The link isn't working for me... but yeah, this is good to keep in mind. If there's one thing the online BIONICLE fan community has always been good at, it's complaining. As such, online complaints are no reason to assume the theme is doomed to failure (especially since a lot of the things people online complain about are of little consequence to the actual target audience).

I'm still in the camp that believes that the Kolhii match between Takanuva and Makuta was way more meaningful and poetic than any violent, Transformers-style robot smackdown ever could have been. It's a bit like the "chess with death" trope as seen in works like the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia or the book Coraline. The villain is convinced the hero is no match for him, so to toy with him he proposes a competition on the hero's terms. Ultimately, though, Makuta was wrong about Takanuva, who was not the same hesitant, uncertain Matoran he had been at the beginning of the movie.

Sorry about the link - it is definitely correct, but it isn't working for me either. Manually going through WayBack to locate the page shows that it's still up, though.

It's the most recent topic in General Discussion on this page. "Mistreatment." I do so wish the other 4 pages could still be read.

https://web.archive.org/web/20031209151126/http://www.bzpower.com/forum/

While I won't defend the quality of MoL, it's pleasant to know that it wasn't the fatal crash of Bionicle but merely an unfortunate bump in the road.

Or otherwise known as "EVERYTHING AFTER 2001 WAS A COPYCAT WANNABE." Ah, the memories.

Haters gon' hate. That is the way of the Bionicle.
-Turaga Vakama

Oh wow, I didn't realize that that topic was also full of people complaining that little kids were ruining BIONICLE! And just three years after the theme's introduction! Classic!

i tottaly understand ..i must agree with that..but i've met some peeple here that i just cause ther so clueless and just....baaaa!..bionicle should be a older thing..its just plain stupid that all these 5,6,7,8,9 yr olds are liking it and loving it when they probably don't understand diddly squat about the story line...and its fine if they mess around with peces i meen..ther kids...wat else r they supposed to do? but it is sort of lame when they post about there horrible color scheme mocs..and expect peoples to post..but think about it..were'nt we all like this when we were yung? we should just forget about it i meen everyonewill grow up so just help the "sterio types" out so they can eventually be like any other member...

That aside, the fact that teenagers were being teased for liking BIONICLE even back then does effectively put the final nail in the coffin for the argument that classic BIONICLE was aimed squarely at teenagers while the new BIONICLE is aimed at kids. Not that it was ever a really solid argument to begin with...

The topic in general offers me some great insights into the community back then since I wasn't active in the online fan community until around 2006.

^The atrocious spelling and grammar in that quote make the whole thing even funnier than it already is.

This is just. Wow. Beautiful. The internet really doesn't change.

^The atrocious spelling and grammar in that quote make the whole thing even funnier than it already is.

 

This is just. Wow. Beautiful. The internet really doesn't change.

I dunno... if anything, it seemed WORSE back then as far as spelling and grammar were concerned. Even if the internet as a whole doesn't change, BZPower at least has.

 

^The atrocious spelling and grammar in that quote make the whole thing even funnier than it already is.

 

This is just. Wow. Beautiful. The internet really doesn't change.

I dunno... if anything, it seemed WORSE back then as far as spelling and grammar were concerned. Even if the internet as a whole doesn't change, BZPower at least has.

The difference might have something to do with the topic I saw from 2005 in which Windrider (yay people I recognize!) was celebrating the addition of a spell check feature to BZPower.