Ah, yes. The good old days of bionicle. The days where we had a huge, diverse land to explore. The days of good collectables that were not designed solely to be fired across a room and lost. The days where the story could be followed without reading tons of extra material and without being needlessly cluttered with superfluous organisations and locations. Weren't they great? Who wouldn't want to return to them?

Well I sure wouldn't. I also know it will never be possible. Ever. Nothing lego does can possibly recreate the feel of bionicle back then. At least, not for me. I expect you've heard similar sentiments across the forums at one time or another, but no doubt these were followed by other statements along the lines of 'Bionicle is so bad! Why can't we go back to Mata Nui!?"

Time to break the trend!

The idea behind this entry actually came from vague musings about time. Yup, time. That sort of thing does meander through the twisting realms of surreality that encompass the bizarre world of what is often referred to as my mind (or lack thereof - but that's another story).

There are three different ways of looking at things. The first is to look to the past. The second is to look to the future. The third is - any guesses people? - yup! It's to look at the present. If you guessed correctly, have a cookie!

What, you expect me to supply the cookie!? Tough! Get your own!

Now, where was I? Oh yes, time! Now, of those three things, it is the latter, looking at the present, that tends to be the least rewarding. Our view of the past tends to be skewed. Good things seem much better than they were at the time. When thinking about the future, we tend to view things as ending up a complete disaster or a bright, wondrous future (often by trying to manipulate the present to do so). But the present...weeeell, we're stuck that really. Not much we can do about it, so people's views tend to be a tad more realistic, even pessimistic (although those two words should not be used interchangeably. I've learnt that lesson.)

So, back to bionicle then! When we look at Bionicle's past we see something bright and glorious. We were younger then, and bionicle was new to us. There was far more mystery and excitement, and the sets were bright and revolutionary. To an extent, this is very definitely the truth. I would question anyone who says, for all they liked bionicle back then, that it was as good as they remember it. There were always problems. Things I disliked were the double gear system in Onua and Gali, or the incredibly unexciting gold masks that were really more like bronze. I was so excited when I saw the advert in the comic showing that shining gold mask...only to be dissapointed.

They didn't do everything right back then, because then it would have been perfect and I honestly don't believe anything ever can be perfect. If it had been perfect, why would they ever have changed it?

Perfection is subjective. This is why nothing can ever be perfect, because two people's views of perfection will be radically different. As Lego's fanbase changed, so bionicle had to change with them so new fans may too experience the magical feeling older fans like myself did in the early days. This change will of course start to alienate older fans, who will like bionicle for what it was. No collectables? How can you have bionicle with no collectables? They're a fundamental part of bionicle! They're it's core! It's a preposterous idea!

But then a newer fan would question why you want collectables in the first place. What do you do with them? Sit them on your shelf and let them collect dust? Surely if you can't use them, that makes them useless? And...Matoran? What use are they except as a minor sideshow to the Toa? They're the main characters! You can't have something that doesn't focus on the Toa!

I clearly remember Mata Nui, and how exciting it was to explore this place and uncover its many, many secrets. Each chapter of the MNOG brought with it something exciting and new, every venture into the darkness of the island expanded on the epic setting and gave it evem greater life. I loved this! I know many people on here also enjoyed this type of storytelling - the feeling of exploration and discovery. Settings after that began to slowly lose the mystic feeling and become increasingly less explorable. Voya Nui was mostly barren, and Karda Nui has nothing in it except a few isolated villages, stalectites and a swamp. Bionicle has travelled a long way from its roots.

I can see perfectly why people dislike this change. I can also see that continuing the 'new, diverse setting with many things to explore and uncover' type of story would begin to grate. If we spent every year exploring in a similar way to the first years, people would be screaming for something new! I also doubt that newer fans would be as interested, as their interest appears to lie with battles and fighting.

The sets themselves have changed lots too. Gone is the technic feel of the Rahi or the Exo-Toa, replaced by excessive poseability and large weapons. Now I don't know about other people, but I was a bit dissapointed to find that the Metru sported yet another 'turn gear move arm' system. Infact, I wasn't even interested in the gears, I just enjoyed the sets having a function. The Bohrok remain for me the greatest achievement in functionality to date. They could launch krana, snap their heads forward and roll up into a ball and get stuck inside their canisters. These functions are great and give added life to a set, but they can be pain to build. For all their glory, the Rahkshi can be a pain to put together (although from my perspective this is good).

If you're not used to snapping together lego, let alone technic sets, are you really going to want to sit down for ages trying to hold gears in place as you stick rods through them? If you've bought a bionicle set from this perspective, chances are you want it built. Now. The construction process is not as important as playing with the set. Now whatever you prefer, it is people with that attitude who make up the majority of the fanbase. So what's lego to do? Alienate most of its fans to appease us and keep with tradition, or listen to its fans at the risk of upsetting a few older fans who don't provide that much in the way of revenue anyway?

If they want to stay in business and let lego continue, they have to choose the second option. There's no other way to do it. If sets aren't bringing in money, what can lego do? They can't simply wave a magic wand and pop six more sets into existance for the next wave. These things cost money, and if there's no money there's no way to make more sets. It's like being handed an empty canister and being told to build Tahu. It's impossible. The sets can be as creative as they like but the bottom line is, if all they do is sit on a shelf looking pretty, they're a complete waste of time.

Now, say lego suddenly found out that their fanbase did want an exploration-driven story. They did want complex set designs and they did want collectables. Great! The new year comes round, the sets are unveiled...

There's a collective gasp from BZP as they witness the horror that is these new sets. Their functions are 'poor imitations' of the sets we all know and love. The setting, for all its mystery can 'never be as good as Mata Nui' and the collectables? 'We don't want this junk!' Shouts BZP. 'Bring back proper masks! Bring back something worth collecting!'

Nothing will ever be as good as 2001-2003 because they won't be 2001-2003. It's that simple. What you consider to be the golden years of bionicle are only so because you made them so inside your own mind. It's the nostalgia and the memories that have grown over the years which make those early years seem so much better than anything since. It's also age and a divergance from the currently held views of fans that make bionicle seem to slide downwards every year. In reality, just as much imagination and creativity is going into it. Yes it's changed, but so have its original fans. They've both slid slightly in different directions, and so what may only have been a minor change suddenly becomes insurmountably huge, because both sides have drifted apart from one another.

Every story is what the fans make it. What seems like a great piece of storytelling to one person could be utter rubbish to the next. While many people find bionicle these days to be dissapointing at best, I would say it is only dissapointing to them, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the bionicle line. No matter what happens, it will never be what it was because much of what it was is inside our own heads and subject to our tastes and perceptions.

On the other hand, I could be talking utter rubbish. Who knows?