Lyichir

 

It's a bit disappointing that the first time they see a slump in profit they decide to cut jobs. I'm sure there's all sorts of business sense for it and everything, but still is sad when you hear lots of folks will get let go.

 

It'll be interesting to see what the company changes. It's not like they're quite as erratic as they were in the 90s, but I'm sure there's still some things that could (and probably will) change.

 

 

Maybe if things get as bad as they did back in the 90s, LEGO will bring Bionicle back for a G3 and put in as much effort - if not more - as they did for G1. It's amazing what people/companies/nations/bands/etc can accomplish when there is pressure to get something done and though failure isn't an option, there's a high risk of it. 

 

Maybe that's not something to hope for? Bionicle is not more important than all of Lego's other themes. Besides, if that were to happen Lego would more likely look to one of its more recent, reliable hits like Ninjago or City than to a theme they already tried and failed to make appealing for modern audiences.

 

Bionicle G2 may have only been 2 years, but the sets were extremely well made in my opinion. Hero Factory had a watered down story compared to G1, and the CCBS system was still just testing the waters at the time. Many of the refinements that went into G2, plus the greater measure of Technic integration, went a long way. The sets were absolutely on point, with Bionicle G2 representing the peak of CCBS set design, which the Star Wars buildable figures haven't been able to surpass for their blandness and lack of variation. Sure, we barely got any story content, but what little we did get I liked. It wasn't stellar, but it was far from bad. 

 

Also, I know it's a minor thing, but G2 had some great music produced for it.

 

Yeah, the Technic-esque pieces are what defines Bionicle back in the early 2000s. Hero Factory just abandoned the idea of using Technic for its sets (Well, I think Furno's Bike and Drop Ship in 2010 had a lot of Technic pieces.).

 

I wouldn't say it abandoned it—a lot of Hero Factory sets, especially larger ones, continued to use Technic parts for detail, and Invasion From Below on the whole was also extremely Technic-heavy. I'm often confused by the idea that Technic building was abandoned since the CCBS itself is intrinsically connected to the Technic building system.

What the graph seems to prove was my idea that the only people this theme appealed to was more dedicated fans who grew up with the original series. If there were a decent sized number of kids involved then the number would be higher than the 2010-2014 years by quite a large margin. But as the graph showed the reboot made barely a dent in that steady decline. Simply put the kids weren't into it. What is responsible for this I doubt we'll ever get a concrete answer to. However I think bionicle G2 may well have been the first Lego theme where it was mainly bought by adults and older teenagers.

I think that assessment probably couldn't be farther from the truth. Sure, G2 may not have been super-popular with kids. But I have pretty much zero doubt that it was even less popular with adults. Considering that only a small fraction of Bionicle's original fandom even remained interested in the brand by 2015 instead of "growing out" of it, and it often seemed like very few of those fans seemed interested in giving the rebooted theme a chance, all in addition to "mainstream" AFOLs generally sneering at Bionicle G2 about as much as they did during its original run, I doubt older teens and adults made up more than a small portion of its audience, let alone a majority. As always, it's important to remember that the "organized" online fandom for ANY Lego theme is positively dwarfed by the number of children who buy and play with Lego without ever engaging with a larger community than their real-life circle of friends.

 

 

The thought of the animation style with Bionicle characters piques my interest, but I don't want Bionicle turned into a comedy. It should have its light-hearted moments, but not too much more than in the G1 films. Bionicle is better-suited for focus on flashy fight scenes and some genuine emotional moments.

 

For what it's worth, The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie each had better fight scenes and more genuine emotional moments than any of the previous Bionicle movies. The fact that they also included better jokes is not a weakness; it's a strength.

 

Of course it's a good thing for those films. It's just not fitting for Bionicle, a line that went out of its way to be gritty and, at certain points, legitimately dark. Not that it was all violence, edge, and alt rock; but it was hardly a feel-good comedy like the Lego movies.

 

Maybe... that was not really a good thing? The self-seriousness of Bionicle's story got a little ridiculous, and in many ways at odds with its audience of children.

I can think of maybe two scenes in the entire G1 Bionicle story that made me tear up—Jaller's death in 2003 (which made the stakes real for the happy-go-lucky Takua and inspired him to embrace his destiny as a Toa), and Matoro's death at the end of the 2007 comics (helped in no small part by visually calling back to his more innocent life as a Matoran). Compare the Lego Movie, which managed to make Unikitty's sadness at the destruction of her home meaningful within the span of a single scene, by juxtaposing a cheery, optimistic, and arguably naive characterization at first with genuine sorrow. And that's one of at least four scenes that get me that emotional! That isn't achieved in spite of the comedy—rather, it's only by exploring the full range of human emotion that those kinds of highs and lows are even possible in the span of a 100-minute movie.

Look up the set on Brickset and the info should be there under the piece if you look under parts.

The part code for that color is:4493528 and the link for the page is https://brickset.com/parts/4493528/makuta-mask

That won't help you figure out which copies of the Tower of Toa set include the recolored version, since it was a running change to the same product number rather than an entirely new set.

I don't know what to tell you, though. I don't know if there's any easy way to identify which batch a set is from from the outside of the box, let alone if you could get a seller to communicate that information with you if it were there.

Why are we whispering??? It's very hard to read.

Mind stat would presumably be the same, though I don't know about the others. The leaner Maxilos strikes me as less strong and tough but possibly more agile than Makuta's normal body.

The thought of the animation style with Bionicle characters piques my interest, but I don't want Bionicle turned into a comedy. It should have its light-hearted moments, but not too much more than in the G1 films. Bionicle is better-suited for focus on flashy fight scenes and some genuine emotional moments.

For what it's worth, The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie each had better fight scenes and more genuine emotional moments than any of the previous Bionicle movies. The fact that they also included better jokes is not a weakness; it's a strength.

G2 was cancelled because it wasn't selling like G1, and that's because Lego advertised it poorly, and there simply weren't the same things for kids to latch onto. Were the story better and more easily-consumed for kids, then it wouldn't have had to end.

 

Also, just to clear something up: in a rare instance of sharing sales data, Lego tweeted at one point that G2 was actually doing OK when it ended. Apparently, they pulled it not because it was doing bad, but because it was only doing average--just like G1.

The fact that it was only doing "average" was not a surprise—Lego has not gotten to where they are by letting themes decline to the point of abject failure, and as such most theme cancellations are best understood to be preemptive in nature. That said, I don't see where you get the idea that the factors you suggest as to why it failed would have turned it into a success. Pouring more advertising money into the theme wouldn't make enough of a difference if the problem was that kids just weren't as interested in the concept in the first place. As for the story... well, I think we all wish the story could have been more developed, but for all its faults, easy access wasn't really one of them.

Part of me wonders whether the lack of story media might have something to do with the willingness of external partners to back Bionicle. Lego has had a good relationship with media companies like Cartoon Network, but it's possible that these partners that have helped themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights find success weren't really willing to give the same chance to a Lego series that didn't look like what people thought of as Lego. I'm also reminded of statements by Lego representatives about trying to pitch a Bionicle movie early on, and how many prospective studios only wanted it if they could turn it into something vastly different by adding human characters or things like that. We may never know what Bionicle G2 could have been, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that the theme's low media profile was Lego's first choice.

 

 

Its really amazing how deep the original lore and characters were back in the day. It was this level of deepness for each character that I wish was in G2 Bionicle. They can never replicate the extreme detail 2001 had. It was truly a golden age for technic.

For Bionicle? Maybe. For Technic? I'd hesitate to say that, since back then mainline Technic sets were far, far less impressive than modern sets like the Bucket Wheel Excavator or Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It's important to remember that despite more Technic-based sets like the Rahi, Bionicle was still a far cry from anything else in the Technic theme, hence why it lost the Technic label after only a few years.

 

He didn't mean the details of the physical sets, he meant the details of the storyline.

 

Odd to specify Technic instead of Bionicle, then, because storyline isn't even a factor for the vast majority of Technic. What there was, apart from G1 Bionicle, were themes like Roboriders, Slizer/Throwbots, and Cyber-Slam, all of which have a more bare-bones story structure than not just Bionicle G2 but even themes like Mixels.

Its really amazing how deep the original lore and characters were back in the day. It was this level of deepness for each character that I wish was in G2 Bionicle. They can never replicate the extreme detail 2001 had. It was truly a golden age for technic.

For Bionicle? Maybe. For Technic? I'd hesitate to say that, since back then mainline Technic sets were far, far less impressive than modern sets like the Bucket Wheel Excavator or Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It's important to remember that despite more Technic-based sets like the Rahi, Bionicle was still a far cry from anything else in the Technic theme, hence why it lost the Technic label after only a few years.

See, this is what happens when you cancel Bionicle ANGRY BIRDS. 

 

Because last time they cancelled Bionicle things worked out A-OK for them. Clearly only one theme's cancellation could be to blame.

IIRC its first mention was in the original Bionicle lexicon from the Bionicle website. I don't remember if it ever was mentioned in the context of any actual fiction, though.

Further proof that the utter lack of marketing was one of G2's biggest issues. The sets were all there, and story content is stuff you consume after interest has been raised. Oh, what could have been...

 

I fail to see "proof" that pouring more money into marketing would have made a difference. You could just as easily claim that the graph is "proof" that they shouldn't have bothered trying to relaunch the theme at all (I'm not arguing that myself, just pointing out that search trends alone don't prove anything other than what search interest actually exists).

 

 

BZPower was approached by LEGO a little while ago to help them find a way to raise awareness of the Star Wars Buildable Figures

 

Well that doesn't sound surprising at all. They handled terribly G2, killed it one year earlier, and tried to push an overpriced line with repetitive builds and colours. Who would have guess LEGO would have had problems with selling it?

Way to turn a nice effort to cooperate with the community into an insult. To be honest it's a wonder Lego still makes any effort at all to connect with Bionicle fans, given how routinely unpleasable they tend to be...

I think this timeline might be slightly dubious merely because while connections do exist between certain Space themes they don't necessarily form that strict a continuity, and aren't necessarily suited to being squeezed into one. Also:

• Lego City's spaceport sets (as much of a "space theme" as Launch Command, which directly corresponded to City's predecessor Town) are seemingly not included, unless that is what you meant by "Space Port 2" (no theme by that name exists).
• The list places Launch Command prior to a moon landing (dubious since as a "real-world" theme with space shuttles a manned moon landing would logically have come before the development of reusable shuttles)
• This list lacks Alien Conquest (a modern/slightly futuristic "Earth-based" Space theme).
• It also lacks Ultra Agents, described by designers as a "post-Space" Agents theme with a character carried over from Galaxy Squad.
• M-Tron coexisted with Space Police I but also with Blacktron 2, Space Police 2, and Ice Planet (a consequence of the theme being sold alongside both its nearest predecessors and successors).

The 2015 Toa were a hard act to follow. Compared to them the 2016 Toa were slightly more samey and less iconic.

 

Aldi has always been a weird one, last year I found they were selling old Lego Star Wars visual guides, the one with the classic Luke figure, is the "Aldi comic special" thing a sticker or specially printed?

 

Thanks for the heads up, this is a strange occurance for sure!

They do have connections aince Aldi is a Scandinavian firm that have many store including Denmark, aka legoland billund headquarters. Maybe these magazines are leftover stock that was unsold from earlier this year.

 

Leftover stock is a likely scenario but I think it's more likely to be coming from Blue Ocean Entertainment AG (the Danish publisher of these magazines) than direct from Lego itself.

From his product bio: "Icarax stands 10" (25cm) tall!"

(yes, I know you specified story, but it's too good a joke to waste)

Speaking of Odin, they really need to give him a minifig.

True, but this is the first time they've made sets for ANY of the Thor movies, so it's not totally surprising that he hasn't been covered yet.

WHOA.

I may have made some comments that may have seemed a little down on this (since I was a huge fan of the more figure-accurate animation style of this year's webisodes, and this trailer has really brought out a lot of negative comparisons between them and this), but make no mistake—I am INTENSELY excited for this!

Some of the reporting I've seen says that the similarity in style to The Legend of Korra and Voltron: Legendary Defender is no coincidence, and that Studio Mir did the animation for this as well. If so, that's huge—most other Lego TV animations have been done by Danish animation studios, and for Lego to go to these lengths for a high-quality Netflix series speaks volumes about their confidence in the theme. I had been a little worried that this year might be the last one for Elves, but this has pretty much completely swept those fears away! September can't come soon enough!

probably just lego reusing the galidor IP so that they dont loose the right to the IP other companies do the same thing too just look at the names of nerf guns

As someone wrapping up a brand writing internship with Hasbro (which involves things like coming up with names and doing trademark searches), that's not really how it works. Yes, continued use of a trademark is necessary to maintain it. But the Galidor trademark has not been in use for 15 years, expired way back in 2010, and is considered unrevivable: www.trademarkia.com/galidor-78171782.html

In other words, including it on a sticker or minifigure doesn't make any difference in its trademark status. And to be perfectly honest, considering Lego (or any other company) probably has no chance or even desire to try to create a success out of one of their biggest historical failures, I doubt the upkeep of the Galidor brand is high on their list of priorities.

In general I'd give more credence to the set-like depictions in the comics and games than to Greg's generally bad Rahi descriptions. Greg's descriptions tended to lean way too heavily on comparisons to real-world wildlife for an invented world of biomechanical creatures.

Plus, treads just make them way more interesting than giant swimming lizards.

Yes, insert/sheet is more like it; it was fairly small in size.

 

Although, Lyichir, the instructions in this case showed the correct piece, which simply wasn't featured. Do you mean other instances like this were to correct mistakes in the actual instructions or?

Yeah, these sheets are meant to correct errors in the instructions. I remember a similar correction sheet from an Exo-Force set where the wrong kind of clip piece was featured in the instructions. In both cases, the error is with the instructions, not with the actual set inventory.

Okay... Can we get some classics themes for this game eventually LEGO? Like Powerpuff Girls is good and all, especially since from what I read it isn't based off of the awful reboot, but I do not understand why we haven't gotten a BIONICLE pack since that's aparently a well loved theme of LEGO's. Also a Classic Space Theme pack, and Knight's Kingdom 1 and 2 packs would be cool to see in the future. But that's just my two cents.

It's unsurprising that the game focuses on current themes and popular licensed properties. The market for nostalgic Lego fans is tiny compared to the market for packs based on current themes or classic and modern movies and TV series. Newly licensed franchises in particular have the benefit of attracting fans of those franchises who might not have otherwise been interested in buying a Lego video game or standard Lego sets.

I mean, as much as I would have loved to get Bionicle packs (along with other original themes like Elves or Nexo Knights), if the actual 2015–2016 Bionicle sets weren't successful enough to sustain the theme it's silly to think Dimensions packs would have enjoyed greater success.

This correction sheet isn't an apology AFAIK—most sheets like that are to correct instructions that show the incorrect piece. The 5M axle should be the correct part.