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What is the worst thing lego could do with bionicle 2015?


masterchirox580

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The worst thing? Maybe if they brought back the old, fragile joint molds from the old Bionicle sets. Maybe if they didn't just continue the storyline, but in fact picked up directly from where the flailing remains of the serials left off. Maybe if the main story is told in a medium that is both as sparse and as lackluster as the Hero Factory TV series.

 

The nice thing is that the former is guaranteed not to happen and the latter two are, to be frank, exceedingly unlikely.

 

EDIT: How did I miss THIS?

 

Getting rid of the stupid gender ratio of 1:5 f/m.

 

...and instead making everyone male always

Edited by Lyichir

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Making it more like the later years of Bionicle than the former, designing sets to be a character without bothering to create a resemblance (a la the 2008 Toa Nuva), bringing back Vezon in any more of a capacity than he held in 2006, letting anyone (but especially Greg) write side-story serials that will flail around like beheaded snakes, try to please everyone, especially try to please a niche group of fans mostly outside their target audience who for some reason want them to make a horrible business decision, introduce a ton of characters without a set form to relate to so fans bicker for ages about what they look like (especially if that character is like Lariska and ends up with "sexy" roodaka knockoffs everywhere), and a whole bunch of other things I'm probably forgetting in the heat of the moment

 

any one of those would be a completely terrible thing to do to new Bionicle.

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Cater entirely to old fanbase.

Cater entirely to new fanbase. (Less of problem than first.)

Cater entirely to themselves.

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"Don't be a night owl, it gets boring after the first 6 hours." - Me right now

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Reboot it.

Make the story stupid and shallow like Hero Factory.

Have someone other than Greg write the story.

Make a TV show with stupid story and dialogue and bad voice acting and relegate the books to side stories. 

 

The first and third are actually some of the best things LEGO could do, and, in fact, probably are doing. (Well, the third isn't probably; we know Greg isn't doing the writing this time around, and I don't know why people are so fired up about it. He wasn't a phenomenal writer by any means. He was okay, but he was hardly a pinnacle of fantastic writing.)

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Reboot it.

Make the story stupid and shallow like Hero Factory.

Have someone other than Greg write the story.

Make a TV show with stupid story and dialogue and bad voice acting and relegate the books to side stories. 

1. Wrong!

2. Right!

3. Wrong!

4. Right!

save not only their lives


d665fa5c17bc200a946e0a69eaf11f929dc080cb


but their spirits

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

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Reboot it.

Make the story stupid and shallow like Hero Factory.

Have someone other than Greg write the story.

Make a TV show with stupid story and dialogue and bad voice acting and relegate the books to side stories.

 

The first and third are actually some of the best things LEGO could do, and, in fact, probably are doing. (Well, the third isn't probably; we know Greg isn't doing the writing this time around, and I don't know why people are so fired up about it. He wasn't a phenomenal writer by any means. He was okay, but he was hardly a pinnacle of fantastic writing.)

 

The best and worst thing about Greg was his involvement in the fan community. Many writers could have written for Bionicle, and perhaps written for it better, but especially back in those days the idea that the author of your favorite series would participate on fansites daily and answer every question that came to him to the best of his ability was definitely not the norm (it's less unusual in an era where writers have Twitter and Tumblr and similar sites to help them interact with fans, but back in the early noughts it was pretty exceptional). In hindsight I think Greg was TOO generous in how he tried to explain everything and give updates on even the most insignificant characters, making their adventures out to be as essential if not more so than the quests of the main characters to the outcome of the primary story.

 

Lego could maybe do better than Greg for the writing of the story. But as Hero Factory has shown, they could also do a heck of a lot worse. Here's hoping Lego's found someone who can write as well as Greg, if not better, and shares his passion for the story and the brand.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Have someone other than Greg write the story.

 

Technically he never wrote the story; that was the work of the 'story team' whom he often referred to. He simply retold it in much greater detail.

 

I think the worst thing that could be done with Bionicle is repeating the mistakes of the past - the worst of which was an inaccessible and excessively complex story.

Edited by Sir Kohran
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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

Bionicle for 2015.

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

 

 

As long as people continue to make products with terrible gender ratios, toys with terrible gender ratios will continue to be seen as the only option, simply because nobody's willing to try differently.

 

I think if boys are willing to play with predominantly female technicolor ponies created for girls, making a realistic gender ratio in a traditionally male toyline shouldn't be an issue.

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

 

 

I see what you mean, but Lucina put it excellently. 

 

Adding more females won't really change Bionicle or make it worse. The point you made is true, but not as big as it is made out to be. I have faith in Lego to make the best decisions in the future. I simply feel having one girl on the team makes a real statement, and not a pretty one. It's not a hard decision, and it shouldn't be a big deal where everyone panics and the world goes into peril. Market towards kids, not just boys. All kids should be able to look up to women as much as they do to men. As a kid I thought Gali was the coolest toa, and she was the only female on the team.

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

 

 

As long as people continue to make products with terrible gender ratios, toys with terrible gender ratios will continue to be seen as the only option, simply because nobody's willing to try differently.

 

I think if boys are willing to play with predominantly female technicolor ponies created for girls, making a realistic gender ratio in a traditionally male toyline shouldn't be an issue.

 

I'm pretty sure MLP has a higher girl gender ratio.

And Yes I agree with you, however, I just don't see Bionicle (arguably one of the most boy centered LEGO lines) to be the one that breaks the norm, I don't think LEGO wants to do that with Bionicle, but I do think they're aware of the issue.

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Bionicle for 2015.

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

 

 

As long as people continue to make products with terrible gender ratios, toys with terrible gender ratios will continue to be seen as the only option, simply because nobody's willing to try differently.

 

I think if boys are willing to play with predominantly female technicolor ponies created for girls, making a realistic gender ratio in a traditionally male toyline shouldn't be an issue.

 

I'm pretty sure MLP has a higher girl gender ratio.

And Yes I agree with you, however, I just don't see Bionicle (arguably one of the most boy centered LEGO lines) to be the one that breaks the norm, I don't think LEGO wants to do that with Bionicle, but I do think they're aware of the issue.

 

 

....that's what "predominantly female" means. My point was that if boys are willing to play with those (which the brony community shows they are), then surely a more realistic gender ratio in Bionicle is possible.

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There's too many ways it could go wrong to pick just one that's absolutely the worst. :P But objectively it would have to be consistently bad set quality for the tastes of the majority target audience. Bad story could be pretty bad too. There's also bad marketing, but personally I place emphasis on there being quality the marketing points to, so yeah.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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The real problem is that even if stupid gender ratios aren't made a rule like they were in the first Bionicle, that doesn't mean that they will actually have a fairer gender distribution. It's been pointed out before that, for instance, in 2009 Bionicle and Hero Factory, in which there was nothing that would restrict more than one character being female, that's still all we got. The ratios for HF and 2009 were even worse than they were for when Matoran monogender tribes had a part to play. Other series with actual characters, like Ninjago and Chima, have similarly awful gender ratios (even worse than Bionicle, again) despite also not having anything to prevent more females.

 

I do think the gender-exclusive tribes have to be done away with. I just hope they don't use that as an opportunity for making every character male. (which is basically what I said in my first post, but eh) I really doubt that gender has that large a role to play in how constraction sets sell, so Lego's continued failure to have better representation feels very arbitrary.

Edited by farmstink buttlass
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AXKP5KC.png


 


 

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Basically most of what can be said has been said. I would especially hate to see Bionicle over-juniorized.

 

And please that disgusting gender ration has got to go.

 

Also treating Bionicle more like a toy line and less of a story would also be a mistake. It's important to remember that it's both and need equal treatment on both fronts, or it'll just be no good.

Sorry but as long as mostly boys buy the product, thats who their going to appeal to, and most boys would rather buy a product with the most boys possible. Why? Because they can relate to it, they see themselves in a heroic light, and unfortunatly, due to movies and other things, women are protrayed as weak and need to be saved (Not true at all). One heoric girl is enough to show that girls can still be strong while also appeal to the target audience.

 

 

As long as people continue to make products with terrible gender ratios, toys with terrible gender ratios will continue to be seen as the only option, simply because nobody's willing to try differently.

 

I think if boys are willing to play with predominantly female technicolor ponies created for girls, making a realistic gender ratio in a traditionally male toyline shouldn't be an issue.

 

I'm pretty sure MLP has a higher girl gender ratio.

And Yes I agree with you, however, I just don't see Bionicle (arguably one of the most boy centered LEGO lines) to be the one that breaks the norm, I don't think LEGO wants to do that with Bionicle, but I do think they're aware of the issue.

 

 

....that's what "predominantly female" means. My point was that if boys are willing to play with those (which the brony community shows they are), then surely a more realistic gender ratio in Bionicle is possible.

 

I see your point, I just don't think that Bionicle is the theme that LEGO will use to break the gender ratio's.

Bionicle for 2015.

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Regarding gender, I think it should be remembered that when Bionicle was conceived in the very late 90s, the cultural climate was fairly dominated by male protagonists: Ash Ketchum, Sonic the Hedgehog, James Bond, Harry Potter. Buffy the vampire slayer is the only major exception from the time that comes to mind. It didn't help that almost every important person involved in Bionicle - Christian Faber, Greg Farshtey, Bob Thompson - is male. For what it's worth, however, Bionicle did feature a number of female characters over its years, so even if it wasn't a huge step forward, at least it wasn't a step backwards.

 

Given that there's recently been an increase in female characters in hits such as Snow White and the Huntsman, The Hunger Games and Maleficent, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to experiment with a greater number of female characters.

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Lego doesn't have to do anything, and it can be argued that it isn't there problem to deal with unfair gender ratios or promote good morals at all but to make money. But isn't being personal what makes Lego great? Isn't having all those little easter eggs (stickers referencing old themes) and details that make people happy really cool? The thought put into every theme to make things better for everyone getting into it? I find that those are some of the many things that make Lego such a cool company. And so they don't need to necessarily balance the gender ration, but isn't it much more thoughtful and better of them to do so? They definitely won't lose money if they don't, but it helps build their moral as a company. "Only the best is good enough".

 

And lets keep this topic to more than just gender ratios. There's a whole lot of other bad stuff that can be done to Bionicle 2015.  :P

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I don't think it's the main priority, but I would love to have duel-gender tribes. As a kid, I just assumed it was coincidence that all the female characters were water-based, and I always played as though each tribe had male and female Matoran.

 

Even if LEGO wants to produce mostly male toys, I think they ought to get rid of the arbitrary story rules about gender. Give the kids a little freedom in their play.

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1. Alternate dimensions. We do NOT need them in Bionicle as much this time around.

2. The Red Star's ability revive the dead. Do NOT bring that back either.

3. Vezon and Teridax. The story will be fine without them.

4. :

 

Letting three-year-olds design sets and letting Greg canonize every fan theory he sees.

This.

 

Edit: Changed one and two to make them a little clearer.

Edited by Toa Smoke Monster
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2. The Red Star. Do NOT bring it back either.

 

I don't think the Red Star would be so much of a problem if it wasn't a space station that made nearly all death in the universe relatively meaningless. If it was just used to help predict the future based on its position in the sky and be an intriguing source of mystery, then I'd love to see it make some kind of appearance in a 2015 reboot.

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I also don't think that having the concept of a multiverse is necessarily a bad thing. While it can certainly get out of hand easily, especially if, as was done in the later stories involving alternate dimensions, they're used to bring back supposedly dead characters or randomly bring in new characters, like light Teridax or that whole plotline with the shadow takanuvas that  never went anywhere....They're not always a bad thing, though. I think the first couple of stories with alternate universes were fun and inoffensive. Many stories are able to use the idea of alternate worlds to their advantage. You just have to be smart about it.

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