What Could Have Made HF Great

[Bonkle]

I don't exactly feel this is worthy of its own topic, but it doesn't suit any of the others.

 

My main problem with Hero Factory was the storytelling.

 

The characters were awfully bland and the only personality they had was just standard archetypes. And even then, they couldn't stick with them! Evo went from a confident and calm Hero to an insecure rookie over the course of one wave.

 

So I was thinking, if they couldn't make good personalities, and the story overall was just generic "stop the villains", why didn't they tell the story differently?

 

Why didn't they make Hero Factory the Lego version of Cops?

 

Think about it. It wouldn't rely too much on the characters, but it still could have recurring roles. But, on the flipside we could be shooting around the galaxy to different Heroes, much like Cops.

 

Overarching villainous schemes could still develop, but there would be plenty of room for smaller cases too.

 

And it would actually be funny! A format like this lends itself to a lot of parody. Much like the newspaper "articles" featured in the Lego Club Magazine that fleshed out Alien Conquest.

 

I really think this would have redeemed Hero Factory for a lot of folks.

 

Thoughts?

[Banana Gunz]

I have to disagree here. Although what you say is absolutely true and would've made the theme practically a thousand times better, my main problem above all with Hero Factory is the basic premise of it.

 

Hero Factory teaches that heroes are built in factories, which is stupid and absolutely backwards. The argument that even though they were built in factories it's really their actions and work on the field that makes them heroes because of the example of Von Nebula betraying them even though he was built like all the others. But in my mind this argument is void because he's but the anomaly and every single other hero and example is plain and made for the job.

 

So ultimately it's not being heroic, it's just doing what you were made to do. There's no choice involved, no real thought or care behind their actions. They're heroes because life told them they were and so why would they be anything different.

 

Bionicle was different. Even though the toa were "destined", they weren't truly heroes until they'd proven themselves and grown into it. The toa metru just as an example were arrogant at first and didn't know what to do and how to be heroes. They went through doubt and difficulty and Vakama even betrayed them for a while. They ended up being heroes through their actions and learned to grow into the role. There are also several examples of toa that walked out on their destiny and chose not to be heroes. Bionicle was interesting that way.

 

Perhaps it's an argument of show and tell. Bionicle showed me its characters learning to be heroes, where as Hero Factory simply told us what they were.

 

Making the characters more interesting would fix the problem for the most part, but the basic premise and pitch of the story still irks me a little. Maybe if instead the heroes were recruited instead of built.

[Bonkle]

I have to disagree here. Although what you say is absolutely true and would've made the theme practically a thousand times better, my main problem above all with Hero Factory is the basic premise of it.

 

Hero Factory teaches that heroes are built in factories, which is stupid and absolutely backwards. The argument that even though they were built in factories it's really their actions and work on the field that makes them heroes because of the example of Von Nebula betraying them even though he was built like all the others. But in my mind this argument is void because he's but the anomaly and every single other hero and example is plain and made for the job.

 

So ultimately it's not being heroic, it's just doing what you were made to do. There's no choice involved, no real thought or care behind their actions. They're heroes because life told them they were and so why would they be anything different.

 

Bionicle was different. Even though the toa were "destined", they weren't truly heroes until they'd proven themselves and grown into it. The toa metru just as an example were arrogant at first and didn't know what to do and how to be heroes. They went through doubt and difficulty and Vakama even betrayed them for a while. They ended up being heroes through their actions and learned to grow into the role. There are also several examples of toa that walked out on their destiny and chose not to be heroes. Bionicle was interesting that way.

 

Perhaps it's an argument of show and tell. Bionicle showed me its characters learning to be heroes, where as Hero Factory simply told us what they were.

 

Making the characters more interesting would fix the problem for the most part, but the basic premise and pitch of the story still irks me a little. Maybe if instead the heroes were recruited instead of built.

I agree with you, the moral of Hero Factory was really backwards. But again, if they can't tell a good story with it they could have just overlooked things like that and left it ambiguous. The actual Cops show has the most plain moral, good guys should stop the bad guys. And even then it's not about shoving a moral down your throat, just seeing how a police officer does their work.

[Timageness]

While I do agree that the name "Hero Factory" was actually a bit of a misnomer, Von Nebula and Core Hunter, being the only character examples we were given in the storyline itself, were also pretty extreme cases, and were not designed to be accurate representations of Rogue Heroes as a whole. Plenty of them simply ended up washing out of basic training and aquiring jobs as security guards, which is more than enough evidence to imply that not all of the robots produced by the factory had what it took to achieve the status of Hero, whether they were deemed unsuitable due to their personality and choices or because of a perceived lack of skill. Since the basic premise behind the line was essentially robots cruising around the galaxy in order to stop criminals, however, it stands to reason that the characters we were exposed to would be examples of those who had actually successfully completed their training, or were at least in the process of doing so, as centering the story around others who hadn't made the cut would've likely caused more than a few Red vs. Blue scenarios where the intended plot wouldn't have progressed at all.

Returning back to the original topic, fishers64 actually started up a contest back towards the beginning of the year, one in which those who were looking to enter were basically tasked with redesigning a former Lego IP they had actually wished it had been originally released, and interestingly enough, I believe I was one of the few participants (if not the sole participant) whose entry was HF related. While the contest itself didn't exactly pan out, it did lead to me researching some of the complaints people had with the original line when I started writing up Hero Factory: Contagion, most of which I found myself more or less in agreement with.

So since we're essentially all here to say what we think could've made HF a better line, I'll just list off some of the issues I've been attempting to address over in the Epics sub-forum.

 

1. A More Cohesive Plot - One of the things that irked me personally with HF was that the overall story itself just felt a bit too... random. None of the years felt like they bled into each other effectively, nor seemed to have much impact on the following arcs as a whole. The entire reason we were given that HF existed in the first place was because of a recent surge in villainous activity, and then the story itself pretty much started off with the introduction of Furno and the rest of the Alpha Team rookies, despite Stormer and his team clearly being half of the original cast, soley because they supposedly had more experience. Contagion rectifies this issue by actually starting closer to the beginning of the actual story, and by separating the two groups into two entirely different teams, with the first arc centered around the more experienced Heroes and the second with the rookies shortly after they receive the news that they essentially just washed themselves out of the organisation entirely. The third arc features neither team, but that's because of the next issue below.

 

2. More Heroes/Less Infrequent Appearances - Another complaint that I found to be pretty valid was that the story arcs had the tendency to recycle the same characters wave after wave, and that some were given a higher priority than others, which was evidenced by both Stormer, Furno, and Rocka's appearance in every theme including and after Savage Planet. This would've been easily fixed by simply including a unique wave of Heroes per theme (as in the introduction of a new team), while sprinkling some cameo appearances here and there within the confines of the actual story itself, and would've also lessened the odds of having a character's personality change between arcs substantially.

 

3. Better Quality Villains - Switching out the Villains every wave is one thing, but if one of them's written to be the primary nemesis of the protagonists, it's probably a good idea to flesh them out a bit more, and possibly keep them around for more than a single arc (I'm looking at you, Von Nebula). Also, don't include Villains whose backstories intersect with the Heroes needlessly soley for the purposes of randomly mentioning it at the most awkward of times when the intention is to never go anywhere with that particular plot thread (Fire Lord, Witch Doctor), or Villains who never actually get around to officially appearing in the story at all (cough, cough, Unidentified Villain/Brain Master, cough, cough). Seeing as how The Puppeteer was responsible for the event that ended up necessitating HF's existence in the first place over in Contagion (essentially a multi-phase terrorist attack), it would be a pretty reasonable assumption to expect them to stick around for the entire series and continue to remain the primary source of conflict throughout the universe.

 

4. Inspiring Creativity - The cons here can be summed up in two words; pointless cliffhangers. How Lego didn't realise that they could've just sold a smaller selection of sets, ditched the concept of the upgrade completely, and instituted a system where the Heroes could automatically swap out their limb armor and weapons in the field when they needed to do so, while obviously selling these alternate parts as something along the lines of Bionicle G1's collectable mask packs of course, is honestly beyond me. Just print out a couple of extra pictures on the back of each Hero's bag, box, or instructions, distinctly showing which things go onto which Hero to help them defeat the Villains, and you're practically golden.

 

5. Content - Now don't get me wrong here, because I know that the line is being marketed to children, and thus shouldn't contain inappropriate subject matter, but the story shouldn't be assuming that its intended audience is lacking in both wisdom and intelligence either. Most kids that are ages 8 - 16 nowadays are a lot more mature than they were, say, twenty years ago, and the stories they grow up with as well should reflect this by introducing concepts and ideas that challenge one's perspective of things instead of resorting to what's essentially mindless drivel. The fact that I've personally seen individuals on sites such as YouTube who fall into said age group criticise story decisions, such as Evo contemplating the genocide of Toxic Reapa's species over in Breakout and how Invasion From Below's ending consisted of sending the entire colony of Beasts (eggs and younglings included) falling to their deaths via acid when HF are supposed to be the good guys, is really all the evidence I need to support this conclusion. I'm not saying that characters should die gruesomely left and right for no reason at all, but if a death here and there can realistically and positively impact the story, I don't necessarily think that writers should be shying away from them, either. More recently, the Avatar series has been pulling off stuff like this in spades, but I also seem to recall a particular season of Power Rangers doing something along these lines from my childhood as well, so it's not a question of whether or not it can be done, but why Lego just isn't displaying the initiative to do so. We got it in Bionicle G1, and it's present in a few of the licensed themes' (such as Star Wars and Super Heroes) original source material, so not doing so with their own IPs while exposing us to other outlets that do (quite ironic for a company that attempts to foster creativity in people) seems like they're just actively over-censoring themselves for no particular reason at all.

 

Seeing as this list is already pretty long as it is, I'm going to take a break for now, while reserving the right to come back and add to it later.

Edit: As for the HF Cops idea, I did actually see something similar to that on YouTube once, and it was actually pretty funny. It had interviews with both the Heroes and the Villains, and ended up giving those Breakout combiners a purpose by explaining that they were actually part of a "free upgrade" sting in which the Villains would slap on all of the extra parts before being immediately arrested by the salesman, who was, in reality, a poorly constructed Evo built out of the remaining leftover pieces and disguised with a fake mustache.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Timageness