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Lyichir

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Year 14

About Lyichir

  • Birthday 03/29/1991

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    Bionicle, Lego, Nintendo games, drawing, writing, the internet.

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  1. There are several reasons I'm generally opposed to assuming that the other Lego themes could always be "realms": The fact that it would rule out future original realms (truth be told, if I had been one of the writers of the story (I probably wouldn't have numbered them in the first place to avoid locking the story out of future possibilities). Ninjago hasn't yet finished telling all the stories it can tell, so I feel like filling out all the extra "slots" for realms with past Lego themes, many of which are unlikely to be revisited, would be a waste of potential. The fact that tying themes together into a tangled multiverse creates more issues than opportunities. Most Lego "crossovers" have adhered mostly to their own internal rules rather than establishing a coherent multiverse, which is why I tend to treat things like Clutch Powers' cameo in Ninjago or the Ninjago cameos in Lego Universe, Lego Dimensions, and The Lego Movie as independent of that—otherwise you end up with overlapping crossovers all with their own contradictory rules about how they interact with and affect one another. This is also a reason why I don't really feel like a theme like Bionicle, which has its own complicated multiverse with its own entirely different set of rules, would make sense as an individual realm connected to Ninjago. The fact that several themes very specifically take place in a version of "our world", which I feel doesn't fit with Ninjago or Chima's wholly invented world. This is mostly a personal preference, but it's a strong one. For instance, Hidden Side very explicitly takes place in the American South, and Jack Davids is originally from Boston. And Monkie Kid's story is a sequel to a classic Chinese story explicitly set in China, albeit a highly folkloric version of it—I think it would feel insensitive to take that and fold it into a corner of Ninjago's established fictional multiverse. And of course, even Pharaoh's Quest takes place in Egypt. This is a little more shaky as far as preference goes, but I really feel like it's easier to visualize Ninjago's other realms also being minifigure-based themes. As big a fan as I am of themes like Bionicle, Friends, and Elves, I feel like their visual identity would be a really dramatic break from the Ninjago-specific realms or even a theme like Chima. Of the themes you mention, a theme like Nexo Knights that also takes place in an invented universe and also uses minifigure characters seems like it'd be the strongest case for being a realm alongside Chima and Ninjago (though I doubt its use of "realm" in the story had any deeper meaning than medieval-esque jargon). I'm less convinced by some of the others, which feel like more of a stretch or like they would complicate things without meaningfully enhancing the story of either theme. For those I think any crossovers would be better approached with a looser set of rules like that of the Lego cinematic universe or Lego Dimensions.
  2. Personally, I hope this ISN'T one of Ninjago's realms. Considering the series' origins as a sort of "sequel" to the real-world Chinese folktale "Journey to the West", it feels to me like it would be insensitive to have it be anything other than a fictionalized version of real-world China—and I don't know how I feel about any real-world locations, even highly fictionalized ones, being tied into Ninjago's core multiverse. I also think there's very little chance of this only lasting a single season. Lego has clearly invested a lot into this and they've only really scratched the surface of characters and elements they could draw from the original story it's based on. Even the intro to this pilot episode shows off multiple villains from the original story who have yet to make an appearance in this sequel. And yeah, both of the voice actors you list are correct. The Monkey King is also played by Sean Schemmel, the voice of Goku in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (fittingly, considering that the original Dragon Ball itself started out as an embellished retelling of "Journey to the West").
  3. I'm wondering at this point whether we've even been watching the same series. Like, the episode where Zane discovers his true nature has more emotional impact in it than pretty much... anything I can think of in Bionicle. Maybe Matoro's death came close? And yes, Zane didn't let that completely devastate him... but it continued to have an impact on his characterization, motivations, and emotions throughout the rest of the series. It's not something that just went ignored. You think the characters in Ninjago are bland. I can't exactly comprehend how you feel that way, especially if you think a character like Vakama is somehow written better (he's not) but opinions are opinions. But keep in mind that it's "just" an opinion. You can say the writing is bad until the cows come home, but you seem to be really struggling to articulate how Bionicle was some uniquely special story that somehow managed to be that way despite never really having great writing, yet Ninjago is somehow lazy and bad and terrible despite its strong points being stronger than Bionicle's and its weak points being less weak? It's asinine trying to argue with you when somehow all of Bionicle's stupid decisions can be handwaved away as "Greg being bad at writing" but Ninjago's weaker plotlines, which the story has a good track record of overcoming and moving on from, are somehow emblematic of everything that makes it worse. And yeah, you're right that having characters have families, hobbies, and the ability to react, change, and grow from changes in one's circumstances should be the bare minimum for having multiple characters. So why are you praising a story that struggled to meet those standards time and time again as superior to one that has met them consistently?
  4. Your criticism of Ninjago's humor is just as applicable to Bionicle's worldbuilding. Interesting worldbuilding on its own does not make a story good. On the contrary, having too much worldbuilding makes a story harder and less rewarding to get into than a story where the worldbuilding is done according to the needs of the story and characters at any given time. "Creativity" isn't worth much if the story is a chore to get through and the worldbuilding barely contributes to the characters' emotional growth. Speaking of characters... most of Ninjago's characters, like the vast majority of Bionicle's characters, are archetypes. Yes, they are types of characters that are familiar from a wide variety of stories, but that in and of itself is not a weakness. And honestly, cherry picking the few Bionicle characters who happened to express decent emotion or exhibit significant growth doesn't make that franchise's characterization any better. Most Bionicle characters were just as shallow as Ninjago's, if not moreso, which wasn't helped by the story's tendency to sideline its cast in favor of a new one every two to three years. It also wasn't helped by the Bionicle story's reluctance to ever let its characters experience a full range of emotions or have lives outside of being heroes. Ninjago's characters have WAY more interesting traits than most of Bionicle's. They have families, they have hobbies, they react to different scenarios differently from one another. They experience personal crises and personal growth in ways that are not merely a linear path from "not getting along as a team" to "getting along as a team" with no meaningful development or change beyond that point. I think that's one of the reasons why Bionicle's ending felt so unsatisfying—the big evil was defeated, everybody could finally live peacefully, but the story had given us barely any idea what that was supposed to look like for characters whose only roles up to that point were either being heroes, needing to be rescued by heroes, or working their lives away in a dull monotony that was supposedly their only purpose for existing. "Happily ever after" doesn't work when you have rarely allowed your characters to actually be happy.
  5. Saw this video the other day. I'm loving the Hidden Side characters so far!
  6. My observation, at least, has been that, before the Michael Bay movies, Transformers was primarily a toy line with an associated story, but I don't remember wanting or seeing advertisements for Michael Bay Transformers toys that much. The advertising and cultural relevance was almost exclusively on the movies. BIONICLE has only existed in the first phase. My hope with this Christian Faber stuff is that it could successfully transition to phase two. It's true that Hasbro is a little more involved in the media angle of their brands than Lego is (unlike Lego, they have started their own movie and TV studios to produce content based on their brands), but make no mistake—toys are still their primary business. As someone who has worked there, the toys are a big deal, and like with Bionicle tend to shape the direction and emphasis of the story content. And honestly, I don't really want to see a Bionicle that's divorced from the toy aspect. As a Lego fan, I doubt a version of Bionicle like that could ever really live up to the Bionicle of my childhood, in which the story and the toys reinforced one another.
  7. Nah, they're Bright Reddish Violet (Magenta on Bricklink). Which is nonetheless a cool color to get Technic parts in!
  8. I always kind of wished there were horses for them to ride. The siege weapons in the third year kind of scratched that itch, but not really.
  9. To be honest... I don't mind. Minifigure height by and large is distorted from "real" proportions, and using the taller legs opens up a wide variety of issues that make the figures harder to use in displays than typical figures (for example, preventing figures from sitting in normal chairs or fitting through typical door frames). In general I think those were an experiment that didn't really prove their worth, and am grateful that figures like the new Toy Story figs have moved away from them and back toward standard length legs for even fairly lanky characters.
  10. A lot of the parts are printed (especially the stripes). New Elementary has more details in its review.
  11. I've read that the soundtrack will get a wider physical release at an unspecified later date. No idea about whether the score will as well or not.
  12. I would say equal. Yeah, that was my tentative opinion coming out of my first viewing as well, and a second viewing has only cemented that. Both movies are clever, funny, and great at pulling at your heartstrings (hard to watch either one without tearing up a little at the most emotional moments).
  13. No, not really at this point. Cinematic universes are a pretty tall order (at least distinguished from plain old franchises of movies with sequels) and considering how much I disliked the sprawl of the G1 story I'd much prefer one good Bionicle movie or TV series, with the possibility of sequels or additional seasons, rather than a commitment to a mess of sprawling side-stories and overambitious crossovers. That, or just one good Bionicle movie as part of the Lego Movie universe.
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