Bionicle as a whole had its chance.

It's dead

Let's all stop kissing its corpse

People say its dead. BUT has anyone noticed the bionicle website? If you answer yes, you have just proven bionicle is not dead. Why would lego keep a website for a discontinued set? they dont make money from the website, it costs money to keep it running. so why keep it?

Subdomains are free. The only thing they pay for is the "bionicle.com" redirect domain, which, considering LEGO's revenue, would be like paying a cent for them.

-SK

Personally, I don't think Inika and Agori torsos played any part in BIONICLE's end. IMO they were pretty excellent for their time. Well, the Inika torsos, anyway. Agori torsos are pretty lame.

But seriously, I think BIONICLE's end was the long-term result of inherent attributes of the brand. Specifically, it had a continuous story that it built on every year, and it couldn't really be enjoyed fully by people who didn't take the time to learn about past story.

So what would it take for BIONICLE to come back? It would probably need an episodic story like Hero Factory was given. It might need simpler character names, less complicated universe mechanics (elemental power, Toa power, the many types of protodermis, etc. are a lot of information for a person to learn). They'd need fewer random side-characters like the ones you mentioned wanting to see as sets. Basically it would need to be stripped of a lot of complexity that made BIONICLE special to us in the first place.

IMO there's nothing wrong with the simpler and more lighthearted stories of Hero Factory and Ninjago besides the ever-so-bad dialogue that occasionally shows up in the Hero Factory episodes. But they are something entirely different from BIONICLE, even though they can be enjoyed for their own reasons.

So yes, BIONICLE could probably make a return eventually. But if it did, it wouldn't be the same BIONICLE that we missed. That's my own perspective, anyway.

@Astrological Lego often keeps their sites for a while after a line is discontinued. Same went for Knights Kingdom and Exo-Force.

I don't feel this is worth arguing further. Aanch said it really well anyways.

@Aanchir: Rachira of Time: I understand.

As I mentioned before, this is the perfect time to go anywhere with the story, including becoming episodic, or at least making the new story (best if they start anew with few links to the MU story) progress slower than the original story did, like make new stories every two or three years rather than every one year like we had.

Yes, BIONICLE can return. Not in the space of a year after it's cancellation. When has anything that has come back due to fan support (at the level of BIONICLE, which isn't exactly a cohesive fan community) ever made a comeback that quickly? We haven't shown that we will be supportive of BIONICLE coming back, and it is far too soon for LEGO to consider it.

I don't think anybody is really denying the possibility of BIONICLE having the potential to make a comeback, but it needs to be at a reasonable time in the right scenario. You can support it by showing that you are still interested in the constraction line by buying Hero Factory. Not by whining about how LEGO was unfair to cancel BIONICLE, and that they aren't giving it a chance to come back. That's not the support LEGO is looking for, and is ironically counterintuitive to your own goals.

Also, expecting LEGO to make sets of existing characters (some of them dead, no less) is a pretty far-fetched fantasy. If anything, it will be a full on reboot, but again; not for at least another few years.

I know that Bionicle can't come back that quickly, and I'm no longer trying to make that happen (otherwise I'd've killed myself ages ago). I just want to keep that constant support for Bionicle's return going.

BTW, I actually do have plans, as against my nature as they are, to buy an HF set next year: Black Phantom. I can make excellent use of that helmet and that custom mace, both of which I can use to make yet another custom special-forces Skrall.

Maybe im just a really immature 17year old, but i liked every single set. I didnt critically analyse the sets, or think the story got repetitive.

So if it came back, i would be happy with whatever came out.

@Aanchir: Rachira of Time: I understand. As I mentioned before, this is the perfect time to go anywhere with the story, including becoming episodic, or at least making the new story (best if they start anew with few links to the MU story) progress slower than the original story did, like make new stories every two or three years rather than every one year like we had.

But if those things are changed, then the theme loses what it had that themes like Hero Factory and Ninjago lack. If you're going to eliminate those things, then we might as well just keep Hero Factory going in its place, because BIONICLE couldn't really get much deeper than that without frequently calling upon its rich backstory and unique universe.

The constantly-building storyline made BIONICLE unique. And I think it could have been very successful if it had been a movie franchise or a book series primarily. However, most of the revenue generated by the theme came from sets (the books were unsuccessful as a whole), and as such TLG couldn't afford to continue promoting older story media like books, comics, and movies that weren't in turn promoting the sets currently on store shelves.

I don't think an episodic storyline would have worked for BIONICLE back in the day, and I don't think it would work now. I think it's better to remember BIONICLE as a grandly-realized vision that couldn't last forever than to bring back an endless version of it that lacks the very things that made the theme special. All good stories come to an end eventually.

Same here. I aimed to get every set up to and including 2007 before deciding against getting every set. Now I make various factions and societies with existing and makable sets, like the Order of Mata Nui, the Dark Hunters, the Brotherhood of Makuta, the Bohrok swarm, Matoran villages and even the realm of Karzahni!

Why do people actually want BIONICLE back?

They seem to go on and on about wanting it back, continuously bashing Hero Factory in the process, but there is never a reason for the desire of its return.

Their bashing of HF could be their reason for wanting Bionicle back. They may just like Bionicle a lot more than HF.

Why though? Why do people want it back?

In all honesty, while it can come back, I don't want it to.

For one thing, it's old. Seriously, after ten years of story, I got the feeling that there wasn't anything new to try. Even the current story is flat to me. Thus I say that Bionicle ran its run and deserves to rest.

But overall, I really don't care.