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What makes BIONICLE special to you?


Lenny7092

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Hi, guys. It’s been 10 years since Bionicle G1’s final toy-selling year in 2010 happened, with the Stars and Mata Nui fighting to restore Spherus Magna. Well, the year 2010 saddens me a lot. Let me explain how is Bionicle special to me. Please hear me out. 
 

In 2000 and 2001, my mom showed me Slizers/Thorwbots and RoboRiders, the first two constraction lines. When I had the sets in my hands, they look so cool. I basically like building Lego stuff, and I like action figures. I even combined some of them for fun. But then, when Bionicle showed up in late 2001, I was very interested, as it is more interesting than the other constraction themes, which ended very shortly. My mom gave me the Toa Mata, which are the first Bionicle sets that I had. These guys are cool because of their looks, colors, weapons, masks, and their gear functions. I love Bionicle so much, so I collect the Turaga and Rahi sets. I combined the Rahi sets, too. I continued collecting and combine more Bionicle sets in 2002-2005, even though that I hadn’t collected the collectible packs or the Visorak sets. It’s just most of them. These Bionicle commercials look so cool. I looked at the 2001 Rahi instructions, and saw that there was that Bionicle computer game called Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui. At first, I thought Onua was playing soccer because of the grassy environment. Lol. I thought that’s a cool thing that I wanted to buy, but I didn’t know how to use a computer when I was 6 or 7 in 2001, neither did I know how to use the internet without the aid of my mom. Thus, I wasn’t thinking about the game while I was focused in collecting the sets (until 2010 when Bionicle got cancelled, people in BZPower brought that up and said that the game got cancelled in 2001, too, which is also saddening). 
 

When the Miramax trilogy happened (Mask of Light in 2003, Legends of Metru Nui in 2004, and Webs of Shadows in 2005), I was so interested. It was amazing that Bionicle can have these direct-to-video movies. I watched and enjoyed them. They’re very cool, but I do question why the characters sort of don’t look like their sets in the movies (the muscle-metal thing is something that I’m okay with). At first, I thought Bionicle characters were always completely robots, but the movies showed that they’re cyborgs with various magical super powers, masks, and weapons. It got more interesting. Well, the second movie looked like that it didn’t transition from the first movie for how the Turaga were talking about their lives as Toa since the second movie went. I mean, there wasn’t a scene were the Toa Nuva ask the Turaga about themselves as Toa. 
 

When I got that Bionicle game called Bionicle: The Game for PlayStation 2 in 2003, which is based on 2001-2003, mostly the first movie because of how the non-canon story in there went primarily, I thought it had thirteen levels, the first six being the Toa Mata, the second six being the Toa Nuva, and the thirteenth and final level being Takanuva, but there are only eight for some reason. I don’t like the unevenness in there, and the game took like two hours. The graphics are very weird, and I like the graphics in the movies much more. There are a lot of screwed-up thing here and there, and it’s weird that all Toa have two-fingered hands, as opposed to having five fingers in the movies. I was expecting games that are based on the second two movies, but they never happened (well, there was the cancelled second game that we didn’t know for a decade). Bionicle: The Game was not the best game there is, but why cancelled the sequel? 
 

I was expecting a fourth movie in 2006, but it didn’t happen for some reason, neither did 2007 or 2008. However, the fourth movie happened in 2009 while I always longed for it to happen. 
 

In late 2005 and 2006, I was focusing on schoolwork because they got a little more intense and I watched a lot of 3D-animated movies in theaters, and Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and WB Kids TV shows more often, and I played a lot of video games, trying to complete every one, as I didn’t focus on Bionicle often during the time. LoMN and WoS are a little less good than MoL, anyway. My parents sold these sets away to a grammar school because they wanted to make more room in my house, which is very sad. I still watched Bionicle commercials, though. 

However, my interest for Bionicle rekindled when I saw a Toa Inika commercial in some movie in 2006, maybe the movie was The Santa Clause 3. This encouraged me to buy Bionicle sets again, from 2006 onwards. I bought all 2006-2010 sets, and I still enjoyed. I was 11 to 12 in 2006, as I was able to get a Lego magazine with a Bionicle comic issue in November 2006, with Vezon in that comic issue, and using the internet on my own. Things got more interesting, as I learned a little more about the story. I also bought Bionicle Heroes in 2006 for PlayStation 2. I love the game. It’s the best Bionicle game I have ever had (I don’t play handheld games)! Well, there are some repeated stuff, and there are some missing things and glitches here and there, but alright. In 2007, I went deep into the Bionicle website. I was amazed to see that there are a lot of story content and online games in there, so I read the content and played all the games (the Mata Nui Online Games, Voya Nui Online Game, Piraka Attack, and Inika Assault are the best in the archives). Plus, I watched a lot of online animations. They are fun to watch. Inserting codes to unlocking stuff was very entertaining. The website was very enjoyable, despite some things are unequal to each other in many ways on here and there. That’s where it was my mission and hobby to follow the story and the website’s updates. Collecting and building Bionicle sets are my hobbies. I collected and read a lot of chapter books, including all Legends books. Plus, most of the guide books and graphic novels. I got Lego Magazines from 2006 onwards until 2014 for some reason. That was good because I wanted to read more Bionicle stuff, including the comics for visuals. I am a Bionicle fanatic, as things got more interesting and awesome as the G1 years were rolling. I couldn’t believe that I missed out that much in 2001-2006. 
 

The G1 story is fantastic. When I started reading Wikipedia about Bionicle and BS01, I became so fascinated with the story. It’s like Star Wars, Transformers, DC Comics, and Marvel (and the Marvel Cinematic Universe), even though that Bionicle never had humans or the planet Earth, and it’s just alien cyborgs living in weird places. Following the story is simple. I love the action and character development. I even discovered BZPower, who amazingly got involved with the making of Bionicle Heroes, and I have been reading daily news reports from 2007 onwards to see more updates about Bionicle. Bionicle became my main purpose in life. My heart became attached to it, so it is a huge part of my heart and life. Bionicle is one of the best things there is. 
 

I also played the Command Toa Mahri online games. They are kind of fun, and they were worth the wait one by one. 
 

I also read the story serials in 2007 onwards. They are very fun and interesting to read. Plus, it’s kind of worth seeing where are some minor characters, like Lesovikk and Mazeka, are when they are not involved with the major events in the story. Plus, Bioniclestory.com was an interesting to go there when I read more stories and learn more about the characters and the storylines, even though that not everyone is equal to each other in many ways, though, which is unnatural. I love how the sets evolved throughout G1’s years, though (despite a weird designs and color schemes in 2008). 
 

In 2008, things got better. I was happy to see the Toa Nuva again, and I was glad that they were able to reawaken the Great Spirit Mata Nui this time, who turned out to be a 40-million-foot-tall robot who contained a world with Metru Nui in it while the island of Mata Nui was just covering his face. That was an amazing plot twist, but things got sad when Makuta Teridax won by letting the heroes complete their mission, so he can control the Matoran Universe. He put Mata Nui’s spirit into the Mask of Life, and then throw the mask into space, banishing Mata Nui, so he can become a tyrant. That was not a happy ending that I expected. I thought Mata Nui was Teridax’s good-hearted identical twin brother, but it happened. Teridax is just a creation of Mata Nui who was jealous of Mata Nui for being loved by people, so he put Mata Nui to sleep and terrorized his people. 
Anyway, I played the Phantoka and Mistake online games. They are fun. It was worth the wait for the Phantoka mini-games one by one. I liked that Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network we’re promoting Bionicle, and they did some contests. I am amazed that there were a lot of contests during the G1 years. Plus, there was an online video-making thing where you make videos based on Bionicle’s online videos and send them to your friends. My friends at school enjoyed it. I also enjoyed watching the 2008 online animations. They were quite fun to watch and worth the wait. 
 

I was expecting Bionicle Heroes to have a sequel in 2007, which it turned out to be a different tower defense mobile game based on the 2007 storyline. I thought BH was good, so why not give it a sequel. It is not only that, as there weren’t any combo Titan sets since 2006 for some reason (the sets in 2003 are Takutanuva, Ultimate Dume, Voporak, and Vezon & Kardas, which are very awesome). :(
 

In 2009, at first, I was wondering why the story shifted to the adventures of the Glatorian, but it is revealed that Mata Nui was going to go there. I pitied the poor people in the Matoran Universe when they have to fight against Makuta alone. It was interesting that people in Spherus Magna are like humans while their planet is like the planet Earth. Plus, Mata Nui and the Matoran Universe were created by the Great Beings on the planet. It was cool that you can play the Glatorian and Agori through an action figure game, so I kept the medium set canisters onwards. Thing got much more exciting when Bionicle: The Legend Reborn happened. I watched and loved the movie. It was very great and cool, loved Michael Dorn when he played Mata Nui, and I liked that Lego had hired more professional actors like him, though it kind of didn’t feel like the Miramax trilogy. That movie was made by Threshold rather than Miramax for some reason, but I like that the characters look very much like their sets, despite a few animation mistakes, set differences, and lazy usage of the animation models. There wasn’t much big fights in there, mostly in the middle. It was just talking about strategy. Anyway, I enjoying playing the Glatorian Arena games. They are fun and cool, even though that the updates are kind of wonky. Throughout 2001-2009, I always dreamed that Bionicle could somehow get a theatrical movie, whether 3D animated or live-action, getting a cinematic universe for its own, a Traveller’s Tale game that functions like the Lego Marvel Super Heroes game in 2013, and a TV show similar to Ninjago, etc. because I was amazed that Bionicle was so popular. I mean, Bionicle looked like that it was capable to do more things, and I thought it was going to have a very good future, like SpongeBob SquarePants and Ninjago. It’s one of the greatest, most popular, and most successful Lego themes. I joined BZPower in late 2009, so I can talk to fellow Bionicle fans. 
 

However, sadly, things have drastically changed. In November 2009, originally, we would have more G1 years and TLR would have two sequels, but Bionicle was announced to cancelled. It was very unfair. It was doing so well, but Lego did that. It shouldn’t have done it. I was heartbroken and devastated, as I cried in tears. My dreams were ruined. 
Since then, we have the 2010, the primary purpose of the G1 storyline was revealed. Mata Nui was created because the planet was destroyed into three chunks long ago, so he had to restore the planet. These chunks are Bara Magna, which was a desert planet where people live and suffer, Aqua Magna, a water moon where Mata Nui’s original body was the whole time, and Bota Magna, a jungle moon that wasn’t explored much. When Mata Nui went to the Valley of the Maze and learned about this, he remembered what to do. He controlled a prototype of his original body and tried to do his mission, but Teridax went to Bara Magna to destroy Mata Nui and take over the galactic universe. Then, we had the Stars, and the final battle against Teridax had begun. During that storyline, it references to past storylines to appreciate Bionicle’s past, even if the Stars are tiny shrimps that look like a silly downgrade. At the end, Mata Nui and his allies won, and he restored the planet. He told people from both Spherus Magna and MU that they should live in peace with together because all journeys end, but Mata Nui did ask them to find the Great Beings for him because they disappeared when the planet was destroyed. The storyline had a heartwarming ending, but it felt kind of rushed. 
 

The Legend Reborn and the 2010 storyline happened when I was done with 8th grade in June 2009, and I started 9th grade in Fall 2009 to Spring 2010. When I graduated middle school, I thought I could go to the same high school as my friends as always, but my mom didn’t that school because she believed that it was very bad, so I went to a different high school, where I don’t know anyone there. My depression happened since, and things got worse when Bionicle’s toy line ended in 2010 for the first time. I felt like Mata Nui over there because as much as Mata Nui missed his people, was forced to be in a new and different place, encountered some strange and new things, and made some new friends, I miss my friends, didn’t get used to my high school, encountered some new things that I was never experienced with, and made new friends to try to get used to the new school. Life in a new place was tough, but yeah. The same cycle happened to my college and workplace. 

The toy line was discontinued in 2010, but the toy line continued, as people love the story. Sadly, in late 2011, the story has a cliffhanger, as it has two unfinished serials. It is very depressing. Greg Farshtey was kind enough to answer some questions of unresolved stuff in 2012-2017, and we got some stuff from The Legend of Mata Nui. When will the G1 story be re-continued and be finished? I don’t know, but I wish and pray that it will for spine sake of me and my fellow fans. Plus, there are a many cancelled plans during Bionicle G1’s run. That’s very sad as well. 
 

Well, I focused on Hero Factory, which began late 2010 was Bionicle’s successor that kept the constraction category alive for Bionicle. HF looks cool, but it’s sort of not the same as Bionicle. I always thought HF would do well like Bionicle, but it wasn’t too great. I was happy that HF had a TV show, made by Threshold, and I heard that Universal was planning to make a live-action HF movie (nothing happened since May 2012), which are things that Bionicle should’ve had. HF’s a little messier, as the show did some same mistakes as TLR and some new weird ones. Plus, the episodes feel like specials, there is no DVD release for the rest of them for some reason, and some characters from the sets are absent for some reason. I would like to think that HF shares the same universe as Bionicle because of the amazing similarities, and I would like to know where were the Great Beings when their planet was destroyed. Sadly, HF was decreasing by quality and lasted for four and a half years in 2014 for some reason. 
Other than HF, I focused on some other franchises to cope with Bionicle’s absence, primarily Ninjago, the Lego Movies, and the MCU, because they remind me of Bionicle very much. 
 

In 2014, when I heard rumors about Bionicle coming back in 2015, so I went to New York Comic Con to confirm the rumors, and they were true. It was coming back. It was an awesome present for my birthday is September. I was so happy to see it back that I cried in tears. It was surprising that it got rebooted rather than re-continuing the G1 story, but Bionicle coming back brightened up my time in my college. I collected all 2015 and 2016 sets (I donKt know how to get Ekimu’s Falcon in 2016, though). 
When I followed the G2 story, it was doing okay, as the online animations in 2015 and The Journey to One in 2016 were good. The online animations were rushed, and I wasn’t too fond of it being 2D animated in a cheap way, but it’s cool that it got inspired by the Mata Nui Online Game and it had some funny moments. The Journey to One’s animation looks 2D rather than 3D, despite the characters in there look much more like their sets than other media. I am not fond of the fact that it is exclusive in Netflix because I don’t like paying for streaming services. I prefer Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. As the story progressed, it didn’t feel like G1, despite fans making theories about its connection to G1, it just felt like a new theme, sort of. Some of the sets has weird designs and color schemes, and there are some things in G2’s story that make no sense. Things got unspeakably worse when Bionicle ended prematurely again in 2016, right on Bionicle’s 15th anniversary, after 2 years. It’s kind of like The Amazing Spider-Man movie series in 2012-2014. How horrible, and I thought things were getting good, despite the lower quality in G2 that happened gradually, similar to HF, kind of (why there isn’t a commercial for the summer 2016 sets?), and how weird G2 was. That was very depressed, and my depression worsened. 
 

There is no theme to replace Bionicle to keep the constraction category alive for it this time for some reason. The category was declining by quality until 2018 when it was gone in 2019 for some reason. The 2010s was a horrible decade for constraction in general. This is quite unbelievable. We, the fans, don’t like this at all. We need Bionicle back desperately in our lives. I don’t blame constraction itself for its own demise. It’s just that Lego was focusing on other themes very often, even though that some of them in the decade also ended prematurely. Without Bionicle, my heart is so attached to it that I feel purposeless without it. Things fall apart. I can’t be completely happy without it, as I try in tears again whenever I think about it. I feel that I’m nothing without Bionicle. It’s my main hobby because I use it whenever I don’t hang out with my friends often (I am always lonely in my house because my friends are frequently busy) and just in case there is nothing new or interesting while I have to wait for some other interesting stuff to happen (Ninjago kept doing these infamous hiatuses these days). You guys feel that, too. How can we live with ourselves? I have no idea. We are in the Great Depression or Dark Age. :( 
 

Even if Bionicle was absent twice, we fans kept it alive, as we have a legacy. We continue to build Bionicle stuff and make fan-made stories and online games. There is Litestone Studios, who is working on completing The Legend of Mata Nui. I learned a lot from Bionicle about things in life, as it taught me how to write stories and improved my English, and it inspired me to draw my friends as superheroes who are based on Bionicle’s heroes. We talk about Bionicle to our friends and families, and even you guys through topics based on imagination for fun. Plus, songs that I hear from Z100 in 2001-2010 and 2015-2016 make me think of Bionicle (and songs from 2010-2014 make me think of HF, too). Well, I looked critical reception on the Bionicle media. Some are good and some are bad, but I still love Bionicle, no matter what. We do notice Lego mentioned Bionicle on some Lego Movies (and there are some TV shows that reference Bionicle), and Ninjago is like the 2010s’ own Bionicle because of many amazing similarities. Faber has been talking about this “14b2020” stuff lately, which looks like Bionicle suspiciously, but he is being cryptic about. Plus, we have a Lego Ideas project, which is a diorama, getting reviewed now. We hope and pray that Bionicle will come back again in our lives, and I believe that it could. I mean, it was very successful and popular, and as much as Batman is DC Comics’ mascot, Marvel has Spider-Man, Hasbro has Transformers (Bionicle’s counterpart), Sega has Sonic the Hedgehog, Nintendo has Mario, and Capcom has Mega Man, Bionicle is Lego’s mascot for the constraction category, so famous and successful stuff are not rid of easily. I wonder if the fan base is strong for Bionicle to keep it alive. I would do anything to keep it alive, too. You guys do, too. 
 

When Bionicle comes back (hopefully on 2021 to celebrate its 20th anniversary), all I want for Bionicle is to have a decent G3 that is much more similar to G1, G1 being re-continued and ended, HF to be in the same universe as Bionicle, so people wouldn’t be confused about the similarities, like saying “Stormer is my favorite Bionicle character” (lol) and do a crossover, perhaps do a crossover between G1 and G2 (maybe include HF in this), a Traveller’s Tale video game similar to Lego Marvel Super Heroes with a story similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Turtles Forever in 2009 and Sonic Generations in 2011, where heroes from G1 and G2 working together to time travel to set their messed up eras right, that diorama to happen, Faber announcing in this year that Bionicle will return in 2021, celebrating Bionicle’s anniversary, remastering and remaking sets in a modernized way, like Ninjago’s Legacy sets, a theatrical Bionicle movie and cinematic universe, with HF being a part of it. I don’t give up hoping. 
 

All of these are what make Bionicle so special to me. 
 

So, what are your thoughts, guys? I know that I said a lot, but I am just being emotional because it’s been 10 years since Bionicle’s first cancellation. Cancellations are traumatic, you know. What makes Bionicle so special to you and how do you feel about it?

Edited by Lenny7092

I like Lego, Bionicle, and Hero Factory!:)

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For me, BIONICLE means family.

I cannot even begin to estimate how many hours and hours I spent with my brothers collecting and replaying the stories of the various heroes and villains, creating the combiner models, and creating new characters (our Toa of time vs Voporak was a favorite :vahi:). There was no bit of lore we didn't know, we researched every book, comic, web page, movie, video, online game, we did it all together.

We've since moved out to our own households, and thus aren't able to do that as frequently, but the memories are still there, and we often discuss with ourselves what would BIONICLE be like if it had continued further? The feelings we had when it got canceled are still there, we often wonder why? But there were many years of enjoyment and bonding over these stories and characters and I will always cherish those memories.

 

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Formerly Iron_Man5

 

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  • 2 months later...

Well as a 3 years old that almost discovered youtube i found that weird piraka rap stuff around 2006 i felt in love with it i used to think like this:("OMG!!!! ROBOT GANGSTERS SO COOL THEY LOOK SO !!!!!") i was just 3 years old at the time. then i found out they were from a "Bionicle" toy line and then i found old videos from 2001-2005 and i liked it even more but i din't know what was the company who made it. then 2007-2008 happened and i was around 4-5 years old and saw the videos from these years. When i learned to read in 2009 when i was 6 years old i found out about that "lego" stuff with the power miners sets. then it was only a matter of time  that i found it out that they were the ones that created Bionicle. i went into the 2009 storyline and i was hyped about the legend reborn and i found it out that there were 3 more bionicle movies. I saw all the 4 bionicle movies and they felt special to me like Star Wars or Indiana Jones. 2009 was a very special year to me because it's the year my little brother was born. then in 2010 bionicle ended i cried,cried and cried like a baby. my childhood was dead and gone. lego made hero factory to fill the hole but that thing din't felt special enough to me. they were just bionicle wannabe cops. i got more into the lore back in 2014-2015 when g2 was announced. i din't liked g2. it was boring and felt more like hero factory with bionicle slapped on it than the good old bionicle that i grew up in 2006-2010. but i got more into the lore thanks to g2. i never had any g1 bionicle as a kid. i only managed to get gali mata on 2019. and most of the bionicles i found on ebay are super expessive or locked in the US or something like that(i am not from the US) still bionicle teached me lot's of things and it helped to form my personality.(yes it's true) bionicle is special to me because if it wasn't for it. i would be a totally different person today. I still want to meet Greg and Christian someday.

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