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Is a Third Generation Inevitable?


Banana Gunz

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I know there have been a lot of other similar topics that cover the idea of Bionicle coming back, so to clarify, I've seen a bunch of different voices, some saying that Bionicle coming back again would be inevitable, whereas others seem to think it coming back is unlikely.

 

I also wanted to put together a poll to see what people think, because as to what the community as a whole thinks about this has been puzzling and hard to read. The shadiness of G2 and especially its end left a bad taste in a lot of mouths as people aren't even sure what to think while LEGO insists it did well, but somewhere the numbers just aren't adding up.

 

I also added a second question to see if you even want to see it back. And please, don't harass people that don't want it back, they're as valid fans as those who do and it's not sacrilege.

 

Vote in the poll and explain your answer below, I'm interested in seeing overall what you guys think. Is Bionicle a staple worth coming back to, or has it filled its worth and is no longer an interest for LEGO?

Edited by Black Six
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Do I think it will come back? Honestly It could I do believe. I think it should only come back situationally. But it could go either way. It could come back at a time were it didn't need to, and isn't focused on and thought out well again like G2, or it LEGO could do with it what they did in G1 all over again. Not in terms of story necessarily, but in terms of marketing and getting it out there.

 

As for if I want it back? Honestly G2 was alright, for the conglomerated mess that it was, it was alright but it certainly did not hold a flame to G1. If it is to come back it has be good, ot doesn't have to be legendarily good, or god-like, but just good at the least. It cannot be total crud (i.e wasted potential, and a bi-polar always changing storyline from year to year, like what we saw in HF. But at least HF made that up with some pretty good sets).

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Likely, but I only want it to if it's good.
 
Look, a lot of us thought that there was no way Bionicle would come back for G2, but given that G2 happened, that indicates that LEGO may view Bionicle as a revivable intellectual property, much as other lines have come and gone in waves.
 
G2 was plagued with ... issues.  It did some good things—let's not forget Korgot!—but on the whole it failed to do what made G1 great.  If LEGO can find a way to recapture the high-tech tribal mysticism of '01-'03, then I'd love to see G3.

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My vote went with "unlikely". If the rumors are true in that BIONICLE Gen2's sales were as horrendous as speculated, the retailers probably aren't going to be willing to purchase Lego products with the BIONICLE label on them in the future. 

Edited by Irrie
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For the new Bionicle to be cancelled less than two years in doesn't suggest a performance strong enough for it to get another chance anytime soon. Even after the long-running generally successful first run ended, it took whole years and a very different other line before the new Bionicle arrived.

 

I only want another wave of Bionicle if it's good. The recent one had mostly good sets, but stumbled due to trying to tell an epic story without enough media to properly realise it. Another attempt must avoid that mistake and invest in stuff like the MNOLG or the TV shows many of Lego's other story lines have had.

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Likely it will come back, I would love to see it back. But timely? No. Give it 10 years or so

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Could go either way, and it depends entirely on the success of constraction and Lego's other story-heavy themes in the years to come.

 

After G2, I can't see them bringing it back unless they're very certain they have a market niche it fills well.  If constraction is all but phased out and Lego's got far more kid pop culture cachet with other themes like Ninjago (or whatever comes after Ninjago) five years from now, there's no reason for them to bring Bionicle out of mothballs again.

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In regards to bionicle coming back... I want it to stay dead, and apparently one other person does as well. My reasoning for this is just like any series revival, I do not see it getting better if it is revived again.. I'd rather it end on a somewhat good note than being constantly revived, slowly deforming until it isn't even recognizable. 

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Look, coming up with new ideas is hard.  If there's one thing our culture likes it's taking old ideas and rebooting them.

 

It certainly may take longer than five years for them to bring back Bionicle this time, but as long as Lego holds the copyright, it will absolutely come back someday.  All it takes is a Bionicle fan to rise through the ranks of Lego or whichever marketing firms they contract to who can make or approve a pitch for G3.  And Bionicle certainly enjoyed a wide popularity, so I can certainly see this happening.

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1. I voted unsure. I do believe Bionicle could come back, but I'm not sure if it will. There's always a chance though.

 

2. I definitely want it to come back. Because I'm a fan of the theme. :P

 

Yes, I did like Gen 1 more than Gen 2. But we still got some really cool sets over the last two years and I think the story could've gone to some interesting places if given more time to develop.  

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Do you WANT to see Bionicle come back again?

 

Definitely :)  As far as fictional franchises are concerned there is nothing I would want more than Bionicle to return  :)

 

Is a third generation of Bionicle bound to happen?

 

Unlikely  :(  Generation 2 got the go ahead because of the tremendous success of Generation 1. The problem is that when LEGO will inevitably consider Generation 3, they won't look at Generation 1 anymore - they will look at Generation 2 because Generation 2 is the most recent study on the popularity of Bionicle. And since Generation 2 was a huge financial unsuccess (I really can't think of any other reason why they would cancel it so abruptly, quickly and without any preparations or ending save from the last two Journey to One episodes - seriously, no Makuta and Mask of Ultimate Power set?!  :???:  ), I think it is highly ulikely that they would give Generation 3 a go ahead  :(  It hurts me greatly to say this but I think that official Bionicle is dead  :(  That's why I think we should focus on fan Bionicle now more than ever, because that is all that remains  :(

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I doubt that BIONICLE is returning. The fact that it (assumingly) sold so poorly that it was cancelled even before the planned 3 years were finished means that even if LEGO wanted to bring it back, retailers probably wouldn't stock it due to fear of losing money.

 

I might want to see BIONICLE come back, I'm honestly somewhat impartial to the idea. If it is brought back, that's great; more opportunities for great new sets and the possibility of a new story. But if it isn't brought back, that's still fine; we already have some pretty excellent sets, and for one of them, we got a story that while flawed was unlike anything LEGO had made before or debatably since.

 

^ Uh, no? Lego said themselves bionicle is going to return in the future but we have to wait for another 5 years likely

I don't believe LEGO said that would definitely bring back BIONICLE in the future, just that it isn't a theme that's been permanently retired. It's not that they will bring it back, but that they can bring it back.

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It might be wishful thinking, but honestly I believe the extremely abrupt ending is exactly the main indication that the line is coming back, and not too far into the future. Think about it:

 

If Lego axed G2 with the idea that this is the definitive, final and permanent end to Bionicle, they would have let it run its 3 year planned course. Both G1 and HF failed in terms of sales near the end, but both went on an additional two years after the decision to kill them off was made. By this logic, the cancellation of G2 had to be planned before the line even begun, which makes no sense since there was no sales data at the time.

 

Now, if G2 was indeed selling as abysmally as everyone thought, Lego would have simply scaled back 2017, tossed out Maktua with the MoUP with a few Stars-like small sets and buried Bionicle forever.

 

Instead the line was cut a year early with very little notice. Here's a metaphor: when someone dies, arranging a funeral takes ages, however when someone is in critical condition, they are rushed to the hospital in order to be healed. The suddenness and urgency with which G2 bit the dust is what gives me hope.

 

This whole situation has the air of a strategic withdrawal. Lego reeled in Bionicle to re-assess, re-plan and re-design it for a proper comeback. While G2 was originally planned for three years, some of the extended story content introduced in 2015 already alluded to longer reaching storylines, meaning the team expected it to pull a G1, which was also planned for 3 years, and last a whole lot longer. Then the sales numbers weren't too peachy, so instead of canning all of their ideas, the rolled things back to salvage the franchise and come back for a second time, stronger than ever.

 

They learned from G2's mistakes and are incorporating that knowledge into G3.

 

Sure, all of this seems a bit too good to be true, and it very well might be. I'm not saying this theory is undoubtedly correct, since it is very possible that we will never see Bionicle again, however I believe there is some logic in what I have to say. There is a lot of hope riding in this, I'll be the first to admit. However, I just find the extremely quick and sudden cancellation suspicious rather than descriptive.

 

Anyway, those are my two cents.

 

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Could go either way. It was brought back once, so why not again? It's a concept that Lego would probably want to capitalize on in the future as well. Then again, since G2 bombed so badly, it could be a factor that can ruin any future generations of Bionicle. Hard to say.

 

I would love to see it back again though, especially considering Lego must've learned something from the horrendous execution and performance of G2. G3 might therefore actually be good. But again, this is only speculation.

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In regards to bionicle coming back... I want it to stay dead, and apparently one other person does as well. My reasoning for this is just like any series revival, I do not see it getting better if it is revived again.. I'd rather it end on a somewhat good note than being constantly revived, slowly deforming until it isn't even recognizable.

My same thoughts, dear man (I am that other person). To be real honest, I wasn't exactly happy of Bionicle's return in 2015 (even if I did liked it in the end). I do not like reboots.

 

Does the next constraction line need to be called Bionicle? Can't it be something else? I wonder what would have happened if Gen 2 Bionicle was not labeled as such, if we would have appreciated (or hated) it the same way. Maybe putting Bionicle in front of something puts the expectations of us nostalgics way too high. Then again that surely wasn't the reason of Gen 2 low sells.

 

A question arises: what defines Bionicle? What makes Gen 1 and Gen 2 the same theme, other than names?

Edited by Millennium
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What makes Gen 1 and Gen 2 the same theme, other than names?

 

Six main heroes who arrive to an island separated into six distinct regions which happen to correlate to the elemental affinity of said six heroes, who are then tasked with protecting the tribal villagers of said island from a sinister force which, prior to the heroes' arrival caused the former mentor or leader-figure of the villagers to fall into a coma? The six heroes must protect the villagers by exploring the island in order to find golden masks which will increase their powers and up their chances of defeating the big bad, however along the way they are hindered by the servants of said sinister force? Both are a toy line wherein non-system Lego parts are used to build the characters appearing in the story, and these parts are interchangeable and can be used to build your own creations? Both have a biomechanical high-tech/low-tech science-fantasy theme, and both borrow heavily from the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien?

 

I mean, I could go on, but I think I made my point.

 

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In regards to bionicle coming back... I want it to stay dead, and apparently one other person does as well. My reasoning for this is just like any series revival, I do not see it getting better if it is revived again.. I'd rather it end on a somewhat good note than being constantly revived, slowly deforming until it isn't even recognizable.

My same thoughts, dear man (I am that other person). To be real honest, I wasn't exactly happy of Bionicle's return in 2015 (even if I did liked it in the end). I do not like reboots.

 

Does the next constraction line need to be called Bionicle? Can't it be something else? I wonder what would have happened if Gen 2 Bionicle was not labeled as such, if we would have appreciated (or hated) it the same way. Maybe putting Bionicle in front of something puts the expectations of us nostalgics way too high. Then again that surely wasn't the reason of Gen 2 low sells.

 

A question arises: what defines Bionicle? What makes Gen 1 and Gen 2 the same theme, other than names?

 

 

What defines Bionicle? It's weirdly less specific than it may seem. But I think it's very unfair to look at G1 and G2 as the same theme. At their cores and structures overall they're very different and operate very differently. In fact, I wouldn't even say G2 fully operated as it rather walked by then broke down and started screeching past till it flopped over and died.

 

G2 had no fundamental story structure or point. It tried to be 2001 at first, but that didn't work because nothing can be 2001 out of nostalgia, but then from that point on it just felt like any other generic story. It didn't have the important themes, ideas, and metaphors of G1. It was empty, and story-wise very cheap.

 

I praise Ninjago because though it's not entirely innovative, it does what it does well. G2 had nothing to say, nothing but "Unity, Duty, Destiny", but even so didn't even fully understand what that meant like G1 did.

 

Bionicle as a name and an IP is incredibly flexible in what it is and can be. Bionicle is not just "six heroes washing up on a shore and looking for masks". Bionicle is 2001-2010 and everything that came between. It's about diverse settings and characters, about characters undergoing transformations and fighting for what they believe. More importantly Bionicle is about one's role in the universe and challenging who we are and what we're meant to be. For a theme so much about destiny, its greatest strengths is how it often feels like our futures are uncertain, even when our goals are clear.

 

And honestly, the more I think about it the more I agree that maybe trying something new is good, but even then I get flashes back to Hero Factory and what a wreck that was.

 

Truth is, I don't have faith in LEGO anymore. I don't believe they can handle a story based theme well anymore, because it's either gonna fall short, be cheesy and kiddy, or be a Ninjago clone (and as good as Ninjago can be, I'd rather see more). Opportunity is only as good as its execution.

 

I'm just not impressed anymore. And I know LEGO isn't about me, but it is about the individual. It's about how it affects each and every one of us. It's not just about what's in the box, but the pieces and how we use those to create our own memories. It used to be "Just Imagine...", now it feels like "Just Play..." But play without growth doesn't mean a whole lot.

 

ALL I want from LEGO, is to feel inspired. ALL I want is to watch, read, etc. something that gets me hooked and excited, something that makes me stop looking at it critically and instead look at how enticing and unique it is. Maybe I'm fundamentally stupid for looking for a good story with LEGO anymore, but I've simply lost all ability to care anymore. Now I stick to Star Wars and writing my own stories and characters.

 

TL;DR, Despair, despair everywhere. Save the children.

Edited by Banana Gunz
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Lego knows they have a very profitable IP on their hands. They'd be fools to put it away for good instead of simply returning to the drawing board. And here is...well, a thing: https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/760116310067990529

 

Bionicle, it seems, wasn't doing so poorly that it could NEVER come back. The sales must simply have started to turn downward, and so Lego pulled the plug before Bionicle crossed the point of no return.

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I don't think it's gonna happen. When you think about it bionicle is the first proper reboot lego have done. They have done space police and other themes a couple times but at the end of the day they are reboots in name only. Bionicle seems to be the only unique concept of there's which was rebooted and took a lot of elements from the original. What a lot of people forget with the original is that it wasn't a failure by the time they decided to cancel it. It actually still sold and was still relatively well promoted. It's just that the profits were consistently going down. The reason Lego brought it back was to try and recapture the popularity of the original. But it's failed and presumably got even less money. It took the early 2000s profits to justify a comeback in Lego's eyes. That's their standards to do such a thing. So I think unless there is a major policy change at Lego they won't do it again. And if they create a line that's able to be more popular then both bio G2 and HF then I think that's gonna make it even less likely. Hate to be a downer but I think this is the end. 

It's time to move on.

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I see Bionicle's return very unlikely, even in a 10 years period. It will depend on wherever or not constraction is still viable. The experiments with system didn't go to well in G1 either. Who knows, if there's a resurgance of buildable action figures Bionicle might get another chance.

 

And of course I would love to see it come back, if anything to see what new developments they come up with.

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I'd like to see Bionicle return, but it would be nice to reintroduce the old sets. I think, as impossible as it is, they should have G1 back if only for a limited time.

 

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I think it's very unlikely we'll see a third generation of Bionicle, at least in the near future. In ten or twenty years? Sure. I don't think  stores are willing to waste anymore money on a brand that sells pretty bad.

 

Do i want it to come back? Definitely, at least in my current financially situation. But I could lose my income a week from now and be forced to live with the necessities.

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I do not think a G3 is inevitable. For some reason, I felt the door was left open a smidge way back in 2010, but this was far from a guarantee. Now, I feel the door has been closed for good. The G2 story wrapped up with virtually no unanswered plot points, and the plot itself seemed to end with a lack of future adventures, as the last villain, Makuta, is gone. The BIONICLE website has yet to be updated with the summer set story/character information, whereas the G1 website was regularly updated, even with it being known this was the end.

 

This could be a sign that TLG really is trying to move on from BIONICLE ASAP, but I could be mistaken. While I love Star Wars, I really feel that the buildable figures hurt BIONICLE sales. I bring this up because, as long as TLG is cranking out Star Wars figures, another constraction line could not coexist. The demand for licensed themed toys is much higher than in 2001, so I think if/when interest in Star Wars  and super-heroes has cooled down, then BIONICLE might be able to make a meaningful comeback.

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I logged into BZP for the first time in months just to vote in this poll. I think it's unlikely that it'll come back. Now, I did ask LEGO on Twitter if BIONICLE's cancellation was due to poor sales, and they said the line was "overall successful". Because of that, there was obviously another reason behind cancelling it, and I don't they'll bounce back from it. Personally, I don't want it back, whether it's good or bad. G2 will always be a poor part of it, a part that was worse than 2009-2010 honestly (except for the sets, mind you). It was a part of my childhood, and I was excited for the pre-G2 hype, but was extremely let down after it came out.

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Bionicle is a franchise that strikes me as one that needs to be fueled by passion and creativity, and the core of those tenets are seen in the art and story that are built around the figures. I think we saw that in the... visually uninspired shorts that were released this generation, and the absence of an attempt to release comics or more public promotional material. Unfortunately, those driving artistic principles aren't inherent to financial success, even if the promotions and shorts had been of higher quality there is no guarantee that higher sales would have followed.

 

I would say that I only want to see it coming back if someone took the helm with true artistic drive, but I don't know if that's enough to keep a franchise afloat any more. Bionicle was very, 'of an era'. Maybe it should stay that way.


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Holy cow, I can't believe this got on the front page! Thanks a ton!

 

But what I'm really interested in is the poll results. Coincidentally my choices of "could go either way" and "definitely" also ended up being the top chosen ones, and it's totally not because I'm secretly a government spy who used my elite hacking skills to rig the poll...

 

The results otherwise are actually surprisingly fairly mixed, but it's clear most people aren't ready to give up on Bionicle, even if they may feel it unlikely after the theme getting cut short. Of course there's no way to know for sure, for in the end it's up to LEGO and how loyal we stay (which after five years I don't think will be a problem).

 

But no matter what, I'm glad that the fan base is still here to have discussions like these!

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Yeah, I think it's pretty inevitable it'll come back. You see at this point BIONICLE isn't a Lego theme, it's a franchise. BIONICLE is a product with a massive following (despite weather people wish to admit it or not). It has one of the most vocal LEGO communities out there. I hear a lot of people like castle, yet I never see any forums about it. Ninjago is HUGE and it doesn't have nearly the fan support and content of BIONICLE. G2 didn't sell well because a lot of fans didn't buy it for their own reasons.

 

Even the way LEGO talks about it's end supports this: "There are currently no specific plans to bring back BIONICLE" "The possibility of a return of BIONICLE cannot be ruled out". Lego says no specific plans, but not no plans entirely. They are putting it in their back pocket until they know how to use it again. Sure, it's return won't be for a very long time. But, I am certain eventually it will return. 

 

In the meantime, we as fans need to take it upon ourselves to keep it alive. Greg Farshtey even said that he believes that's the purpose a fan-base serves, to keep it alive. People are throwing around the term "Bionicle is dead" and are completely wrong. Bionicle will only be dead when there are no fans to keep it alive.

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Honestly, I think it's better for the fanbase if it doesn't return. We were sad the first time it ended and sad the second time. Do you really want to take part in a cycle of happiness, followed by "oh... it's not as good as it was," followed by sadness after it inevitably gets canceled again?

 

No matter how good a new generation might be, the older fans will always prefer G1 because they grew up with it, and if Lego tries to cater to the older fans as well as the newer fans, it would just be such a mess and end up being terrible. That might be why G2 didn't go so well. It tried to bring back older fans using the names of the Mata, similar masks and weapons, and the Uniters were probably meant to be the recreation of the Nuva. Or maybe the Phantoka. But it was this desire to appeal to the older fans that hindered what the sets could have been. If they just started over with new characters, they would have more artistic liberty to design the sets. You might say "but it's not Bionicle without Tahu!" That's not for us to decide. That's for Lego to decide.

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Yeah, I think it's pretty inevitable it'll come back. You see at this point BIONICLE isn't a Lego theme, it's a franchise. BIONICLE is a product with a massive following (despite weather people wish to admit it or not). It has one of the most vocal LEGO communities out there. I hear a lot of people like castle, yet I never see any forums about it. Ninjago is HUGE and it doesn't have nearly the fan support and content of BIONICLE. G2 didn't sell well because a lot of fans didn't buy it for their own reasons.

 

Even the way LEGO talks about it's end supports this: "There are currently no specific plans to bring back BIONICLE" "The possibility of a return of BIONICLE cannot be ruled out". Lego says no specific plans, but not no plans entirely. They are putting it in their back pocket until they know how to use it again. Sure, it's return won't be for a very long time. But, I am certain eventually it will return. 

 

In the meantime, we as fans need to take it upon ourselves to keep it alive. Greg Farshtey even said that he believes that's the purpose a fan-base serves, to keep it alive. People are throwing around the term "Bionicle is dead" and are completely wrong. Bionicle will only be dead when there are no fans to keep it alive.

 

Well put!

 

 

I've been thinking about it some more, and I can't entirely see why Bionicle couldn't come back a long time into the future. Before I thought that five years was the maximum that they could wait, if even at the risk that Bionicle hasn't already died, but even if it has (which it hasn't because we're still here), why not still bring it back?

 

I mean the market right now seems at odds with G2/Bionicle, but revisited in the future Bionicle could be done completely differently and if marketed well, it won't need a huge following. I mean Bionicle was a hit the first time and it didn't have a pre-existing community to raise it. If Bionicle is done really well and with the right support, people will hop on board the way they did with Ninjago.

 

It'll just be a great new line for new fans, except that there'll be a healthy group of us who know what Bionicle was and have a more intimate love for it.

 

tl;dr I think Bionicle being brought back into the far future is fine as long as it's done well enough. Anything really good has the chance to work and be successful, and I think Bionicle's performance has less to do with its name, and more with what it's about and how well it's executed.

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Yeah, I think it's pretty inevitable it'll come back. You see at this point BIONICLE isn't a Lego theme, it's a franchise. BIONICLE is a product with a massive following (despite weather people wish to admit it or not). It has one of the most vocal LEGO communities out there. I hear a lot of people like castle, yet I never see any forums about it. Ninjago is HUGE and it doesn't have nearly the fan support and content of BIONICLE. G2 didn't sell well because a lot of fans didn't buy it for their own reasons.

 

There are Lego Castle Forums, and Lego Space Forums, and etc. Just look over on Eurobricks. And in the case of Castle I have seen a lot of harsh vocal criticism of certain "not-a-castle" themes this year...

 

But just because the Bionicle fan base is vocal now doesn't mean it will still be vocal in 5 years, or 10, or 15. I was a Bionicle fan as a kid until 2007, when I abruptly stopped buying sets after being dissatisfied with the Barraki. I watched the story from afar but didn't participate actively in the Bionicle fan community again until 2015.

 

I bought G2 sets because I thought they were brilliantly designed. Now that the line has been cancelled I hope to collect the remaining G2 sets I lack and MOC a few things to go with them. With that said, I don't know how long my interest will continue in Bionicle. While I love Lego and hope to collect System (and maybe soon Technic) sets for life, Bionicle sadly enough is something I would be content to ignore; something to remember as a fun part of my childhood and young adult years.

 

And the truth is the fan base will lose members, for one simple cause: life goes on. Go and ask almost any millennial and they will tell you they remember Bionicle a bit, maybe even had a Toa Mata or two, maybe even once were active here on BZpower. But they grew up, interests changed and now they'd be lucky to even name the few sets they have stuffed away in storage. That is the case with all my friends who liked Bionicle when we were kids, they grew up.

 

Do I think G3 could happen? Maybe. If it does I hope to someday be a parent then, as perhaps the best way to rekindle my best memories of Bionicle would be to share it with my kids. My G1 experience was that of a child, my G2 was that of a cynical adult. If G3 does happen I would hope to experience it very differently.

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All aboard the hype train!

 

 

 

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I honestly would prefer if TLG did not reboot BIONICLE a second time. I feel like G1 had a fairly good run, barring poor story decisions after 2004, and G2 was pretty good. I feel at this point Lego should do something different, and original. Something that isn't at this point over 15 years old. They had a whole lot of pretty cool concepts with Knights Kingdom, Exo-Force, and Hero Factory, all constraction themes, and I feel like they should try something new along those lines. Perhaps not necessarily magic robots this time. If, on the off chance that they do reboot it, which I highly doubt. I honestly don't foresee how I would be invested in it.

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I think G2 proved to LEGO that they can't try to make Bionicle happen by half-measures. G1 worked in a time when people didn't want Lego bricks; we now live in a time where the brick is queen, and recognized IPs are king. If they do Bionicle again, they will make it a line of system sets, they'll wait for if/when their good fortune turns around, or they'll do it with a great deal more story material, to prove to their prospective audience why Bionicle is worth as much of their interest as, say, Star Wars is.

 

As someone who has seen good and bad in both generations of Bionicle, I'm fine with there being a third generation regardless of quality. I'll probably be into it any form it takes. But I would like for them to try to hit the ground running, next gen, with a story universe at least as complex as G1 got from 2006 onward. Maybe even start with a theatrical film, and try to have the films buoy the toys, a la Transformers.

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The question shouldn't be, "Would Bionicle come back," but, "Should it come back".

 

At this point, I think Lego needs to let Bionicle rest. 

I see no reason to continue beating the dead horse.

 

It's hard for me to explain, but Bionicle was in the right place at the right time.

It combined elements that Lego was only just starting to experiment with, like storytelling and constraction sets.

It just...bloomed. Exploded. Succeeded.

 

It would be hard to recreate, especially with Bionicle.

Edited by You just lost the game
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I believe it could go either way for Bionicle. If Lego sees a profitable opening for it and a demand that can be filled, Bionicle will be brought back. If the conditions don't exist however, Lego likely will not risk the loss of of profit and reputation for the theme.

 

I'm unsure if Bionicle should be revived again. If an elegant reincarnation of the original theme can be accomplished, I believe the risk should be taken. Otherwise, the theme should not be watered down with numerous incoherent incarnations. A better fate would be for it to be retired long term, like other Lego themes have done.

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                 pirate wreck  

 

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Q1. Is G3 bound to happen? I voted Could go either way. It depends on a variety of factors and future circumstances IMO. And AFAIK Lego group does not hold any particular grudges, worries or doubts towards Bionicle that aren't related to profit gains.

 

Q2. Do I want to see Bionicle back again? I voted Only if it's good. If and when G3 arrives, I shall welcome it because some fans might actually like it regardless of my personal verdicts on G3, so I shouldn't request for their enjoyment to be taken away from them. In the case that I personally dislike G3, I will likely stop keeping track of the franchise's developments for real. If it turns out to be good then Hooray! :happydance:

Your left brain contains nothing right, while your right brain contains nothing left.

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Do I think it'll come back. I would normally be positive and say "Yes." However, after watching a lot of "Bionicle G2 is dead!!" conspiracy videos on that website that has a ton of videos... I have my doubts now, because a lot of them make good points. Since I'm known (probably) for long-winded posts, here's another one for you all.

 

One point that almost all of them get across is the first time Bionicle was cancelled, it was done in a way where the line was cancelled BEFORE anything bad happened, eg before it dragged on too long before possibly tarnishing the brand name. The sets were still selling well at that point, but numbers were steadily dropping just for how many sets were selling. However, the line was cancelled before retailers could go and say the line was nothing but a large shelf warmer taking up space. Ergo, it was still okay to bring it back later because it was still a trusted brand that sold well enough in the past, so retailers could feel fine about carrying these toys in their stores.

 

Fast forward to 2015, Bionicle G2 is announced, HYPE TRAIN AHOY!!! The Toa are back, everyone is so excited, YAYZ!!! Going back to my earlier point, it's a new Lego line technically, but it's still a trusted brand, so stores are going to give it a shot because these sets with this brand name sold well enough in the past. Fast forward again to 2016. Why am I seeing Master Tahu next to Uniter Tahu? Why is there Skull Basher, Skull Slicer, and that scorpion thingy in a corner by themselves?? Why can't I find a Quake Beast anywhere??? WHY? WHY? WHY?

 

At this point, it's clear the line isn't selling well. Retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, and even Kmart are having problems clearing away last year's sets from the shelves. In the old days, I'd have been lucky to find another Toa Mata set next to one of the Toa Nuva sets. And it's at a point now where Wal-Mart and Target wanted to get rid of those sets like the plague because no one was buying them. I've seen them go on clearance and eventually vanish after that, only because they were on clearance. Not only that, but then retailers don't even want to order more sets because of how they were selling, thus leading to the summer 2016 sets to pretty much become toys r us exclusives. Worst yet, if you haven't gotten a hold of those sets now, you're almost in trouble because even TRU is not stocking them as they ought to. Meanwhile, Lego is also trying to clear out their stock like no tomorrow in the hopes of getting rid of them. Production by now has most likely stopped, and as such the line is no more. By now, the damage has been done. Whether it's because of a lack of marketing (I've barely even seen a Bionicle commercial on in the last 2 years, and it was only during showings of the Pokemon show), naysayers putting down the line because it's "Hero Factory with a new name," or kids just not liking or being unfamiliar with the brand, it was not selling.

 

Marketing is a powerful tool. It can be the difference between something being a success and well-known all over the world, or something that is kept quiet and never popular outside of a certain group of people. In some cases, some music groups victim to bad marketing never get big around the world due to record labels not marketing their music enough. Then for you as a recording artist, you're stuck not being popular outside of Germany and doing small odd jobs. Or acting in plays like Carly Rae Jepsen is doing on and off. 

 

You need something powerful to took a kid's imagination and interest. The original commercials for Bionicle did just that. These cool alien robots on this primitive-looking island shrouded in mystery?? How cool is that?! I want those toys! I wanna get all of them! But I mean aside from BZPower and Lego's website, how else would you get to know about Bionicle? Not only that, if kids are not familiar with it, they may not want to get it. Especially considering an example of Star Wars? As a little kid who just finished seeing The Force Awakens, would you rather get a toy of the awesome characters you just saw in the movie like Kylo Ren or Finn or Rey? Or some alien robots who look kinda cool but you're not sure about who they are? Of course, an average kid will persuade their parent to get them the toys of what they are familiar with. 

 

So in the end, Bionicle ended up falling short of Lego's expectations, so they cancelled it. Why? Retailers are almost sick of these sets, trying to shovel them out the door as fast as they can. Why? Because the kids these sets are the target audience for are not interested in this line they are not too familiar with. Why? Well, that could be a number of things, but I almost feel a better marketing campaign might have helped a bit, but maybe not save the world. Marketing, competition, it could be a number of factors.

 

I would have said I was positive there would be a third Bionicle generation, until I realized that retailers might not even want to carry those sets anymore. Instead of remembering it as the line from 2001-2010 that sold a good amount of sets in its time, now they're going to remember it as the line from 2015-2016 that they needed to get out of the way because they weren't selling enough. With that logic, it isn't too encouraging. So at this point, I'm just really unsure. I want to be positive, but then logic tells me retailers will not want to stock their stores with things people are not going to buy. 

 

As for would I want it to return, I'm also unsure. At this point, I'm becoming older and life has literally smacked me in the face with a 2,000-page book as a real wake-up call. If Bionicle did come back, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it as much as I would wish to. So I was very thankful it did come back, even for a short time, but even now it was hard to get these sets. Prices and inflation made it a lot harder for me to keep up. $20 in 2001 would have almost got me 3 $7 Toa at Kmart or a Titan set. $20 just barely gets me one $20 Toa set. And then what about the other sets? 

 

As much as I would love to keep going, it pains me to say that I can't. If it does come back, it'll just be sort of a sad reminder. One can argue I could just keep up with the story and what not, but where's the fun in that? And sadly, this generation didn't have as many books and media to go off from compared to the first generation. So it's kind of bittersweet for me, but I honestly don't even know if I'd want it to continue. Continue and leave a sadness in my heart for not being able to go after the sets as I wanted because of adult responsibilities. Or just not continue and I can rest easy knowing there is nothing more for me to do as a fan aside from continue making videos and literature to keep the spirit of Bionicle alive. I honestly don't know, maybe I'm sounding selfish. I guess with Bionicle G2, I wanted one last hoorah to collecting sets like the old days and having fun before I realize I'm 23 and I have responsibilities now.

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Yeah, I think it's pretty inevitable it'll come back. You see at this point BIONICLE isn't a Lego theme, it's a franchise. BIONICLE is a product with a massive following (despite weather people wish to admit it or not). It has one of the most vocal LEGO communities out there. I hear a lot of people like castle, yet I never see any forums about it. Ninjago is HUGE and it doesn't have nearly the fan support and content of BIONICLE. G2 didn't sell well because a lot of fans didn't buy it for their own reasons.

There are Lego Castle Forums, and Lego Space Forums, and etc. Just look over on Eurobricks. And in the case of Castle I have seen a lot of harsh vocal criticism of certain "not-a-castle" themes this year...

 

But just because the Bionicle fan base is vocal now doesn't mean it will still be vocal in 5 years, or 10, or 15. I was a Bionicle fan as a kid until 2007, when I abruptly stopped buying sets after being dissatisfied with the Barraki. I watched the story from afar but didn't participate actively in the Bionicle fan community again until 2015.

 

I bought G2 sets because I thought they were brilliantly designed. Now that the line has been cancelled I hope to collect the remaining G2 sets I lack and MOC a few things to go with them. With that said, I don't know how long my interest will continue in Bionicle. While I love Lego and hope to collect System (and maybe soon Technic) sets for life, Bionicle sadly enough is something I would be content to ignore; something to remember as a fun part of my childhood and young adult years.

 

And the truth is the fan base will lose members, for one simple cause: life goes on. Go and ask almost any millennial and they will tell you they remember Bionicle a bit, maybe even had a Toa Mata or two, maybe even once were active here on BZpower. But they grew up, interests changed and now they'd be lucky to even name the few sets they have stuffed away in storage. That is the case with all my friends who liked Bionicle when we were kids, they grew up.

 

Do I think G3 could happen? Maybe. If it does I hope to someday be a parent then, as perhaps the best way to rekindle my best memories of Bionicle would be to share it with my kids. My G1 experience was that of a child, my G2 was that of a cynical adult. If G3 does happen I would hope to experience it very differently.

 

Yeah it's true. Truth of the matter is that most of the people who were into the line in say 2002 are gone now. The modern bionicle fanbase is only a small percentage of the kids who grew up with it. Audiences online may appear big but in reality they're a very small minority. People don't tend to go and actively engage with the things they grew up with. The people who do it online are people from many different areas and countries. And when anything dies content for it online begins to stagnate. It happened with G1 despite it's rich universe. If that's what happened to G1 then how will G2 age? 

It's time to move on.

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