Alyska

Maybe a you could do a meme about Chiara or someth-LIZARD! ZAPPA THE LIZARD!

My closing argument can be found by looking up my video "War on the Bronies".

War now? Seriously? But... just... why? The bronies of BZPower, as far as I can tell, have done nothing to you. In fact, throughout all this time you've been bashing them, they have shown you an inhuman amount of tolerance and patience. That's what bronies do. But I've got bad news for you, bub. I ain't a brony. I'm all out of patience and tolerance. I have had it with your offensive, sexist, immature attitude and I'm considering reporting you.

I watched episode 1 to see and I hated it and felt girly the whole way through.

It's good that you made the effort. Thank you. However...

Proud BZPMABer (BZPower memeber against Bronies)

I would advise taking this out of your sig. You're essentially discriminating against a particular group of people, which may come across to some people as intolerance, flamebaiting, or sexism. just something to think about...

Okay, guys, this is urgent. There is a member in another topic on BZP talking about how much he hates bronies, and appears to have started an anti-brony thing, if his sig is anything to go by. DON'T REACT. Think what your favourite ponies would do; tolerate him or use the report button.

Maybe some people are in it for the sigfad, but, given that the Bionicle story was only updated once during the six months of downtime, isn't it understandable that people would come to love new things? Yes, the show has spawned a lot of memes, but I think most of the sigs, avatars and name changes reflect a genuine affection for the show. Also, implying that teenage boys and adult men shouldn't like the show is the equivalent of saying that I shouldn't like Bionicle because I'm an adult female. Now, I don't think anyone would come up and say something so blatantly sexist, so why is it okay to do the reverse? So, please, everyone criticising the "fad"- I have one request. Watch one episode of the show. They're all easily available online. (I recommend "Lesson Zero", as it requires no previous understanding of the show.) I'm not a "brony", or anything, but, really people, this show isn't all that bad.

Anyway, the females in Bionicle are already well thought out characters. Maybe there could be more, but what we have is enough. Another point is that, when you look at the box, you see a robot. You don't see male or female. Most will go to assume said robot is male. But how do you make a robot look female without making her stereotypical? You can't make them pink. You can't give them breasts. You can't give them pink hearts. Look at Gali. She's female, but you'd only know that by looking at the story, which you can't see from the box. Making a female version of Bionicle wouldn't work because you're detracting from what makes Bionicle as a whole, and changing the plot just for girls seems just as pointless as females already have a fairly major role in the story.

This is why I think Bionicle (or another "constraction" line) should have a TV show, to help get the story out there. This would attract not only young girls, but also a wider fanbase in general, bringing in more older fans.( At the moment, Bionicle may have a lot of older fans, but it is not attracting many new ones, since most of us are only here because we liked it as kids). The story and characters were what attracted me to Bionicle, and I wouldn't have known about either of them had I not been looking over my brother's shoulder as he was playing MNOG. A TV show would help distribute the story to potential fans. As for set design... any good MOCist can show you how to make a character look feminine without resorting to pink armour or breasts. Lego's designers have been downright lazy in that department. Hero Factory has the right idea in having a show, but the only female character is barely more than a background character. In the one storyline where she would be really useful (Savage Planet, since she can talk to animals etc.), she is left out altogether! Add that to the overall quality of the show, and we're not looking at a particularly wide audience here.

There were four main females in Avatar ,as I recall.In Avatar, were they not fighting? They weren't planting flowers, that's for sure! Every, well known, female character had a large role in the story. Why change it to have MORE females? I'm quite content with the amount of female presence in the story line as it is.

When did I say I wanted them to plant flowers? When did I say that the fighting should be taken out? You seem to have this persistent misconception that any entertainment designed to attract girls must automatically be a dull, insipid piece of sugar-coated trash that insults the viewer's intelligence. To be fair, this is a fairly common misconception, held by just about everyone, from eight-year-old boys to professional TV writers. And, a lot of media for young girls produced over the past few decades does perpetuate that stereotype. But, once again, it doesn't have to be that way. Writers of children's media are gradually beginning to realise the importance of well-developed, interesting female characters, and girls' entertainment with coherent, well-thought-out storylines, and I think that Lego should try to keep up with these changes in attitudes.

Well, Spiderman's got a musical...

If LEGO did make tweaks to the storyline or sets in favour of girls, would boys not start thinking that this toy is a "girly" toy? Wouldn't LEGO lose there main group of consumers?They would have made the dumbest mistake in their whole life if they tweaked anything.

Thing is, the tweaks need not be over-the top to the point of it becoming obviously "for girls". Something that incorporates female characters to the degree of, say, Avatar: the Last Airbender would be a good compromise. And yet you don't hear young boys whining that Avatar's become "too girly" beacause of all the females in it.

Hehe... that's brilliant! Well written, and Vezon randomly poking stuff with a stick is just the perfect mental image. I presume there are more coming?

Lewa sounds Irish for me, too. Tahu sounds similar to his movie voice, as does Onua, but Gali has a softer voice, Pohatu has an Australian accent, and Kopaka sounds like Alan Rickman.

Black Adventures is a fanmade webcomic, rather than a canon manga. The Pokemon being able to talk is an entertaining touch, but it sort of negates N being special if everyone can talk to their Pokemon. Also contains gratituous crossdressing.

I'm getting a lot of answers along the lines of "Girls can already like Bionicle". Yes, we can, but our numbers are not particularly significant enough to be important to Lego. What I'm saying is that with a few tweaks, potentially thousands of girls could like it. The presence of existing female fans only supports my case. ...So much wasted potential.

Bionicle attracts girls by having being into Bionicle being the only way to play with their brothers, who they adore and love in every single way.

Actually, I think you may be right... I think a lot of Bionicle fangirls, myself included, would have gotten into it via a brother or male friend (As opposed to more conventional methods, such as seeing a TV commercial or being given a set as a gift). This suggests that many girls may have the potential to like Bionicle, but just don't get into it if they don't have a friend or relative to introduce it to them.

Another thing that bothers me- I could tell that the shop assistant and security guard were going to die, purely based on the colour of their skin. Yes, it's probably bad that I made that assumption, but it's even worse that I'm usually right. If the show didn't do it so often, I wouldn't have come to expect it by now.

I have a lot of negative emotions directed towards closing time. Really, the day is saved by the Power of Heart? It's not cliche, it's just sad. I was hoping that Craig would stay converted and though the Cybermen would be destroyed, it would further convince the Doctor that he only brings pain to his companions.

I think it was meant to be a fairly lighthearted episode before the final. I actually quite liked it, regardless of how illogical it was. It's Doctor Who! A lot of stuff happens just because some character wished hard enough, so, by this show's standards, it wasn't too much of a stretch that a baby crying could stop a Cyberman-conversion. I do think the other Cybermen being destroyed by it, however, is taking it a little bit beyond my suspension of disbelief. Anyone else find it weird that those Cybermen were basically just humans stuck inside a suit of armour with their emotions turned off? I thought it was a human brain in a robot body or something...

In my opinion, the first few years of Bionicle managed the gender situation pretty well. (In fact, back then Bionicle probably had more female characters than most system themes.) Sure, it was unequal, but you had a nice dose of female characters from Gali to Nokama to Hahli, who all played important roles. I think as Bionicle started getting more complex, things went downhill. People went beyond the questions of pronouns and started asking why different genders were even needed, and thus came all these silly rules; each element only has one gender, no romance just strong friendships, ext. All in all, not necessarily bad, but the restrictions seem to bring out more of these heated debates over gender in Bionicle. I myself prefered the simplified versions. (Also, there's this thing called fan fiction where you can alter the official canon. I know, right!) As for Lego targeting girls... Lego Friends next year? Yay pink pieces.

I think the elements having set genders was already decided when the series started. While we have had a couple of female Toa, the thing that bothers me is the lack of diversity among the female characters. The three you mentioned always seem to be the sensible, level-headed ones with the least flaws. This may sound okay at first, but the downside is that they recieve less character development, and I personally don't find them all that interesting as characters. I think characters like these may be a part of the reason young boys tend to percieve female characters as "lame" or "boring". That said, writing female characters these days is an absolute minefield. If you have one female character in a group of males, the female is always going to be analysed more in terms of how her actions reflect on her gender. So, if you wanted to have the female Toa be the goofy, ditzy comic relief character, the audience would probably respond with: "Hey! You made the girl dumber than all the guys! THAT'S SEXIST!". Therefore, female characters generally end up being smart and level-headed to avoid such accusations, and female comic relief characters have never appeared in Bionicle as a result. (The closest we've had is Varian, and we'll probably never see her again) There is, however, a bleeding obvious, staring-you-right-in-the-face solution to this. You simply have two or more females on the team. They can have contrasting personalities, and therefore balance out each other's flaws. Having more females almost always results in better female characters, as the writers have to give them more defining traits than "oh, yeah, she's just the token girl kthxbai". As for "Friends". I'd have to see more of it before I can really comment on it. It seems to be story-driven, but it seems to be aimed at a much younger audience than Bionicle. I was hoping for something that could appeal to the 8-12 and up bracket...

I ####### hate you guys.

Now, that's not what we say around here. The way you say it is "I'm gonna LOVE and TOLERATE the living horseapples out of you!"

Watched "Lesson Zero" this morning. It was like the animators were having a competition to see who could draw the meme-iest faces!

Genderless characters may be realistic, but not practical. There's issues with voice actors, the pronouns you use, and also the unfortunate tendency for humans to assume that anything not given a gender is a male anyway.

First off, this would be better suited as a poll. Secondly, I never thought it was aimed at boys. Girls were always welcome to be interested in BIONICLE. One could use the argument that the themes in BIONICLE reflect traits typically associated with boys, yes, but I know a lot of girls who are very "girly" but still like the action/adventure fantasy genre. It's all a matter of how you look at it. Nobody is in the position to say girls can't like BIONICLE. -SK

There is a yes/no element to this, but I would like the discussion to be more in-depth than that, so I'd prefer to keep it as a normal topic. Greg has said multiple times that Lego specifically aims Bionicle at young boys, and is not particularly interested in appealing to girls. This is reflected in the huge gender imbalance in the characters. I'm not saying girls can't like Bionicle as it is (especially since I'm living proof to the contrary), but I feel that it does not maximise its potential to appeal to that market.

Whenever any discussion about Bionicle's gender ratio, or the role of female characters in the story comes up, it almost always comes back to : "Bionicle is a line aimed predominantly at young boys, who have little interest in female characters." But does it have to be that way? Could Bionicle- or, something like it- appeal to a larger female audience? I believe it could, if things were done a little differently. So, I'll put to you two different pitches: 1. The first is Bionicle, more or less as it was, but with a few changes made to the story, characters and marketing designed to appeal to a broader audience of both boys and girls. 2. The second is a new line of story-driven "constraction" toys (buildable figures), that are specifically designed to appeal to a mostly-female audience. Would either of these work? Which one would you prefer? What kind of changes would be necessary to attract girls? I personally would opt for the first one, with the changes consisting mostly of having more female characters, and preferably having all the Matoran elements be both genders. Maybe also have more time to focus on characterisation in the story, and have a TV series to attract a wider audience. Note: This is based on an old topic of mine that I made last year. The response I got then was mostly a negative one. However, given that half of BZP is now obsessed with some show about a purple unicorn who learns lessons about friendship every day, I'm curious to see if I get a more positive reaction this time.

No problem. I should probably go have breakfast myself...

Blade? You around? You should already have my Friend code, so I'll just wait in the WiFi room. You don't need much, just something useless to trade for the Eevee. See you there. EDIT: at least, I assume you had your eye on the Eevee. If you want something different, let me know. =)

I would re-edit Mask of Light so that all the characters are digitally replaced by Ewoks.

You mean the Matoran aren't Ewoks? In all seriousness, I don't see why one would have to go by the old story bible if you're talking about a different continuity. Have the same characters, some different ones, and generally alter it in the way that I'd like it more (i.e. killing corny lines like 'that's what friends do'. That friendship is NOT magic.)

Well, I'd expect they'd show the story bible to anyone working on Bionicle, just to give them a starting point in case they'd never seen Bionicle before. But in this scenario, it's entirely up to you whether you use it or not. i'd personally love to be shown a copy of it, but that's just me.

So, it's been announced that Lego is getting a feature film! Very little is known about it at this stage, other than that it will be written by the guys who wrote Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and that it will be coming out in 2012. There's an interview with the producer here and one with the director here*. What would you like to see in it? *(I hope those links are allowed- if not, please let me know and I'll remove them.)