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How would you reboot Bionicle?


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I've been sitting on ideas for a while I just need to publish that could work for a potential reboot of Bionicle and would like to see others thoughts as well.

First off I think that more elements should be introduced to the line to have the expanded lore and toyline match up rather than having to imagine half of the mentioned stuff in the later years. Doing this with full scale toa would be a problem however on a price basis so that leads into having there be no toa in the sense of larger hero status, but rather some exceptional islanders earn that title throughout their quest, and having a major emphasis on smaller builds meant to have parts swapped and combined would work well with that. Mask collecting was a huge part of G1 Bionicle, however it was eventually dropped as it is costly to produce so many colors off of a quickly retired and non-reusable part, my idea to possibly preserve the mask hunting gimmick while also providing room for new characters and ideas in later years is the "composite mask" which is assembled from a "visage" and "grill" piece that could also be hopefully integrated into system decoration with how the pieces would clutch in order to get the highest value from the molds. These mask parts would be randomly packed inside single and multipack sets of figures in a specific element that would be at a size small enough to hit between $5 and $10 per figure. This new army building playpattern with smaller figures would definitely be a different take that would be more accessible to young fans while also providing incentive to buy large amounts of sets in an older collectors situation. It would also put more emphasis on unity as the smaller figures could be combined in aesthetically pleasing ways and each element could get a story spotlight within the theme's media.

Larger sets should primarily be multipacks of the small figures rather than the huge and unaffordable sets of G2(as cool as they were), but exceptions should be made for iconic sets such as the exo toa(but technically in matoran scale as everyone is small and it should have a boxor as an alternate model as that would be some good nostalgia bait) and a few titan sized characters would also be a possibility if there was demand.

Storywise I think that there should be a prophecy of the toa like in generation 1 and 2 however it gets fulfilled in a way that is unexpected by the elders and tribes and instead is fulfilled with leading men among their ranks becoming toa while not having a huge visual upgrade or change and involving the islanders having to combine efforts to purge a threat from the land that ends an age of division and conflict between each tribe (especially between the elements of fire and ice). Some tribes will be in alliance with each other (such as steel and earth, water and ice, wind and fire, sound and light) whereas others will be hostile or neutral to each other (electricity being cut off from the rest of the elements for not being a stable ally) and a threat in the element of absence (a stand-in name for shadow/darkness) being awakened. One of those in the main cast will be of this dark element and pretending to be of the sound element who subtly sows division among the group until they can finally understand their destiny and purpose. The original 6 toa should return as islanders in the aforementioned main cast, but popular G1 matoran characters should also be reworked into this new cast. The element of stone should be substituted for something else to make it more appealing for the average customer to buy (similar to the replacement of subterra with aurelus in the successful bakugan reboot) but the friendly and welcoming nature of Pohatu should be preserved within this "new" element. Tahu should be less 2 dimensional as a leader figure and be given motivation for his aversion to unity from either a tragic loss or others failing him in the past. Kopaka should also have a reason for his distant nature that is the inverse of Tahu's so that each will be distinct from each other. Gali should be the responsible voice of reason as she usually has been, however she needs flaws as well, especially if she's the only female in the main cast(with focus on the more obscure Bionicle elements there should be a lot more girls of course.) Lewa should be the youngest and least experienced of the toa so that he can be the character who grows the most while also keeping an optimistic outlook on the odds, he should certainly have the most determination of them all(He must also remain the toa of air!). Onua should talk the least, so when he speaks it's most important, he should also be the smartest of the team, but have a potential to overanalyze situations. Other elements should get distinct characters as well, but the focus on that would only come if the elements are chosen to be more than 6(Provided this idea is even plausible) so I'm not going to spend any time trying to make new characters at this point. The three virtues must be maintained and every character must be distinct in order to hold the audience. Doing away with the whole memory loss arc could also allow the characters to have pasts that molded them into who they are, but takua could possibly still lose his memory in order to still have a connection to G1 without directly copying it.

If there were any character I would certainly make sure didn't get overlooked it would absolutely be Nuparu as he's just such a cool character who didn't get enough time in G1 to be the engineer and instead was kinda wasted as a toa inika/mahri.

If you want to respond to my ideas please quote this post as anything that doesn't, should be talking about your own ideas for a reboot.

Bazinga! I've been a Bionicle Fan since early 2015 and have been aware of it since 2008. Was a bit late to the party due to my age, but that doesn't matter now. Looking for krana and sealed G1 sets at below market value if possible, (otherwise it'll be a few years before I care to collect sets I don't care as much about) Bohrok Kal and Krana Kal Mask Pack sets are ones I am particularly looking for atm.

I go by Nektann or Marcato usually online.

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To be successful, I think a third reboot would need to strike a balance between appealing to old fans, while also being accessible and intriguing to new ones. 

To me, the ideal relaunch would be a distant future continuation of Generation 1, employing a significant timeskip to avoiding having to explain or deal with all of the convoluted leftover baggage from the unfinished serials and plot threads. We'd go back to basics, focusing on one city or island, with the only initial references to Gen1 being something like the Toa Mata featuring as the new Turaga, or old heroes namedropped as being legendary figures. 

Then as the story goes on and the world is gradually expanded, new locations and characters can be introduced to slowly fill in some of the blanks about the fates of other characters and factions from Gen 1, giving old fans the answers they've been waiting for in a way that doesn't overwhelm or confuse the new ones. 

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Doesn't need a reboot. Let sleeping dogs lie.

But if I had to, I'd basically go with what Nato G said. Far-future continuation of G1 with only hints and references to the old story. Also, no sets. Just books and comics. 
 

On 10/18/2022 at 6:56 PM, Nektann said:

Mask collecting was a huge part of G1 Bionicle, however it was eventually dropped as it is costly to produce so many colors off of a quickly retired and non-reusable part

This isn't true at all. Who told you this? Masks weren't expensive to make whatsoever. Lego stopped doing mask packs because they stopped selling well. Besides, you can't keep doing the same gimmick over and over. Gotta keep it fresh and new to keep kids excited and keep parents away from getting frustrated. 

Edited by Lorentz
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I'm not a fan of currently popular trend of reboots that effectively just re-tell an old story with modern special effects. The story's already been told, so we don't need to do it again.

I would do a clean break from the original G1 story and aim for a spiritual successor rather than a proper reboot. The protagonists would be new characters in a similar setting, most likely an island, but establish elements of a tone early on that would carry on through the story (as opposed to the increasing high-tech as G1 progressed). There might even be a Great Spirit who might be a massive robot, but saving the spirit would not be the focus of the story. The "reboot" would need room to tell new stories, adapting to the times it is written, and not pulled down by a complicated existing canon. Yet it also cannot lose the depth--the world needs to feel bigger than the audience is shown, such that kids can insert their own characters into the world. They might not even care about the main characters of the story so much as their own colorful MOC of the 5 sets they got for birthdays over 2 years fighting equally mishmashed villains of their own construction. Their own stories are most important, in a world that carries the spirit of Bionicle if not the characters or even the name.

A far-future sequel, as others have suggested, would fulfill this as well. The point being, a new world with a story there as inspiration, but less important than the ability of kids to tell their own stories, and without being bogged down by new versions of old characters for old fans to complain about how the reboot got them wrong or missed this VITALLY IMPORTANT part of the lore that was mentioned one time by Greg in a forum post and never heard of again.

All in all, the story is over. If you want to keep the spirit alive, rebooting an old tale isn't the way to do it.

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2 hours ago, Comptsy said:

All in all, the story is over. If you want to keep the spirit alive, rebooting an old tale isn't the way to do it.

I care more about getting constraction with fun builds back, even if it's mostly system while also having equally compelling lore.

I have been working through in my mind how to strike a balance with this such as classifying the elements by types such as:

Energy:(fire, electricity, light, plasma(lost fire tribe with varied abilities from fire), gravity, and ice(cold))

Substance: stone(though it should be more blinged out than brown), earth and water

Mediate: air, sound(lost air tribe with permutative abilities), vacuum(another air tribe with different specializations).

And then shadow is its own thing because it is the antithesis to all the elements.

 

I'm also thinking for it to start in the fire tribe's territory with the arrival of a takua type character sent with 6 stones that choose villagers to receive mask powers (while not changing their size to toa size, so there will be consistently small sets) as he travels across borders preparing each tribe for the arrival of the Great spirit in a world of darkness. This would allow for a focus on each tribe per episode of each media to handle a larger cast of collectible characters while having a main cast. The chosen villagers to get mask powers will be permanent cast members after each introduction whereas supporting cast members would go in and out of being featured in the media. (Nuparu and kapura will hopefully get the most screen time of the supporting cast) 

 

I don't want the main cast to be exact copies of the original 6, but I do also think each should be loosely based on their original characterization with more twists as to why they act the way they do. (Such as the new kopaka being a hermit and loner because he accidentally killed someone and can't forgive himself for example)

Edited by Nektann
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Bazinga! I've been a Bionicle Fan since early 2015 and have been aware of it since 2008. Was a bit late to the party due to my age, but that doesn't matter now. Looking for krana and sealed G1 sets at below market value if possible, (otherwise it'll be a few years before I care to collect sets I don't care as much about) Bohrok Kal and Krana Kal Mask Pack sets are ones I am particularly looking for atm.

I go by Nektann or Marcato usually online.

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