Aanchir

What discussions end up ending up in fights probably depends on what part of the community you're in.

 

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the 2008 Toa. They weren't the worst sets ever, they weren't the best sets ever.

 

Pro: Most of them had pretty diverse and creative weapons and gear. Some of their had masks had considerable similarities to the characters' previous masks. Their equipment and color schemes gave them a sense of visual unity and helped set them apart from previous and later sets.

 

Con: Their designs weren't very new on a structural level, or very much like the earlier characters they were based on. The similarities to the characters' previous masks were generally very subtle, and the differences sometimes inexplicable. Their color schemes weren't terribly diverse.

Bohrok were definitely amazing on an aesthetic and functional level. Kal were also good taken individually, but being repeats of an already heavily repeated design didn't exactly work in their favor. Particularly since the ways they differed from the original Bohrok were a bit of a give-and-take.

 

The silver helped the Bohrok-Kal feel more armored, but also meant their color schemes were less diverse and complex. The printed silver faceplates were detailed and ornate, but meant that you could no longer see the unique colors of the Krana-Kal. The Krana-Kal themselves were very flashy, but most of their colors were less versatile than the non-metallic colors of regular Krana, and they no longer matched the characters' eye colors like the Bohrok's Krana had.

 

One interesting thing about the Bohrok is that more than half of their total parts and nearly 2/3 of their part designs were entirely new. Some of these new parts remained useful for years to come, such as their eyes, teeth, limbs, and feet. Others were extremely specialized and saw almost no use outside the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal, like the torso beams, head beams, Krana holders, many of their shields, and both new types of gear.

 

Part of the reason for the release of the Bohrok-Kal might have been not only an effort to capitalize on the Bohrok's popularity but also an effort for the LEGO Group to get their money's worth out of these specialized molds that would have far less application elsewhere. Granted, these parts weren't useless by any stretch of the imagination, but using them in other ways could be difficult or inefficient.

 

These days, it's somewhat unlikely that the LEGO Group would design any sets that depend this heavily on parts that are custom-tailored for one specific type of set design. Even extremely function-driven sets like the Ninjago spinner sets or Legends of Chima Speedorz sets use considerably fewer new parts and considerably more existing molds.

 

Still, it'd definitely be interesting to see if there's any way to come up with a design as packed with functions as the Bohrok WITHOUT a need for so many new designs custom-tailored for those functions. Sadly, I don't think I'd ever be able to do this. Building models with creative and heavily-integrated action features has never been my strong suit.

I hope you enjoy it! My twin brother and I got it earlier this year and I think it's definitely an amazing and creative design. I especially like the engine/cannon modules on the sides. So beautifully streamlined!

Tis a good set, but one issue here: Bright Yellowish Green? What's wrong with "Lime Green", LEGO?

Well, funny you should ask that! Back in the day, many of the official color names were developed according to a VERY organized system. Not all, mind you — there were some perplexing color names like "Light Orange Brown" (Bricklink's Earth Orange) even back in the old days — but many. And unlike Bricklink names, many of these official names help emphasize the RELATIONSHIP between certain seemingly unrelated colors.

 

Here's a chart I made showcasing the relationship between many of these colors. Bright Yellowish Green is called that because it literally occupies the space between Bright Yellow and Bright Green, the same way Bright Yellowish Orange (Bricklink's Medium Orange, the color of the Gukko's beak) occupies the space between Bright Yellow and Bright Orange or Bright Bluish Green (Bricklink's Dark Turquoise, or what BIONICLE fans call "teal") occupies the space between Bright Blue and Bright Green.

 

This chart also helps demonstrate the reasoning behind some of the less intuitive LEGO color names. The official name for Mata Brown is Earth Orange, and you can see here it has the same relationship to Bright Orange (Mata Orange) as Earth Blue (Metru Blue) has to Bright Blue (Mata Blue). The official name for Bricklink's Dark Tan is Sand Yellow, meaning it is in the same family as colors like Sand Red, Sand Blue, Sand Green, and Sand Violet. Tan, in turn, is officially called Brick Yellow. On another interesting note, Mata Green (classic LEGO green) is not actually called Bright Green like most other Mata colors, but rather Dark Green, which lies midway between Bright Green and Earth Green (Metru Green).

 

Sorry for rambling... you really shouldn't get me talking about colors! I can go on for hours!

 

But no yeah, these things can go pretty far. At least if you do it yourself. I've found that functions that are meant to fire them for you suck. Gorzan's Gorilla Striker's six chest-missiles are a hilarious and hardcore little feature that I love, but would love more if they didn't just fall to the floor after an inch or so. Not cool.

I think it depends on the design. For starters, flick missiles angled upwards get better range in general than those just angled forwards. Also, you generally won't get such good range from ones that fire multiple missiles at once as from those that fire them individually. At least, not reliably. I do remember getting good results from 5982 Smash 'n' Grab from the Space Police III theme, which has a very simple mechanism to fire the two individual missiles on the front.

 

I like flick missiles when well integrated into the design. Unfortunately, only one out of every hundred sets featuring them do so. In pretty much every IFB set, they've been slapped on like an afterthought.

Normally I feel sort of the same way. I mean, they don't BOTHER me a lot even when they're just slapped on, because I don't feel they really hurt the design (in this case, in fact, they actually help balance the design on a visual level since the click shooter and zip line are stored on the other side of the machine), but on a set that's already got plenty of other more interesting and well-integrated features they often do tend to feel a bit... superfluous. That's part of why I was so utterly surprised at how well they worked here. I expected them to be the most lackluster play feature. Instead, they worked astonishingly well.

I disagree about some of your opinions on specific sets (I really love Dragon Bolt, Tunneler Beast, and Breez Flea Machine aesthetically, and I also think Voltix is a way better design than many people give him credit for), but it's good to hear your retrospective.

 

I didn't get into Hero Factory with the first wave. I liked the cartoony concept, I liked the way the aesthetic was moving towards a smoother and cleaner aesthetic (albeit in fits and starts), I liked the humor (especially the Hero Factory FM podcast), and I liked the amount of emphasis on getting fans to come up with their own characters and missions. Even the sets seemed sort of impressive. But frankly, I was feeling a little bit burnt out from collecting BIONICLE almost religiously for ten whole years, not to mention a bit subconsciously frustrated with the fragile joints, so I retreated into System themes for the remainder of the year. I'd be lying if I said this actually saved me any money in the long run — between Power Miners, Atlantis, and Space Police, I was still spreading myself pretty thin. In hindsight, I'm glad I skipped that first wave, because most of the sets were pretty rotten compared to a lot of what came later, at least from a building standpoint.

 

The new building system quickly brought me back into constraction. New joints that don't break? New armor pieces that can be used anywhere at any angle? Faces that finally didn't look skull-like, and a smooth, clean aesthetic that I could integrate with other System and Technic parts to my heart's content? I was thrilled! I started with just a couple sets but pretty soon my brother and I had almost the entire collection for the year. Ordeal of Fire was generally a good episode, and I liked how it introduced a system for upgrades so there didn't need to be a contrived reason for the characters' every inevitable transformation.

 

Savage Planet was the first point at which I was really profoundly disappointed by the story, but probably not for the same reasons as everybody else. I didn't mind Rocka as a character. I found him an excellent foil to Furno! And the animals talking didn't bother me in and of itself. But the number of lame jokes (since when does Makuhero City have cattle?), and the fact that the animals' dialogue consisted mostly of inane battle banter, really started to wear on me by the end. I almost think if the episode had been just 22 minutes like Ordeal of Fire it might have felt less padded with groanworthy filler. I didn't buy a lot of Savage Planet sets, but that was less to do with the story and more because I was still desperate to break free of the completionist mindset I had as a BIONICLE fan, which had started to rear its ugly head again in the previous wave. The only two sets I got were Bulk 3.0 and Raw-Jaw.

 

2012 was probably my favorite year overall. The TV episode was not perfect, but it was passable (even with Evo's major shift in characterization and the confusing opening sequence). I loved the concept of the heroes going on solo missions, and I loved that for the first time in the theme the designs were clearly and unmistakeably character-driven. The return to a rogues gallery of eccentric "theme villains" like in 2010 also gave the line plenty of personality. We had a robot serial killer, an acid-obsessed maniac, a giant mutant bug, a haywire robot, a split-personality villain with a body to match, and a speed-obsessed biker! The books in 2012 were also great (I'd say better than the ones in 2013). And I think the web content was not too shabby either (certainly better than what we got in 2013).

 

2013 was not quite so impressive. The colorful, elemental-inspired villains were cool-looking, and I liked that some of them had unique functions that didn't depend on specialized parts. The heroes' weapons got more and more creative in their construction, and the new weapon parts continued to become less specialized in their design. But the number of bipedal humanoids felt a bit bland from a building perspective, and the villains' role as mind-controlled drones made them less interesting from a story perspective, even with their distinctive designs. It's a good thing the somewhat underwhelming TV episode for that year was just 22 minutes, because as the books showed, the brains didn't offer too much mileage from a storytelling perspective (even though the alien invasion and zombie apocalypse overtones were fresh new territory for the theme, which was nice).

 

I really love the 2014 sets, in part because other than the first wave of beasts and Crystal Beast (who would not have been my first choice for this summer by any means), we got some pretty interesting builds and not just boring humanoids. Even the machines that WERE bipedal generally felt fairly unique on a structural level. It was also nice that for the first time, it wasn't just the villain sets that could demonstrate lots of creative designs, proportions, and building techniques. And the mini-heroes look great, much better than the BIONICLE minifigures ever did IMO.

 

As for the story, I don't think you can blame its faults on the "fresh blood" LEGO brought in for the mini-movie. After all, the screenwriter was the same one they had for Savage Planet, and I'm sure he played a bigger role in the story direction than the animators at any rate.

 

In general, my impression of Hero Factory has been pretty positive. I know that's strange because it's loaded with faults, but none of those have really stopped me from enjoying it. As badly or inconsistently written as the characters sometimes are, I've really grown to like them. I guess spending enough time with a group of characters (or a group of people) will do that for you. You learn to look past their faults and appreciate their strengths. I don't think for a minute that I will regret Hero Factory's end. Four and a half years is a good run, and I don't think it would have helped it to try and stretch things out any further. But I will definitely remember the theme fondly.

 

Even if it never quite escaped BIONICLE's shadow, it gave the designers and writers a chance to try things they never could have tried before if they had to worry about things fitting neatly into an ongoing fantasy epic. We all know how cringeworthy things like the Piraka rap were that seemed to represent a radical shift in genre and marketing strategy from BIONICLE. But Hero Factory could play around with different genres and marketing strategy without having to live up to any kind of precedent. I hope the LEGO Group has learned some things from it that they can put into practice in the new BIONICLE.

You know, I used to use these blog posts to orient myself in the time stream. I had no idea it was so late in the year already. 

 

2013 is just flying by.

I think you're more lost than you know...

The concept of things being overrated has never really jibed with me. If people harmlessly enjoy something, it's nobody's case to tell them they SHOULDN'T enjoy it. Saying something is overrated feels like a cheap cop-out: "I can't convince people to share my interests, so instead I'll focus on tearing down their interests".

 

I think there's a big problem in society with people tearing down other people's interests instead of promoting their own. It's not a new problem by any means, but it's a problem nonetheless. And it's frustratingly apparent within "geek" subcultures. Any time a new franchise rises to popularity, people lash out at it because they don't like it as much as their preferred franchise. Twilight is not as good as Harry Potter! Eragon is not as good as the Lord of the Rings! Frozen is not as good as Tangled! LEGO Legends of Chima is not as good as LEGO Ninjago!

 

Enjoying things should not be a competition, but people have an irrational desire to make it into one. They become convinced that their own interests can only be legitimate at the exclusion of all similar interests.

 

Obviously, it simmers down over time as people realize that no brand or franchise is perfect and it really doesn't matter whether one is better than the other. The classic Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Coke vs. Pepsi, Pokémon vs. Digimon, and Mario vs. Sonic the Hedgehog feuds are a good example of this. Today, I don't think people honestly care which of these things their peers prefer: they accept that different people prefer different things for different reasons.

 

But for whatever reason, whenever a new brand or property gains attention or popularity people treat it as if it has to be the best of its kind for the hype to be legitimate. Why can't people get excited about something just because it's new and they happen to enjoy it?

 

As an example, I like BIONICLE but that doesn't mean I have to hate Hero Factory, or Ninjago, or Legends of Chima, or any other franchise that we wouldn't even be comparing BIONICLE with if they weren't similar on some meaningful level. Liking and becoming invested in one thing does not compromise my love for other things.

 

Obviously, everybody's free to decide which things they like more within a certain category. I'm not advocating for everybody to enjoy and become invested in everything equally or indiscriminately. But liking something also doesn't mean everybody should agree with you. People are different, and entitled to differences of opinion. So unless somebody likes something expressly harmful like genocide or vandalism, there's no reason to get worked up about whether harmless things should or shouldn't be as popular as they are.

I really like the Thunder Raider, but might end up skipping it since I'll get Jay and his Techno-Blade from the Battle for Ninjago City, and won't end up getting Cole's Techno-Blade unless I get it and Cole in the Hover Hunter.

 

I'm also getting 70727 X-1 Ninja Charger rather than the Kai Fighter. Kai Fighter is a great set, but it has a hard time measuring up to 9442 in my eyes. By contrast, the X-1 Ninja Charger is something brand-new for the Ninjago theme — a souped-up ninja muscle car! It doesn't have the same kind of expectations to live up to. Also, I already have General Cryptor from the Nindroid MechDragon, so I don't need a duplicate of him. Finally, getting some spare Nindroid Warriors and Nindroid Drones will not hurt, because I can use some of them with my spare Lloyd Garmadon fig from 2012 to build my own Min-Droid, enabling me to skip the Destructoid without missing out on any figs.

 

OverBorg Attack is not particularly high on my own list either. Again, I have Lloyd from the Nindroid MechDragon, and while Cyrus Borg is exclusive to this set, neither of the vehicles is all that compelling (though this does deserve some special credit as Lloyd's first vehicle besides the Golden Mech from the Temple of Light). I might end up getting the set once I've gotten all the others on my wish list, but it's not urgent.

I was wondering who would be the first person to try and discuss the new images. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to be shared yet and that somebody broke a street date somewhere along the line, but it's a lot harder to tell in this case since they don't have the usual hallmarks of illegally leaked images. I foresee a lot of work for the staff in the immediate future unless the OFFICIAL reveal of the sets comes sooner than expected.

I'm looking forward to it as well. But I can't see it today since I'm going to be on the train most of the afternoon, so either I'll make plans to see it next week if it's still in theaters in my state, or I'll wait for the TV broadcast or DVD release. Preferably the DVD release because last year the Hub cut out a lot of scenes including an entire musical number to reduce the running time and make room for commercial breaks.

He looks great, but I look forward to seeing him with arms.

I don't personally think there's any problem with doing that myself. A lack of capitalization and punctuation affects the way people read your posts, but not in a bad way. It makes the sentences sound more laid-back and conversational — exactly the opposite of how ALL CAPS MAKES YOU SOUND ANGRY AND SERIOUS TO THE POINT OF RIDICULOUSNESS.

 

In a more formal or professional context like a news article it would seem out-of-place, but nothing wrong with adopting a "voice" of your choosing in a post or blog entry.

 

Usually, I only use all lowercase or avoid punctuation if I'm making a sarcastic or otherwise "playful" post, to emphasize that the post isn't as serious as my usual posts.

Generally, I try to ink my drawings before scanning them, and more often than not I screw up inking them and end up having to make considerable digital edits just to make them look half-decent again. So by all means, feel free to scan a drawing or make a copy whenever you think you're happy with how things are turning out.

I haven't seen a lot of the Marvel Studios films (just Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man, really), but even if it wasn't the best I think Guardians of the Galaxy was definitely something special. It was as thrilling as you'd expect any action movie to be, but it was also a tremendously silly concept from the start and it relished in that silliness. And I think that's a great thing.

 

In some movies, writers will avoid certain characters and concepts entirely because they're worried that their lighthearted silliness will make it harder for people to take the rest of the movie seriously (the best example I can think of off the top of my head is Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, who didn't appear at all in the movie). Even superhero movies will typically attempt to present their characters very seriously and either omit or reinvent characters who are silly or ridiculous on a conceptual level. So it's great to see a movie that can successfully jump from suspenseful action to playful silliness and back to suspenseful action with reckless abandon.

I'm frankly a bit tired of them too, but I haven't yet found another site I'm quite as happy with that will host things like LXF files. Most of the hosting sites I've seen that are really convenient for casual browsing only host image files and sometimes common document types like .doc, .xml, and .pdf

Right, but the main point I was trying to make here was that everyone seems ready to throw a fit over Greg not writing, and I wanted to address the main crux of their complaints, which mostly seem to revolve around Greg being some sort of god among writers, when he's really just... average. Even if quality was their highest concern with writing, which as you pointed out, isn't necessarily necessary, Greg is entirely replaceable as an author with no considerable drop in quality.

Some people are scared of change in general. Good or bad, Greg's writing is what people are used to. It's kind of like how people might be scared of going to a new school. even if they know the school they're in isn't that great, they've been there long enough to find their bearings and learn what to expect, and a new school means having to do that all over again.

 

That also brings up another important point, though. Change is scary, but things will never change for the better if your strategy is to avoid any risks or changes whatsoever. Sometimes you have to put on a brave face and learn to embrace the inevitability of change and the uncertainty that comes with it.

Not only is Greg not an exceptional writer, but even if he were, BIONICLE doesn't necessarily need an exceptional writer. A lot of people make BIONICLE out to be amazing and groundbreaking, and while it certainly was that for LEGO (which had never previously had such an fully-fledged IP, let alone one as story-driven and character-driven as BIONICLE), its mythology wasn't that much more complex than many existing stories, even those of the merchandise-driven variety.

 

And frankly, a writer or storyteller doesn't need to be a master of their craft for their stories to be enjoyable. Do you think people's nostalgia for the generation one Transformers cartoon is based on its quality or sophistication? Hardly — like many 80s cartoons, it was a low-budget production characterized by blatant product placement and an assortment of contrived or hamfisted storytelling decisions. Even the toys were not exceptionally complex. But thanks to the iconic, archetypical qualities of the central concept, not to mention its pivotal role in many people's childhood experience, the Transformers franchise is both beloved and timeless, and the original cartoon was a foundation for all the franchise's successes.

Who are the pros? Pro basketball players? Pro golfers? PRO SKATEBOARDER ANDY MACDONALD?

Everybody's worried about whether Greg will be involved in the new BIONICLE and nobody's even mentioned pro skateboarder Andy MacDonald. The one who TRULY made BIONICLE great!

Something I should also mention about "ironically terrible humor"... sometimes it's funnier if you make it sound like it was unintentionally terrible than if you make it so over-the-top that you can't take it seriously. There's a contest called the Lyttle Lytton Contest (won't link to it here since some entries are not BZP-appropriate) where the goal is to write a short entry that sounds like it could be the first sentence of a terrible novel. But to do that, you can't make it seem like it's meant as a joke, or it'll just seem forced.

I hope my comment in the comics poll for the ongoing Ninjago comic wasn't seen as one of those harsh or passive-aggressive comments. I didn't really find any of the comics in that poll funny (just being honest here), but as I said, I'm sure there are people who do, and I'm glad you're at least trying to shake up the stagnation of the BZPower comics forum.

 

I barely ever ventured into the comics forum back in the day unless I saw a funny-looking link in somebody's sig, and nowadays I pretty much never go there. But I would love for more comic writers and artists here to experiment with new formats and give me a reason to visit there again.

 

I really love a lot of the My Little Pony fan comics I see shared on sites like Equestria Daily, and I wish there were more comics like that within this community — comics with real care put into crafting not just the visuals but also the stories. They don't even have to be ongoing storylines with running jokes and the like — even one-shot comics like you see in the Sunday funnies can be fun and exciting, often more so than a comic that has a particular joke that it keeps returning to.

 

And "care put into the visuals" doesn't have to mean photorealism or mimicking some "official" style — there are plenty of great webcomics like "Hyperbole and a Half", "XKCD", and "Hark! A Vagrant" that all embrace a sketchy, informal style but are still able to keep a consistent visual language. These are all types of comics that keep me coming back and reading more, much more effectively than formulaic sprite comics.

 

Anyway, sorry for rambling. I hope you aren't upset by me not liking your Ninjago comic. I can tell it's the sort of thing some people might find funny. Maybe on a different day I could even curtail my own expectations and really find enjoyment that kind of humor. But for the most part it just doesn't appeal to me.

With names like that I had no idea what I was reading for a moment. But I quickly caught on.

 

Never really had the attention span for that kind of role-playing myself. It's hard for me to get in-character and stay in-character while still remaining aware of everything that's going on. Even spontaneous role-playing that used to spring up in IM conversations used to make me a bit uncomfortable as I tried to keep up with what was going on.

Plus, LEGO already tried releasing plenty of summaries and videos like that several times and they didn't work. New fans STILL found the old storyline tedious, confusing, and inaccessible.

 

If that video were the miracle people make it out to be, then BIONICLE would have been every bit as successful in 2008 as it had been in 2002. It wasn't, not by a longshot. The only thing videos like that were genuinely any good for was a recap and nostalgia trip for people who had already experienced the older storyline. Their benefits for new fans were paltry by comparison.

 

The summary in question being four to seven years out-of-date won't magically make it more effective — if anything, it will reduce its effectiveness by recapping a storyline that even fewer fans within the target audience will have any nostalgia for.

I don't know, couldn't we just decide not to care about that sort of thing? I tend to ignore all that anyway, especially now that I have some distance from the story.

 

I don't think it would be that big a deal, especially since a big time skip could have changed things in the interim. We wouldn't have to explain the Toa's current appearance, for example, if there are thousands of years of story between 2010 and 2015. For all we know, their Nuva transformation just wore off over time.

I've heard this kind of idea a couple times and to be honest it makes the aversion some people have to reboots make even less sense to me. If you're willing to go without clear explanations for the differences between the old BIONICLE and the new one, and just imagine convenient excuses for those changes, couldn't you do exactly the same thing in the event of a hard reboot and imagine the two stories are connected?

 

The issue I see is that the people who are most adamantly opposed to the idea of a reboot that doesn't share a continuity with the old storyline are the people least able to "decide not to care" about whatever inevitable retcons and changes bother them. So many people go out of their way to present themselves as particular, demanding, and nigh-unpleasable and then expect the LEGO Group to cater to them instead of the fans and potential fans who are actually more relevant to the theme's future.

I dunno, that's not a perfect analogy. Even if it was a "continuation" the story would still be updated, maybe even in a good way, and the sets would be entirely different anyway. So it would be like an old horse with cybernetic enhancements to make it stronger and faster, but the changes have caused him to be emotionally unstable during the race, so sometimes he breaks down (mentally, he'll be perfect physically) over his issues of the past.

Not really, not at all. In this analogy the horses represent potential customers, not the BIONICLE sets or storyline, so nothing LEGO does will change the behavior of the horses or the outcome of the race.

 

Reintroducing BIONICLE is a gamble, and while it's possible to "hedge your bets" by doing some things that appeal to older fans (like using characters and masks that appeal to nostalgia, something that most good reboots do), it has to be done in moderation. A lot of older fans are, to put it bluntly, picky and unreliable. Many of them are fully prepared to declare the new BIONICLE "ruined" if it fails to meet their expectations in any way — expectations they've had four years to reinforce. Some fans have even whined about the logo being too "kiddish" because it's slightly thicker than the old one.

 

I've heard lots of wonderful ideas for how a continuation could potentially work, but they all still have a significant risk of alienating new and old fans alike. The risk of pandering to fans who have already decided what kind of sets and storyline they are willing to tolerate before they even have a glimpse of them outweighs the reward. Not only are newer fans a more reliable audience for building toys in general, but they haven't been fine-tuning their expectations for years and so will be open to any number of ideas based on their quality, not based on how perfectly they mesh with an already imperfect precedent.

 

A time skip seems to be the most popular idea of how to get a "fresh start" even in a continuation, and it's an idea even I was somewhat fond of for a long time, but even a time skip would tie the hands of the writers and designers by forcing them to come up with new in-universe excuses for each and every change they make that contradicts the original sets and storyline. Example from the original storyline:

 

As an example, every single set of Matoran had to be given an excuse for why they looked different than previous Matoran. 2003? "Well, the 2001 Matoran were taught to rebuild themselves". 2004? "Well, the 2001 Matoran sets were shrunken versions of these, their natural forms". 2006? "Well, they were rebuilt into weird deformed versions by a mad genius (this example was particularly appalling, because like a lot of things in 2006 it took what could have become a bold new design standard — "Matoran don't all have to look alike" — and immediately treated it as weird and unnatural). 2007? "Well, the mutagen in the water magically cured their deformities". 2008? "Well, the energies of Karda Nui made the Matoran taller". As long as previous sets and story remained 100% official, the designers couldn't just treat new ideas as NORMAL, they had to come up with increasingly contrived excuses for why it was different.

Retcons could be used to get around that, but they have their own share of problems, and to be honest, a lot of older fans would probably not be any more open to major retcons than to a complete reboot.

Since we're on the subject of edutainment... anyone else here remember Zoombinis?