Aanchir

I think my first exposure to BZPower was in 2004 or so? It may have been linked from somewhere on LEGO.com or I may have gotten there via a search for Bionicle news. In any case, I distinctly remember reading news about the upcoming Vahki and Dark Hunter sets here. I remained a lurker for a year or two and finally joined in 2006 so I could share my art, MOCs, and questions for Greg Farshtey.

Isn't Ulysses itself like a nerdy Ulysses? Like, I know for certain that dropping references to mythology and literature all over the place in high school would get me pegged as a nerd just as quickly as dropping comic book or sci-fi references. Anyway, I haven't read Ready Player One myself, but with the movie on its way I've seen people sharing excerpts that make me rather uncomfortable with its handling of gender-related issues.

Hmm… the only feline CCBS MOC I've made was my Geiger Tiger (top/side), but the proportions of that one are very "alien". If you were to use a similar technique for the sides you'd probably want to also use other parts to fill in the top and bottom of the body as well as the shoulders. A more lifelike feline MOC I quite admire is Alieraah's Obsidian Panther, but I don't really know how the interior structure of that works. Still, it might at least give you some ideas of parts you can use for shaping. Something else that can be useful for making MOCs of a real-life animal can be to look up photos or diagrams of that animal's skeleton on the internet. While you obviously have to simplify (it's VERY difficult to give a MOC a fully articulated spine), it can be a good way to figure out the relative position of the joints, length of the legs and body, etc.

Tbh, I don't know if we can even assume that biological reproduction tells us anything about the characters' organic/mechanical ratios. Just because creatures can't be "born" with pistons or gears or metal plating in our world doesn't mean it would have to be the same way in a fantasy world. That said, I do think that we can pretty safely assume that a lot of the G2 characters' exterior details are "clothing" and not a part of their bodies, just based on the fact that the Toa changed most of their armor between years one and two, and it didn't happen by way of a supernatural transformation like most armor redesigns in G1 Bionicle. Instead, Ekimu just crafted them new armor.

Ideally, you shouldn't be able to. After all, this is just a different process for creating the same compound (ethylene) which is used to make polyethylene plastic. It's not as though they're switching from polyethylene to another type of plastic that has different physical properties, or changing the actual process of turning the plastic granulate into bricks.

A couple of the supposed plot holes you describe are almost certainly intentional hooks the writers left for future stories: we're apparently supposed to learn more about Wu's fate in Season 8, and more about the dragons in Season 9. In the case of Pythor, he's probably lying low and scheming somewhere, like any career criminal might do if they manage to make a clean getaway after their latest plans have been thwarted. Also, we were already shown where the Realm Crystal is at the beginning of Skybound — in Cyrus Borg's vault. Because most of the events of Skybound were undone by Jay's wish, Nadakhan never would have retrieved it. And after Day of the Departed, Master Yang is still the Temple of Airjitzu's resident ghost, albeit keeping his presence hidden from all the ninja but Cole.

Currently, there's not a big difference in price between oil-based plastics and bioplastics. Plant-based bioplastics actually used to be MORE expensive, but as the technology's evolved and become more widely adopted it's gotten cheaper while the cost of oil-based plastics has continued to increase. Those trends may continue, but I don't think it would have a huge impact on the cost of LEGO sets, as the cost of the plastic itself makes up only a small part of the cost of a set. If anything, as LEGO expands their use of bioplastics, we may see piece counts rise faster than prices.

This is definitely a cool set, though I agree that the bikes are not super exciting to someone who's been collecting for a while. I really wish we could get another bike set with a play feature as fun as Kai's Blade Cycle's pop-out blades. Besides the falcon motif on Zane's bike, another thing that I like about it is how the Dark Azur really makes the color scheme pop. I feel the same way about the Flame Yellowish Orange on Kai's Katana V11 and the Bright Yellowish Green on Lloyd's Ninja Nightcrawler, and I am really hoping the next vehicles for Cole, Nya, and Jay will also have exciting color combinations like that. But if they don't I might just have to MOC Season 8 style ninja vehicles for them myself! Regarding Mr. E, my difficulty avoiding Season 8 spoilers from the episodes that have already aired in Australia means I have some theories about what his identity might be, but in any case I'm really grateful that the designers have done a better job lately ensuring that the identity of "mystery characters" isn't obvious from the very first set they appear in.

You are not, and since there are other Harry Potter sets coming out I wouldn't be surprised if we see some classrooms, dormitories, and/or offices. The one part of Hogwarts I don't expect to see as a set again is the Chamber of Secrets since the Basilisk is included in this set, and if there were a separate Chamber of Secrets set planned they would probably save it for that one.

My brother and I have already gotten all five of this year's Elves sets. It's so cool that there's an elemental creature and elemental weapon for each of the four main elves! I also love their new armor. We've only built two of the sets so far but will probably build another this weekend. In some of the Toy Fair pics I've seen on other sites, there's a Netflix icon by the Elves display, but I don't know if that means we can expect a new season of Secrets of Elvendale or just that the previous season will continue to be available. I hope the former! This year's LEGO Friends refresh has a lot of charm. I quite like the bedroom sets and look forward to seeing Andrea and Emma get bedroom sets as well! It's also cool to see the whole team get a signature vehicle and headquarters that they can all share! Nothing super exciting to me among the Disney sets… nice to see Mulan make an appearance, but I'm a bit bummed that Moana didn't wind up becoming the same sort of persistent merchandising juggernaut as Frozen.

It actually does include a Hufflepuff student (Susan Bones). Though a lot of people have mistaken her for Ginny due to her long red hair. As the designer explained on Reddit, there aren't many Hufflepuffs in the first two movies.

We had an amazing fantasy castle with a moat just last year!

We're less Bionicle-focused than we used to be, but I'm gonna be honest, there's never a whole lot of discussion of LEGO themes that aren't Bionicle (to my chagrin). There was a moderate amount of activity prior to Bionicle G2's cancellation but it's really waned since then. Any drama that happens here tends to mostly escape my notice until after the fact, though I don't mean to say that as if I'm glad to have been ignorant of whatever nastiness has gone down, because people getting hurt sucks, even more so when some of them are people I care about. I don't really wish this place would go back how it used to be… if anything, I just wish it could have more success changing with the times. With Bionicle being gone there's not a whole lot to say about it that hasn't been said before, and while I do wish more of my friends were still here I also wish that the forums had a little more new blood. Of course, social media has been supplanting internet forums on a wider scale, so perhaps some of that decline in activity has always been out of anyone's control.

The last non-licensed Pirates sets were in 2015, though there was also a Pirates of the Caribbean set last year. And of course that's not counting 2016's Ninjago sky pirates. In general I think a lot of the general categories LEGO's used before could probably do well again at some point in the future. Like you mention, there's the underground, underwater, and globetrotting adventure genres that LEGO has already revisited in the past decade (Power Miners, Atlantis, Pharaoh's Quest) and might be inclined to revisit again. I'd add spy/secret agent themes to that list, which LEGO first touched on in Alpha Team and later in Agents and Ultra Agents. There's also always the classic evergreen series like Castle, Pirates, and Space. If the Jurassic World franchise burns out at any point Dino could become an option again as well. And LEGO being Danish, I wouldn't put it past them to revisit Vikings at some point. Ultimately it's all just a matter of picking the right theme at the right time. One that I don't really anticipate coming around again anytime soon (excluding the possibility of some Hollywood blockbuster, anyway) is Western, because the Western genre simply hasn't been especially popular with kids in a long time from what I can tell. We even talked in my film class last semester about how the ubiquity it once enjoyed in film and TV has largely been supplanted by the superhero genre. Yeah, I'm honestly not surprised that Western isn't super popular. Vikings would be cool to see again at some point. Remember in about 2000-2003 when they did sports? Like Basketball, Soccer, and Hockey? Do you think they'd do that again? I remember owning the big technic hockey set and I thought it was really cool! If memory serves me correctly, I haven't seen any sets like that since the '03-'04 timeframe. Were they just not very popular or more collector's items? Sports could be interesting and LEGO has done plenty of sports-focused minifigure blind bags, including two entire sports-focused series: the Team GB minifigures in Great Britain and the DFB (German Football Association) in Germany. I think, like a lot of early 2000s sets, the original Sports sets probably didn't do very well by today's standards. But it might be something LEGO would be willing to try again with a renewed emphasis on building.

The last non-licensed Pirates sets were in 2015, though there was also a Pirates of the Caribbean set last year. And of course that's not counting 2016's Ninjago sky pirates. In general I think a lot of the general categories LEGO's used before could probably do well again at some point in the future. Like you mention, there's the underground, underwater, and globetrotting adventure genres that LEGO has already revisited in the past decade (Power Miners, Atlantis, Pharaoh's Quest) and might be inclined to revisit again. I'd add spy/secret agent themes to that list, which LEGO first touched on in Alpha Team and later in Agents and Ultra Agents. There's also always the classic evergreen series like Castle, Pirates, and Space. If the Jurassic World franchise burns out at any point Dino could become an option again as well. And LEGO being Danish, I wouldn't put it past them to revisit Vikings at some point. Ultimately it's all just a matter of picking the right theme at the right time. One that I don't really anticipate coming around again anytime soon (excluding the possibility of some Hollywood blockbuster, anyway) is Western, because the Western genre simply hasn't been especially popular with kids in a long time from what I can tell. We even talked in my film class last semester about how the ubiquity it once enjoyed in film and TV has largely been supplanted by the superhero genre.

Ninjago's been around for over seven years now and I'm curious how people feel about how its quality has held up over the years. Have the sets and story gotten better, worse, or stayed about the same? Overall, I feel that Ninjago started strong and has generally gotten stronger. It's true that there are a few sets from early in the theme's run that still feel outstanding, like 9441 and 2507. But I also feel like the sets have gotten much more detailed and refined. This is most obvious with sets that are specific redesigns of earlier ones, like 70738 versus 9446 or 70595 versus 9449, but also apparent with a lot of other sets like 70596, 70627, and the ninja vehicles from the movie. And while some of the most memorable moments of the show for me are still early ones like Zane discovering his true nature as a Nindroid, the characters have certainly developed a lot since then. Nya in particular has gone from a sort of generic action girl (highly capable but still relegated to the role of supporting character) to a full member of the team with her own personal challenges to overcome and a deeper connection to her teammates. And Lloyd has evolved from a sort of a wannabe ninja to the emotional center of the team and sometimes even its de facto leader. But I'm curious to hear what everybody else thinks!

YES! I don't know what this project's chances of passing review are, but it was definitely a LEGO Ideas project I've been rooting for for well over a year. So adorable and such a good likeness! It would be so much fun to pose and play with.

Most of the comments I remember reading online about the Jurassic World sets when they were out is how popular and hard to find they were. So I guess like a lot of anecdotal sales info it probably varied depending on where you were. I don't particularly care about the Jurassic World brand, but this teaser shows the egg piece from the Angry Birds sets in tan, which is a pretty cool recolor.

Gosh, discovering you did something like this has to feel really bad. I agree with everyone else that you shouldn't beat yourself up over it. I doubt you were the only kid who didn't treat these free toys like some kind of precious treasures. And if it helps to joke about it, think of it this way: what you did actually made everybody else's GPKK and VMKK more valuable.

I really loved the 2015 Onua, since he felt so huge and powerful while still being decidedly shorter than the other Toa (well, except Pohatu, who was the same height but much leaner). I was a little disappointed that all the media went ahead and portrayed Onua as a giant, although they made it work within the context of the story.

Eurobricks still gets a lot more activity, but then, perhaps because they covered less specific subjects in the first place. Much easier to keep a general LEGO forum covering general LEGO than to try and expand a Bionicle-specific forum to cover general LEGO. Brickset Forum also seems to do pretty OK for itself, but it's a much younger forum that spun off from the main news site and database. I feel like most Brickset Forum users originally joined to comment on news or use the database. We certainly seem to be doing a lot better than other theme-specific LEGO forums like classic-castle.com (forums largely inactive) and classic-space.com (once a fairly active discussion site, but it changed ownership and seems to have been replaced with a poorly written site advertising random non-LEGO products).

Well, the title kinda sums it up. Who is your favorite ninja? I left an "other" box for characters who aren't really part of the main ninja team like Dareth, Skylor, Seliel, and Lil' Nelson. After you vote in the poll I'd love if you'd leave a comment explaining what it is about your choice that appeals most to you! Mine was Zane for a long time, since as an autistic person I related a lot to his social awkwardness and analytical way of thinking. I also loved following the story of him discovering and coming to terms with his past from the 2011 chapter books onward. But around Season 5 I started to relate a lot to Nya's fear of failure spurred by years of high expectations, her independent streak, and her ongoing struggle to reconcile her romantic feelings with her growth as an individual. She became my favorite shortly thereafter. It helps that I absolutely LOVE her various costume designs, especially from season 7 onward when she finally gets a color to herself. I look forward to reading other people's choices!

I guess… unsurprised? A summer wave would have been nice (especially since Ava wasn't in any of the sets for the first half of the year, grrr) but I never anticipated it would be likely to last beyond 2018. It's still fairly rare for a non-evergreen LEGO theme, even a "big bang" theme, to last more than three years. Ninjago having enough momentum to become evergreen caught even the LEGO Group by surprise, and that was a theme that showed an extraordinary level of performance from its very first year onward. Absent any signs that Nexo Knights was setting new sales or viewership records, neither we fans nor The LEGO Group had any reason to expect it would be "the next Ninjago". Frankly, even the fact that Elves has remained with us for a fourth year came as a bit of a pleasant surprise. Mostly I'm bothered by the glee some AFOLs have expressed, along with the bizarre insistence by Castle fans that a two and a half year run is indicative of failure and that LEGO should go back to the classic themes like Castle, Space, and Pirates, when very few incarnations of those themes ever manage to turn out more than five consecutive waves of sets.

I'm pretty sure it's been asked at least once every year since G1 ended and the old forums went down, maybe even before that. And, for the first time I think I'm going to answer "yes". Activity is way down from a few years ago, or even just last year. There's no real new info to discuss, even less than there was during 2011-2013. Mafia games struggle to find 20 players when 30+ was the norm not too long ago. I can't remember the last time a topic went to 5 pages. Although, it seems like official LEGO support will continue for at least a while, even if there are like, half as many people entering into raffles as there were when they were introduced.(Which was pretty recent.) So, yeah, might be on it's way out, but don't let that stop you from enjoying it while it lasts. I know I am. Frankly, there's routinely plenty of new LEGO info to discuss, it's just that hardly anybody seems to really want to discuss anything that isn't Bionicle. I didn't at all mind the forum's less active years during Hero Factory and G2's run (certainly it became much easier to connect with other members instead of always feeling drowned out in a flood of activity or overwhelmed by endless back-and-forth arguments) but I'm definitely beginning to miss when there was more point to coming here. I've done my best as a news reporter to try and make this a welcoming place for fans of other LEGO themes. It hasn't been very successful as far as I can tell. Even the people who do discuss other LEGO themes on occasion seem to be people who've been here for years — LEGO fans who weren't around for Bionicle G1 seem to have an easier time connecting with others on social media or in private chat groups. Some of this site's strengths over other FOL forums had always been in story/media discussion and non-brick-based creative expression, but while there are still amazing LEGO fan artists out there, and still plenty of people getting super excited for LEGO stories, it feels like there's nothing I can do to make them want to set up roots here. So yeah… wasn't having a good day today and this topic hasn't exactly warmed my spirits. I'm going to stick around on BZPower as long as I can, but for whatever reason I don't think the community's on the verge of making any big strides adapting to a status quo where Bionicle isn't a prominent fixture.

She's really cute! I love her spiky wristbands! Really cool how much personality you manage to give these creations at such a small scale. Also impressive how well you were able to use the Vladek masks despite their lack of versatile connection points.