my disclaimer said. I just, like Aanchir, thing people are being unreasonable by expecting Bionicle back not even two years after it was dropped.

I want something like Exo-Force again, so much more. (But closer to it's earlier run, versus the later runs)

I miss the giant mecha and the crazy minifig hair :<

Or or or

For a My Little Pony line.

I'd so get into that.