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What happened happened. I don't have to like all of it, but it happened. I've been headcanoning things for years anyway.

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Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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Honestly I wish Journey's End itself didn't happen...

 

Regardless; I can accept where stories go, however I still have alternate preferences... "but the clunky Greg answer reveals don't." really captures how I feel about much of it, I often feel it's better to leave something at an ending of sorts than for it to just fade into nothing.

 

So yeah, "Journey's End is The End. No more serials or anything else. It's over." for the first, and the second question could get any answer from me depending on the situation; if I'm talking about Bionicle to any other arbitrary Bionicle fan about Bionicle I won't ignore cannon, but I'll be less inclined to talk about it generally.

 

Otherwise as far as various fanfiction~story-ides go I do tend to omit much of what happened towards the (chronological) end; but it's very, very, rare that those sorts of things are actually discussed in particularity with anyone anywhere.

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I accept the post-2010 material as legitimate story, and I utilize it in my headcanon and fanfiction. I didn't like some of the retcons at first, but they've grown on me, and I've developed a few theories that smoothly integrate Velika and the Red Star into my interpretation of BIONICLE.

 

However, if I had the chance to go back and do it over again, I think it would have been wiser for BIONICLE to end with 2010. Even though the ending wasn't very satisfying in some regards, it was still an ending, and a moderately happy one at that. The post-2010 stories had the unfortunate effect of making BIONICLE seem unfinished, which it really didn't have to be. If we had ended BIONICLE without ever knowing what the Red Star was, or why Velika was such a strange character, that would have been acceptable.

 

In other words, I voted Option 1 for the first question and Option 5 for the second.

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My answers follow as such:

 

1.  The unfinished serials happen, but the clunky Greg answer reveals don't.

---- I say this because it is hard for me to accept things that were not actually featured in any story. I need a story to go with things, man! Not just some "Hi. I can't finish my story, so here are some tidbits here and there for you. Oh, and here is random canonization. Bye!" Only thing I omit from that is Velika's reveal, since that was most likely just about to come up in the next story.

 

2.  I prefer to acknowledge some parts of it and not others

---- Main thing from the story I choose to outright ignore is that the 2009 characters had been alive for 100.000 years. It is understandable with artificial biomechanical robots, but not people with a couple of prosthetic limbs and augmentations like Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It was just plain stupid n' idiotic in my eyes. Look at question #1 to see other things.

 

 

 

EDIT: What was edited? I don't recall using any instances of racy language.

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The unfinished serials happen, but the clunky Greg answer reveals don't.

---- I say this because it is hard for me to accept things that were not actually featured in any story. I need a story to go with things, man! Not just some "Hi. I can't finish my story, so here are some tidbits here and there for you. Oh, and here is random canonization. Bye!" Only thing I omit from that is Velika's reveal, since that was most likely just about to come up in the next story.

Yeah, certainly with things like Velika and the Red Star, it would seem illogical to me for people to choose to ignore them given the foreshadowing for them.

 

As for the unfinished serials, I sort of take the stance of, "yeah they happened, but everything got resolved and everyone lived happily ever after."  Sort of like Star Wars Expanded Universe content set after Return of the Jedi (well, at least before the Great Decanonization).

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The unfinished serials happen, but the clunky Greg answer reveals don't.

---- I say this because it is hard for me to accept things that were not actually featured in any story. I need a story to go with things, man! Not just some "Hi. I can't finish my story, so here are some tidbits here and there for you. Oh, and here is random canonization. Bye!" Only thing I omit from that is Velika's reveal, since that was most likely just about to come up in the next story.

Yeah, certainly with things like Velika and the Red Star, it would seem illogical to me for people to choose to ignore them given the foreshadowing for them.

 

As for the unfinished serials, I sort of take the stance of, "yeah they happened, but everything got resolved and everyone lived happily ever after."  Sort of like Star Wars Expanded Universe content set after Return of the Jedi (well, at least before the Great Decanonization).

 

The Great De-canonization... I like that term. I hope an edited version of Darth Plageius comes out, I would love to read it and it being canon

 

 

Off-topic, I know, sorry.

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I wish I could vote in one poll and null another. Unfortunately I was forced to null the entire poll because I'm not allowed to not answer just one poll if there are multiple; I MUST answer them all or none of them.

 

None of the options in the first poll apply to me, forcing me to null despite being able to answer the second poll. I would've preferred that the unfinished serials were finished (and ideally more done; I can't get enough), AND we got Greg's "clunky" answers. If I was allowed to null only the first poll and still vote in the second, I would've answered "No, I acknowledge and accept all of it."

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I think Journey's End was a fantastic novel and a well-written and appropriate end for the Bionicle storyline. At least the main story - the rest of the content that followed it wasn't bad either. It felt more like side-stories in a large, expansive world rather than a continuation of the main story. So while it would have been nice to have had a solid ending with Journey's End that wraps up most (if not all) loose-ends, I do accept the direction the story took after: Serials, Greg answers, all of it.

 

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I voted "Journey's End is the end" for the first question. Technically speaking, I don't deny the existence of the unfinished serials or anything like that. But I do think they SHOULDN'T have existed, or should have been resolved BEFORE Journey's End concluded. But Journey's End detailed the conclusion of the main story, with Mata Nui triumphant and Makuta defeated for good. Greg failed to tie up the loose ends after that, and in fact made the gargantuan mistake of introducing NEW conflicts, seemingly with the idea that he could keep the story going perpetually. But a story isn't meant to have its ending dragged out so long past the ultimate climax, and the subsequent conflicts did nothing but harm to the main story by reducing the impact of Mata Nui's victory over Makuta. I can't bring myself to care about the late serials because of this—with no end in sight they served only to prolong the death of the theme by making a big deal of plot threads that should not have been started when the theme was on its decline.

 

For the second question I voted the first three options (due to the third option being identical to the first two despite the poll being designed so that multiple choices were permitted. But upon reflection, the fifth option might fit better. After all, I'm not denying things like the serials or Greg's answers about story minutiae, which were planned far in advance and in some cases add clarity to past story events. I'm just pointing out that it was a colossal mistake to withhold those things until the main story had concluded, or to try and shoehorn them in at the end of the finished story after that irreversible mistake had already been made.

 

I wish I could vote in one poll and null another. Unfortunately I was forced to null the entire poll because I'm not allowed to not answer just one poll if there are multiple; I MUST answer them all or none of them.

 

None of the options in the first poll apply to me, forcing me to null despite being able to answer the second poll. I would've preferred that the unfinished serials were finished (and ideally more done; I can't get enough), AND we got Greg's "clunky" answers. If I was allowed to null only the first poll and still vote in the second, I would've answered "No, I acknowledge and accept all of it."

The third answer for the first question is pretty much exactly what you described, so you didn't really have to null.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

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Not sure why the first question doesn't have "I wish the unfinished serials had been finished" (:P) but okay.

 

I think a worldbuilding story as complex as Bionicle did need a lot of threads tied up, and potentials for the future established. I think it would have been best overall if they had been incorporated into the end itself (so, another option yer poll doesn't include :P). If that couldn't happen -- and often it just can't work out to do that, depending on how events in stories naturally go -- then an epilogue of sorts was important.

 

I think the main problem with these was (probably due to Greg already being rushed at the time) that the epilogue stuff feels less like an epilogue and more like tentatively continuing ad infinitum, which was pretty much doomed to fail. As for answers, behind-the-scenes reveals after the series is definitely over for good make sense and happen in just about every story franchise, so most of the complaints there are unwarranted, but it still remains true it's better to reveal them in-story if you can.

 

Regardless, for my purposes I wanted it all because I take what was established and make my own thing out of it in fanfics. :D

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None of the options in the first poll apply to me, forcing me to null despite being able to answer the second poll. I would've preferred that the unfinished serials were finished (and ideally more done; I can't get enough), AND we got Greg's "clunky" answers. If I was allowed to null only the first poll and still vote in the second, I would've answered "No, I acknowledge and accept all of it."

 

Not sure why the first question doesn't have "I wish the unfinished serials had been finished" ( :P) but okay.

 

I think a worldbuilding story as complex as Bionicle did need a lot of threads tied up, and potentials for the future established. I think it would have been best overall if they had been incorporated into the end itself (so, another option yer poll doesn't include :P). If that couldn't happen -- and often it just can't work out to do that, depending on how events in stories naturally go -- then an epilogue of sorts was important.

Because everyone would vote for that. :P

 

No, actually the impetus for this poll came from this Greg Quote...which I was going to post in the first post too. Must have been scattered this morning. 

 

I have not heard about any pre-set endpoint for Hero Factory. Like BIONICLE, if it sells well, it will continue -- if it doesn't, it won't.

 

Bfahome -- But you also have to consider the fact that a LOT of BIONICLE fans who were buying sets were not following the story at all. 

 

So while the complexity of the BIONICLE storyline was a barrier to people who wanted to get into it late, that was most likely a minority of the people who were into the line. 

 

I think what hurt BIONICLE most was the lack of "novel novelty" -- basically, it wasn't new anymore.

 

For a lot of kids, it was that toy their older brother had been into, so their interest in it was limited. 

 

Older fans weren't old enough to have the money to become nostalgic collectors, like GI Joe and Transformers fans are. 

 

It wasn't getting the buzz it got in 2001-2003, because it wasn't a new line anymore ... whereas HF immediately got a Toy Fare Magazine cover because it was something new.

 

And the plan to continue the story through 2011 actually has nothing to do with tying up loose ends.

 

We could easily have just ended the story with Journey's End, without doing any Spherus Magna adventures.

 

What this says, interestingly enough, is that they COULD have done that. It was a possibility. That sounds dumb. 

 

Unlike having the finished serials, which is actually an impossibility. At least, from our perspective now. (Of course, having the story end with JE is also an impossibility, but whatever.) There was no way Greg could finish those serials - when he wrote that post, it was an impossibility (at least, finishing it before March 15, 2014, and extremely unlikely, because he doesn't have permission no more), he just didn't know that it was. We didn't either. 

 

So this poll, with the benefit of hindsight, attempts to garner the community's preferences on what was actually POSSIBLE in 2010, not what time has shown us to be not possible.

 

(Because we would all prefer the impossible option. The human mind is designed to prefer the impossible. :P)

 

As for incorporating the whole thing into Journey's End, I have to admit that would have been very bad, throwing the entire Velika story and the RS in there. It would have made for a very long, bloated story. But that's my preference talking. I'm not sure that would have been worse than what we did get, though. At least the thing would have been finished. :)

 

Also I've heard complaints about how Greg should not have done the serials, that JE should have been the end, etc. Including that option reduces the accuracy of this poll as a gauge.

 

And this is sounding pretty dumb, so I'll let you prove to me how dumb it is lol.  

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See, the fact that Greg says that makes me wonder WHY they didn't end it there. I suspect Greg has more in common with the fans than many fans like to let on—like them, he was reluctant to let the theme go at the end. But the story would have been far better if he had done so. There was no point to fleshing out an entirely new setting AFTER the main story has concluded, particularly with the knowledge that there would no longer be sets to guide the development of new characters or allow fans to own those characters for themselves. And Greg was kidding himself if he ever thought writing an endless continuation of the Bionicle story was ever more than a pipe dream, or that it would accomplish anything other than devaluing the actual ending of the story. Really, the revelation that Greg and the story team had considered ending the story when they had the chance saddens me—while other people seem upset that the story didn't get a chance to develop further, I'm upset that they couldn't accept the theme's end when they had the chance and give the story the proper ending it deserved.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

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I love all the serials and have nothing to complain about except wanting more. G1 ended, and if we ever get anything else it will be bits and pieces of what would have happened.

 

But to me, man this was a crazy huge universe and culmination of so many characters, I am still happy how far we got even after Bionicles building line ended. The story was prime for a completely new arc. We had SO many new things to experience, new character relationships and interactions, and it was all left so open. Now we can interpret and build our own story while we look back and see all that glitters. 

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To be fair to both opinion-groups, they seem to be closely matched on this poll: 19 vs. 21 votes respectively. The second question is more ambiguous, but it seems that that at least disregarding some of the late stories has a majority, while ignoring the whole thing is unpopular. Hmm.

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See, the fact that Greg says that makes me wonder WHY they didn't end it there. I suspect Greg has more in common with the fans than many fans like to let on—like them, he was reluctant to let the theme go at the end. But the story would have been far better if he had done so.

 

I think it's possible Lego wanted him to continue Bionicle in story simply so that the late 2009 announcement would only seem to mark the end of the sets, rather than the line as a whole (though that's what Lego really wanted it to be). Softening the blow, if you see what I mean. I don't know how far they might've wanted that story to be continued though, probably not as far as it was.

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 I wish I could vote in one poll and null another. Unfortunately I was forced to null the entire poll because I'm not allowed to not answer just one poll if there are multiple; I MUST answer them all or none of them.

 

None of the options in the first poll apply to me, forcing me to null despite being able to answer the second poll. I would've preferred that the unfinished serials were finished (and ideally more done; I can't get enough), AND we got Greg's "clunky" answers. If I was allowed to null only the first poll and still vote in the second, I would've answered "No, I acknowledge and accept all of it."

The third answer for the first question is pretty much exactly what you described, so you didn't really have to null.

 

No, the third answer suggests people would've preferred UNFINISHED serials, and I said I prefer FINISHED serials.

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See, the fact that Greg says that makes me wonder WHY they didn't end it there.

Two main reasons:

 

1) To help keep interest in Bionicle alive in the hopes of having a return, which ended up happening. (Although it still could work without this, but if it had been successful, it could have helped noticeably. As it is, we don't really have a way of knowing how much it did help, but discussion during the down years did largely focus on details revealed after the end, so it's quite possible it helped a bit.)

 

2) Since many fans had been so into Bionicle, it wouldn't really be fair to plan to instantly cut them off from everything since G1's story production system was always so adaptable and had many types, so at least one could easily adapt to this (so it was thought). By having some "epilogue" stories, fan loyalty could be rewarded.

 

And Greg was kidding himself if he ever thought writing an endless continuation of the Bionicle story was ever more than a pipe dream

Actually, many story franchises do this, and the main reason Greg was unable to continue was time in his personal life, which LEGO as a whole couldn't necessarily foresee. (Not sure where you're getting "endless" from though. Indefinite would be a better term; the serials as they were would come to ends, and then they would consider whether it was worth doing more or not.)

 

It's easy in hindsight to think they could have known it wouldn't work, but since they didn't, the default guess should be that they likely wouldn't. Just because it's what happened doesn't mean they could know that at the time, especially because this was a trailblazing line. They'd never ended the front-and-center (and when it started, the first) story-based toyline (LEGO-produced story) before, so they didn't have experience at it. They wouldn't necessarily realize that the reasons other story franchises have managed it wouldn't fit Bionicle.

 

Some of those reasons may feel obvious several years in hindsight, but they didn't have that perspective at the time. :)

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For me it ended in 2008 and has yet to continue.

 

... Not a fan of the glatorian years.

Care to share why?

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Mostly because it was such a departure to the bio mechanical universe of the matoran, and I found most of the characterizations to be bland. And the sets wernt for me.

Good enough answer I guess, to each their own. Yeah, the 2009 sets should have had new set builds and torsos to show that they are different from not only toa but the Matoran Universe in-general. I guess Lego got lazy.   :confused:   Story that years wasn't, however, I loved Empire of the Skrall and Riddle of the Great Beings; TLR could have been a lot better.

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Mostly because it was such a departure to the bio mechanical universe of the matoran, and I found most of the characterizations to be bland. And the sets wernt for me.

Good enough answer I guess, to each their own. Yeah, the 2009 sets should have had new set builds and torsos to show that they are different from not only toa but the Matoran Universe in-general. I guess Lego got lazy.   :confused:   Story that years wasn't, however, I loved Empire of the Skrall and Riddle of the Great Beings; TLR could have been a lot better.

 

Several of the sets had different builds (Strakk and Skrall in particular, some of the best of the bunch), but the use of old parts wasn't "lazy"... on the contrary, the reason 2009 used the same overall part variety as previous years was the same reason the 2008 and 2007 sets did—because to do otherwise would be wasteful and unsustainable, especially with the theme's sales flagging the way they were. Previous sets like the Bohrok that relied on almost an entirely different selection of parts required them to be spread out across two full waves of clone sets to justify the cost, and even then they were later found to have cost an unsustainable amount of money that took a huge bite out of those sets' estimated profitability.

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Personally, I thought the 2009 sets were the best in a long time, especially after 2008. Instead of being dominated by bland grey, black, and silver, 2009 sets saw the return of bold, bright colors. The weapons and helmets, especially those of the Fire and Ice tribes, excellently communicated elemental themes and vivid character. Indeed, the sets of 2009 were possibly my favorite, save those of 2015.

 

The story, I will readily admit, was subpar. :P

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For me it ended in 2008 and has yet to continue.

 

... Not a fan of the glatorian years.

Well, that's a depressing universe your bionicles are left in. The evil overlord has taken over, and now they live in a tyrannical regime where literally the entire universe enforces his will on you. Edited by Regitnui
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:r: :e: :g: :i: :t: :n: :u: :i:

Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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For me it ended in 2008 and has yet to continue.

 

... Not a fan of the glatorian years.

Well, that's a depressing universe your bionicles are left in. The evil overlord has taken over, and now they live in a tyrannical regime where literally the entire universe enforces his will on you.

Which is something I love as both a story teller myself, and lover of fiction. Bionicle was very much a story of good versus evil, and the good guys always came out on top, despite Makuta's ever-present evil and numerous schemes. But in the end, despite all their struggles and countless victories... The bad guy won. He conned EVERYONE into helping him. He got what he wanted. It's a twist I loved, and sending Mata Nui off into space was a wink to perhaps more, but it wasn't definite. I almost feel like the Glatorian thing SHOULD have been a soft reboot. That, or make Mata Nui land on Bara Magna from the start so things didn't seems so crammed and rushed.

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@regitnui, how is it different than living in a post apocalyptic wasteland, forced to fight both your own species and scorpion people just to get by on a daily basis? while at the same time fearing an attack by an army of rouge warriors? :???:

Because 2008's conclusion is the story of a hopeful universe losing hope and 2009's conclusion is the story of a hopeless universe finding hope. Mata Nui played an almost messianic role to the people of Bara Magna. Bara Magna was a jaded world where most people had basically given up hope of things ever getting any better, but Mata Nui showed them how they could MAKE things better if they united to support one another and embraced their heroic potential. Even Mata Nui found something he needed on Bara Magna — the first hints to his origins and his purpose, and a path to redemption for his earlier failures.

 

Not saying 2009's story was better than 2008's story, but its themes are a lot more uplifting. Instead of a world plunging into despair, it shows a world learning the first steps to escape from it.

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but the "we found hope!" plot has been so retreaded, teridax's win was so unexpected. :bigeek:

Unexpected, sure! No one's saying 2008's conclusion was a bad turn for the story. But a downer ending like that would not be an appropriate ending for the series as a whole, because it would basically establish that all the heroics of the Toa didn't amount to anything at the end—not a very good message, and not very respectful of the fans who wanted to see their heroes win the day. A late-game twist like that only works if you allow the story enough time for the heroes to make things right in the aftermath.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

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not every story has a happy ending... :evil:

No, but some stories should. A writer has to consider not just how to end a story, but what the ending they choose would mean. Bionicle ending with the villain victorious and all the Toa's struggles being in vain? That sends a horribly nihilistic message that is the complete antithesis of Bionicle's core message. Forget Unity, Duty, and Destiny, kids—they won't stop people from taking advantage of you in this cold, cruel world.

 

It's worth noting that Lego actually considered the possibility that 2008 was Bionicle's last year. If that had had to happen, Makuta WOULDN'T have won in the end. Mata Nui's awakening would have been for real instead, to allow the story's messages to pay off and inspire kids to remember the theme fondly instead of with reproach.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

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Personally, I thought the 2009 sets were the best in a long time, especially after 2008. Instead of being dominated by bland grey, black, and silver, 2009 sets saw the return of bold, bright colors. The weapons and helmets, especially those of the Fire and Ice tribes, excellently communicated elemental themes and vivid character. Indeed, the sets of 2009 were possibly my favorite, save those of 2015.

 

 

 

Because 2008's conclusion is the story of a hopeful universe losing hope and 2009's conclusion is the story of a hopeless universe finding hope. Mata Nui played an almost messianic role to the people of Bara Magna. Bara Magna was a jaded world where most people had basically given up hope of things ever getting any better, but Mata Nui showed them how they could MAKE things better if they united to support one another and embraced their heroic potential. Even Mata Nui found something he needed on Bara Magna — the first hints to his origins and his purpose, and a path to redemption for his earlier failures.

 

I agree with these posts, and they actually make me wish Lego hadn't stretched the Ignition saga over three whole years and instead spent more time on the Bara Magna story.

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You all have very valid points. However, I think that if it had ended with Makuta's victory, it still would have been awesome. Yes, if it were to end there, it SHOULD end with Mata Nui awakening and Makuta somehow losing, but that would have been predictable.

 

But still, I think the Glatorian story should have started with Mata Nui's landing, to give the story some more space, before it got cut off along with the line.

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I fail to see how predictability trumps the story's responsibility to convey a relevant and positive message to kids.

 

The series ending in 2008 with Makuta's victory is just unquestionably terrible. It would the entirety of the story's previous events meaningless and would literally constitute ruining the story as a whole.

 

How did we get to this topic, anyway? The topic was about whether you considered the end of the story conclusive, not whether it should have ended without any conclusion at all.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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I fail to see how predictability trumps the story's responsibility to convey a relevant and positive message to kids.

 

I fail to see how Unity, Duty, & Destiny are so important. I think a message that team work won't solve everything is invaluable, & if you're always about winning you statistically are not going to have a good time...

 

Or more seriously I don't think everything has to have a good message, only a good story.

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~ Sophistry: A way to be antidisuncorrect. ~


 


 


In a decade you might convince maybe a small tribe of people.


In a decade you might also conquer one million km2 of land,


& in over a thousand years you might have over a billion followers.


 


I like building things. Please don't break the big ones.


& evidential philosophies that dare to extrapolate beyond


an individual's direct experience aren't easily built.

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