Would You Have Simplified The Story?

[JAG18]

And if so how?

Yes, I'm working from the assumption that the story was too complicated/complex.  If you want to argue that point go ahead, but I wanted to get some opinions and viewpoints on this topic.  

Alright, that's what I wanted to ask.  Feel free to ignore my stream of consciousness below.  I'm just trying to sort this out for myself.

What made the story so complex?

"Bionicle made you work for your story."  This is something I heard in a recent(ish) BIONICLE video, but I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner.  
I think it's fair to say Bionicle was trying to imitate Star Wars (ironic considering the role SW played in Bionicle's conception).  In the late eighties to early nineties no new SW content came out (the so-called "dark time"), but that ended with the Dark Empire comics and Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy.  By the mid-nineties, Lucasfilms was organizing the official multimedia project "Shadows of the Empire" and afterwards a lot of people involved were excited to make another one centered around the "New Jedi Order" books.  Then the prequels came out and threw a wrench into the plans.

Either way, Bionicle came out right in the middle of this and honestly it did a good job of being its own multimedia project.  That right there made the story complicated.  True, any long running book series or TV show can produce a lot of lore, but at least it's easy to follow if you're willing to put in the time and effort to read/watch the whole thing.  But, if you want the whole Bionicle story you need to jump between several different mediums.  Most of it told out of order.

I know you technically just need to read the comics and watch the movies and bam you got the entire story.  Add in the books and you're even better off.  Then it gets trickier the more you add on.  The games?  Only certain ones that you need to check BS01 to know which ones are canon or not.  Add in the serials and of course Greg quotes and it starts to get complicated.  Which brings me to...

Canon Questions:

Aside from having to work to find out what is and isn't canon (usually games) you also have to deal with two sources contradicting each other (how were the shadow Toa defeated?)  This isn't unique to Bionicle.  So many games and stories told the story of how The Death Star plans were stolen that eventually someone had to come down and say, "They each stole a part of the plans."  George R. R. Martin had to deal with questions in the lead up to the show "House of The Dragon" about whether it was a separate canon from the source books it's based on or the "real" version.  
But there comes a point when it feels like you'd better off just reading a ton of BS01 articles to learn the entire story, which sounds a little ridiculous (and this is coming from someone who enjoys getting lost on a good wiki).  Maybe the answer is just enjoy whatever Bionicle content you want.  Play the games, read the books or comics, watch the movies and not really care if you get the entire story.

As someone who followed the story pretty closely from '07-'10 I know it was hard to keep all this straight and I'm sure plenty of people at the time acted like that and just didn't care about this or that Greg quote.  

Bionicle's Legacy:

Something I've been dancing around is, should I look at this from the perspective of someone who grew up in the time of Bionicle or someone born later who discovered  Bionicle recently and wants to enjoy it now.  I know it can be hard to do that for anything that lasts a long time and some things you just had to be there to experience, but I do think Bionicle is a unique challenge.
But then, maybe that's not the point.  Arguably pointless revelations like the Av-Matoran Bohrok connection seems pointless let alone every add-on canonization that came later, but I do think there were a lot of people at the time who wanted Greg to define everything so they could rush over to edit BS01.  Maybe it's OK Bionicle was so confusing because at the time they were a lot of people who loved it for that.  Most stories are lucky to have a huge and devoted fanbase during their run let alone to be able to gain fans years down the road.  

My Answer:
Just have fewer extra-material things.  Or in other words, Greg could have shown more restraint in canonizing things especially after Bionicle ended.  I appreciate Greg spending so much time answering fan questions, but I do think that'd help the problem a bit.
The bonus for this is it doesn't cut any actual Bionicle content.  You can enjoy the serials, books, short stories, and more, but at least there aren't a dozen-and-one facts you'd only learn by browsing BS01.  

 

What do you think?

[Nato G]

A big problem with Bionicle was the sheer number of different things you had to read to get the full story. The comics, books, serials, games, and podcasts all told pieces of the story, and you needed to catch up on all of them to get the full picture, which was a big barrier for entry for new fans. The movies gloss over and condense a lot of stuff, and are actually pretty poor representations of the story, but for a lot of casual fans, the movies were all they knew. 

A lot of modern Lego themes have a TV series of some kind, with the books and comics not being as essential to understanding the main storyline. I think if Bionicle had gone that route it would've been far easier for new fans to catch up on everything. 

I also agree that rampant Greg canonisation has been an issue for a long time. To my mind, it speaks to a certain degree of entitlement from some fans, who felt that their headcanon or theory was so perfect and important that it needed to be forced on everyone. Given that Greg was just one part of a wider story team, I also feel that fans - especially those who maintain BS01 - have been too quick to take everything he says as gospel. If you track down the original source of some of the stuff he's "canonised", anything he said anything vaguely positive about has been taken as fact, even when all he said was something non-committal like "makes sense". On top of that, I think it's fair to say that Greg's memory of Bionicle seems to be pretty terrible, as there's many instances on BS01 of him contradicting himself or past canon.

From a narrative perspective, I would have removed the whole Barraki and League Of Six Kingdoms storyline. It added a whole 100,000 backstory that had to be retconned into the timeline, and weakened Teridax as a villain by making the Barraki the inspiration for his plan, instead of it being his own idea. The idea of a bunch of powerless schmucks somehow ruling a universe of super-powered beings for any period of time is laughable, and letting them freely conquer and kill makes Mata Nui look even more cruel and complacent in hindsight. 2007 could have easily reused the Piraka as villains and given them new mutated forms, as they were the first villain team to have some real characterisation to them, and their story was largely left unfinished due to the sudden switch to the new setting. 

Personally I also would've dropped characters like Artakha and the Order Of Mata Nui. Having all of these ultra-powerful beings around who'd always teleport in out of nowhere in the nick of time to save the heroes and/or lecture them on what they're doing wrong took a lot of agency away from the people who were supposed to be the protagonists. 

[JAG18]

15 hours ago, Nato G said:

A lot of modern Lego themes have a TV series of some kind, with the books and comics not being as essential to understanding the main storyline. I think if Bionicle had gone that route it would've been far easier for new fans to catch up on everything.

I've always been a little salty about how LEGO started handing out TV shows after Gen 1 ended.  I understand it wasn't really something LEGO could have done in the early '00's, but still.

I like your thoughts on the Barraki, but it brings up another point about what made Bionicle's story...not complex just a little weird.  How the story would have to change to fit the sets.  I get without the sets the story wouldn't exist, but sometimes it gets old there always has to be an explanation for why the Toa look different, why they have new weapons, or a character (usually a titan set) has to be shoehorned into the story because they're a set.  Story wise, I like your idea of having the Piraka come back in '07, but I'd personally have trouble accepting that Hakann is now a squid. 

[Master Inika]

I think BIONICLE only got out of hand with people trying to concretely explore every little detail. I remember being really excited when I logged onto BIONICLEsector01 one day and saw the new "Toa Mangai" article. I found its origin and association with Toa Naho interesting. Pretty soon, though, there were all kinds of questions, like if the beach Takua wakes up on in MNOG was called "Lhikan Beach" and if the Three Brothers Bridge in Ko-Koro was named after three of the four Toa Mangai of Ice. It was a little ridiculous, as if these people couldn't use their brains and simply accept that there are probably a ton of places on Mata Nui named after the Toa Mangai. Looking at the Toa Mangai page now, and seeing how much we've squeezed out of Greg about random meaningless details, is pretty weird.

Aside from the fan interactions, though, I'm satisfied with how hard to penetrate BIONICLE was. As a kid, I liked trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I felt like it took me seriously and didn't spoon-feed me information. That being said, having a full TV show that is clearly the "main" canon with supplementary comics and books might have made the series more profitable. As much as I like Ninjago, I don't know if I'd want Ninjago's kind of wackiness in, say, 2007 or 2008. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I appreciated BIONICLE's more grimdark elements. To me, they felt earned and I think LEGO did it right, without it being cringey to look back on. Like Shadow the Hedgehog.

In hindsight, I don't think I'd change anything except maybe the fan interactions. They're where things began going off the rails.

[TahnokTrapper]

21 hours ago, JAG18 said:

And if so how?

Yes, I'm working from the assumption that the story was too complicated/complex.  If you want to argue that point go ahead, but I wanted to get some opinions and viewpoints on this topic.  

Alright, that's what I wanted to ask.  Feel free to ignore my stream of consciousness below.  I'm just trying to sort this out for myself.

What made the story so complex?

"Bionicle made you work for your story."  This is something I heard in a recent(ish) BIONICLE video, but I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner.  
I think it's fair to say Bionicle was trying to imitate Star Wars (ironic considering the role SW played in Bionicle's conception).  In the late eighties to early nineties no new SW content came out (the so-called "dark time"), but that ended with the Dark Empire comics and Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy.  By the mid-nineties, Lucasfilms was organizing the official multimedia project "Shadows of the Empire" and afterwards a lot of people involved were excited to make another one centered around the "New Jedi Order" books.  Then the prequels came out and threw a wrench into the plans.

Either way, Bionicle came out right in the middle of this and honestly it did a good job of being its own multimedia project.  That right there made the story complicated.  True, any long running book series or TV show can produce a lot of lore, but at least it's easy to follow if you're willing to put in the time and effort to read/watch the whole thing.  But, if you want the whole Bionicle story you need to jump between several different mediums.  Most of it told out of order.

I know you technically just need to read the comics and watch the movies and bam you got the entire story.  Add in the books and you're even better off.  Then it gets trickier the more you add on.  The games?  Only certain ones that you need to check BS01 to know which ones are canon or not.  Add in the serials and of course Greg quotes and it starts to get complicated.  Which brings me to...

Canon Questions:

Aside from having to work to find out what is and isn't canon (usually games) you also have to deal with two sources contradicting each other (how were the shadow Toa defeated?)  This isn't unique to Bionicle.  So many games and stories told the story of how The Death Star plans were stolen that eventually someone had to come down and say, "They each stole a part of the plans."  George R. R. Martin had to deal with questions in the lead up to the show "House of The Dragon" about whether it was a separate canon from the source books it's based on or the "real" version.  
But there comes a point when it feels like you'd better off just reading a ton of BS01 articles to learn the entire story, which sounds a little ridiculous (and this is coming from someone who enjoys getting lost on a good wiki).  Maybe the answer is just enjoy whatever Bionicle content you want.  Play the games, read the books or comics, watch the movies and not really care if you get the entire story.

As someone who followed the story pretty closely from '07-'10 I know it was hard to keep all this straight and I'm sure plenty of people at the time acted like that and just didn't care about this or that Greg quote.  

Bionicle's Legacy:

Something I've been dancing around is, should I look at this from the perspective of someone who grew up in the time of Bionicle or someone born later who discovered  Bionicle recently and wants to enjoy it now.  I know it can be hard to do that for anything that lasts a long time and some things you just had to be there to experience, but I do think Bionicle is a unique challenge.
But then, maybe that's not the point.  Arguably pointless revelations like the Av-Matoran Bohrok connection seems pointless let alone every add-on canonization that came later, but I do think there were a lot of people at the time who wanted Greg to define everything so they could rush over to edit BS01.  Maybe it's OK Bionicle was so confusing because at the time they were a lot of people who loved it for that.  Most stories are lucky to have a huge and devoted fanbase during their run let alone to be able to gain fans years down the road.  

My Answer:
Just have fewer extra-material things.  Or in other words, Greg could have shown more restraint in canonizing things especially after Bionicle ended.  I appreciate Greg spending so much time answering fan questions, but I do think that'd help the problem a bit.
The bonus for this is it doesn't cut any actual Bionicle content.  You can enjoy the serials, books, short stories, and more, but at least there aren't a dozen-and-one facts you'd only learn by browsing BS01.  

 

What do you think?

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head here - the fragmentation of the story, which is a problem of the earliest and the latest story years, and the canonisation whirlpool are the two major factors that make Bionicle's story so impenetrable. Once you take that away, all you can really do is trim the fat off the story. A lot of characters could be excised without losing much and some storylines could be streamlined, but if you just fix those two issues, you just about solve the problem.

But I feel the story itself could also be a less undercooked. See, I don't mind Artakha, the OOMN or the Barraki, honestly. They add an interesting dimension of intrigue and power dynamics/politics to the universe that I feel could work, if the story actually bothered to develop it a la G. R. R. Martin instead of focusing almost exclusively on action and "populating" the world by endlessly introducing new randos who only do a few noteworthy things before being forgotten, if they even make an appearance outside the guidebook they were introduced in. The revelation of the Bohrok could've also worked, if the characters dwelt on it for more than a page and if it actually made a lasting impact on them. I feel the trivia drops, canonisations and the endless BS01 edits were only a tool used to artificially enrich the universe. What should've been done was write more stories to take advantage of the characters and themes that were already established. There is a lot of material for an expansive fantasy series, it just wasn't used very well, if at all.

[Takanuva111]

I wouldn’t. I would have made it more complex by continuing it.

[JAG18]

Lots of interesting stuff here.  I'm a bit surprised there's not more dislike for the serials since I've seen at least one person blame them for Bionicle getting overly complicated.

Everything here has also reminded me of an article I read once, but foolishly forgot to save, but the main point of it being: "In the age of the internet the author is never dead until they actually are." 

Obviously, this isn't unique to Bionicle.  I have a vague understanding that J.K. Rowling has been adding details to HP for decades and most of it the equivalent of the Toa Cordak/Mangai or which Makuta made what Rahi.  The fandom I know where this is a big problem is the Ben 10 fandom.  You'd think a canon consisting of four TV shows, would be relatively easy to understand, but the topic of so-called "crew statements" can be a divisive point in the fandom. 

Basically, a lot of people have worked on the shows over the years and some (usually show runners or art directors) answered fan questions on various forums.  Many writers on the franchise did the same on twitter.  The result is many arguments over canon can break down into people throwing crew statements at each other or trying to invalidate certain statements through a variety of ways.  As you can imagine, the canon reached the point where a lot of fans choose what they want to be canon...but then again is that really uncommon in fandoms?  Star Wars probably reached that point around the time of the prequels and honestly I'm sure plenty of Bionicle fans treat some of Greg's post-ending canonizations the same way.

I don't know what the answer is here.  If you weren't there, it's hard to keep in mind the internet was still young during Bionicle's first run and it was pretty cool being able to reach (some of) your favorite authors over the internet.  Obviously, this isn't a super new phenomenon.  Tolkien answered plenty of fan letters, although I don't enough about them to know what exactly he said in them or how they affect the LOTR canon (if at all).  I know there's the (in)famous letter 192 in which Tolkien said Gollum didn't slip into Mount Doom, but God pushed him.    Of course, before the internet such statements wouldn't have spread far, but today  I can imagine if Tolkien tweeted something like that out it would spread across the internet in minutes. 

[Master Inika]

9 hours ago, JAG18 said:

Lots of interesting stuff here.  I'm a bit surprised there's not more dislike for the serials since I've seen at least one person blame them for Bionicle getting overly complicated.

Everything here has also reminded me of an article I read once, but foolishly forgot to save, but the main point of it being: "In the age of the internet the author is never dead until they actually are." 

Obviously, this isn't unique to Bionicle.  I have a vague understanding that J.K. Rowling has been adding details to HP for decades and most of it the equivalent of the Toa Cordak/Mangai or which Makuta made what Rahi.  The fandom I know where this is a big problem is the Ben 10 fandom.  You'd think a canon consisting of four TV shows, would be relatively easy to understand, but the topic of so-called "crew statements" can be a divisive point in the fandom. 

Basically, a lot of people have worked on the shows over the years and some (usually show runners or art directors) answered fan questions on various forums.  Many writers on the franchise did the same on twitter.  The result is many arguments over canon can break down into people throwing crew statements at each other or trying to invalidate certain statements through a variety of ways.  As you can imagine, the canon reached the point where a lot of fans choose what they want to be canon...but then again is that really uncommon in fandoms?  Star Wars probably reached that point around the time of the prequels and honestly I'm sure plenty of Bionicle fans treat some of Greg's post-ending canonizations the same way.

I don't know what the answer is here.  If you weren't there, it's hard to keep in mind the internet was still young during Bionicle's first run and it was pretty cool being able to reach (some of) your favorite authors over the internet.  Obviously, this isn't a super new phenomenon.  Tolkien answered plenty of fan letters, although I don't enough about them to know what exactly he said in them or how they affect the LOTR canon (if at all).  I know there's the (in)famous letter 192 in which Tolkien said Gollum didn't slip into Mount Doom, but God pushed him.    Of course, before the internet such statements wouldn't have spread far, but today  I can imagine if Tolkien tweeted something like that out it would spread across the internet in minutes. 

I feel alone in liking the serials. Sure, they weren't perfectly polished. They didn't always make sense if you thought about them rationally. But they were fun to read, and in a good way I think they show off Greg's experience writing Star Wars RPGs. Seriously, imagine a D&D session with Greg as DM. That would be awesome.

[Nato G]

12 hours ago, JAG18 said:

I'm a bit surprised there's not more dislike for the serials since I've seen at least one person blame them for Bionicle getting overly complicated.

2 hours ago, Master Inika said:

I feel alone in liking the serials. 

I don't have a problem with the serials themselves. For the most part they were pretty decent, and helped fill in a lot of the blanks left in the story. 

The serials themselves aren't the reason Bionicle got complicated. The fact that the serials were necessary was the reason. Because Bionicle insisted on switching settings every year or two we were constantly getting entire new casts of villains and villagers, sometimes entire new factions, whose stories were left unresolved when the story moved on to the next location. Hence the need for the serials to help continue those narratives.

Just imagine how many more questions Greg would have been asked if the serials had never existed. 

[Takanuva111]

Wait, shouldn’t this be a poll?