So, I went out today, headed to the nearest city and browsed through the Bonkles. No Summer Wave anywhere, even at TRU, which just had a single stand of sets at the end of one aisle, which was dominated by the 2015 Summer sets.
I also saw Winter 2015 sets in other stores, and some stores where the line just wasn’t there at all.
It should be noted that our TRU is pretty bad at removing old stock. There are still pegs full of two-year old Age of Extinction TF figures in amongst the Titans Return and Combiner Wars.
alright the [quote=“Signerdragon123, post:1211, topic:26884”]
there’s a traitor in the BIONICLE team.
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was a joke (Im pretty sure)
Now @DinosaursUnited Lego not having the rights to Bionicle? are you sure I mean that like saying Marvel doesnt have the rights to gaurdians of the Galaxy because Arnold Drake created them.
The estates of Siegel and Shuster (the creators of Superman) have sued DC multiple times over the rights to Superman. In fact, the reason why Supes lost his red underpants in the New 52 verse was because DC was so sure they were going to lose the suit, they began to distance Superman from his origins.
Lego may very well be concerned about the same thing happening with Bionicle. Brining a theme back is unprecedented (except for Ninjago, but there was hardly a gap between it) and so too, I would assume, are the legal headaches.
Look at Lego pirates. In “G1” (the 80s version to the 90s version) there was a pirate named Red Beard who went and did stuff. But he was replaced by Brickbeard for “G2” (which brought us the lovely 10210 Imperial Flagship.) It was only in the most recent (and abysmal) “G3” where Redbeard returned, with a different face, a different ship, and a different personality.
But G1 Tahu and G2 Tahu are a lot more similar to each other than G1 and G3 Redbeard. in fact, G2 Tahu is more similar to Tahu than Mistika Tahu was.
A court could determine that they are, indeed, the same character. And therein lies the rub, because now we are talking about G1 Tahu, and legal proceedings from 2001.
While I dont disregard your thought, it is highly unlikely…
…however, Im still pretty impressed that they were able to use Maori names for these guys given what controversy the line had in its initial days. Not sure what they brokered but at least it was able to last in G2.
Copywrong is a messy thing which we can not be disregard in any discussion when it regards intellectual property, its just I feel that in this situation the possibility of that being one of the issues is slim.
We personally dont know how copywrong works within LEGO, so we dont know what amount of creative rights everyone responsible for the work has.
Marvel only recently got cinematic rights back for Spiderman after 30 years of copywrong hell, which ushered the way for the Spiderman movies and afterwards the overall Marvel cinematic universe. So yeah, copywrong can do that so this is why I think @DinosaursUnited to some extend had this in mind in his argument.
Yes, because they were going under their own copywrong hell with other comics, loss of money, desperation, and even the ownership of the company so much so that they filed for bankruptcy which actually through copywrong loopholes made them able to get the rights back later on when they were able to get slightly back up (they never recovered after that, Disney buying it was actually a good thing in the long run). Maybe I missed something, but it was a mess…more so than G1 can be suspected. In fact, G1 didnt have that many major controversies apart of the Maori one, if it did they were small and inconsequential to even be that noticeable.
Totes forgot about Spider-Man, but yeah, you’re right.
Also, to clarify for everyone, I am in no way trying to claim that Lego does not have the rights to Bionicle. What I’m claiming is that the creators of the characters have certain rights to those characters, which may not be used without their permission. And I’m arguing that it’s probably the same with Lego.
Remember when the BFC (Bionicle Fan Community) asked Greg if Bionicle was coming back? And he said something like, “well, if it is, I’m not on it.” Thats a huge copyright copywrong? no no. I’m not saying that’s why it ended, but I’m saying that if even the great Greg didn’t know, then none of the other creators knew.
And that could be a problem, especially if Lego got a cease and desist from someone.
thats cause Marvel sold the Movie rights of Spiderman[quote=“TeslaEffect, post:1231, topic:26884”]
Marvel only recently got cinematic rights back for Spiderman after 30 years of copywrong hell,
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Looking at the personalities of the original BIONICLE writers, I doubt any of them would do such a thing, simply because they’d appreciate the idea of younger generations enjoying something they once helped make amazing. I can almost guarantee they’d be disappointed in the story, and… actually, considering Greg’s response to the '05 movie, I can’t entirely put that idea into the pile of “plausible but unlikely.” I mean, he was pretty mad about the way Vakama was being represented, and I mean, I was way more disappointed in the way the Masters were represented as characters than the way Vakama was in '05, so…
Alright, that’s certainly a possibility. I don’t know how all of the copyright works there since I don’t know LEGO’s policy on such matters, but if Greg and the original writers still have the rights to those characters (which, considering Greg was allowed to keep writing the original story well after BIONICLE ended, and was still in the community canonizing things, it’s safe to assume if anyone had rights to those characters besides LEGO it would be him), then I can see Greg, if not the others, being a little frustrated at the story of G2. I still don’t know if “cease and desist” would be the outcome, but I’m pretty sure he’d be a little disappointed, so in my book, this theory is no longer “plausible but unlikely,” but rather “possible but not very likely.”
Really? I assumed it was for the same reason practically every other hero from both DC and Marvel lost their underwear… because wearing underwear over your tights is a little weird.
I actually prefer the underwear’d suits.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? I’ve never heard of any of the writers having the rights to any of the characters… where is this speculation coming from?
For the record, Lego owns any and all rights to anything regarding their original IPs. The writers, employees, freelance writers, artists and animators own none of it.
Considering Lego officially announced on their social media platforms that BIONICLE is over, there’s unfortunately no way it can be regarded as miscommunication.
I was just working off of the theory presented earlier. Hence “if.” Like I said, fairly unlikely, but under the circumstances that the writers somehow had the rights to the characters, it could make sense. I don’t know how LEGO copyright works, but it would make sense that they would hold the rights instead of the writers. LEGO isn’t a comic book company, I assume the rules are different.
