Lyichir

To be perfectly honest, G3 alone would draw in more members if a G3 happened. I wouldn't be opposed to an app (especially if it could be a little better than the regular mobile version of the site), but I don't think it's a make or break thing and BZPower has plenty of higher priorities to be working on (like someday having an updated main page).

I generally don't think so. While it is a continuing struggle for BZP to maintain relevance in an ever broadening internet with a focus on an increasingly niche franchise, I don't think any individual alternative sites for discussing Bionicle pose much of a DIRECT threat to BZPower (except in the infrequent but verifiable cases in which actual cyberattacks on BZPower have been plotted off-site).

That's a heck of a guest! Not sure if I'll make it there at this point, though...

I wasn't really left wanting for guides in G1, but it is a shame that G2 never got any sort of books like the lavishly illustrated guides produced by AMEET Studio—books like Makuta's Guide to the Universe, or more recently, the Nexo Knights books The Book of Monsters and The Knights' Code.

He's just so old and tired of Star Wars.

On the one hand, I sort of understand that. At the same time, at home I have tons of books on my bookshelf—some I liked, some I didn't, even some I got as gifts that I've never worked up the interest to actually read. One potential advantage I see in digital books is being able to cut down on some of that—reading a book digitally before committing to physical ownership, to allow shelves to function as even more of a sort of curated collection of favorites. Speaking of "page feel", you didn't really mention this in your blog entry, but one thing I especially love is a book that feels designed. Of course, design work goes into all sorts of books, but often the formatting and style choices feel more or less interchangeable. What really appeals to me most is a book or book series where every aspect of the book, from the font choice to the binding to even the style of paper, feels like it was a deliberate decision. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a crowning example of that (to the point where I even re-bought the first three volumes in paperback when they briefly made an attempt at reformatting the paperback editions to resemble "penny dreadfuls" with new art and added serialized anthology stories). But other books engage in that as well—I'm quite impressed with what Lego and Ameet Studio have done with many of the Nexo Knights guidebooks, for instance.

To a certain extent, we already know how the people of Okoto spend their Easter.

I was under the impression that they were named after the villain Makuta both in and out of canon? I'm pretty sure they were first mentioned in Bionicle Chronicles #4, which was written by Greg Farshtey in 2003 when Makuta was very much in the forefront of the story. I can't recall the exact context in which they were introduced, but I thought it was mentioned specifically that they were named after Makuta because of their ugly appearance and vicious nature.

It's not a lot different from The Lego Movie (which also released in February and had the DVD release in June). In general kids' animated movies tend to have a much quicker turnaround time on home releases than movies aimed primarily at adults, so it's not really an issue of how well the movie did or didn't do in theaters.

why must we play god

I may try to make it, though possibly just for the public days.

I put my vote in for Lego City Undercover! I don't normally watch these, but LCU is my favorite Lego game so I'd be eager to see your impressions.

See, this is the kind of connection theory I'm least fond of. I'd rather have both series stand on their own than have one metaphorically (or in this case, literally) subsumed by the other. I appreciated both universes and sets of characters too much to want either of them destroyed for the sake of an unnecessary connection between the two.

Occupier tank? I don't recall that vehicle. Just out of curiosity, has anyone else had thoughts about Star Wars minfigure set? I like the idea, but there are so many Star Wars characters that could use minifigures that it's hard to nail down sixteen or so. Really, it'd be nice if we could get several lines, but doesn't seem likely to happen. I don't see a Star Wars collectible minifigure series as likely or, for that matter, even necessary. Any Star Wars character who is too obscure to fit into a regular set is probably too obscure to grant much widespread appeal to a CMF series. And while there are plenty of B- or C-list characters who have yet to appear in sets, there's also no real rush to release all of them—unless Star Wars or Lego in general undergoes a steep decline in popularity, the Lego Star Wars theme will presumably keep going strong, meaning that just because a given character isn't available yet doesn't mean there won't be plenty of opportunities to release them in the future.

Do you mean in real life, or in Bionicle? In real life, Unity is a 3D game engine first released in 2005. In Bionicle, Unity is the 3D game engine used for the 2009 online game Glatorian Arena.

Maybe, but that would bring with it its own issues. Every licensed theme fan has things they wish would be produced as part of the theme, but the number of sets released in any given theme is a calculation based on demand, production capacity, and many other factors. There's a huge number of Star Wars characters and vehicles that have yet to be produced, for instance, but more obscure subjects would bring diminishing returns compared to main characters and prominent vehicles, and Lego is already producing about as many Star Wars sets per year as their sales projections indicate the market can bear. For a less perennially popular license, those factors can be even more limiting, since a license based on a standalone movie or less long-running series generally has a much shorter window in which demand will sufficient able to justify set releases. The good news in the latter case is that this Ideas restriction, while stricter than the previous one that only applied to licenses already produced through the Ideas program, still has an exception for inactive licenses. So if a licensed theme is no longer being produced or sold by Lego in any form (and of course, is not currently held by a competing brand), it becomes fair game for Ideas once again.

To be honest I'd wait until at least next year before any sort of long-lasting "dark age" is declared. New themes take several years to bring to market, and it's quite evident that Bionicle G2 was not originally intended to end so soon given their three-year plan. And Jørgen vig Knudstorp said in an interview as recently as last year that the future of the CCBS is important to Lego going forward. So the likelihood that another major constraction theme is in development is quite high; it most likely just wasn't ready to be brought to market a mere two years after Bionicle G2's launch.

The real issue with giving Lloyd any sort of love interest is that, to a certain extent, regardless of the vague and generally unchanging ages of the Ninjago characters, he has basically been a kid in an adult's body since season two of the show. Unless there's some substantial time skip that definitively ages all the characters, or a love interest is introduced who has experienced circumstances that created an uncannily similar discrepancy in their physical and mental ages, that's unlikely to change, and as such any relationship he were to enter could be construed as pedophilia either in terms of Lloyd being physically too old or mentally too young for the romantic partner in question. Now, since the Ninjago movie seems to be portraying all the characters unambiguously as teenagers, with no weird age manipulation involved, it would be easier for them to introduce a love interest in that continuity. I don't necessarily see that happening in the first movie, but they could easily introduce one in a subsequent movie (and for that matter, given the nature of the Lego Movie cinematic universe it could even be a character from an entirely different theme).

Because adulthood means that I have the privilege of doing whatever I want to do with my time and money, regardless of naysayers or skeptics. At worst, play is a harmless leisure activity; at best, it actively provides psychological and social benefits to kids and adults alike.

I really think it was an interesting move for them to use the fan-devised "human Bionicle" aesthetic for that latest movie, and to cast a Toa of Water as the main hero for the first time. On the other hand, I was a little surprised by their decision to have the Manas not only talk, but sing when Toa Moana confronted it in the Mangaia.

Personally I'm quite happy with both systems—the stamina gauge forces you to play smarter (such as looking for ledges you can rest on when climbing instead of just attempting to scale a giant peak in a single go, and hiding from enemy groups instead of merely trying to outrun them), while the weapons breaking encourages you to try out different weapons instead of relying solely on the default sword (since most of them perform quite differently in battle and the best way to get a good feel for all of them is to cycle through them regularly). It'd be a different story if, say, the stamina wheel put a hard limit on which points you could or could not reach, or weapons were rare and hard to come by. But neither is the case in this game and I feel like both systems have helped me to think harder about my actions instead of just making a beeline approach from place to place and button-mashing my way to victory in battles.

King Dorephan could swallow the Rito elder whole, therefore shark people are clearly superior.

Age out? That isn't a thing. I, for one, would love to see LEGO make a 2 hour movie about how people who believe that are wrong about the sophisticated interlocking brick system. Don't tell me that there's a maximum age on the box! That's only a suggestion! Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not a requirement. But I think most kids go through... if not quite a dark age, at the very least a dim age where they eschew the wonders of Duplo in favor of its smaller, easier to choke on counterpart. Be honest, even your Duplo collection spent at least some time in storage before you broke it back out as an AFOL, didn't it?

Unfortunately, while I will have some free time next week for Spring Break it mostly falls smack dab between those two weekends—I don't think I can really commit to either one or the other. Hope everyone who does attend has fun, though!

A Unikitty plush would be a dream come true! I agree with the desire for Lego Elves animal plushes, as well. Beyond just characters, it'd be neat to get some basic Lego animals as plushes. This Lego Octopus plush has taunted me with its limited availability since I first discovered it.