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opinion: no, we DON'T need bionicle back


Eiji Hino

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I'm not going to get embroiled in this, but thought I'd leave this here because I think you guys would be interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htqOrrlN6cw

It's a panel discussion with six of the people who were on the original Bionicle development team, including Greg Farshtey and Christian Faber. They talk at one point about the possibility of bringing the theme back in the future. I couldn't find where it is in the video but the whole thing is worth watching.

-L

 

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I'm afraid that by merely posting in this thread you have already become embroiled in the controversy.

As a famous Canadian philosopher once said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

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Greg's less than a decade away from retirement... By that point, he'll definitely have enough time to truly finish G1 online....

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On 12/22/2021 at 11:21 AM, (-Kopaka Toa of Ice-) said:

That is if Lego will officially allow it. It's still owned by lego company.

For now.

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On 12/23/2021 at 5:30 PM, Lorentz said:

For now.

I don't think Lego's ever sold its intellectual property, and ngl I don't think anyone except Lego could do Bionicle well. I used to be more open-minded, and then Disney Star Wars happened.

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6 hours ago, Master Inika said:

I don't think Lego's ever sold its intellectual property, and ngl I don't think anyone except Lego could do Bionicle well. I used to be more open-minded, and then Disney Star Wars happened.

Bionicle Mega Bloks

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5 hours ago, Mushy the Mushroom said:

Were these ever a thing?

My grandma got me and my brother this set and another similar one once. I thought they were a ripoff of Bionicle.

While trying to find them again, I discovered that they also sold them in Brazil, possibly without the Mega Blocks branding. I may have stumbled upon a whole lineage of ripoffs.

 

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On 12/15/2021 at 9:02 AM, Fyndegil said:

I'm afraid that by merely posting in this thread you have already become embroiled in the controversy.

As a famous Canadian philosopher once said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Such a wise Canadian philosopher. Has he ever written anything in song form? Or play any instrument, like IDK... the drums?

Because such a wise Canadian philosopher musician would make a fine addition to my vinyl album collection. :P 

Anyways despite the rush of jokes I feel coming on, I think its time to fly by night out of this thread. 

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All aboard the hype train!

 

 

 

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On 12/26/2021 at 2:42 PM, Fyndegil said:

My grandma got me and my brother this set and another similar one once. I thought they were a ripoff of Bionicle.

While trying to find them again, I discovered that they also sold them in Brazil, possibly without the Mega Blocks branding. I may have stumbled upon a whole lineage of ripoffs.

 

maelstrom index.jpg

I owned a few of these, they were actually pretty cool. Bionicle combined with Beyblades. 

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On 1/4/2022 at 11:27 AM, Fyndegil said:

I remember having fun with mine, although I think the plastic broke really easily.

Yeah the joints were deedee mega doodoo. That being said, the sockets had a little spot where you'd insert a small rubber disc, providing additional friction. They were also a hybrid of constraction and system. It was kinda cool.

Edited by Lorentz

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Now this is truly a topic of touchy opinions.

That being said I truly agree that we DON'T NEED Bionicle back. Sure we would all love it to come back but lets be real here for a second. I don't think it unsafe to say that a high majority of this fanbase are now adults. Even if you discovered Bionicle in the last full year of 2009 at a young age of 6 lets say that would put you at 19 now. So with that I am sticking with the idea that 95% of us are adults. Now back at the point on hand. We as adults really don't need a toy line to come back.  Sure many if not most of us still use our toys to create new and exciting characters and stories and we aren't hindered by the absence of new sets as there are literately countless ways to build with all the parts available and Lego does still make some parts in sets that fit our needs oh so well. Pus with 3D printing we get our fill of new masks and weapons. So on the mocing side yeah we don't need it back.

 

"How about the story?" I hear you ask well, that we can do on our own.  Besides people always complain about elements in the canon stories to begin with so this makes everyone happy to just make it as they see fit.

Really Bionicle at the end of the day is a toy for kids with cool stories. We are all but grown up and yes it would be awesome if kids today could have Bionicles on the shelves but that i no way means we need them back. Saying we need Bionicle back reminds me of oldmen in movies saying "back in my day we didn't need(insert modern tech or toy)." I'm sure we are all familiar with the people who claimed a kid could just have as much fun with a yoyo as a playstation. Not saying yoyos aren't cool but I don't think it would be sane to say that "we need yoyos back".  

 

We don't need Bionicles and kids don't need them but they will always be cool.

 

-Onvermel- 

 

Edited by Onvermel
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Long time lurker and I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree. Lots of people who argue for BIONICLE's return act like LEGO is obligated to keep the theme active or alive when really the way it is structured just wouldn't work in the current climate, LEGO is a much different company now than they were when BIONICLE was running, and it's such a harder sell in modern times. BIONICLE's original marketing was a product of its time, the internet was still fairly new so utilizing things like the MNOG and websites to discover more about its world was more exciting, but like I said that was 20 years ago.

 

Now, BIONICLE still does have an active fandom and it DOES get referenced from time to time, but honestly that's about as far as it goes. It is certainly a niche with a dedicated following, and occasionally on places like twitter and other social media I'll see people mention that "they should bring bionicles back" and the like. Now we definitely don't need it back as was previously stated, I've moved onto other hobbies and if LEGO never makes another BIONICLE product again I wont be too phased, I'm too old to care that much and a lot of other fans are as well. However I do occasionally get nostalgic and think about how that could be done and honestly? The only conceivable way I could think of is just make it a D2C theme comprised of pricier, more detailed remakes of older sets aimed specifically at fans (though they'd probably mostly utilize system parts and I know that would be polarizing to fans, but with all the system mecha and stuff I personally don't think it makes much of a difference.) They could release one or two initially to see how well they perform and release a couple figures at a time every few months or so like most premium figure lines (think of how SHF releases figures if that makes any sense.)

 

One of the main reasons why G2 even happened was because of fan demand, but BIONICLE cannot work as an evergreen theme anymore. However if there's still a following big enough that's interested in buying new product I feel like this would just be the best course of action. That way the expectations for sales aren't that high and it'd be an easier sell. After all, BIONICLE won the 90th anniversary fan vote twice, so there is a clear demand of some kind. It isn't gargantuan or anything but there's a clear handful of AFOL BIONICLE fans that would probably throw money at something like that. And if the first one or two figures were to underperform, then that's that.

 

Sorry for the long first post lol, and if I'm wrong about anything here please feel free to correct me or counter if anything I've said here sounds too outlandish. Again, not saying the theme NEEDS to come back cause it certainly doesn't, plus the amount of fan content like the games, fics, and MOCS are proof enough that LEGO isn't needed to keep this series alive, but when I hear people talk about how new "official" stuff could be made most of the time it just doesn't make any sense (i.e. another reboot in the form of a G3)

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I can see where you're coming from with that, but it sounds like something the company would go into expecting low sales, and that's still a risk. There may be a "demand" (IMO more apparent than real), but TLG probably interpreted the failure of G2 as a sign that the fandom doesn't put their money where their mouths are.

Come to think of it, that probably explains why they come across as hesitant to just accept the first 90th anniversary vote and announce a Bionicle set.

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24 minutes ago, Fyndegil said:

they come across as hesitant to just accept the first 90th anniversary vote and announce a Bionicle set.

The vote doesn't matter. The 90th Anniversary set was always going to be ultimately based on Lego's internal decision, not the results of the vote. 

Given Lego's general disinterest/lack of faith in the Bionicle theme, I think it's safe to assume the set won't be Bionicle even if we did actually win the vote. 

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28 minutes ago, Fyndegil said:

I can see where you're coming from with that, but it sounds like something the company would go into expecting low sales, and that's still a risk. There may be a "demand" (IMO more apparent than real), but TLG probably interpreted the failure of G2 as a sign that the fandom doesn't put their money where their mouths are.

Come to think of it, that probably explains why they come across as hesitant to just accept the first 90th anniversary vote and announce a Bionicle set.

Yeah you definitely pose a good point, making a product and expecting relatively low sales could be a risk, however if they make one and it exceeds expectations, they probably could continue. And yeah, funding one set as a means of gauging interest for something could lead to a loss of money, but considering we're talking about not making it an evergreen theme I think they'll bounce back. It WOULD be the final straw for BIONICLE in the eyes of TLG though.

As for why the ideas set hasn't been announced, usually that happens riiiight before it comes out. I find it interesting that the vote was done twice though, but I might just be overthinking stuff lol.

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17 hours ago, ZEROANON00 said:

And yeah, funding one set as a means of gauging interest for something could lead to a loss of money, but considering we're talking about not making it an evergreen theme I think they'll bounce back.

Why would they want to gauge interest again when they already did that seven years ago and got negative results?

There's not just the loss of money from low sales to worry about, but also the opportunity cost of not developing something that consumers will probably buy.

17 hours ago, ZEROANON00 said:

As for why the ideas set hasn't been announced, usually that happens riiiight before it comes out. I find it interesting that the vote was done twice though, but I might just be overthinking stuff lol.

Yeah, I might be reading too much into that too.

It's entirely possible that the anniversary set will be Bionicle. I had heard that Faber had vaguely said he's in talks with "corporations," or something like that, so maybe Lego really is considering a revival and using the anniversary set to gauge interest. I'm not keeping my hopes up, though.

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20 hours ago, Sir Kohran said:

I think he's been pretty clear that he doesn't plan to do more Bionicle writing by himself. 

doesn't currently plan

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5 hours ago, Fyndegil said:

Yeah, I might be reading too much into that too.

It's entirely possible that the anniversary set will be Bionicle. I had heard that Faber had vaguely said he's in talks with "corporations," or something like that, so maybe Lego really is considering a revival and using the anniversary set to gauge interest. I'm not keeping my hopes up, though.

Yeah tbh this makes more sense than what I proposed lol, after all it WAS voted for as opposed to TLG just making a set out of the blue. We'll see what happens ig.

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On 1/11/2022 at 11:34 PM, Nato The Whisperer said:

The vote doesn't matter. The 90th Anniversary set was always going to be ultimately based on Lego's internal decision, not the results of the vote. 

Given Lego's general disinterest/lack of faith in the Bionicle theme, I think it's safe to assume the set won't be Bionicle even if we did actually win the vote. 

That would be a big copout out of fear of losing money. If they do things like they did gen 1 then the "Internally Decided Theme" would work as a Bionicle theme.

One of the biggest fails in my opinion was CCBS. Lego was using it since since 2010 HF 2.0 and people were probably tired of it or it was too heavily associated with Hero Factory and CCBS pieces always seem to be expensive to make.

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5 hours ago, Fyndegil said:

Well realistically, what do you think they're going to do?

At the very least, wait to judge them until they actually announce the set.

That still worries me on many levels. On one side kids like most cool stuff but when on the adult collector side, when something different get announced when adults know which votes actually won then it can cause anger and loss of sales.

Think about it. It's you won a top of the line brand new car in a public giveaway (and the ticket money was going to help fund organizations) and a whole crowd was looking at the same car at the show. But when they tell you to come to the dealership, you get something completely different. like they cheated because the car was just for show and it's going to be indefinite ammount of months before the car comes.

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Nothing is guaranteed yet though, they did tell us that one of the three would get chosen to be the set, the vote was more of a bonus thing. Maybe (and this is a reach so don't get your hopes up) the vote was kept up so one of the three could be made into the set, and the vote was done to guage interest in seeing if one of the other two/both can be utilized in the future somehow. 

 

If people get upset that it isn't Bionicle/Space/etc, that's on them for getting expectations too high. I'm bracing for disappointment if anything.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Throwing my few coins at the topic:

As a fan of the story: It's fine if the official story doesn't continue. Some prefer their version of Bionicle over others. I have no problem with that in many cases.

As a builder and fan of the sets: I'd like to see the sets return even if it's the pieces are updated. There are unique parts to Bionicle that other sets can't replace or replicate. There are sets that I find fun to build but I missed out on. There are even some sets I would like to rebuild but currently can't.

Simply put I would like a set rerelease/update like they do with the Star Wars line, but don't really mind the story staying where it is.

 

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Wether we need it or not is up to each of us to decide for themselves. I think, that time has changed. Back then, when it started, in 2001, it was something new, and interesting. But time has changed. And even if people ask to bring it back i think thre is no point fo lego to do so, not because they don't want to do this as a matter, but simply because it's not revelant for them in the terms of profit. We have MARVEL and Disney. They have much more influent and popular property, wich Lego has been licensed, and they make even more profit from LEGO MArvel Super Heroes, rather than they make from producing it's own. Still, BIONICLE is my childhood as well especially 2001-2003 story, so it's in my hearth as well, but nothing can last forever, and sometimes it is better to end on good terms rather than end of failures. As for G2, i think they re released BIONICLE too early, and in a midst of strong rivalry from other LEGO licensies such as Disney and Marvel. Like that.

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