Toa Zaz

I bet they release one episode a month starting in February from here on out.

So at this point I think we've seen all the animation that was in stills at the NYCC Presentation. Is this it for episodes, at least until the summer wave when I presume we'll get more? Maybe what was shown at NYCC was stills from the first "batch" of episodes produced, and any subsequent episodes (whether they come sooner or later) were produced separately? We'll see I guess. I wish they would reveal a release schedule for these episodes though, and hopefully with frequent updates given their brevity. EDIT: Oh great, I was wrong! Nice to get another episode. Hopefully it will focus on what the heck these masks actually do.

Entry: Makuta Scaverix

Pros: At least brings something different to the bill. I think I might prefer this to a third Lego Movie just from an originality standpointStill leaves one date open for a possibly theatrical Bionicle release, hopefully 2018 or so to coincide with the expected three-year at least confirmed lifespan of the new Bionicle reboot as indicated at NYCC. This isn't a compliment on this movie at all; I'm just glad any possibility of a Bionicle flick wasn't dashed for this @#$%.Cons: Pretty much what TheSkeletonMan939 said. This is a lazy cash-grab to capitalize off the success of the Lego Movie. Batman can't carry his own movie- he's just a supporting character for comic relief, pretty much. What the heck is this movie going to be about? It sure isn't going to have any of the poignancy or social commentary of The Lego Movie, that's for sure. I don't care about ninety minutes of jerk Batman (I did like his character in The Lego Movie and how he was used, but I certainly wouldn't want a whole movie about him). This demonstrates the cold, lazy, cynical nature of Hollywood. It's like those rumors about a prequel movie about Han Solo or whatever; they know we like Han Solo, so they'll give us a prequel about him as a kid by a totally different actor who we don't care about or like at all, doing something stupid. We want to see Han Solo being cool and interacting with the other characters and stuff; we don't want to see him by himself, doing something that we don't care about. It's like in the rare occasion that Hollywood has a hit, they take whatever worked and on the most superficial level start cramming it into our faces until it isn't good anymore, rather than actually figuring out what worked and what people like in a way that provokes a similarly positive reaction but remains fresh and original. People like the Lego Movie for a variety of reasons; it was funny (and Batman was a part of that), but also it had more of an ensemble cast and better protagonists/story, and also had appropriate seriousness and depth when necessary. That's kind of the problem with spin-offs of stuff that worked on several levels, is that you by design you lose all effective levels but one. Spin-offs should only happen if a) that one level is good enough to carry a whole movie- Batman is not, or b) the movie only did work on one level, so a spin-off would give that lone good point room to shine and give people what they want. It doesn't matter if anything gets lost when the franchise gets spun-off because all that other stuff sucked. But losing what really made The Lego Movie good would be a loss. This sucks. It's depressing. It shows lack of artistic integrity by Lego and Hollywood in general. Also... I'm so sick of Batman movies. Hollywood won't stop making them. We've got a reboot like 4 years since the previous franchise ended, with nothing apparent to justify it since Man of Steel sucked and this new Batman doesn't look very different from the last (same tank-like Batmobile etc). I'm all for good Batman films, and there have certainly been some, but at this rate we don't need anymore Batman, especially not some comic relief jerk who isn't even a real character. Again, it shows how lazy, cynical, and repetitive Hollywood is. Do something different for once.

Fingers crossed it's Bionicle, but the "brand new theme" description makes it sound less like a reboot and more like something totally new.

Greg's books were genuinely good, and certainly improved over time. Even though the output diminished, some of his later stuff like Journey's End was great. It was the web serials where the story became awful because he didn't plan in out ahead of time and was unwilling to update them on a reasonable basis. But Greg's prose had an efficiency to it while delving deep into the mythology and exploring characterization on occasion, which the Hapka books really lacked. I agree that the comics were definitely not ideal mediums for telling the story. Really, they were just a few illustrated versions of scenes from the books. As a reader of the books I did enjoy them a lot, however. Lego has shown in the past that whenever they "replace" something, typically it's for cost reasons or whatnot and the new one is inferior (Tinseltown Toons was worst than Miramax, but far better than Ghost). Maybe a new author could be as good or better than Greg, but I doubt it, especially as Lego seems reluctant to maintain a complex and sophisticated storyline for their contraction figures. What I'm REALLY worried about is that there's not going to be ANY books, or comics, or media through which the story is told whatsoever. Lego might just put out the sets, no marketing or anything, and when the sets don't sell they'll pull the plug.

I agree with what some said above that I don't thing Bionicle ever got irredeemably awful or to the point where I would abandon it, but there were drops in quality and unwise decisions which were detrimental to the line. Set-wise, I think 2006 was the last good year because the Inika were the last original designs. Up until then Bionicle had shown a lot of originality with every wave (aside from the Bohrok-Kal, of course. Also, the Toa Nuva were naturally similar to the Toa Mata, and the Vahki were kind of like the Rahkshi, but those were fine). Even though some of the sets after that were good or decent (the 2008 vehicles, 2008 Takanuva), they had totally lost that original spark and had been relegated to, many of which were either very mediocre or in fact awful sets. Of course, if the Inika style of building had been better, than this wouldn't have been such a big problem, but the Inika builds had terrible proportions among other problems (also, they sacrificed functionality for poseability). And in 2008, the pretty good impulse set builds from 2007 were replaced by similarly terribly proportioned Av-Matoran builds which were relied upon until the end. One other benefit of the Inika builds was the abolishment of clone builds, something that was used to great effect in 2007 but by 2008 had largely returned to clone-build status. Some of the character designs were good, such as the Glatorian (though some, like the Phantoka/Mistika Toa, were bad), so if those designs had been translated into a better building system, then the sets could have turned out a lot better, but as it was the sets became inferior once the Inika builds became perpetually relied on. Note that I think CCBS, while more versatile than the Inika build and lacking many of the proportion problems, is terrible in its lack of detail and generic designs and as such is almost as stale as the Inika builds were. Story-wise, I actually think a lot of the early story was pretty weak, just the Toa finding masks or whatever (though the Mata Nui Online Game did a fantastic job of world-building to compensate for the initially thin story). I think 2004-onwards was an improvement to the story in a lot of ways by expanding and complicating the universe. I get that a lot of people didn't like 2004-2005 because it was all a flashback and we know where it was heading, and I liked the darker and higher stakes turn that 2006 and 2007 took. 2006 had story problems because too much focus was placed on the first half of the year so the second half was really rushed, and the first half of 2007 suffered greatly from lack of story (this can likely be attributed to the canceled book). But the second half of 2007 was fantastic, raising the stakes and culminating in Matoro's death. I think the story really peaked in 2007 and afterwards it was on the decline. 2008 was weak because there were little stakes and really not much actually happening. I think part of this may have been that Greg had to rewrite the story because of Ahkmou or whatever, but it was a step down. The 2009 story was bad for numerous reasons. The attempt to reboot the story by establishing a new world was a failure. It didn't develop itself well enough or in an interesting enough way to stand on its own. It both stuck too close to the typical Bionicle structure to be derivative and simultaneously failed to have what made us like Bionicle in the first place. The greatest flaw was that it was boring. The setting was really boring, and little effort was put into it to really make it even feel like a desert. The Glatorian fights were utterly boring because they weren't to the death and they were for no discernable reason. The Skrall were really dull villains whose motivations were initially nonexistent and when they were finally revealed didn't make much sense. And the traitor thing was overhyped, predictable, and underwhelming. And The Legend Reborn was, while not quite awful, extremely mediocre. The 2010 story was badly done, and certainly not ideal or a fitting end to Bionicle, but I thought it was kind of cool and considering that they had little to work with it wasn't too bad. If Hero Factory ends after this year, then I seriously doubt that it will get a send-off of this quality. The web serials were a great idea to expand the universe and tell different kinds of stories. I like the complication of the mythology. I like that they were darker than the regular story. I didn't like that they became largely terribly written, convoluted, and made no sense. Greg's making-it-up-as-he-goes-along technique is a horrible way to make up a story, with Riddle of the Great Beings probably being his most abysmal and egregious failure. The best stories in my opinion, Federation of Fear and Dark Mirror, were the ones where the objective was clearly in sight from the start. What also really sucked was Greg's diminishing output, going from six serials a year to three and consistently reducing the number of chapters in each. All the post-sets story was awful. Greg was unwilling to bother finishing it or even maintaining it at a reasonable pace, and by the time he got to occasional information dumps on the Lego message boards the story had basically died. Hopefully if Bionicle comes back, the quality and depth of the story will be maintained along with an attempt to bring back the feeling of the Bionicle that we fell in love with, without becoming convoluted or poorly written.

I absolutely hate it. Having every character able to be resurrected at will makes them utterly dispensable and negates any weight whatsoever to their deaths. Also, the whole concept is stupid; it implies that each individual fulfills a needed purpose in the functionality of the Mata Nui robot, which they don't seem to. Also, if in nearly every case the individual can be resurrected, then that almost defeats the purpose of being able to create new individuals inside the Matoran Universe. Why couldn't they just make new individuals instead of resurrecting the dead ones? Speaking of which, why couldn't the Red Star process take place inside the Matoran Universe? (because the Red Star wasn't originally a jetpack for the Mata Nui robot but they were making up the story as they went along so they had to find a way to work it in) The idea of "well, if the corpse is in reasonable condition, then in can be restored, but if, like there's nothing there, then it can't" opens up a can of worms. What if the corpse lost its head? What if their is only a head? etc. More, given the Red Star's inexplicable sophisticated teleportation technology, then any limitations to the resurrection process seem odd. Also, the way that Greg basically just gave an information dump years after the fact instead of even completing the story himself is terrible, but I won't rant about it too much because I don't want to get my proto reduced like the last time I spoke ill about Greg.

Age discrimination is automatically @#$%&*@#. All this will do is discourage any potential fans, be they few. This reeks of cheapness on Lego's part, actually, and I wonder if the magazine as a whole will get the axe sooner of later. Also, I may be horribly ignorant about how the whole process works, but how can they enforce an age limit on magazine subscriptions? It seems like anybody could just sign up and lie about their age if need be. I was a subscriber from 2005 to 2011 or so, and back in the day the obvious big sell for me was the Bionicle comics (so I'm praying those return if Bionicle does). But I also remember the content of the actual magazine being better earlier on. Near the end it just became basically a series of ads, which was lame. It also sucks that they didn't bother maintaining the Hero Factory comics, which weren't great but helped reinforce and solidify the Hero Factory storyline.

I guess I wouldn't mind this policy if it was a necessity, but the fact that Eurobricks, YouTube, and Lego's own self-moderated message boards abound with discussion and links to leaked content puts the validity of BZPower's concern in question. It is just a matter of waiting a couple of months, but I feel that allowing discussion of leaked content would promote more activity on BZPower, which is something that this website needs.

Of course I'm super excited at the possibility of Bionicle's return just like all of you probably are, but I'm worried that Lego bringing back their most popular construction line demonstrates lack of faith in build able figures as a whole. This is what I'm afraid will happen: -Hero Factory is abruptly canceled with no conclusion of any sort whatsoever, not even the sort of half-baked finale that Bionicle got. Demonstrates that Lego doesn't care at all about construction figures or doing a good job with storytelling, etc. and is willing to discard one without a moment's notice; hence Bionicle could have the same fate. -Bionicle comes back, but it's Bionicle in name only: using the same tired 2.0 style builds that Hero Factory has used with virtually no new pieces or innovation of any sort and hardly anything to distinguish it as Bionicle and not just the new Hero Factory sets with the Hero cores removed. -Reboot: the entire old continuity is discarded. If Lego even bothers with any sort of story or media, it will pull liberally from old names and such from Bionicle but the new story is terribly simplistic, underdeveloped, and unsatisfying. The new story utterly fails to establish he same level of world-building and storyline complexity that Bionicle had achieved. -No new Bionicle-type names at all. I'm not sure how licensing works, but from what I understand Lego had to trademark all those old Bionicle names, save exceptions like those Mata Nui Online Game II Matoran and Rahi/Dark Hunter names. I don't know if Lego had to trademark the original Hero Factory names like "Preston Stormer" or "Voltix," but by Invasion from Below we started getting these horrible generic names like "Flyer Beast" and "Stormer Freeze Machine." Seriously, those sound like placeholder names that Lego would designate the figures with before an official name had been finalized, and my guess is those names weren't trademarked. I'm worried that once Bionicle comes back, aside from old characters whose names Lego already has and can reuse, all the new characters will have generic and un-Bionicle-like names. -NO MEDIA OR MARKETING OF ANY KIND. Why the $&@? did Lego even bother making those Hero Factory specials if they didn't bother announcing when they were going to be or if they were even going to happen? The only way I knew about Ordeal of Fire was because BZPower announced it on the front page (thanks for that). The downfall of Hero Factory is likely that there is zero attempt to promote it in anyway. No wonder the sets don't sell. More, there's hardly any media for it at all. A big part of Bionicle's success and the reason why it developed such a rich and fully fleshed story was the wide variety of storytelling mediums that it utilized, including comics, books (I really miss those), web serials, online games, the occasional console game, and of course the four movies. Hero Factor has hardly any of that, and as a result there's hardly any story and what little there is sucks. What if Lego doesn't even bother with ANY Bionicle media (they don't seem to be making any more content with the Legend Reborn people anymore, so if we get anything it'll likely be by Ghost again), and all they put out is the sets? -The first wave of Bionicle is vey unsuccessful because Lego is cheap and refuses to market it at all or have any media for it whatsoever. After the first wave, Bionicle is ended with the same abrupt complete lack of closure as Hero Factory and Lego never makes constraction figures again. This is a worst-case scenario, but it's not too far-fetched and it's what I'm worried will happen. Hopefully, I'll be wrong and this Bionicle will be a worthy successor to Hero Factory and the previous Bionicle series.

Frank Miller's Sin City yarns are visually innovative, although the art kind of declined in ###### and Back by slipping into Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again-esque style. The first movie is notable for being technologically innovative and also a rare comic book adaptation that is nearly exactly like the source material. Mickey Rourke is awesome and some of the other cast also do a good job and elevate the source material. Trying to pertain to BZPower rules... I think I ought to address the issue of misogyny in these movies concerning the singular and unflattering portrayal of women in these stories. The women sort of counter this by being tough and able to take care of themselves, but in nearly every story they ultimately need to be saved by a man. While there's somewhat of a variety of male characters and archetypes, etc, every single female character is the same. More, every single story is from a man's perspective- even the Delia stories are narrated by her victims. This is why I'm sort of excited for "The Fat Loss/ Nancy's Last Dance," the original story about Jessica Alba in the upcoming movie, because it'll hopefully mark a more progressive depiction of a female character. I don't know if it would be fair to call Frank Miller a misogynist (I'd call him fascist, war-mongering, thoroughly Islamophobic, somewhat racist, homophobic, and crazy), because not all his work depicts women this way, but these aspects certainly become more prevalent later on. In fact, one aspect of Frank Miller's decline in quality would be how everything he does has sort of become some variation on Sin City, when it shouldn't be that way; for instance, in the beautifully drawn but otherwise terrible All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, for some inexplicable reason Gotham cops are as corrupt as Sin City ones, all the women are portrayed in an offensively degrading manner, and Batman is a sadist who takes pleasure in killing or injuring people. But overall I like Sin City comics, and I like the first movie. I have some reservations about the new film but everything I've seen looks cool and I'm looking forward to it. EDIT: Sorry, I forgot we can't say that one word. I wasn't intending to curse or whatever, it's just a comic title and it slipped my mind

That villain from the beginning of "Brain Attack" who looked exactly like Black Phantom except with Savage Planet spikes added onto his shoulders and head because the animators were really lazy. Who the heck was that? Why did they even bother introducing some new villain who they never bother to explain? It might be the laziest character creation in Hero Factory history and embodies the general failings of Hero Factory as a whole.

Actually looks great. Great for a parts pack and decent-looking on its own. I really hope it gets worldwide availability, though. Was that Breez polybag ever given wide release?

What with all the recent "rumors" of Bionicle's return which BZPower has acknowledged, could one of these be a theatrical Bionicle film? If so, hopefully this mean that if Bionicle comes back, then it has some longevity (at least enough to get to 2018 or 2019), and Lego isn't going to go one wave and then abruptly cancel it without giving it its due. Or, if Lego isn't interested in having set tie-ins to coincide with a theatrical Bionicle release (which seems very unlikely), maybe that means that the movie won't have to focus on current sets and we could get a movie based on the classic Bionicle story? All of this sounds too good to be true, so I probably shouldn't get my hopes up.

4 bucks for one minifigure?! This is really ridiculous. Piggy guy sounds kind of interesting, though...

The difference is the immense popularity Bionicle achieved, which Clickits and Jack Stone never did, making it more likely than those other themes that Lego would try to rekindle that popularity.

I doubt the filmmakers put a whole lot of thought to what exactly the Skrall were contemplating at that moment and the natural behavior of Scarabax or whatever. Most likely they just did it because it was kind of cool, and didn't think twice about it. Admittedly it was kind of a cool idea.

I think the reason people want a dark(er) reboot isn't necessarily because they're pretentious, ostensibly "mature" Lego fans or that they really love gore or whatever. I think it's because darkness tends to lead to a more compelling story, because that way there are actual stakes and intimidating villains. Which, I guess doesn't necessarily mean it has to be that dark, rather better written (and some of the later, woefully meandering Bionicle serials showed that darkness alone doesn't necessarily equal better). But, if we don't have any reason to feel that the heroes are in danger or if the conflict in unengaging, then I don't care. I feel like Hero Factory is a bad example to use because it has such an abundance of problems on every level including being overly light-hearted and pandering to kids, so I'm going to use Legend of Korra. Which again, has a whole bunch of other problems along with it (which is why I stopped watching after the first season), but one of those problems was the lack of stakes. If Amon took away everyone's bending powers, then nothing of consequence would change and thus the story is boring (it also suffers the problem of pitting the heroes against weaker villains, and having too-sympathetic villains against unsympathetic heroes). Maybe if there were some actual danger to the protagonists, then the show would be more interesting, but if all that's going to happen to them is something trivial, then I'm not concerned. Which, of course, is because Legend of Korra is a show for kids and they can't have much in the way of violence or anything (the shocking but uninteresting murder suicide notwithstanding). The same applies to Bionicle and other Lego themes (I thought the Lego movie handled the tone, etc great of course). If all that happens is the Toa or whatever get "hit by shadow" and then are immediately fine, then it is uninteresting. The other direction is the horrific genocide of an entire species by the protagonists at the end of the new Hero Factory episode. The problem then, isn't that it is "too dark" (I think it was @#$%&*# dark enough), it is that the subject matter was approached in the ENTIRELY WRONG WAY. I don't mind having a terrible atrocity happening in fiction, that unfornutately happens/has happened in real life. But if you're going to have something like that then the deliberate perpetrators should be portrayed as irredeemably horrific monsters who are utterly without value. And it definitely shouldn't be casually forgotten like nothing happened (all this applies to Man of Steel). That was just awful, lazy writing on Lego's part because it was a blatant toy commercial with an ending they slapped together in a matter of hours. If they had made any storyboards/concept art/maybe animation of the original "good" ending then I'd really like to see it. But anyway, if you're gonna go dark, and you don't have to but it tends to add interest to the story, then you have to approach it in the right way.itit

Hey, these are actually pretty cool. They fixed the family's faces from the versions in the house so they look a lot better. Interesting how they decided to include Itchy and Scratchy separately as regular-sized minifigures. And there's that Milhouse figure from The Lego Movie. I think because of all the new molds and stuff for the heads the price increase is justified (and more Simpsons sets might be nice). But, according to the Toy Fair price guide on Eurobricks, the next Collectable Minifigure Series will also be $4 despite being normal minifigures- which really sucks. Legos are kind of too expensive as it is, 4 bucks for one minifigure is way too much. ...Also, it seems they are going family-friendly with this line, with no beer or Barney or Moe's Tavern. I wonder how this will affect the TV special in May? Also, I wonder if in the episode we'll see characters that aren't represented in sets or if they'll be limited to what you can buy. For Lego fans alone I guess this special brings some interest in The Simpsons, which it hasn't really had for years because it's been really terrible.

One thing I like about Seismo is that (she? I think all the Mixels are unfortunately male in the cartoon) has some forward-and-back range of movement in the legs. The other Mixels have these amazing new mini-ballpoints but due to the position of the sockets they can hardly move their feet. I also like how Seismo is proportionately taller compared to the "shorter" appearances of the other Mixels in this wave.

Preferably sets and story. I would conceivably be alright with just the story (although good sets to go along would be preferred), but from what we've experienced whenever the sets and consequently the drive by Lego/the story team to keep the story going and make money disappears, then the story gets far worse or stops entirely. Which really isn't how it could be, considering a sets-free story would be devoid of the necessity to incorporate all 20-something-ish sets into it (which, again, they basically stopped doing near the end). If there was a good idea for a totally new story then I'd be all for it, but I'd prefer a sort of use-what-works type of approach and incorporate the aspects of the story that fans like- the characters, etc. Actually nostalgia in general would be a pretty smart approach to a Bionicle revival. Also, even though an investment in a theatrical production of a cancelled line with an insecure fan base would be unlikely, a (good, like The Lego Movie) theatrical film would be awesome.

From Eurobricks member SMC in this topic: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=84753&st=2300 Here's the minigifure: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/smc/Lego/1395305836777.jpg Too bad that it has the normal cape instead of the graduate robe. Also, no staff, but I guess that can be made from existing parts.

What also really sucks is all the new pieces that they designed will kind of go to waste because they won't end up appearing much or at all (unless they are used in future sets, which is not guaranteed). For instance, the Queen Beast Hero Factory set has one of the new armor pieces which are used extensively in the new Chima figures, and I think Queen Beast is the only Hero Factory set to include that piece. If they're not going to release the Chima sets, then what's the point of designing this whole new piece if they hardly end up using it? Not to mention all the pieces exclusive to those Chima sets, like all the trans-blue parts that they made, may never see the light of day.

Yeah, it's not like they were exactly in early stages of production- the sets were apparently finalized. That's really unfortunate, hopefully they change their minds and release them, at least at some point or another. I also hope this doesn't indicate a lack of faith by Lego in constraction themes (as suggested by Hero Factory's use of minifigures and extremely limited media output).