Matoro Lives

Skeletons of sets being similar doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Even BIONICLE wasn't as diverse or unique as people often make it out to be. Have you noticed pretty much every single canister set from 2004 to 2009 had its legs built exactly the same way, with only a few exceptions like Krika, Vamprah, and Gorast? Torso builds did vary over the years, but the same is true of Hero Factory. Raw-Jaw, Fangz, Jawblade, Thornraxx, Toxic Reapa, Bruizer, Frost Beast, and Furno Jet Machine are just some of the small and medium-size Hero Factory figures with unique torso builds. Most of these unique torso builds are fairly simple in design as well, without any need for specialized new pieces like Toa Mahri Kongu's chest plate to set them apart from traditional humanoids.And your claim that it is virtually impossible to create a unique-looking MOC with Hero Factory pieces is flat-out wrong. I have done so, as have plenty of other builders. I'm not quite sure why you are so cynical about the HF theme, when clearly it has been very successful. A four-and-a-half year lifespan is not a "failure". And even if Hero Factory doesn't continue next year (which is always a possibility), I have a feeling that its building system will be used and improved on for years to come. It is, at its core, an evolution of the building system used in BIONICLE, developed by some of the best and brightest minds from the BIONICLE set design team, including the BIONICLE theme's lead set designer. I defend the theme and its building system because I have experienced its advantages for myself, and many of the claims made against it (such as the ones about it being impossible to create unique MOCs from Hero Factory pieces) are simply untrue. If it had not been for this new building system, I would probably never have started collecting the Hero Factory theme (certainly I had very little interest in buying the 2010 sets, and never ended up getting any of them), but this building system revolutionized constraction building in a way that no individual development in the BIONICLE theme ever did.And from my perspective, the theme hasn't gotten progressively worse. If anything, it's gotten better and better as the sets have become more complex and diverse. 2011 brought the heroes from being identical builds that were pitiful and overspecialized even by Agori standards to more diverse builds that had as much articulation as a Glatorian and similar heights and piece counts to a typical Toa Mata. 2012 made the set designs for heroes and villains alike less formulaic in terms of size, pieces, weapons, and color schemes. 2013 increased the piece counts of the sets even further and brought action features back to prominence, though it was probably the year of the most modest improvements in the grand scheme of things. And this year the sets have finally broken away from the need for about half of the figures each year to be fairly generic humanoids, since the sets are now divided into beasts and battle machines instead of heroes and villains. The medium-size sets this year have also managed to surpass all previous medium-size constraction sets, including BIONICLE canister sets, in both diversity and complexity. How are any of these things changes for the worse? Skeletons of sets being similar doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Even BIONICLE wasn't as diverse or unique as people often make it out to be. Have you noticed pretty much every single canister set from 2004 to 2009 had its legs built exactly the same way, with only a few exceptions like Krika, Vamprah, and Gorast? Torso builds did vary over the years, but the same is true of Hero Factory. Raw-Jaw, Fangz, Jawblade, Thornraxx, Toxic Reapa, Bruizer, Frost Beast, and Furno Jet Machine are just some of the small and medium-size Hero Factory figures with unique torso builds. Most of these unique torso builds are fairly simple in design as well, without any need for specialized new pieces like Toa Mahri Kongu's chest plate to set them apart from traditional humanoids.And your claim that it is virtually impossible to create a unique-looking MOC with Hero Factory pieces is flat-out wrong. I have done so, as have plenty of other builders. I'm not quite sure why you are so cynical about the HF theme, when clearly it has been very successful. A four-and-a-half year lifespan is not a "failure". And even if Hero Factory doesn't continue next year (which is always a possibility), I have a feeling that its building system will be used and improved on for years to come. It is, at its core, an evolution of the building system used in BIONICLE, developed by some of the best and brightest minds from the BIONICLE set design team, including the BIONICLE theme's lead set designer. I defend the theme and its building system because I have experienced its advantages for myself, and many of the claims made against it (such as the ones about it being impossible to create unique MOCs from Hero Factory pieces) are simply untrue. If it had not been for this new building system, I would probably never have started collecting the Hero Factory theme (certainly I had very little interest in buying the 2010 sets, and never ended up getting any of them), but this building system revolutionized constraction building in a way that no individual development in the BIONICLE theme ever did.And from my perspective, the theme hasn't gotten progressively worse. If anything, it's gotten better and better as the sets have become more complex and diverse. 2011 brought the heroes from being identical builds that were pitiful and overspecialized even by Agori standards to more diverse builds that had as much articulation as a Glatorian and similar heights and piece counts to a typical Toa Mata. 2012 made the set designs for heroes and villains alike less formulaic in terms of size, pieces, weapons, and color schemes. 2013 increased the piece counts of the sets even further and brought action features back to prominence, though it was probably the year of the most modest improvements in the grand scheme of things. And this year the sets have finally broken away from the need for about half of the figures each year to be fairly generic humanoids, since the sets are now divided into beasts and battle machines instead of heroes and villains. The medium-size sets this year have also managed to surpass all previous medium-size constraction sets, including BIONICLE canister sets, in both diversity and complexity. How are any of these things changes for the worse?Yes, most bionicle sets had limbs and skeletons that were similar in design just like HF sets, but the bionicle limbs and torsos were much more versatile and the pieces used for them were much easier to build unique limbs and torsos out of. (Again, read the dark hunters book there are plenty of examples there). HF hero limbs all use the same pieces of armor and the design of the hero limbs and armor limit creative possibilities significantly. Many of the older HF villains (from 1.0 and 2.0) are quite easy to moc with, but they also use less specialized pieces and some of the older bionicle parts as well. The newer villains are beginning to copy the heroes in design. Although each villain maintains a unique appearance, most of the parts are designed after a similar concept to the hero limbs and skeletons. The only difference is that the armor and skeleton parts used are specialized to each villain. These parts still lack the versatility of bionicle parts, so they still limit the MOCing possibilities significantly. Let me rephrase my statement about ''it being virtually impossible to create a unique looking MOC out of HF pieces. HF MOCs can have a unique look, but they are never very creative or good-looking. Your pics demonstrated this. (No offense, you probably are a great builder. This is a piece design fault, not a builder fault). As for your statement about HF being successful. Have you seen lego's sales report on the theme? The sales have been slightly below mediocre. Just because a theme has been around 4 years, does not make it successful. The reason the theme has been around as long as it has is because lego is trying to make the theme work and replicate the success of Bionicle (plus, with the switching around of so many writers, lego wanted more time to try and get a decent story going). The sales of the theme have gotten progressively worse with each year, which is why there is talk of it being cancelled next year. Lego cancelled the comics and has dropped the number of commercials for the theme significantly (I think they may have quit making commercials altogether, but don't quote me on it). They cancelled the book series as well, and the books were their best attempt at a decent story. Hero factory is a dying theme, with low sales, bad advertising, bad story, and badly designed sets. All you have to do is look at what lego has been doing behind-the-scenes with the theme.

Not seeing any costum limbs...Most of my BIONICLE MOCs didn't have custom limbs either. Custom limbs are definitely possible with Hero Factory (as Caitlyn Gauss XL demonstrates), but a MOC doesn't need custom limbs to be creative, especially a MOC as small as many of these. Get over it. Again, beside the point.I cannot make a costum body with technic bits when I buy a bunch of HF because they hardly come along with any. Only titans come around with a few more than usual.Yet in Bionicle I buy a Titan set and its largely made out of all sorts of technics. A Toa had its own fair share of technics.So BIONICLE was more geared towards your building style than Hero Factory. That doesn't mean that BIONICLE was better, or that Hero Factory design is "lazy". There are plenty of things I can do with Hero Factory parts that I couldn't do anywhere near as efficiently with BIONICLE parts. With the Hero Factory building system, you don't need a lot of "Technic bits" to build a creative model, so a lack of Technic pieces isn't really a serious limitation.With that said, some small and medium-size Hero Factory sets have PLENTY of Technic, like last year's Scarox, Bruizer, and Stormer or this year's Rocka Stealth Machine, Bulk Drill Machine, and Breez Flea Machine. So don't base your criticism on a flawed assumption that all Hero Factory sets are just shells slapped on top of a skeleton. Nope, none of them (with the exception of Gauss XL) are unique.They don't have costum legs (legs made from parts put together in a unique designe that doesn't come prefabricated out of the box) just use the HF heads and helmets as the heads and generally all use the same skeleton as a normal HF would (not like a body made from technics to make a body shape that already exsists prefabricated).Actually, Triceratoid does use a custom leg design (or semi-custom at any rate — it was never used in a set, but a similar design was used for this combi model). But again, custom isn't everything. Even when I was a BIONICLE builder I didn't waste time coming up with a "custom" Technic solution when there was a simpler solution that was every bit as elegant. Furthermore, even most small and medium BIONICLE sets didn't include "custom" legs and bodies, or all of the parts you'd need to make them. Simplifying the building process doesn't just help six-year-olds. It helps everyone. It's an example of "universal design", kind of like how entry ramps built to accommodate disabled people can be used by anyone.And furthermore, the amount of possible outcomes has not been limited at all. That's an assumption on your part and it has no basis in fact. Something to note is that there were more "non-custom" solutions with Hero Factory right from the start of the new building system than there were with BIONICLE. Back in the days of BIONICLE, more designs would need to be custom to stand out because "non-custom" solutions were fairly limited. You couldn't use a torso shell like this or this on a figure's shoulder or arm without some level of Technic-based customization. You couldn't simply decide to attach a shell like this to the side of a beam like this — only the front and back. And you CERTAINLY couldn't attach either of those shells to an arm or leg like this, this, or this without adding some kind of Technic in between (and the result still wouldn't be very streamlined).With Hero Factory, pretty much ANY shell can be attached to ANY beam in ANY configuration, without any need to complicate things with a lot of added Technic connectors. When "custom" is defined as "doing something differently than it's done in the sets", then it should be no surprise that Hero Factory (which allows for loads and loads of creative armor arrangements even with "small-set-approved" techniques) has more "uncustom" solutions than BIONICLE (which allowed for far fewer, and took many years of new pieces to come up with even as many "uncustom" solutions as it eventually allowed). And if you do want to add things via Technic, there's still no shortage of Technic connection points on the larger beams like this one (which is more or less the size of a Toa Metru lower leg). Not to mention parts like this or the classic BIONICLE "single ball joint" that let you attach additional Hero Factory shells to other parts via a Technic connection.Caitlyn Gauss uses those upper legs not because there weren't any alternatives, but because they were the best upper legs I could find for that particular task. I have since come up with a new upper leg design that is entirely my own creation, but haven't managed to finish a MOC using that design (it's not well-suited to Caitlyn Gauss's design, though it is similar in scale).All in all, you really aren't in any position to criticize the Hero Factory building system for a lack of possibilities when you've barely even scratched the surface of the possibilities it offers. I can't imagine you came up with a bunch of brilliant, "custom" designs within your first twenty minutes of playing with a BIONICLE set.I have built w/ HF sets and found they follow a basic design. First a skeleton which is identical in almost every set except the xl ones. Next, appallingly simple armor pieces which vary in size a little bit and in color depending on the set. Finally individual weapons that are not creative, but they do give the sets a uniqueness. It is virtually impossible to build a unique moc with HF parts. With bionicle, we were given the ability to make custom limbs relatively easily as demonstrated with many of the Dark Hunter MOCs from the Dark Hunters book. HF parts are incredibly uniform and lack the uniqueness that bionicle parts give MOCers. You can make MOCs with HF parts, but they never are very unique. Me and my friends have tinkered with HF sets from every year except this one and have failed to produce a decent MOC that doesn't look like a rearranged hero. We have produced unique MOCs using the villain sets from rise of the rookies and trial by fire however, but most of those sets used many bionicle parts. I'm not quite sure why you are so defensive about the HF theme, when it clearly is failing. Back when bionicle ended I didn't set a very high personal standard to compare the next theme to. I did this because I knew bionicle would be a tough act to follow. It was after all legos 2nd most popular theme, and legos most popular non-liscensed theme. My expectation for hero factory was not that high, but what lego gave us was just pathetic. Lego essentially created the haters of HF. First they end an incredibly popular theme, next they follow it up with a theme that isn't even half as good. I didn't expect another theme as popular as bionicle, but lego could have at least tried to produce a good theme. Instead we get sloppy sets, sloppy story, and a corny tv show. That just about sums up the frustration most bionicle fans have. I'm not mad a lego for replacing bionicle (all good things must come to an end after all), I'm mad at lego for replacing it with garbage. I used to try and see the good in hero factory, but I've given up on trying since the theme has just gotten progressively worse.

If you think the 2011 Hero Factory sets are better than later series, I have a feeling you're ignoring the most important aspect of any building toy: the way the sets are actually built. Regardless of what you think of the looks, the 2012, 2013, and 2014 sets are much more imaginative designs than the 2011 sets, or for that matter, the 2010 sets.The 1.0 heroes were pitiful, with fewer than 20 parts, all of which were extremely specialized. The builds were incredibly formulaic and there was really very little "building" whatsoever. The villains weren't a whole lot better — only the larger sets like Von Nebula, Rotor, Drop Ship, and Furno Bike offered a lot of complexity or diversity in construction. The 2.0 and 3.0 heroes gave the heroes much more unique armor and weapons and about 30 pieces each. The Savage Planet sets also gave us the first non-humanoid villains, as well as the largest and most complex humanoid figure in the entire theme.The Breakout series in 2012 took the previous year's building system even further. Heroes were given even more diverse armor and equipment, and even varied in size. Villains likewise varied in size, and the villain designs were more creative and diverse than ever before. The heroes and villains in 2013 were a bit more formulaic than those from 2012 (most of the Brain Attack heroes followed very similar design considerations, and all but one of the villains were humanoid in design), but they had creative and complex weapon designs and implemented a fair number of action features.This year's Invasion from Below battle machine sets are some of the most imaginative and complex sets to date. The mid-size sets have more pieces than any BIONICLE canister sets or mid-size Hero Factory sets ever released previously. The beasts are not quite as imaginative, with most having fairly run-of-the-mill humanoid builds, but they still have a lot of variety.If you want action figures, then I can see why you might not like certain Hero Factory sets, because in that case the only thing that matters is how the sets look. But if you want a building toy, I can't see how anybody would think the original Hero Factory sets hold a candle to more recent sets. The heroes in particular were pathetic even by BIONICLE standards.The designs of the original HF sets look more like bionicle than any other year. I always likened the hero design to 2008 matoran and agori design. The original villains retained a lot of bionicle parts as well. There were a few new parts, but most of the parts were using bionicle pieces that everyone knew and loved. Also there were battle vehicles. The sets that came after had poor stability and fell apart way more easily than they should have, the weapons lacked originality and began to look more and more like weapons from your average fps video game with the occasional sword thrown into the mix. I will say that HF pieces are made of a tougher plastic and crack less often. The only weapon that was somewhat cool were the energy shields from breakout. Don't even get me started on HFs cheap exo-force knock-off that came out this year. They look like lego attempting to merge constraction (a theme which has always been diverse) with lego system. The only neat aspect is the new HF minifigures which are significantly better than the bionicle ones in design and posability. You are right in saying that HF has been innovative with some designs, but an innovative idea is not the same as a good one. Most of the new designs (except for the exo-force knock-off) were legos attempt at trying something new. These new designs were pretty poor ones though. Believe me I tried being open-minded about the new theme, but lego literally took all the good stuff about the constraction theme and threw it out the window with HF. Legos well-intentioned efforts to start anew, involved throwing out everything good about the previous constraction lines.

When lego first announced hero factory, I was at first a little sad about the ending of Bionicle. I figured bionicle would have to end sometime because it was nearing its 10 year anniversary at the time, so I was preparing for it to end soon. Hero factory came around and I was relatively impressed by its first wave of sets, which were very reminiscent of bionicle. The story at the time wasn't as good, but there was a decent amount of character development on Furno, Stormer, and Von Nebula. I figured that even though it wasn't bionicle they would improve over time. After all bionicle set a very high standard for HF to live up to. Wave 2 rolled around with an even more poorly developed story which can only be described as hero gets beat, hero gets upgrade, hero beats up bad guy. The 2.0 line looked like someone had vomited military gear all over the heroes, but the villains were still a decent design (giant power drill ftw). The next line of heroes looked really cool with their animal gear (although the weapons mostly sucked). And the new villains didn't have much character (except for a short backstory for the Witch Doctor). The new hero, rocka, was pretty much a cheap knockoff of Furno. Breakout was terrible, horribly designed sets all the way around. The only redeeming factor was that Mark Hamill voiced the main villain. Brain Attack was just as bad as Breakout, although it did have a nod to the infected mask/bohrok storylines of bionicle. Invasion from below was like lego to exo-force and bionicle and made a horrible, abomination from the 2 themes (although the hero minifigs are kind of cool). The first year of hero factory was a good start, but everything just got worse after that. Character development ceased, the tv show got cornier and cornier. The sets that are being produced are just laughable, a mere shadow of what lego action figures used to be. There is no real main villain or main league of villains, just heroes taking out basic criminals, or aliens sometimes working under a slightly more sinister leader. All in all HF is just digging its own grave, its only a matter of time before the theme ends. To be honest I'm surprised it hasn't already.

Agreed, but if I had to pick a terrible one, I'd go with Furno. He was cool at first, but he got progressively worse as the series went on, the guys ego just keeps inflating. And then there's Rocka who (like others mentioned) is like a cheap knockoff of Furno.

I'm not a big fan of the series because of it being so poorly written, but if I had to choose... Best character story wise: Stormer or Von Nebula, they actually had a backstory Best personality and combat skills: Bulk, he cracks the occasional funny joke (BULK SMASH, etc) and he is one of the most kickbutt members of the team.

Like I said earlier I like what writers have done with shows like the clone wars and young justice. If a Bionicle show were to be created I would want something like that. The writers gave the shows appeal to both a younger and older demographic. There is a difference between a show being geared for kids, and a show that is dumbed down and made super corny. My issue with bionicle media in the past has always been the fact that the movies had a hard time staying true to the spirit of the current story. The reason the WoS is my favorite of the movies (even though it was one of my least favorite storylines) is because the writers managed to take the story and not make everything super happy cheerful fun time. The other movies didn't really seem to capture the essence of the story because they were too light hearted and corny. If the Shadowed One and the Dark hunter would be included in said TV show, its not gonna be super light-hearted like the Ninjago show, or the Hero factory and bionicle movies. We're talking about dark hunters here, the story would be guaranteed to be somewhat dark. The shadowed one and the dark hunters hobbies are finding interesting ways to kill people. You want a show that isn't dark, then you're gonna have to pick a different subject. I can't think of a way to make the dark hunters a bit more light-hearted without ruining the story and making everything super corny.

Actually Makuta disguised as Turaga Dume sent all of the Toa Mangai to their deaths at the hands of Eliminator, if I remember correctly.I believe the only Toa Mangai killed by eliminator was Naho, the other toa were sent off on missions by teridax over time, but none ever returned, no actual cause of death or disappearance was given for the rest of the team. For all we know some members could still be alive, they could have been imprisoned by teridax on a brotherhood base, gone into hiding, relocated to another island to serve as toa, joined the order of mata nui, etc. No real fate has been given for any of the unnamed members of the team.

I did does kinda sound like some aspects of the clone wars when you put it that way. You could even have your own version of order 66 for a season 2 when Dume/Teridax comes to power and begins working secretly to eliminate the toa. You could have the 9 remaining toa struggle to stay united in the face of 2 betrayals and an unknown enemy. More toa would get eliminated as the series goes on, until just Lhikhan and Naho are left. The finale could follow Naho as she completes Teridax/Dume's last mission sealing off metru nui, and Lhikan as he dodges Dark Hunters and delivers the toa stones. I would not want this show dumbed down too much for younger viewers. Maybe if they did something like with the clone wars show, where they made it more acceptable for children, but kept a lot of the darker aspects that gave older viewers something to enjoy as well

I believe the civil war happened 60,000 years befor the great cataclysm, whereas the kanohi dragon to the toa/dark hunter war ranged from 2,000 to 1,000 years before the great cataclysm. The civil war would be before Lhikan's time, he makes his first appearance in the story as a rookie toa 6,000 years before the great cataclysm. If you read bionicle legend 4: legacy of evil, it gives a brief introduction to Lhikan.

I got 5 phantoka NIB for $15

I think the toa nuva were somewhat inconsistent with their power levels, they demontrated in MoL that Tahu and Gail (and I can't remember if pohatu was in that fight) couldn't hold off 3 rahkshi from destroy ta-koro. The entire team got their butts kicked by the piraka (who then were defeated by a novice team). I'm not sure how to guage the inika power levels though, because the inika were supercharged with lightning. I personally think that the toa mata were somewhat weaker than the average toa, and that the nuva transformation gave them a power boost to normal levels. Possibly their time in the canisters could have degenerated their bodies a bit (like with the matoran of metru nui) causing them to lose power, and the nuva transformation restored their power. Remember takanuva also looked like a toa nuva, and he beacame a toa in a more normal way (as normal as a toa of light can get anyway). The notion that the Nuva were more powerful than the average toa, disagrees with what the story demonstrates. Yes, the toa were able to hold off makuta in Karda nui, but most of those makuta were handicapped in some way, and the toa were backed up by takanuva, and ignika, two toa who were incredibly deadly to makuta. Plus the toa got a gear upgrade in the form of adaptive armor. I think the toa nuva were fairly average as far as power is concerned.

That building is the coliseum, the movies didn't depict the coliseum very well, I believe there is a reference to that building in one of the early 2005 comics that refers to it as the coliseum. I would have to double check the comic to be sure though.

So I was doing some thinking, and I had a crazy idea. What if lego made a Bionicle TV show? I thought about it, and realized that a TV show based on the mainstream storyline would be difficult because it would clash with the movies. Then I thought what if there was a TV show about the Toa Mangai? It could be called "Defenders of Metru Nui", the protagonists would be the 11 Toa Mangai (Lhikan, Nidhiki, Tuyet, Naho, 4 unnamed toa of ice, and 3 unknown toa) the antagonists could be the Dark Hunters. The plot would be the Toa Mangai foiling various Dark Hunter attempts to take over the city. There could be a pilot arc about the founding of the team and the defeat of the Kanohi Dragon, a Tuyet betrayal arc, and the finale could be a Toa/Dark Hunter war arc. These big arcs could be seperated by shorter episode arcs that would allow some creative license to the writers, for example: various untold Dark Hunter plots, an archives breakout, possibly an origin to the metru nui tahtorak, etc. You could watch Lhikan and Nidhiki progress from being best friends to Nidhiki's betrayal attempt. There is a lot of room here for storytelling and character development, you could even have the team have some adventures on other islands like xia. There could be an episode where Nidhiki encounters Krekka and has to fight him as a toa. Do you guys think a Bionicle TV show would've been cool? Do you have any ideas of your own for a Bionicle TV show (a toa hagah show, an order of mata nui show, etc.). Any opinions on my idea for a show? Let me know what you think.

My collection is nowhere near as large as some of the ones shown here, I have sets from every year though. I have the Toa Hagah limited edition combo pack, and all the various versions of Matoro, which I'm very proud of.

Not sure if I can comment on the likelihood of you finding 1 of 72 extremely hard to find Bionicle pieces at the time as I don't know who all of the owners are of the remaining 71, nor do I know if they're planning on selling them anytime soon. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors though. - There is also the sad possibility that 1 or more owners are unaware that they own any of the rare collectible kanohi, krana, or kraata. For all we know some of the collectibles could be lost in an attic, broken, or even in a garbage dump somewhere. A sad, and unfortunate fate for a rare collectible.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I couldn't really find a better one (although I'm a huge noob a forum navigation). I found this hilarious fake wiki page for bionicle. Some of you might find it offensive, but I think it's really funny. I'm posting a link to it, because the page does contain some mature content, and I don't want to paste the article here. If you are younger than 13, get a parents permission before viewing the page. Hope you guys enjoy, I know I did.

What you don't quite seem to get is that Lego aren't trying to please an older fanbase, because there are far fewer of them than there are children. So if Lego aim for a smaller group of older fans, they miss the greater profit that comes from the greater number of child buyers. One of the reasons (perhaps the main reason) Bionicle was so successful in its early years was that it was straightforward enough to appeal to children but had a certain level of darkness and complexity that also tapped into an older demographic. And one of the reasons it eventually ended was because it became too complex for children and new fans to get into, which damaged its profits. I'd also like to see more Lego products for older fans, but we do have to accept that we aren't the priority audience. But that's the key, isn't it? One would hope that in the unlikely event that LEGO brought back Bionicle (I emphasize unlikely, given the context of their brief, one-second apearance in The Lego Movie) that they would find a way to undo the continuity lockout and make it appealing to newcomers and old fans, kids and adults, somehow. Unfortunately, that's a difficult juggling act at the best of times, and Bionicle is a particularly monumental case. Eh, it's not that hard. I'd say that it is, considering Lego had enough difficulty both retaining old fans and generating new fans back when Bionicle was still around. And the older the original fandom gets, the harder it becomes to bridge that gap, whereas launching a new theme tailored to kids alone remains as easy as it's ever been.Who cares about who the sets were geared for, I'm talking storyline and just the audience in general. What the sets say are lego's age estimation. From my experience the story was for an older audience, while the HF story (more like story attempt) was geared for a younger demographic. Anyone can build legos, no matter the age. When I was six, I built the entire Knights Kingdom castle by myself. Age is not always a factor in who can build the sets. It does affect the storyline that goes with the sets however. Just because the box gives an age range does not mean that, the particular theme mentioned was geared for that age. The box label is just an estimate of the difficulty the set would present to a builder. Even if older fans are not legos main target audience, does not mean they can't have a couple themes geared for an older demographic. The fact that lego has almost completely abandoned their older audience is what bothers me. The older audience may be smaller, but there is still money to be made by producing a few themes geared at their level.

Even if it is Bionicle, I don't know if the new line will be that great. I've seen what Lego has done with HF in terms of design, and I was not really impressed. The only HF sets I liked were from the Rise of the Rookies line. In my opinion the sets just got worse from there. If Bionicle does come back... Will it be as good as the Bionicle we knew and loved? Because if they use the same sorts of designs as HF, I won't be getting any new sets. The HF sets sucked and they were not the best sets to use for MOC action figs. Also, will the returned bionicle storyline be geared at 10-18 year olds like it used to be, or will it be like HF and be geared for 5-10 year olds. If lego treats a returned bionicle theme like they treated HF, I can tell you right now I will not be getting any of the new sets. To be honest, I'm just sick of legos lack of good themes and storylines that are geared for the older fanbase. Most of the new sets and themes lately have been designed for 5-10 year olds.

I am an aspiring writer hoping to try my hand at bionicle fanfiction. That being said although this story is not canon I am going to try and keep it as close to the main story as possible. This takes place at the beginning of the 2008 storyline. If this preview gets good reviews I will post new chapters on my profile blog. Enjoy and please let me know what think. I will let you guys know if I decide to continue the story or not. WHITENESS That was what seemed to surround the white armored being. He had woken up in a seemingly endless room of pure white. Looking around, the being tried to remember how he had got here. "Wherever here is", he muttered to himself. Suddenly he saw himself falling, then there was a great flash of light. Shaking off the vision, the being noticed a sword and a strange blaster-type weapon lying on the floor. "Hmm, are these mine?" he said. He picked up the sword and felt a shock travel through his whole body. A name suddenly appeared in his thoughts. Matoro Memories flooded back into his mind. He remembered that he had died after using the Mask of Life to save the Great Spirit Mata Nui. He also noticed he was an Inika again. "So if I died", Matoro thought, "What am I doing here?" Suddenly an image of the Mask of Life appeared in front of Matoro and began to speak. "I see your memories have returned" the mask said. "Can you explain why I'm here? And where here even is?" asked Matoro. "You are inside of me'' said the Mask. ''When you used the mask your body was destroyed, but I managed to save your mind and spirit before you died. I contained them in here and began to bring you back to life, but to bring your mind back I had to give you some kind of physical form you could attach yourself to. I chose your Inika form simply because it is more familiar to me, and it is what The Great Beings intended you to be''. ''So would it be possible for me to have a true body again?'' Matoro asked. ''I could create a new body for you'' the mask said, ''but I do not wish to release you at this time. You see, I saved you because you intrigued me, Toa. I have never had a mask bearer use my power with such selfless confidence, and heroism. In short, I want to know why you were so different''. ''Great'' groaned Matoro ''I'm nothing more than a curiosity. My life actually has no meaning to you. How ironic, The Mask of Life finds other life meaningless. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I SACRIFICED MYSELF? Matoro yelled, I DID IT BECAUSE THERE ARE THINGS OUT THERE WORTH LIVING FOR! If I didn't try to save Mata Nui all of my friends would be dead with me. Everyone would have died, and even if we somehow survived I could never live with my failure. I never wanted to be a hero, and yet I never realized: It's those who never want to be a hero, that somehow end up saving us all". Matoro looked directly at the mask and said: "If you don't want to give me a body, at least do this for me. ''Become a hero''. The image of the mask vanished, and Matoro sat down and sighed. He had hoped the mask did have at least some emotion in it. Suddenly he felt energy surging through the room, and a window appeared in front of him. Looking through it, Matoro realized he could see the world from the mask's point of view. The mask had created a body for itself and was just finishing creating a hoverboard to escape what appeared to be the bottom of a swamp. As they flew off Matoro heard the mask's voice echo through the white chamber: I will be a hero, in honor of the hero that went before me. Matoro smiled as he watched them fly away from the swamp. It was a new beginning. To be continued. Maybe

Umm, Matoro has been confirmed dead. His body turned into pure life energy for Mata Nui, killing him completely.Let me get this straight. You just told a perfectly alive guy that he is dead. Not cool dude, not coolMatoro