Brain Attack: My Review

[Master Inika]

(I didn't like this one either guys)

I like the title. Specifically, I like how stylized it is, like old monster movies. I always could not help but compare Hero Factory to Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, only BLoSC allowed itself to relish in its campiness (which, paradoxically, made it easier for me to take the show seriously). Hero Factory would be so much better if it were more willing to get parodic, but it simultaneously fails to do that in multiple ways, taking its characters too seriously while also treating the viewer like too much of a child.

Believe it or not, I actually like CCBS. I have a small handful of Hero Factory sets, and I do quite enjoy them. I have Breakout Breez and Evo, Scarox, Pyrox, and some others, and the physical toys are a lot better than the animated show. I would even venture to say that CCBS is, in some ways, superior to BIONICLE G1. Some people treat HF's badness as just an inevitability of kids' entertainment, but it's not. There's a huge chunk of kids who would have bought HF whether the story was good or bad, or who didn't follow the story at all. By not investing in it, all LEGO accomplished was alienating us, their longtimes fans, just as we got actual jobs and sometimes adult money. I remember vividly watching these latter specials in high school, on my dad's computer at his condo, trying to enjoy it but feeling like I was trying to be a good LEGO fan. People talk down to kid's content as "glorified toy commercials," but the Miramax trilogy was a better toy commercial and made me want to buy the toys more because it was good entertainment.

There really is not as much to say about this one. The dialogue is cheesy and cringeworthy. Somehow, the plot is also convoluted and never properly explained. I won't even touch on all the "Mysterious Villain" stuff and HF's lazy cliffhanger endings. We all remember the strange sensation of being strung along, consistently promised answers but consistently disappointed.

I like Jean Louisa Kelly's performance as Breez. She seems to be trying a bit harder than the others. I especially liked this exchange:

 

STORMER: Breez, can't you talk to animals?

CREATURES: *screeching*

BREEZ: You talk to them!

 

I'll give credit to the writers, to the comedic timing and to Kelly's delivery. That was just a funny joke. Hero Factory successfully made me laugh once for the reason it wanted to. If it was like that more often, funny but still trying just a little, I'd like it a lot more.

I only realize, with this episode, how much I enjoyed the Heroes going places. Rise of the Rookies felt like the only episodes that were given even almost adequate attention to the setting. Breakout threw too much at the wall, and all the random new planets ended up feeling surface-level, but they don't even try that with Brain Attack. It's Makuhero Planet all the time. If you find Makuhero Planet painfully boring (like I do), you won't enjoy this episode.

My biggest gripe: Surge's "arc" (put in quotation marks for a reason). Surge's characterization is the strangest aspect of this special, taking up very little actual screentime but managing to be its most memorable aspect (in a bad way). It feels as if they made the episode, realized it lacked a main character of any sort, and hastily wrote two 30-second segments of Surge complaining about something at the beginning and then coming to terms with it at the end. It was ridiculously lazy and talked down to its audience in a way BIONICLE never did.

There are also children robots in this episode, and that makes me ask questions about how this world works that I really don't want to have to ask.

What I liked:

1) I liked Dragon Bolt's introduction. It felt like a conscious narrative choice to give the other creatures pretty dumb and comedic introductions as they were taken over by Brains, but not DB.

 

...is that actually it? Wow, I really didn't like this.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post, but Cryoshell's song "Breakout" as an end credits song for the Breakout episodes was an excellent choice. It's surprisingly how, particularly for a younger audience, putting legitimately good music after something mediocre can fool one into thinking the thing itself was better than it was. The fact that Brain Attack doesn't have a dedicated end credits song is palpable.

I liked the Assembly Tower music. For the most part, I find HF's musical direction generic and forgettable, but both Breakout and Brain Attack had unique tracks that are actually good. But even this comes with a caveat: Breakout was the last HF episode to feature individualized Assembly Tower sequences for each Hero. In BA, they kind of just go through them all at once, and it feels like they're rushing and weren't invested in what they were writing/animating at all.

I wish I could tie this all in to some thesis, but the truth is Hero Factory doesn't feel like it was designed to be thought about. Rewatching these episodes 10 years later feels like I'm watching something I'm not supposed to, that by trying to find some deeper meaning I'm using it outside of the original creators' intentions. In 2013-2015, there was excitement in the fandom for the 10-year anniversaries of each of the Miramax films. Hero Factory's storylines turned 10 years old from 2020-2024, and I can only think of one person to ever express any sort of excitement for these milestones.

This is why I find the idea that "you don't enjoy it because it's not your childhood" an excuse. There's no HF equivalent of BZPower. The HF equivalent of BIONICLEsector01 only exists because BS01 made it. Frankly, the only time I do see people nostalgic for HF is when they mistake it for BIONICLE. Bad kid's media exists. There were terrible children's shows and toys in 2003 that I consumed, but I don't go back to them because they were bad. BIONICLE came at the right time, but it also pulled its own weight by actually being good.

(Insert commentary about "industry plants" and while they might exist in some way, I don't think people can enjoy media that isn't at least a little good in its own right. Taylor Swift still has to actually know how to sing. Making art that people remember, even for being cringy, still takes at least some talent.)

Stick around tomorrow as I struggle to find something meaningful to say about Hero Factory's final year: Invasion from Below.

[JAG18]

11 hours ago, Master Inika said:

This is why I find the idea that "you don't enjoy it because it's not your childhood" an excuse. There's no HF equivalent of BZPower. The HF equivalent of BIONICLEsector01 only exists because BS01 made it. Frankly, the only time I do see people nostalgic for HF is when they mistake it for BIONICLE. Bad kid's media exists. There were terrible children's shows and toys in 2003 that I consumed, but I don't go back to them because they were bad. BIONICLE came at the right time, but it also pulled its own weight by actually being good.

I don't have much to say about "Brain Attack" just that by the time it aired I was barely a HF fan by then (not that I was the biggest fan before then but I followed along anyway).  I liked the brains' design and that was about it.  

All I can say about HF is that I like it because it's so bad it's good or at least fun to make fun of.  There are fleeting good moments like the Fire Villains' motivation/backstories and the general idea of the line, but I'll admit that to me HF is only worth caring about because it's Bionicle's inferior successor. 

The highest praise I can give the line is that I inserted a reference to HF in my book as a blink-and-you-miss-it parody called "Defender's Foundry".  I do want to use that "magnetic mine" joke from the Legion of Darkness book someday though.  That was legitimately one of the funnier moments in the books.   

[TahnokTrapper]

To me, Brain Attack's biggest sin was not following up on the bombshells dropped after the conclusion of Breakout. Breakout felt like HF was finally getting some momentum after wandering for 3 years, then Brain Attack and Invasion from Below came along with their subpar story and deflated any enthusiasm I might've had at that point. I think HF as a whole died after that...

[kawaii kitty]

soundtrack is great rest of the episode is less so.