Lyichir

Neat! When I was working at Hasbro last summer I got a chance to get caught up on some recent Marvel comics, and this was one of the titles I really enjoyed. Glad to see them making their Lego debut!

Plushies are good. I wish Lego would do more plush—I'd totes buy plush Lego Elves animals, or plush Unikitties. They've done a couple Ninjago and Batman plushes this year but the quality is so-so. Certainly not the quality you get from a manufacturer like Gund, at any rate.

No more bricks for K'nex? I wonder what that means for the Super Mario and Mario Kart licenses that used those bricks fairly heavily... as a huge Mario fan, the idea that Lego could potentially get that license instead is tantalizing.

Something I noticed is that Lego dumps a bunch more minifigs into sets than they used to, possibly precisely to jack up the price. Like, what is Lando doing in the A-Wing? Pushing its price up to $40 is what. I think in some of those cases it's mainly to provide a "main character" to go with ships piloted by more minor characters (in this case, not even a named character). Tie in the fact there aren't a lot of other sets that would be MORE suited to this version of Lando (since by the time we're due for a new Millennium Falcon they'd probably stick Han and Chewie in there again anyway), and it maybe makes more sense to put him with a minor ship from the same movie.

I don't think the "Iron Man sucks" password required any sort of license. You don't need the rights to a character to mention their name in a movie. If he actually appeared in any capacity it'd be a different story.

I dunno, the names of the ninja in the early treatment feel maybe a bit too on-the-nose in terms of their elemental affinity.

This is a pretty fair analysis. Another thing I haven't seen mentioned much is the numerous quality of life improvements that I hope make their way into the next iteration of the main series. A TON of the inventory management issues with previous entries have been negated or improved (being able to store unlimited furniture items without having to resort to storage exploits is huge, as is being able to sell items directly from your inventory rather than seeking out a third party).Being able to re-invite any villager you've befriended is another great feature. No more worrying about a villager moving away and never seeing them again!There are many more options for decorating your campsite and camper. You can now offset furniture by half-spaces, allowing for more interesting layouts, and area rugs allow for more customization than previous carpets that took up the whole floor space by default. In this particular case, granted, I'm not sure how many of these features existed in the standalone Happy Home Designer, but in any case they'd be great to see in the next full-fledged game.

I always thought it was supposed to resemble some sorta facial hair.

I think the most exciting thing about this announcement is that the LDD development team is still working on public-facing content at all. I can only hope that the updated gallery indicates a renewed interest in the software, and ideally further updates to the software itself in turn.

Love this set! Between the diner, boxing gym, and radio station, there are so many great subjects and techniques at play. And this set is so far the best showcase of teal coming back in a big way, with plenty of detail elements as well as basic bricks being released (or in some cases, re-released) in that color.

Check out the color of the tooth elements on the roof and the market stall in this 2018 Disney Princess set. Yes, that IS Bright Bluish Green/Dark Turquoise/Teal! Back in plastic after a whole decade!

Because they both have holes? I'm not seeing a ton of similarities otherwise (particularly since the holes on the Pakari are more like linear vents, a trait shared with many of the other Kanohi).

If there were ANY guest characters in a future iteration of Bionicle, they'd presumably be characters from other Lego-owned themes (Hero Factory, Galidor, etc.). But even then, I don't see why it would be necessary or even preferable in the first place. If a work isn't envisioned as a crossover, there's little point to bringing in guests beyond a mere cameo appearance at best.

Oh my god Karen, you can't just ask people why they're tan.

The point is that the fans shouldn't even be mentioned in this matter. We're always talking about the elusive toxicity of this community, but one of the most toxic things I see happening all the time is blaming a ridiculously small minority for something that happened because of much bigger players. You call G2 "a failure", even though you claim you loved it (like if I didn't, just look at my profile picture and my controversial feed at EB), but we don't even know if it actually was a failure, and not just because of that infamous LEGO tweet, but because the line was axed in late 2015, when they didn't even know how much it was exactly selling. LEGO didn't bring back BIONICLE because of a handful of people and it didn't kill it for the same handful of people. At this point I don't even care anymore who was the mysterious assassin of my favourite toyline, I just don't wanna see the real toxicity expanding in a community where the same fifty people talk to each other in at least two different forums and an anonymous imageboard. Entirely fair point. The fate of Bionicle's revival never rested on the original fans. And "failure" may be an overstatement, though I can't help but get the impression that one way or another its relaunch failed to meet expectations. That said, I think foisting the blame entirely on Lego for "mishandling" the theme is not particularly generous and undersells the hard work that went into at least trying to recapture the original theme's success. And I'm pretty sensitive about those sorts of accusations, since so many people attribute the theme's end to "laziness" when I have seen how many of the people working on the theme were as passionate about it, and as disappointed by its end, as the fans themselves.

Don't forget the heroes traveling into a gloomy underworld (Mangaia) where they face off against a giant crab monster (Manas).

I always saw Hordika Nuju as more like an iguana, given the small "frill". (Whenua Hordika, in turn, reminds me a bit of a mole, given the weird "nose") Stormer 3.0, on the other hand, was not exactly subtle about his basis.

>it's another "the fans killed G2" episode jesus christ is it that hard to accept that LEGO was just terrible at handling the reboot? It's been a year by now, I thought it was enough. Also, thinking that a minority of a minority of a minority (AFOLs who bought Bionicle sets back in the day and still care about the franchise) could have anything to do with a toy line aimed at children is just blatantly delusional. How about instead we accept that neither the fans nor Lego bears total blame for G2's failure? I'm so tired of people playing the blame game about it. Bringing back Bionicle was a risk. Even Lego's intensive focus testing can't ensure a hit with 100% certainty, but Lego did their best anyway and put a lot of work into bringing back a theme fans had been demanding since it went away. Unfortunately, not all risks pay off. Buyers just didn't take to the new Bionicle the way they did to the original back in the day. Ultimately, we can continue to pick apart the theme's corpse looking for answers until the end of time, but the fact is that unless Lego brings back Bionicle in a different way and is successful we will literally never know exactly what factors could have made things turn out differently. For all we know, Bionicle may have just been the wrong theme at the wrong time for the toy audience at large! But I, personally, am happy we got the reboot regardless of its failure to gain mass appeal. And I think a lot of other people here at BZPower would say the same.

What is that supposed to mean? It's coming out on DVD about three months after it came out in theaters. That's not really anything unusual — the same thing happened with Zootopia and Trolls, both of which were commercially successful. I'm not pretending that The LEGO Ninjago Movie was a huge box office success like those, but how on earth does it getting released on DVD much like any other animated movie have anything to do with its poor box office performance? You also don't seem to understand the meaning of the phrase "direct to DVD". Also, waiting 20 years for adults to be nostalgic for a brand that's already wildly popular with kids right now is a pretty dumb strategy. You didn't see Pokémon, Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Harry Potter, or Bionicle waiting twenty years to release their first movies. Haven't you ever heard the phrase "strike while the iron's hot"? The other Lego movies had a 4 month space between their DVD release and cinema release. The release spaces also seem to vary by company but WB tend to wait 4 months or longer before their films are given a home media release (not counting streaming). So there's only been a 3 month period between the cinema release and the DVD release. And that's just the U.S. Here in Britain the film has only been out since October 13th meaning we're (potentially) looking at only a 2 month gap. It's clearly a move by the company to get their money back. A very smart one at that. Lego stuff sells great on DVD. Their strategy is to release the film early on DVD/blu-ray and make their money back that way (other films have successfully done this). And ninjago isn't culturally significant enough to warrant a film kids will watch on mass. From what I understand it's success is comparable to that of bionicle. Bionicle for all it's success has never been that significant in popular culture. So I see no reason why ninjago would be different (the failure of this film proves that). The reason the bionicle films did well was because of the fact it was direct to DVD/VHS. Getting parents to spend more than a DVD costs today for a film they'll likely be turned off by is a much tougher sell than a film you could purchase fairly cheaply on VHS, own it permanently, and you can leave the kids to watch in their spare time. As I predicted in 2013 Lego were overestimating how significant their brands are and the film did even worse then I expected. The other Lego movies also released in the Spring, well before the Christmas holidays. By contrast, the Ninjago Movie came out in the fall. Even if the Ninjago Movie had been a resounding success, it would have probably made sense to put out the home media release on a more accelerated timetable than the other Lego movies to take advantage of holiday demand. Theatrically, the Ninjago movie has already made its budget back, albeit with a smaller profit margin than the prior two Lego movies. So your attempt to paint this as some last-ditch effort to make up a loss doesn't really jive with the facts. Lego may indeed have overestimated Ninjago's popularity with mass audiences. They did, however, make a moderately successful movie regardless, probably much moreso than they would if they'd "waited 20 years" in the hopes that the fans who would be interested in a Ninjago movie right now would magically become MORE interested by waiting until they're in their thirties.

I would say Skull Scorpio—there's something pretty unsettling about human-esque bones reanimated in the shape of a scorpion.

Not me. No point in revisiting the essentially complete G1 story, and even less point in getting rid of a superior building system in favor of something that hardly qualified as a "system" at all.

How did you settle on secondary colors for the hips and primary colors for the legs, if you don't mind me asking? I'd think the reverse might make more sense, particularly since using secondary colors for the hips creates an odd discontinuity with the torsos.

Pewku

You’re referring to Bionicle G2? If so, then yes. As I said, Lego sure has trouble prioritizing and thus doesn’t make these Lego things greater. I would think that cancelling less successful themes so that they can focus more on new ones and ones that are more consistently successful would indicate that they're prioritizing well. It may suck as a fan of those themes when that happens, but I wouldn't call that "trouble prioritizing".

Not only that, other Lego-related stuff aren’t doing so well in this decade. Here’s the list: 1. Legends of Chima 2. Bionicle in general 3. Hero Factory 4. Ninjago’s TV Season 7 5. Nexo Knights 6. Lego Atlantis in 2010 7. Constraction in general 8. Lego Pharaoh’s Quest in 2011 9. Lego The Adventures of Clutch Powers in 2010 10. Lego Alien Conquest in 2011 11. Lego Dino Attack in 2012 12. Lego Monster Fighters in 2012 13. Lego Galaxy Squad in 2012 14. Lego City Undercover in 2013 15. Lego Power Miners in 2009 16. Mixels 17. Lego Space Police in 2009 18. Lego Ultra Agents in 2014 19. The Lego Ninjago Movie in this year 20. Lego Dimensions There you go. This decade isn’t a very good time for these themes. Most of them died. You brought those up in another thread at one point, but of your list, most are not in fact "failures" by any reasonable definition (I've bolded some of the most egregious inclusions, some where there's no reasonable evidence that they underperformed and some (Atlantis, Power Miners) where we definitively know that they EXCEEDED initial expectations. Not to mention ones that DID underperform compared to initial expectations but still had long, respectable lifespans (Legends of Chima, Hero Factory). The vast majority of Lego themes are designed to end—if they weren't, it would be impossible for Lego to continue introducing new product lines and concepts. Lego would be in far worse shape if they didn't take measured risks on new endeavors, many of which DO pay off. Case in point, this list also glosses over the huge number of successful new endeavors over the past decade, including Ninjago, Friends, Ideas, Architecture, Elves, The Lego Movie, the Collectible Minifigures, DC AND Marvel Super Heroes, Disney Princess, Minecraft... the list goes on and on.