Bionicle and Transmedia Storytelling

[Alyska]

I learned a new term a few months back- "Transmedia Storytelling". It refers to a story told through multiple media, which may include film, television, print, digital and interactive media, comics, and various products. The concept is arguably as old as storytelling itself- after all, Greek myths were told orally, recorded in print, performed as plays, and represented in art through paintings and sculpture, and the trend for novelisations, comic book adaptations and other supplementary material for popular films has been going on for decades. But when I first heard the term "Transmedia," the very first thing I thought of was Bionicle. So, this post is gonna be a bit of a look into how Bionicle has used transmedia strategies successfully over the years, some aspects that let it down towards the end, as well as how they could potentially be used in future to make Bionicle a massive global brand.

 

Bionicle seems to have really been a pioneer in terms of transmedia storytelling, in that it wasn't told through any one "primary" medium,(like how Star Wars is a film series first and a book/comic/game/animated TV series second), nor did its various media break off into separate continuities ala Pokemon. All the different media contributed towards one unified story- but it was in pieces! Back in 2001-2003, you could read the Hapka novels and get what felt like a cohesive, complete narrative, or you could  play MNOG and watch the online episodes and get an equally "complete" narrative. But if you only consumed the online content, you'd never know about the Shadow Toa. If you only read the books, you'd never know about the Toa's first encounter with Makuta himself. Just like with the sets themselves, the consumer had to put all the pieces together to get the full picture.

 

The sheer depth of the online content was remarkable. You could spend hours and hours on Bionicle.com playing the games, learning about the island and going through the chronicles. The world it created was so incredibly detailed, the characters were quirky and endearing, and it made the island of Mata Nui feel like a place that you loved to visit. And it was available to anyone with an Internet connection, completely free. Brilliant.

 

But starting around 2004, the online content was drastically stripped back. The storytelling focus shifted to the DVD movies, as well as to the books. Both required the consumer to spend money to get the content, and that's not always something that young children are prepared or able to do unless they already have some investment in the characters. Older fans from the beginning who were still engaged kept going with the story content, and the books remained excellent, but it was becoming harder and harder for new fans to get on board.

 

2006 marked an interesting time in Bionicle's marketing. LEGO started producing a bunch of content designed to draw in new fans with a dark, urban, "street" feel to it, but had little or no relation to the actual storyline (Think the Piraka Rap, Bionicle Heroes, Save the Band, etc). The sets sold well, and so the brand was promoted successfully, but it didn't really help with the storytelling problem as far as the canon storyline was concerned. The fact that they'd stopped making the movies didn't help, either.

 

Around 2007, we got the web serials (yay! Online content!), a sorta-canon mini-movie, and Cryoshell's music. I wish they'd done more with the musical side of Bionicle- it was a great idea having a band attached to it. More of a focus on canon here, which was nice, but by this time the canon was massive, sprawling, had dozens upon dozens of characters, and was quite difficult for a casual fan to get a grasp on. One series of books and a few serials, all written by one man, were struggling to cope with the enormity of this universe.

 

Little changed over the next few years. By the time The Legend Reborn was released, LEGO already knew they wouldn't be continuing the line, and so little effort was put into the marketing. And so it ended with a whimper.

 

Fast forward to Gen 2. New continuity, blank slate for new fans. I have to say, it's been a bit sparse. Certainly nothing compared with the amount of content back in '01. A series of animated shorts, good animation but only one voice actor- and the start of of a book series. I personally found the book a bit disappointing- the first half had a bit of fleshing out on the Toa's arrival, while the second half is just a transcription of the events  in the webisodes. There's also games for mobile devices, which is a decent start, but still not a patch on  the start of G1. We have a Netflix series coming (finally!), which might well bring the story to life properly, but at the moment, I'll confess that I'm not quite ready to get my hopes up.

 

Sorry to be a bit negative, but I really do think that Bionicle has been wasting its massive potential recently. G1 had a universe that wanted to be enormous, but the limitations on the media used to tell stories really hurt it. Laziness and stinginess, basically. If LEGO was willing to spend a significant sum of money on it, I believe that Bionicle could have eventually become a truly massive multimedia franchise, widely adored by adults and children alike.

 

Maybe in future generations, they'll be able to take it further. So, here's a hypothetical plan designed to mimic the story arcs of G1 (though I wouldn't want it to be a complete repeat, plot details should vary), incorporating multiple media.

(spoilered for length)

 

More

2001-2003 story: This is where the biggest risks happen. Start with online content, a MNOG-style game released in chapters, and some viral content giving glimpses of the setting. Make kids love the Matoran (or equivalents) like they love Minions- keep the Toa out of the way for now, but bring out the sets, definitely. Books, comics, games would be good additions. This is all leading up to the release of the first theatrical movie.

 

Now, here's the tricky bit: In the event of the first movie's success, they need to be ready to get the sequel (Bohrok saga equivalent?) out, fast- two years at the longest. Requires extensive collusion between set designers, story team and everyone involved with the movie. And have a third one start early production during this time. The third movie would be basically a theatrical equivalent of Mask of Light. In the time between the release of the second and third films, an animated TV series would tell a story similar to the Borohk Kal one- something that's engaging and could make up a series-length arc, but doesn't actually have anything too important to the over-arching plot and so doesn't confuse those that only watch the films.

 

 

And yeah, I know, they can't put out a feature film every year. I suggest it be done in trilogies. 2004-05's equivalent- a flashback involving a different set of characters, would be great material for a longer-running animated series. The sheer length of it makes it seem much more appropriate to TV than to movies. The sorts of online content that would be appropriate to Metru Nui would be fun to explore- perhaps some codebreaking, riddles, puzzle games etc could be incorporated, as well as serials, character blogs, etc.

 

Next up is the Legends saga, with another film trilogy. Whether or not any TV series ran alongside it is up in the air, but having books  and comics elaborate on the characters' adventures (particularly villain backstories) would be great.

 

After that is where I'd really change it up. Two animated series. One taking place on Bara Magna, in the year before Mata Nui arrives. One taking place in the Matoran Universe, under Teridax's reign. The former would have a short run, and lead up into the next set of films, that have Mata Nui's arrival and the defeat of Makuta, while the MU series would run all the way through that storyline.

 

After that? Who knows. There would still be stories to tell, I'm sure. I've focused mostly on the "big" media here since I was trying to wrap my head around how a film series could possibly work, though the online content is not to be underestimated. Telling the one story across multiple media to the extent Bionicle managed in the early years is something that can really be worked as a strength- just look at what Star Wars is doing right now, with the range of spin-off series and media available. Will Bionicle ever be on par with Star Wars? Maybe not, but I think it could certainly give Transformers, Lord of the Rings, maybe even various Marvel properties a run for their money. I really do hope the franchise is given its chance to shine.

 

What do you think? What do you like/dislike about Bionicle's multi-modal storytelling? Where do you think it could go?

 

 

 

Edit: Spoiler tag converted to "more" tag; please use spoiler tags for storyline spoilers only.

-Wind-

Edited November 28, 2015 by -Windrider-

[SPIRIT]

Transmedia storytelling is absolutely one of the hallmarks of G1 BIONICLE.  Some years got it very right and other years not so much.

 

Probably the main difficulty involved with the process is the risk of contradictory storytelling.  A simple case of too many cooks.  Then you have ambiguous canon: e.g. how exactly do the Toa Mata defeat Makuta?  While GregF certainly helped to arbitrate that, I'm sure many people would have preferred that he give things like MNOG1 a bit more precedence.

 

Then you get other stories like 2005, where you have to shoehorn the books and comics into the middle of the movie for them to make sense, although the movie itself uses only the faintest of fade transitions to indicate that time may have passed.

 

And as you say, we're definitely not seeing this as much in G2.  We've got books, web videos, and set descriptions.  That's it.  No games, no comics, no web serials, no side stories to speak of.  It remains to be seen what Journey to One can do to change this, and I'm sure many of us are eagerly waiting to be reimmersed in what was once a very real-seeming world of magic rainbow robots.

[Aanchir]

While the Bionicle theme's transmedia storytelling was good for it at the time, I do think it had a number of drawbacks. For instance, it made it that much harder for new fans to "catch up" on older stories they missed. If you want to catch up on the Ninjago storyline, you mostly just have to watch the TV series, which is not too hard in this era of full-season DVD collections, digital download services like iTunes and Google Play, and streaming services like Netflix. If you want to catch up on the Bionicle storyline, on the other hand, you have to play through the Mata Nui Online Game AND watch a bunch of webisodes AND read the books AND read the serials AND watch the movies... it got mighty complicated by the end. I think part of the reason the books became a near-comprehensive medium for the storyline starting in 2003 was to help compensate for the difficulty of playing "catch-up" with a storyline that was so incredibly non-linear, but that started to come undone in 2005 with the whole "quest for the Mask of Light" story arc that didn't feature in the books at all.

 

With Bionicle G2, so far, things have been a lot more streamlined. You can understand the overall storyline fairly well from the webisodes alone. The online/mobile game does not introduce any new continuity and the one book we've gotten has been more or less supplemental, just filling in further details about the events and characters depicted in the webisodes. As for how long they can keep the story linear, or whether that is even their long-term intent, that remains to be seen.

[Xboxtravis]

I think the more complex storyline had some benefits, as an adult I can now look back and be surprised by the depth of the story. But then again, I first followed the story in 2001, from the beginning. But very few kids are interested in learning an entire canon when they are 7 or 8 years old, and I can see how Lego's story approach was off putting to them, especially if they picked up the toy in 2006 or 2008.

[TheSkeletonMan939]

2008 is a perfect embodiment of this.

 

- Comics

- Books

- Children's short read books

- An online story

- Web serials

- Web animations

 

All communicating a very busy yet very focused story year. It was wonderful to watch it all unfold.

[fishers64]

If you want to catch up on the Bionicle storyline, on the other hand, you have to play through the Mata Nui Online Game AND watch a bunch of webisodes AND read the books AND read the serials AND watch the movies... it got mighty complicated by the end. I think part of the reason the books became a near-comprehensive medium for the storyline starting in 2003 was to help compensate for the difficulty of playing "catch-up" with a storyline that was so incredibly non-linear, but that started to come undone in 2005 with the whole "quest for the Mask of Light" story arc that didn't feature in the books at all.

This is an illusion. If I read the books through from 2003 - 2008, I wouldn't be missing anything important from the story. It's 2009 when it all started to break down, when the end of the Bionicle Legends series made following the books hard.

 

It's Bionicle fansites like BZPower with their maze of Greg clarifications and BS01 that made following this story hard. That, and the insane belief that every contradiction had to be smoothed out. Nobody does this for any other franchise, really. Nobody says that every difference between the Marvel Comics and the movies has to be fixed, and one declared "canon". Nobody does this for Lord of the Rings, or the Hunger Games. 

 

But because of the natural inquisitiveness of the question-asking population of BZPower, suddenly we have to have all the contradictions smoothed out. Suddenly we have to have the "right" answer and everyone else is "wrong". That's what makes Bionicle a transmedia story maze, when EVERYTHING HAS to be included. 

 

It's also a double standard with other Lego franchises too. Ninjago has books. Hero Factory has books too. Are we going to argue that those aren't part of the story? But all I have to do to catch up with Ninjago is watch the TV series, right? 

 

But the book stories of Ninjago aren't as important as the TV series. 

 

Exactly. 

 

And the movie stories, the online animations, and the movies aren't as important to the story of Bionicle as reading the books. Now it can be fairly argued that books are a less accessible medium than a TV series, and that made it hard to catch up on. I will agree to that. But the idea that I had to know every single piece of Bionicle media from every single year in order to understand the story is insane. 

 

It was a requirement to debate Bionicle story in Bionicle Storyline & Theories. But it was not a requirement that Lego imposed on its customers.In fact they tried their level darnedest to NOT do that. 

 

arrgggh this myth gets me every time if someone tries to reconcile the Elves book with the Elves TV special to establish Elves canon I'm going to punch somebody

[Alyska]

I reckon there's a variable scale of canon cohesiveness when dealing with multiple media. At one end you have things like Pokemon, where the cartoon is a  separate continuity/universe to the games, manga etc. The MCU is a separate continuity to the comics, but it's generally agreed that, say, the continuity of Agents of SHIELD needs to be consistent with the continuity of the Avengers films, so they're in the middle of the scale.  Bionicle is probably at the far end of this scale, since all "canon" media supposedly fits into one continuity.

 

That's why I say that the early 2000s media did well in providing a cohesive story on any of the platforms. You don't need to consume it all to get the idea of the story, but there's enough variation and additional detail that seeing it told again in another medium doesn't feel redundant.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Alyska

[Aanchir]

It's also a double standard with other Lego franchises too. Ninjago has books. Hero Factory has books too. Are we going to argue that those aren't part of the story? But all I have to do to catch up with Ninjago is watch the TV series, right?

The Ninjago books are supplementary stories, and from my understanding they are technically non-canon. Same goes for the video games.

 

The Hero Factory books, likewise, are supplementary stories. Enjoyable as they are, there is not a single thing that happens in them that is later followed up on in the main story.

 

And the movie stories, the online animations, and the movies aren't as important to the story of Bionicle as reading the books. Now it can be fairly argued that books are a less accessible medium than a TV series, and that made it hard to catch up on. I will agree to that. But the idea that I had to know every single piece of Bionicle media from every single year in order to understand the story is insane.

For the most part, I agree. There was absolutely no need to follow everything. I do not remember if I've ever actually watched the Toa Hordika webisodes I mentioned previously, I'm only aware of them via BS01 and the Bionicle Encyclopedias. That's where I felt like the comprehensiveness of the books started to unravel, but that doesn't mean that I think that this was some huge turning point where the supplementary material jumped straight from "non-essential" to "completely essential". Just that things started to slowly shift towards that direction.

 

As the years went on it became harder and harder to completely ignore this supplemental material. Never to the extent that you'd have no clue what was going on in the books without reading the serials or comics, but I can't see how you wouldn't start to feel confused when somewhere between "Swamp of Secrets" and "The Final Battle" Takanuva gains the ability to fly, which (unlike the draining of his inner light) is never explained in either book.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Aanchir

[Kopekemaster]

It's one thing I love about Bionicle, and something I think enabled it to give a lot more details about the world, story, and characters. (Of course, lol, some of the stuff isn't canon.)

[Xboxtravis]

As a kid I followed most of the books up until 2007 when I decided I just wasn't into it anymore. From then on out I got the story just through the comics, but even then I didn't follow it closely (I'm not sure, but I think I learned Matoro died in mid-2008!) The comics made sense, except for when the Glatorian story skipped a chunk for TLR.

 

Last comic I was pretty content that the story came to a dramatic close. I was not aware that Greg had the serials and podcasts. I didn't know all that story until I googled it around 2013... And that's when things got confusing. But I wasn't that invested in Bionicle, so I kind of brushed it aside.

 

Come 2015 though... New wave of Bionicle. amazing set designs. Then a pump of nostalgia that hit my AFOL heart. Next thing I know I'm back here and on BioSector01 trying to make sense of everything...

Edited December 5, 2015 by Xboxtravis

[Wazdakka]

I'm so grateful for this post. It really reflects some of my own views on the flaws of G2, but in a very comprehensible and non-confrontational manner. 

[Nidhiki of the Shadows]

I think transmedia storytelling was both beneficial and harmful. It brought the story to a lot more people in a lot more intriguing ways, but it also resulted in continuity errors, inconsistent storytelling and the expectation of following every piece of media for the big picture and that kind of made it hard to follow. Was genius in execution for some years though. But yeah, when we talk about transmedia storytelling, G1 is a perfect example of it.

 

-NotS