Lyichir

Makes sense-although if Lego would make more use of the licenses people wouldn't feel the need to submit Ideas so much.

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.

 

(which Finn's sister might be expected to start collecting once she ages out of Duplo).

 

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.

I think what really hurt BZP was the self-entitled bitterness that was on the boards after Bionicle ended, and even after Bionicle came back. This drove off the more optimistic members from BZP, and when the angry members got tired of being angry, they left too. Which leaves us. Maybe we could try networking with older members to come back? I dunno. Solving population problems isn't my strong suit. I think all of our forums and sub-forums still have active topics, just not as much as ye​e oldene dayes​​e.

I can definitely sort of agree. I took a leave from BZP after Bionicle's end due to the bitterness and whininess that manifested when Bionicle ended, and even after things had settled back down I came back more to discuss new things than to continue mourning Bionicle's end (even to this day I'm much more interested in current or recent themes than wading into G1 topics that have been discussed to death.

That's part of why I do think that while Bionicle discussion should always have a place on BZP, its continued survival requires an emphasis on other ongoing Lego themes. I probably would never have come back if discussion had remained focused primarily on a theme that was no longer resulting in new content.

 

Sometimes I feel as though TLG should just sell a multipack of SWC trooper heads: a flametrooper, a snowtrooper, a wave one clone trooper, and potentially a few others. The stormtrooper commander would be a waste of my money TBH, but I will be buying the speeder bike, even if it comes with yet another cookie-cutter trooper figure.

Eh, they may be identically colored, but they're not exactly cookie cutter in terms of armor-while I think accessory packs could be a good idea, I question how feasible they would be.

 

Yeah, trooper types like the ones listed would be quite infeasible for any sort of "accessory pack" since they all have different helmet shapes—that'd be several unique and complex new molds in a single set with no substantial builds using existing parts to help offset the cost of those new molds. At best recolors/reprints of an existing head mold might work, but you'd still run into the issue of an accessory pack like that failing to offer any sort of complete play experience on its own.

In my opinion BZPower has been less active ever since the end of G1. It's going to take a major sponsorship with G3 to gie next generation fans a place to talk.

Since the lego board was closed...maybe we could consider switch to a name like "Lego Power" to promote a open lego forum to a wider audience.

 

I've seen forums in much worse shape than BZPower. Have you been to Lugnet recently? It was once one of the central hubs of the online LEGO community. Currently, it's only had 29 posts in the past week and 28 of those were bot posts recording site statistics like this. Classic-Castle.com is also pretty inactive. I don't know if there's a page on BZPower that tells you how many posts it's had in a week, but looking at the "new content" page it's had posts in at least 29 different topics in just the past two days.

 

I kind of doubt BZPower will ever be as big as it was in 2006 or so. Even if Bionicle came back and became a mega-hit, the Internet just isn't the same place it was back then. People who want to discuss things they love have far more ways and places to do it than they once did. But that's not to say the site or community is likely to give up the ghost anytime soon.

But how well has the neighbor site Eurobricks been doing?

 

 

Generally Eurobricks seems to be much more active than BZPower, but at the same time I'd say the Bionicle or constraction-specific activity on BZP still outweighs that on Eurobricks.

Ooh, I really hope Voltron happens. Hopefully they can work out a favorable licensing agreement (which I assume they're looking into, which is the reason that the project is currently a Maybe). I wonder if the final set would be more close in style to the original Voltron, or the new Netflix series.

I think since the one that passed review is based on the classic one, they'll probably stick with that for the final model as well. But I can hold out hope that they might follow it up with one from the new Netflix series if it passes (similarly to what they did with Ghostbusters and the two Ecto-1 models).

 

 

 

 

I have thought of another one that would be interesting: Ben10, anyone agree/disagree?

 

They did that already, didn't they?

 

They did in CCBS, but only released six sets that don't seem to have done that well. Of course, it was based on Alien Force, which was kind of weak.

 

A line of sets with minifigures could be cool-Fourarms and other Tetramands could be Garmadon/Kozu style figs.

 

I'm not the most familiar with Ben 10 as a property—does it have a good range of distinctive vehicles or settings that could be included in System-based sets? Because that can often be a sticking point for that sort of thing. A highly "toyetic" property like Star Wars with a huge assortment of unique vehicles is naturally a better fit for System than a franchise in which the character designs alone are the only sorts of things that would really have significant shelf appeal—for those, a constraction theme or standalone collectible minifigure series would probably work better.

 

I would say that it does: it's had four series thus far with another one on the way, though the new one appears to be a more young child oriented reboot at least in name. Of course a big appeal would be that the main character of Ben Tennyson's main tactic is transforming into different alien species, of which there have been nigh on a hundred if not more introduced. The series also features numerous enemies and allies of Ben's that he typically fought on several occasions in a wide range of locations that could be replicated in set form. A great number of vehicles were also present, from a beat-up old RV secretly brimming with alien technology to various spacecraft used by the variety of alien cultures featured in the series.

 

Ah, okay then. That sounds like it'd be plenty well suited to a System theme, then. I just wasn't sure since I didn't know a lot about the franchise.

I would like to see CCBS figures of Steven Universe the parts alone would be worth it.

 

Also seeing The Temple as a system set would be cool.

Sadly, these aren't going to happen now that McFarlane Toys is releasing its own sub-par building toys for the franchise.

I don't know how easily the crystal temple could be adapted to a set, anyway—a good deal of its exterior appearance is defined by the massive scale of the statue in relation to Steven's beach house, which would be very hard to represent in any reasonably sized set.

I figure we're lucky if the people at WB who write these things actually know about Bionicle. The teases we've had so far could easily be entirely from people at LEGO giving their input into stories that were already written by people outside of the company. We'll probably never know what portion of these movies comes from each of the given companies that work together to make the movies happen...

Well, the "people at WB" are presumably consulting quite heavily with Lego themselves regarding the overall strategy for the cinematic universe. These sort of easter eggs probably have little to do with future plans, but that's not to say that Lego couldn't advocate for a larger role for Bionicle in a future movie if there were an obvious place in the story for it, or that the creative minds behind the story wouldn't be receptive to that sort of suggestion.

A big part of it depends on what shape the overall story takes. If the Lego Movie sequel does continue with the meta-story of Finn as he ages, then the shape of the story might easily be conducive to a larger Bionicle role (since Bionicle has always been somewhat of a transitional theme for kids who might otherwise be "aging out" of Lego), and for that matter "girls themes" like Lego Friends (which Finn's sister might be expected to start collecting once she ages out of Duplo).

Well, personally I'm loving the new animation style. It looks super cute and incredibly fluid, and has more of the Lego detailing I love in the sets than the earlier animation style did. All of the characters are wonderfully expressive as well, and "The Capture" and "Did You Miss Us" both confirm that the voice cast of the previous episodes is being maintained in the new series despite the visual overhaul.

One of the most exciting things for me story-wise is that "The Capture" gives us our very first look at all five sisters from the legend in year one! I know we probably won't see most of them in the sets at any point, but regardless I'm stoked to see that backstory brought back into the foreground. The elven sister of earth seems to be wearing an amulet that resembles Cronan's, implying some connection between the two (and by extension, a connection between Cronan and Sophie and Emily Jones).

And even though it's not news to me (having appeared in pictures with the Goblin King on his character page), I'm also extremely excited to see Ragana returning in this year's story. I loved her character last year and I'm glad to see that she's not simply being written out of the story now that a new villain has taken her place as the main antagonist.

 

I agree full heartedly. There were rumors floating around (I can't remember where I saw them maybe bricklink or something along those lines) that hinted at future LotR sets around the time Orthanc came out) that suggested a Witch-king/Eowyn set, Amon-Hen which had Boromir, Pippin and more Uruks, and I think there was supposed to be one or two more that I cannot remember, but apparently it was all speculation and not fact... unless they were planning to release those sets and decided not to with the soon appearance of the Hobbit.

Alas, that would have been amazing. A pity that Lego did not see fit to produce them.

 

Unfortunately, all themes are subject to the whims of the market. I get the impression that Lord of the Rings was generally less popular among kids than themes like Star Wars that are based on franchises marketed more directly toward them. And while AFOLs may make up some of the difference, there's a reason why sets aimed specifically at them are fewer and farther between—they're just a smaller market in general, and can't necessarily sustain a huge range of sets to the same degree.

Also, unlike Star Wars, there really wasn't any mechanism to sustain the theme beyond the release of the last Hobbit movie, since there's no ongoing television media or anything like that (a factor that similarly limited the lifespan of themes like Indiana Jones and Harry Potter). Ultimately, while a certain amount of sales can be eked out of classic movies and media, without an infusion of new media and the new fans that accompany it, it's hard to keep a theme going for very long.

 

 

I have thought of another one that would be interesting: Ben10, anyone agree/disagree?

 

They did that already, didn't they?

 

They did in CCBS, but only released six sets that don't seem to have done that well. Of course, it was based on Alien Force, which was kind of weak.

 

A line of sets with minifigures could be cool-Fourarms and other Tetramands could be Garmadon/Kozu style figs.

 

I'm not the most familiar with Ben 10 as a property—does it have a good range of distinctive vehicles or settings that could be included in System-based sets? Because that can often be a sticking point for that sort of thing. A highly "toyetic" property like Star Wars with a huge assortment of unique vehicles is naturally a better fit for System than a franchise in which the character designs alone are the only sorts of things that would really have significant shelf appeal—for those, a constraction theme or standalone collectible minifigure series would probably work better.

Huh...kinda died off there, didn't it? I suppose we've gone over most of the big character ideas for CCBS, and until we get more info about "The Last Jedi" figures there's not much more to be said about the 2017 line.

 

Had an idea that I brought up in the official Constraction thread in the News forum, but wanted to see what folks here thought: accessory packs. I figure that since the general consensus seems to be that too many monochrome figures are boring, and that it's unlikely Lego would release more than one figure per character, a reasonable solution would seem to be releasing Kanohi/Krana style packs including alternate head/helmet pieces, armor, and other accessories that could be used to modify the main figures. Among such solutions could be packs for modifying the main Stormtrooper into its various variants, such as Jumptroopers from Rebels, Snowtroopers, and so forth; you could also release a pack that includes Sabine Wren's different armor sets and any accessories that wouldn't be included with a main figure were it to be released.

 

Speaking of Sabine, got another Rebels set I think would be cool: the Clan Wren Stronghold, a Lego recreation of the building of the same name. You could include a full set of Rebels Mandalorians: Gar Saxon, his Super Commandos, Ursa Wren, Clan Wren Warriors, Fenn Rau, Sabine, and Tristan.

Accessory packs are something I often see proposed, but something Lego doesn't often go for. There's a simple reason for that—any accessory pack that is designed specifically to augment a particular set is only going to have appeal to a fraction of the people who bought that particular set. Even the collectible packs in Bionicle were made possible in part due to cost-saving measures (using the existing molds used for other sets, and in the case of the Krana and Kraata, randomizing the shapes of the parts in both sets and accessory packs so that every one of the shape variations could be molded simultaneously on a single mold), and their abandonment in later years suggests that they were not all that successful in the long run.

By contrast, most Star Wars headpieces are both character-specific (i.e. you couldn't necessarily just use recolors of existing parts for many of them) and expensive (being large parts that generally are printed, molded in multiple plastic colors, and/or preassembled). The cost of the Star Wars head molds is offset by their inclusion in larger figure sets—including even the existing ones in smaller accessory packs, let alone exclusive ones, would result in a highly priced set with a pitifully low part count, which would have no appeal except for people who already had the existing figure sets and were still not satisfied with those options alone.

 

 

 

Personally if it were possible I'd totally go for it! There honestly aren't enough bionicle video games in my opinion (even though there has been quite a few...) I'd love to see mini toa running around blasting things!

I imagine them doing that, too. I would also imagine that their minifigure bodies would be based on Hero Factory's in 2014, but in new molds that are related to Bionicle to give them look more robotic than a normal minifigure.

If we were to get Bionicle figs based on those Hero Factory ones they might not even need that many new molds—mostly just masks for each character, one shared torso armor piece, and possibly weapons (though even many of those could conceivably be cobbled together with existing parts). The arm and leg molds of the Hero-figs could still be just effective for Bionicle characters.

That said, as much as I'd love that I don't see it happening now that Bionicle has ended (especially since even Lego Dimensions itself may be on the wane). Still, these concepts are definitely cool!

I've never played Dimensions myself, but I'd be lying if I said I've never thought about this before. Still, like Lyichir said, LEGO has never been fond of the idea of using retired product lines for much of anything.

Well, yes, Bionicle may have ended last year, but if Lego Dimensions will continue for Year 3 or 4, maybe Bionicle would get a chance to be included in 2018 or 2019 if Bionicle would come back on any of these years (The Lego Group did say that Bionicle is not present this year, 2017. They didn't say it could come back in 2018. Just my theory). It's still beloved and remembered overall, after all. Anyway, I'm not talking about the possibility. I'm just asking how would you like Bionicle to be in Lego Dimensions.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love it. That said, I don't see Bionicle coming back any time soon.

One thing you didn't really get into in your concept is what sorts of mini-builds the Bionicle figures would come with. Unlike most System themes, Bionicle isn't really known much for vehicles (especially G2, which didn't really have any to speak of). In my opinion the best subjects would be the creatures, but it'd certainly be tricky to build versions of those that both look suitably mechanical and could each be rebuilt into three distinct models.

Other LEGO villains would have been pretty exciting in The LEGO Dimensions Batman Movie too...

 

There's now a reddit thread seemingly confirming this.

I can't help but wonder if the choice of villains might have not just been based on what they could get permission to use, or what would have the kind of impact on mass audiences that those pop-culture villains would have, but also on what they might want to use in the future.

Getting back to the subject of Bionicle, even with the abrupt end of Bionicle G2 the theme remains one of Lego's most historically successful in-house franchises. It would not surprise me at all if Lego wanted to keep that theme and its characters in reserve to potentially use for a bigger crossover like The Lego Movie Sequel or even a standalone movie, rather than burning one of its most notorious villains in a movie that already had plenty of more well-known villains to work with.

Over on my other outlet, I've focused in on the ninja's tassel - and apparent hit that the normal LEGO part might be produced in a new color this year (so far, it's only available in black).

Yup, looks like it! I'm excited—I had sort of been hoping to see it used in gold on Aladdin's magic carpet, but the version in the Disney Castle (the only appearance of the carpet since that part's introduction) just used regular clips. But having it in gold definitely would expand options for MOCists.

While Catwoman never goes up against Robin and Batgirl in the movie, I appreciate the composition of this set nonetheless—it includes both of Batman's sidekicks in a fairly cheap set, and combined with Joker's Balloon Escape gets you most of the main characters for a cheap price. Contrast the sets that can be combined to form the Gotham Energy complex—normally that kind of feature excites me and gets me wanting to "collect them all", but in this case it's tempered by the fact that collecting all of them gets you four Batmans and not a single one of his compatriots.

It bugs me a little how poorly arranged the Ultimate Batmobile was for many pictures, considering that they're arranged as if to imply them combining but the Bat-Tank is meant to attach BACKWARDS (with Alfred facing towards the rear of the vehicle).

The DC Super Hero Girls sets generally look great. Eclipso's Dark Palace in particular features lots of brightly colored Technic parts (including Magenta/Bright Reddish Violet parts for I believe the first time). I hope that dorms for each of the characters continue to be introduced in the future and that they maintain compatibility with the main Super Hero High School set.

 

Personally if it were possible I'd totally go for it! There honestly aren't enough bionicle video games in my opinion (even though there has been quite a few...) I'd love to see mini toa running around blasting things!

I imagine them doing that, too. I would also imagine that their minifigure bodies would be based on Hero Factory's in 2014, but in new molds that are related to Bionicle to give them look more robotic than a normal minifigure.

 

If we were to get Bionicle figs based on those Hero Factory ones they might not even need that many new molds—mostly just masks for each character, one shared torso armor piece, and possibly weapons (though even many of those could conceivably be cobbled together with existing parts). The arm and leg molds of the Hero-figs could still be just effective for Bionicle characters.

That said, as much as I'd love that I don't see it happening now that Bionicle has ended (especially since even Lego Dimensions itself may be on the wane). Still, these concepts are definitely cool!

 

 

I have to admit that overall I was disappointed with the light turnout for the buildable figures. I wasn't expecting to see the Last Jedi ones, but it would be nice to at least know how many we're getting.

According to the press release LEGO released before Toy Fair, "Popular characters also appear in buildable figure form with nine new sets." That's counting the five 2017 buildable figures that were shown at Toy Fair, so there will presumably be four buildable figures for The Last Jedi this fall.

 

 

I was thinking it would be neat to have vehicles for the various CCBS characters. (A TIE Fighter for Darth Vader would be cool. more of a MOC idea than a playset tho.) So it's interesting to see that Lego is thinking along the same lines, and the speeder bike looks decent. The rest of the CCBS characters are pretty meh in my opinion. If the future of CCBS lies entirely with Star Wars, then we're most likely never going to see bright colors in CCBS again. :|

 

 

The issue with starfighter-sized vehicles is that they'd surely have an enormous price. Just look at the $200 price tag on the UCS TIE Fighter, and then realize that a version scaled to the size of a Star Wars buildable figure would be more than twice that size! So non-enclosed personal craft like speeder bikes or STAPs are probably the biggest Star Wars vehicles we could realistically get in buildable figure sets. MOCs, of course, are a different story.

 

I'm not quite sure why I'm only now hearing so many worries about the future of brightly-colored CCBS sets, considering that the Baze Malbus buildable figure that just came out is probably the most brightly-colored of any of the Star Wars buildable figures we've had to date. Plus, a decade ago a lot of Bionicle fans were worried we might never see constraction sets in earth tones like brown and tan again! I agree though that a lot of the Star Wars buildable figure color schemes are a bit dull.

 

Yeah, Brickset has had four open slots listed for some time-that's actually where I first heard about the Stormtrooper and Scout Trooper. Sadly vehicles and such would undoubtedly be ridiculously expensive-I mean, just look back at Bionicle.

 

Bionicle's vehicles may have been expensive (at least compared to the other sets in the theme, if not those in other themes that regularly exceed those prices), but apart from single-pilot atmosphere-based vehicles, like this Speeder Bike most Star Wars vehicles would be even more so. After all, even single-pilot starfighters like X-Wings and TIE Fighters have to have completely enclosed canopies.

I was afraid that the summer Ninjago sets might not be open to photograph, given the lack of coverage elsewhere. The descriptions make them sound pretty fun, though...guess I'll have to set aside a few minutes to watch the trailer sometime and see for myself.

Unreleased sets aside, the Vermillion have an excellent aesthetic to their vehicles--almost a bit steampunk-ish in places. It seems a bit odd to introduce a new color in only two pieces; I can't wait to see what other copper parts are released in the near future. Here's hoping for as much CCBS as humanly possible!

Technically it's three pieces, since the "Time Blades" also each have a copper core in addition to their translucent blades. I'd love to see more parts in this color, but all new colors have to start somewhere, and given Lego's track record with colors lately I would not be surprised to see its use expanded in the near future.

Very neat sets, and I love that we're finally getting figures with personal vehicles. I do sort of wish the Technic stand for the speeder bikes used clear Technic beams like the ones on recent Podracer sets, though.