What Made Bionicle so Special?

[Banana Gunz]

I could write a whole essay or research paper on this subject, but with recent things such as the fan negativity and general distaste for G2 (not discluding myself), I think it's worth this just being a positive fan discussion. And maybe along the way we can remember what we loved about Bionicle so much, and gain a better and healthier understanding of what we dislike about G2 and ways things can be done better, as well as recognize what it already does so well.

 

So, what do you think made Bionicle so special? And what made Bionicle so special specifically to you?

[Alyska]

• The premise had an element of mystery to it- what are these robots doing on an island? Wait, are they even robots? Where did the Toa come from? How powerful is Makuta?  And you sorta knew at the back of your mind that these things had been fleshed out and thought about beneath the surface, even though you weren't given all the answers right away (the recent Windham interview indicates that the answer to such questions nowadays is "lol idk we'll make something up to fill that gap later")

Great characters- the Toa of course, but the Matoran, too. They were people you wanted to hang out with and get to know better in MNOG, and you became really invested in saving the island.

The setting- both Mata and Metru Nui were really well fleshed out and believable environments in spite of their impossibility. It was a world you wanted to spend time in, and the lore and culture really helped "sell" this world.

Transmedia storytelling- great use of multiple media to get kids engaged, Bionicle.com was groundbreaking for its time with the amount of free content and worldbuilding. Kinda lost it in the later years with old content being taken down and the new stuff being comparatively limited, but it certainly set off on the right foot.

Makuta Teridax being everything you could want in a scary villain. And he borrows tropes from so many others before him, but he's very much a unique creation in his own right, and his presence is felt even when he doesn't act directly. He's not your average Saturday morning "Curses! You fools foiled me again! I shall have my revenge- next time!" cartoon villain. His goals are mysterious, though frequently hinted at, and his actions often come as a genuine shock to the reader, particularly the MU takeover.

Intelligent storytelling, and not dumbed down for kids. The original treated its audience with respect, and was rewarded with an engaged fanbase. Kids like to be challenged a little. They don't always want it simple and easy.

The devotion of Greg and everyone else on the story team. It's clear that they loved what they were creating, and it showed. If you don't love your own creations, it's not likely that anybody else will. When creators are having fun, the audience usually is too.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Alyska

[Toa Imrukii]

The Surreal nature of it all, and the great story, Characters, environment, the Elements, and mystery. Not only that, but the whole thing of being able to make your own thing, and have it seem alive to you in some way, not that this wasn't already present with the actual sets, but at least for me thats what made BIONICLE so special. But not only this, the life lessons it's taught me, this theme has taught me good, to do good, and keep moving forward. No wonder I've been a fan since the age of Three and I am still as dedicated as ever. Grant it, other things have come into my life more recently that have been as impactful (i.e undertale) but the message and memories that BIONICLE has with me, the things thats stuck, the atmosphere and common themes and lessons, thats what kept me hooked. But going on a more personal note, at a very rough point in my life the lessons of 2006, the will to keep on moving when all seems lost, move along, move along. I was in a very bad school placement, as in, just came out of a school where I was made fun of, put in a place where they said they would help, but instead I was physically assaulted and abused, daily. It brought out a bad in me, that I have since killed off.

 

BIONICLE was so special to me, because it helped me, I was (and still am) a sensitive child, who had no friends, and only had family, but even then I didn't see them as being much, so I had to look inward, and BIONICLE was my salvation from the lonesomeness and the pain.

 

Now with G2 I simply can't really get as engrossed with it as I did with G1, but thats alright. I had G1, and it was left off on a note of which we can always build off of. Again, back to the thing of building, honestly thats one of the major reasons why I liked it so much, because it was unique in that regard compared to other toys at the time.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Toa Imrukii

[Toatapio Nuva]

Intelligent storytelling, and not dumbed down for kids. The original treated its audience with respect, and was rewarded with an engaged fanbase. Kids like to be challenged a little. They don't always want it simple and easy.

 

Though I agree with all of Alyska's points, I'd like to particularly second this one. My #1 issue with G2 is the fact that it has so much potential, but has simply been dumbed down too much in fear of actually challenging children intellectually. That kind of content for children seems to be hard to find nowadays, especially in Lego themes - Bionicle was very unique in this regard. It would be nice to see this return for G2 Bionicle, especially since the story itself isn't bad at all, it's just poorly executed, with very little passion or ambition.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Toatapio Nuva

[Xboxtravis]

Alyska hit the nail on the head! I know G1 had its "dumbded down" moments on occasion; but the overarching story was very memorable. The whole Great Spirit Robot as a plot device was genius; and it took us 7 whole years until it was revealed, which filled dozens of plot holes all at once!

 

To G2's credit, I love the sets. It is very obvious to me the set designers (despite their mistakes) are making an effort to build great figures. The simplistic story though hasn't won me over yet, and I feel it is something Lego needs to improve.

[Lyichir]

Bionicle was special because it was the first Lego theme that told an epic and ambitious original story in a unique fantasy universe, and because it released at the perfect time to define a large part of my childhood.

 

To be honest, that's really it. If I had to weigh G1 Bionicle's story against many of the non-Lego stories I was passionate about during that time period (Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, etc.), the Bionicle story would wind up far, far behind purely on its own merits as a story. If I had to weigh Bionicle's sets against modern sets, it'd similarly fall behind. Even weighing both sets and story against modern themes like Elves and Ninjago, Bionicle's only edge is that it's that much more serious and ambitious, and I think the assets and flaws of that seriousness and ambition balance each other out at best. No, what made Bionicle special was its timing. It came first, and while it'd pave the way for bigger and better Lego themes and stories it came out at exactly the right time to totally capture the imagination of a nerdy '90s kid like myself for the better part of a decade.

[Toa of Gallifrey]

Bionicle came at a point in my childhood where I thought stories were supposed to be formulaic. Then I find out about this toyline with such an expansive story and rich lore. (this was in 2009) As I've grown, I see that it's not as well written as I originally thought but I still appreciate the amount of detail put in a storyline meant to promote toys. While I enjoy Ninjago and G2's story, G1's story, flawed though it may be, still holds a big impression over me and I still love combing through BS01 and finding out little details I never knew.

[Rahkshi Lalonde]

Alas I am but a simple being,

 

robots.

 

honestly that's really all it took? me beign a fan of Lego and there being cool robots?

 

I'm admittedly easy to please. x:

[evil_jaga_genius]

I agree with a bunch of the points above, but I think what really made it special for me was the Matoran.  The Toa were cool with their powers, fighting evil, but the Matoran didn't have that advantage, they were some of the weakest beings in the universe.  And yet they were some of the most heroic and brave characters, even as they were so ordinary they did incredible things.  Nuparu building the Boxor, Hafu jumping into a Tahnok swarm to save Po-Koro, Kongu and the Gukko Force, the Voya Nui resistance.  The Game Boy prequel game, both MNOGs, the animations, Mask of Light, all focused on the Matoran.  Ordinary people doing amazing things with the all the odds against them.  Who doesn't like that?

[Clyce]

What really made Bionicle special and unique amoung all else (and I'm actually surprised no one's mentioned this yet) was the the high quality Bionicle Toothbrushes! The cut on the brush was made in such a way as to increase plaque removal by over 20%!! These tooth brushes also had a phenomenal ergonomic grip that was so solid you would of thought you were holding a brick (No joke)! Not to mention they came in multiple colors with detachable parts! What really did it for me was when LEGO stared creating a new toy line and story lore around the characters that represent each individual toothbrush! The characters even wore the masks that where on the very toothbrushes themselves!!

Unfortunately Gen 2 simply hasn't been able to live up to the reputation and sales that Gen 1 produced, but personally I think their mistake was thinking that the toy line and book series alone could live up to the same potential without its largest market, the Bionicle Toothbrushes.

Now there have been rumors and a few leaked photos around the community that Bionicle will be releasing its 2017 Winter set of toothbrushes for Gen 2 instead of the actual toy sets and may even include one as an Easter egg in the last Journey to One episode this summer (I heard it might be used on one of the shadow traps to get them to open their mouths)! I really think this'll be the bump that we need for the line to go back to its original glory and bring back its fan base and I for one am ecstatic to get my hands on one of those toothbrushes! You won't believe how many people complimented me on my smile throughout middle school and high school.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Azon

[Xboxtravis]

Bwhahahaha, I miss my toothbrush!

[MrSciFiGuy]

Mystery, world-building, immersive terms and technicalities. Love it all!

[bionicleuniverse]

I share the same feeling about these awesome whitemachines!

I still own a sealed toa metru Matau toothbrush to not forget what made Bionicle great in the first place..

[Endless Sea (Alaki Nuva)]

For me, what got me hooked was the general look and feel of the sets (those canisters really helped, btw- they were so unique!) and the setting- robotic-looking dudes with magic powers on a tribal island paradise.  It was weird, it was new, it was visually appealing, and it showed up when I was young and impressionable enough to leave the maximum amount of impact.  The Templar game and the D'Anda/Farshtey comics didn't hurt either- there was some real talent going into those projects.

 

I consider myself a bit of a minority in that I'm actually enjoying G2 even more than I did with most of G1, I think, but at the same time, G2 doesn't quite hold the same charm as the earliest years of G1 did.  I think I can chalk that up partially due to the changing artstyle- 2015 had that extra-cartoony look to it that just doesn't appeal to me like the old CGI and Templar Flash designs did- and to the fact that G1 was novel for its time, whereas G2 is just another LEGO series, and a remake at that.

[Tahu3.0]

Bionicle had something that i think not every theme had a DIRECT link with the creators like Greg and we could ask them stuff and generally the story was big i mean Bionicle even had a FULL website of the story.

 

But what made it for me special was the website it was soo full of stuff that was good and i liked the fact that there were images of fan creations, videos, games, and even news updates.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Tahu3.0

[ToaTImeLord]

The rich story

Great characters

Amazing settings

Jaw dropping plot twist

And the vale of mystery that was behind every word, place and moment.

[Lenny7092]

What makes Bionicle so special is that it is a long story telling about bio-mechanical heroes (mainly the Toa, Glatorian, and a guy named Mata Nui) saving the universe from evil by going on big quests to find something that they can use against it.

 

The heroes do it with courage and unity. They also care for the people, including the Matoran and Agori, that they protect. Even some of the people have interesting personalities and lives that made them have very important roles in the story. The same goes to villains, who are interesting enough to have a lot of known information about their backstory. The main antagonist, Makuta Teridax, is the best villain that he is better than a super-villain, whose plans foiled in many minutes. He made a very elaborate one that he is able to succeed by taking over a very giant robot filled with islands and millions of people and have the power to take over the universe. It took a lot of steps to do it.

 

The story is like a big book divided into a lot of smaller ones. Speaking of that, the Bionicle franchise became so popular, because tons of sets are sold very well and a very great story, that it got a lot of merchandise, including toothbrushes, online and video games, four direct-to-video more-than-70-minute movies, comics, and chapter books. They all tell the story by showing a lot of characters' protagonist roles. The story starts off as vague and mysterious until when the time comes, unknown things in there will be reveal. Some of them helped world-building and continued the story as heroes explored new places and meet new people. It's also interesting to learn about their culture and ideals. It's like Scooby Doo, where you find the clues and put them together to solve a big mystery. The story is also like Transformers, Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics, and Steven Universe combined. The story is filled with more than 10 story arcs.

 

As for the sets, they are robots with unique functions and human-like articulation on the joints that made it the most successful constraction themes in Lego's history.

 

The theme even saved Lego from bankruptcy when Bionicle was born.

 

Bionicle also shows that Lego is very great at making action figures. The Toa Mata are featured in The Lego Movie in 2014 for less than a second.

 

All of these are reasons why I feel that Bionicle is so special to me. I loved the G1 franchise. It's very unique from many other franchises that I have known in my life. I am always able to read the story when I have a lot of time and read it fluently. It was a big childhood thing for me, for it was born when I was a little kid. It was very devastating that Bionicle's toy line in 2010, and now the first half of 2010's most famous songs remind me of that traumatic event. However, the story is what is remained in my partially-broken heart, it stopped with unresolved cliffhangers in 2011 (Bionicle's 10th birthday).;( (tearing in tears of sadness when thinking about these traumatic events) Bionicle always holds a special place in my heart.

 

As for G2, well, I like it. Not the best so far because of the webisodes and Journey To One rushing things in the story and Lego never made evil counterparts for all of the Toa (and poor Melum never had his own Shadow Trap ), but it's getting there. The thing is that it is meant for fans of today, who are younger than us, and the story is meant to be simpler than G1 for them. I felt devastated that when Bionicle returned, it is a reboot instead of re-continuing the G1 story and resolving its cliffhangers, but I think it's worth re-telling the story. It's nice to show new supporting characters, despite I don't know why Lego did not recycle old ones from G1, other than Makuta. From how I look at the new story, it's like that The Amazing Spider-Man movies in 2012-2014, where there are new supporting characters with good character development, new villains, and more humor than the original SM movies from 2002-2007. The G2 story is not worth to hate. I just like it, but not as much as G1. Let it try to become better. I am amazed that making webisodes and the TV series in Netflix (why Netflix, Lego? ) for the first time of Bionicle's life are a way to do it.

 

G1 may be the past, G2 the present, but the future is what time will tell. In my hopes and dreams, I wish the G1 story will be re-continued, G2 to become good as or perhaps better than G1, and a theatrical movie on the big or silver screen, which I believe Bionicle could have a potential of having (although a TV series would be best for telling a very long story, but it was awesome to have such movie). It's kind of like the live-action Transformers movies that way. Another constraction theme, Hero Factory, would've been the first to have the movie (because Universal Studios wanted to get the rights for it in 2012), but is below Bionicle and ended in 4 and a half years (half as how long Bionicle's G1 toy line ran). I would also hope for the TV series to be on TV channels, like Catoon Nerwork and Nickelodeon, and continue on after 2016 with more episodes with non-rushed story plots. It's similar to how Ninjago become successful that way. I also hope that the G2 franchise will expand to other things, like console video games. Plus, this year, 2016, is Bionicle's 15th birthday, hopefully, Lego would make a very great gift to celebrate it. I know it's like having a genie or a fairy from a TV show called Fairly Odd Parents (same age as Bionicle, too), grant your wishes, but here's hoping.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Lenny7092

[Jalaguy]

I'd say that it was the imagination, rather than the depth, of the story material that made Bionicle most unique. Not to say that the complexity wasn't neat, but all the depth in the world wouldn't help if the basic premise and setting wasn't compelling in the first place.

[Smitty]

The mystery of the first few years of it. They gave just enough information to spark one's imagination. Once they got to explaining some of the past and it turned into a story about some giant robots fight against cancer (Makuta) I lost interest. 

[Kopekemaster]

Setting, atmosphere, music, and the amount of depth that the creators went into it to make it incredible.

[Ta-metru_defender]

It wasn't Roboriders, so that's a plus.

[Erasmus Graves]

I reckon Alyska and Lenny7092 pretty much summed it up.

Lego created a rich, complex world with plenty of depth that still remained pellucid when viewed as a whole. There was a real feeling of myth and grandeur about it, and the secrets that emerged over time were brilliantly revealed. The big reveal that all your favourite characters were just insects was shocking, but ultimately (in my opinion) for the best.

It proved that even the tiniest of us all could accomplish incredible things, and how the little can make the greatest impact. It also gave a heavier dose of realism and COSMIC HORROR to the franchise.

The non-linear narrative, the massive cast of characters,  and the sprawling, epic storyline that spanned millennia - it all boils down to one word.

Magnificent.

Oh, and the toys were really nifty too. Lego broke into action figures with an explosion.

 

On a side note, I thought the world-building for 2009 was really neat. One proper book (Raid on Vulcanus, a 100% classic), a podcast, a few comics, and only minimal side material unleashed a dystopia that was reminiscent of 2001 only with more violence and nightmare wasteland vibes.

And then they half-spoiled it with an underwhelming movie.

 

Still, BIONICLE forever! BIONICLE rules the waves of our hearts!

Edited April 5, 2016 by Erasmus Graves

[fishers64]

The Bionicle story has an overarching theme, a theme that G2 has lost: The Toa can overcome adversity. And they made a darn good case for that - they made the Toa lose and learn from their mistakes, and then come back and beat the big bad guy. 

 

And the message in Bionicle was so simple: you can overcome your mistakes and come back to beat the villains in your life. I remember reading Time Trap and seeing Vakama come back after the Roodaka defeat and smash through that whole situation on his own - I loved reading that. As someone said "From cowardly wimp to legendary hero." That was Bionicle at its best. 

 

But that's what Bionicle does. The Toa Nuva go from squabbling to being a team, Mata Nui goes from not caring for the little people to risking his life to give them a better one, Matoro goes from being "just a translator" to savior of the universe. 

 

And G1 never compromised - it made the stakes and the opposition real and believable, not fake and contrived like Hero Factory. And when the Toa finally managed to beat their adversaries, the story steps back to let the payoff get home - you feel like that this is a victory, that you are invested in that outcome, and that you've won too. 

 

There are many other things I liked about G1 Bionicle, like the world building and the engaging mystery - each victory unlocked another piece of the mystery puzzle too, which was awesome.

 

I can see G2 starting to embrace that as well, but it is still a shadow hollow of its former self.  

[Banana Gunz]

I'm so glad I made this topic lol, it feels good seeing all this nice and healthy conversation about Bionicle as a whole. Sometimes it's good to remember the past, so we can learn from it and carry those lessons with us into the future.

[Tuuli]

There were characters, places, music, just about sitting you can think of, Lego originally went all out to help you explore mata-nui, metru-nui, voya-nui and so on. The new bionicle does worldbuilding but considering how short the new bionicle series will be its an injustice to have such a thin and simplified storyline. It used to be a challenging thing to think about, as others have said. Also, characters. Think about Takua, he original matoran. He had stories going on before the Toa had even arrived, which I thought was the most mysterious and coolest thing. The mystery of it all in the original years is what kept the bionicle alive for me. The new sets are really good and I like them but I feel like they are not giving you any other characters it's just the Toa and the skulls and Ekimu, and the protectors who all have the same mask and story

[Lyichir]

The Bionicle story has an overarching theme, a theme that G2 has lost: The Toa can overcome adversity. And they made a darn good case for that - they made the Toa lose and learn from their mistakes, and then come back and beat the big bad guy. 

 

And the message in Bionicle was so simple: you can overcome your mistakes and come back to beat the villains in your life. I remember reading Time Trap and seeing Vakama come back after the Roodaka defeat and smash through that whole situation on his own - I loved reading that. As someone said "From cowardly wimp to legendary hero." That was Bionicle at its best. 

 

But that's what Bionicle does. The Toa Nuva go from squabbling to being a team, Mata Nui goes from not caring for the little people to risking his life to give them a better one, Matoro goes from being "just a translator" to savior of the universe. 

 

And G1 never compromised - it made the stakes and the opposition real and believable, not fake and contrived like Hero Factory. And when the Toa finally managed to beat their adversaries, the story steps back to let the payoff get home - you feel like that this is a victory, that you are invested in that outcome, and that you've won too. 

 

There are many other things I liked about G1 Bionicle, like the world building and the engaging mystery - each victory unlocked another piece of the mystery puzzle too, which was awesome.

 

I can see G2 starting to embrace that as well, but it is still a shadow hollow of its former self.  

 

I don't see where you're getting the impression that the G2 Toa don't overcome adversity. And the idea that the Toa "lost and learned from their mistakes" ignores the fact that the Toa Mata in particular were hilariously bad at doing so. It took them three full years for the preschool lesson that teamwork is more successful than trying to save the world on your own to finally sink in. THREE YEARS. G2 may not have had that much character development yet, but at least the characters aren't unlearning previous lessons on a regular basis.

 

Also, "You feel like that this is a victory, that you are invested in that outcome, and that you've won too"? Sounds like someone's forgetting Makuta's victory at the end of 2008, which basically reduced all of the Toa's previous victory's to plays in master chessmaster Makuta's endgame. That plot twist alone undermined years' worth of lessons, just to prop up an unrealistically competent villain and stretch out the story by giving the characters that much more adversity to overcome (all while the story shifts the focus away from those original heroes for the third time in the theme's run).

 

It's surprising how many explanations of what made Bionicle G1 special require a selective memory of the theme's story. Maybe that's evidence that it's not as superior as people make it out to be...

Edited April 5, 2016 by Lyichir

[fishers64]

I don't see where you're getting the impression that the G2 Toa don't overcome adversity.

I don't see where you got the impression that I got the impression that G2 Toa don't overcome adversity. They do...very easily. Tahu kills two of the main villains of the year by accident, and easily gets his golden mask without much of anything stopping him. The Skull Spiders came from the wrong direction to stop him from getting it...and the right direction to ensure they got annihilated. Same goes for the Scorpios.

 

LoSS was defeated after a quick lesson on teamwork...in less than two literal minutes. The Skull Warriors' shots don't even hurt the Toa. And don't even get me started on Skull Bashers' quick defeat or the fact that the Toa got bailed out by Ekimu at the end of the fight. Still, I'll give you that the Skull Grinder fight was one of my favorite moments of last year, with the "Keep fighting!" dialogue.

 

Finally, Journey To One has improved on all of this by making Umarak a credible villain...but they go too far the other direction by taking the brains out of the Toa's heads.

I got the impression the reason the Toa lost was because they were stupid, not because Umarak outwitted them or did anything other than recognize how dumb the Toa were.

 

 

And the idea that the Toa "lost and learned from their mistakes" ignores the fact that the Toa Mata in particular were hilariously bad at doing so. It took them three full years for the preschool lesson that teamwork is more successful than trying to save the world on your own to finally sink in. THREE YEARS. G2 may not have had that much character development yet, but at least the characters aren't unlearning previous lessons on a regular basis.

Preschool lesson? I know some adults who still don't seem to get that. It's a hard thing to do to swallow your pride and admit that you need to work together, instead of compete.

 

Most of us are hard-wired for one-up mode. For example, if I count the number of successful team projects on BZPower as opposed to the number of successful individual projects, there's no competition. The number of individual successful music artists is greater than the number of successful bands. Why? Because we're all individualistic and stubborn on some level.

 

G1 Bionicle offered reasons why the team fell apart - individual opinions, "I'm so powerful I don't need you any more", "everything is hopeless" - all valid reasons. Banding together in a time of crisis doesn't mean you'll stick together when the crisis is over. A bunch of people in London banded together to right an overturned train car, but did they stay a team after the job was done? No, they moved on with their lives. A group of business departments that normally complain about each other band together over a crisis deadline and pull an all-nighter. Does that mean that they will stop snapping at each other after a good-night's rest? No.

 

Also, in G2, consistently Toa fail to learn the teamwork lesson too. The working together thing was first mentioned in LoSS battle, but then Lewa wanders off on his own and gets in trouble, and even Onua himself goes into battle against Skull Basher without help and gets slammed, in addition to Tahu/Kopaka's own reaction. They do better, but not much better.

 

Further, I didn't like the first three years of Bionicle that much either because they didn't move on from that lesson. It's one of G1's flaws. While the lack of teamwork was realistic, it's poor theme work for a story to drag it out that long without introducing a new theme to go along with it...although I thought it did to some degree.

 

That's also why I think if G2 goes on for longer, it will get better.

 

Finally, lack of teamwork wasn't the theme of the MNOG or even 2002 - they purposefully split up to go help by agreement. It's a theme from Hapka's book about 2001 that turned into a theme for 2003, thus giving the impression that they never learned anything. Given that Tale of the Toa was written in 2003, there you go.

 

Also, "You feel like that this is a victory, that you are invested in that outcome, and that you've won too"? Sounds like someone's forgetting Makuta's victory at the end of 2008, which basically reduced all of the Toa's previous victory's to plays in master chessmaster Makuta's endgame. That plot twist alone undermined years' worth of lessons, just to prop up an unrealistically competent villain and stretch out the story by giving the characters that much more adversity to overcome (all while the story shifts the focus away from those original heroes for the third time in the theme's run).

This is actually a myth. Evil's victory in a situation doesn't undo all the positive lessons that led into that situation. Makuta's win doesn't say "teamwork is bad". In fact the theme came back the next year and showed us hundreds of Agori dragging their villages together for better safety. Makuta's win didn't turn Vakama into a wimp again. Makuta's win didn't undermine that Matoro had value, more than a translator. 

 

Instead, it was a different lesson - that evil doesn't give up, even when you learn. You have to keep going until the very end. And that's the thing about Bionicle story - you have to keep reading until the very end. In the end, the lessons the Toa learned matter anyway.

 

They mattered to Mata Nui at least, who actually teamed up with the Agori/Glatorian on Bara Magna and otherwise was dedicated to saving his people. If he continued not caring about his people and just blamed Makuta, trying to go it alone, 2009 would be a very different story. But his people (the Toa) tried to save him, which no doubt had an impact on his formerly inattentive thinking. What they did mattered in the end, even if it was a different impact than we were expecting. 

 

It's surprising how many explanations of what made Bionicle G1 special require a selective memory of the theme's story. Maybe that's evidence that it's not as superior as people make it out to be...

It's possible to have a positively skewed selective memory, and I may have one. But it is also possible to have a negatively skewed selective memory as well, to only remember the faults and failures of things that you had previously enjoyed. I don't think you have such a negatively skewed memory though - you've told us about positive things about G1 in the past that you have enjoyed, I think. 

 

With that being said, special doesn't mean perfect. People are special - each and every one of us are special - but we are not perfect. Special just means "unique and individually better". We are all "unique and individually better" at something. Likewise, G1 was "unique and individually better" at some things and not others. 

 

And there you go. 

[Chip Wiseman]

I like Bionicle G1 for most of the same reasons I like Steven Universe now:

• A low-fantasy world
• Characters that are human-like, but very alien
• Some of the coolest powers ever thought up
• Excellent villains and heroes alike
• A constant stream of information revealing more about the world, while also keeping the sense of mystery
• Unexpected plot twists
• Fusions!

But above all, I am invested in the characters. Much like Greg did when writing them, we get to know the characters as we read about them. Despite there being a huge cast of friendly and unfriendly faces, none of them feel like clones of one another. (Aside from the earlier sets, of course!)

 

In G2, the characters feel very by-the-book and cliché, at least what we've seen so far. I haven't read any of the Ryder Windham books, but it doesn't seem like there's anywhere near the amount of character development and world-building that the G1 books had. I can only hope that G2 pulls what G1 did and really ramps up the storytelling in its third year.