TheSkeletonMan939 Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 (edited) This is just something I've been thinking about the past few days... do you consider the 2009 story year, considering it was a new world with new characters and an almost entirely new story, to be a soft reboot?A soft reboot is when a story takes an entirely different direction while not completely obliterating past adventures or stories... generally they have new characters, or a new location, or take place during a different time. These new adventures take place in the same world as the previous incarnation of the franchise, though. For instance, I think the 4th Transformers film has been described a soft reboot. It doesn't say the last three films didn't happen, but the trilogy was deliberately ignored/downplayed in order to focus on the new story. A hard reboot (that's just a plain ol' reboot) would just be a completely new story, like Bionicle 2015. So: was 2009 a soft reboot? Or at least intended to be? On the one hand, we started off on Bara Magna with new characters and an unfamiliar location. The only tie to the earlier story was that Tarduk saw the Red Star once. Summer came around and Mata Nui crash-landed through the Ignika, a direct tie to 2008. Still, though, previous storyline events were played down immensely, and references to the Matoran Universe in The Legend Reborn were scant, aside from Mata Nui saying he wanted to go home and save his people from a great evil. On the other hand... just one year later the two stories tied together in 2010. And then the end. Keep in mind that the original Bionicle storyline was supposed to go on for much longer (remember the Bionicle 5 script Farshtey posted on his blog?) so it's worth considering that as well. Edited January 11, 2015 by TheSkeletonMan939 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moku Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 I'd definitely consider BIONICLE 2009 to be a soft-reboot of some sorts, seeing as we got a brand new world with brand new races and cultures. I'm assuming that, along with the stagnant inika-builds kind of led to declining BIONICLE sales. That and the fragile limbs. Quote BZPRPG Profiles Nekka Banar Moku Savok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archon~ Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 The first half, yes. The second half, 50% soft-reboot. 2010 and onward, no. Quote Archon *** "For one to truly feel alive, the person must kill oneself a little bit each and every day." Check out my MOC, one of the new generation of Toa on Spherus Magna! ***Toa Kyraan*** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hasreadit Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Yes. I think that the 2009 would have worked better had all the loose ends in 2008 been tied up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toa Smoke Monster Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 I would consider it a soft reboot. As you said, it had new characters and new locations, but it didn't erase what happened in the previous eight years of the story. Even when Mata Nui did arrive on Bara Magna, it wasn't really necessary for newcomers to the story to know about his past and that of the MU. So yes, I do think of it as a soft reboot. Quote Everyone is one choice away from being the bad guy in another person's story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeb Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Yes, I think that's exactly what Lego was going for. But unfortunately they had to wrap up the story the very next year, so we didn't see very much of the story take place on Bara Magna as we did in the Matoran Universe and Aqua Magna. Quote The artist formerly known as ŜﮞρЄЯ־GЄNіﮞŜ־CЯЄ▲Ŧ۞Я BBC#69 Entry: Roodaka - Master of Manipulation BFTGM entries: Zigben · Ventox · Deflecto “Hail Denmark.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballom Nom Nom Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Hardly, given that all of the baggage of the previous story shortly intruded and brought back everything from earlier years. If it had been a reboot, that wouldn't have happened. ~B~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mask Maker Takuna Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 As I recall, the term "soft reboot" was explicitly used by TLG to describe '09. Greg made sure to say that it would eventually connect to the universe and story of '01-'08, but he did say that, for the first wave, it would seem that there was no connection to the previous line. Quote My Periodic Table of the BIONICLE Elements Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishers64 Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 No. They intended it that way, but it didn't turn out that way. 1 Quote Hero Factory RPG | Bionicle Mafia XXIX: Storyline & Theories Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonesiii Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Very soft, yes. But I wouldn't really use the term for it. It was LEGO and/or Greg that called it a reboot, and that choice of wording has caused confusion since. And plotwise it only really came up because Mata Nui would be landing there and taking over the prototype giant (which was even foreshadowed right away due to the map showing the pieces of that), which was the natural storyline progression from 2008's end, and Bionicle had had changes of location naturally in its past years. So it was just new planet instead of new island, basically. Different, but not enough to where I would prefer the term reboot be involved. 1 Quote The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive): Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants My Bionicle Fanfiction (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nidhiki of the Shadows Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 No. They intended it that way, but it didn't turn out that way. Yeah, I kind of agree. The first half embraced the whole "soft-reboot" idea, but there was a lot of information in the latter half that directly connected the two universes together. Plus, 2010 culminated in the two stories converging, which was way too soon after 2009 to consider it a true "soft-reboot". -NotS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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