That is a good example, but if the theme is filled with an amazing world, but characters that don’t do much, it will be hard to sell sets. Most sets in Lego action themes are character-based.(Ex: Clay’s Rumble Blade.) If the characters really only just… exist… then kid’s only motivation to buy a set will be “it looks cool”. Not because it contains their favorite character that they’ve become attatched to. They won’t be invested in the story. Kid’s don’t pay too much attention to atmosphere, at least consciously. The theme would need a strong, character-driven story so that people care about the world. I honestly think all of the aspects in the poll are equally important.
^This.^
The Mad Max movie wasn’t made to sell toys, now was it?
Plus, there was only one Mad Max movie made; Bionicle had 3 movies (technically 4, but 3 actually are connected), so it needed more of a plot to prevent repetition and, therefore, prevent boredom of the people watching the movies. Without that plot, there would be no continuations, and Bionicle would have gotten cut short as it was planned to do so in 2003.
Mad Max is actually a long-running series, so there wasn’t only one Mad Max movie made. I agree that plot is pretty important, but I think because of the nature of what BIONICLE is (a line made to sell toys) allowing people to make up their own stories and be immersed is the most important thing, and that comes from worldbuilding.
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This is pretty much the reason why I haven’t chosen in the poll yet. Thank you for putting into better words how I feel. I really cannot just choose one aspect to be the center of the franchise, I don’t believe it works like that.
I mean, it’s a toy franchise, so the obvious answer is the toys.
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MNOG will forever be my favourite media from Bionicle, due to the sheer atmosphere it creates with the locations, the sounds, the characters, the mystery. The game alone created an aura of a mythos that no other Bionicle media has come close to.
MNOG to me represents everything that Bionicle should be.
Atmospheric music is so important to Bionicle.
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There is no one thing since Bionicle has always been a synergy of the four.
I am voting for the atmosphere, not because the TTV crew vote for this, because is nice to share a pasion for something with other people. Binicle isn’t only about the sets or plot, it’s about what you fill.
The main problem I have with is pole, and the reason I’m not voting, is because there is not one thing that defines Bionicle. All four of the option have a place in Bionicle one way or another and to say one thing is the “core” of Bionicle is not right to me.
Oh.
Welp, I dun goofed.
I think the problem here with this poll is that we’re defining the core of Bionicle based on what we remember/know which for G3, I’d rather poll what do we think is the one factor that will gravitate new consumers to Bionicle, which honestly any of the listed non-set choices would work. Just do it well.
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The issue is that the thing you enjoy most about Bionicle does not make it the core. IMO, you cannot remove any of these items and still get “Bionicle”. When you bake a cake, you have a large number of ingredients. Some of these ingredients, like vanilla or icing, aren’t completely necessary to create a cake. You cannot, however, say that the core of a cake is eggs, or flour, or sugar. And as @Kaituhi wonderfully put it, if everyone likes the sweetness of a cake, that does not make sugar the core ingredient.
I ended up choosing Worldbuilding/Atmosphere on this poll, but it was honestly a hard choice because I enjoyed all of these things. Bionicle’s atmosphere and worldbuilding (which are not the same thing) made it unique, but that doesn’t mean I could change everything else about the series and still enjoy it.
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Here’s the reason I voted for the world: the world is the reason that, 16 years later (Oh Mata Nui I feel old now) I am still writing stories placing my own characters in the world of BIONICLE. I don’t write stories about the great Tahu, Toa of Powah, but rather about some Onu-Matoran on Mata Nui going on a quest while Tahu’s off saving the world. So I guess the world is important because it kept me in BIONICLE, 16 years later. But it isn’t what got me there in the first place.
I am groot.
~W12~
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Definitely true; so much that I frankly think that it could have been a fifth category in the poll.
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In LEGO’s view, it’s certainly the sets, but that’s where they differ from us. The atmosphere and world are by far the coolest things about BIONICLE. The world sucks us all in and gets us to buy sets like Good Guy and Ketar because we love the world and the characters that inhabit it. So what if some of the sets aren’t that great? The world is (usually) fantastic!
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I’d say worldbuilding, because it truly is what makes Bionicle unique, but it feels like when one person says “Worldbuilding is important to make Bionicle what it is”, many people actually mean “A tropical island is important to make Bionicle what it is”, and as someone who joined Bionicle after '03, it feels like that sort of minimizes the Bionicle experience I’ve had— makes it sound like the “true fans” are those who started on Mata Nui, and like Bionicle can’t exist without a mysterious tropical island. Which, personally, I obviously don’t feel to be the case.
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I share the sentiments of others, while the core of BIONICLE for me is the atmosphere, it wouldn’t be BIONICLE without any of these things.
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The core of BIONICLE as a whole is the atmosphere, story and all that, but I only really care about getting more CCBS.
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Drat, I can’t choose more than one. I’m stuck between World building and Story. Because here’s the thing, world building is great and all, but without a decent or good story to go along with it, all the world building is for naught. This can also work vice versa, but more often than not you can have a good story, but complete lack, if nonexistent, world building.
So, for example, I’ll use Minecraft. It’s a game I could never wrap my head around or understand what was the point in playing it. Indeed, I have this problem with pretty much every crafting-survival game. And my main problem is that there’s no purpose or point to anything. Yeah, sure, the world is nice and allows me to build and create to my hearts content, but without a story, without a purpose, I just don’t care. I’ll leave it alone and never touch it.
In contrast, I’ll use Subnautica as an example. It has an incredible world, full of strange creatures, vibrant colors, horrifying monsters and like Minecraft is a crafting-survival game. Although you can’t build to your hearts content like Minecraft, Subnautica does have a story, it has more of a purpose. Why are you trying to survive? Because your ship got shot down and you’re trying to get a signal out for a rescue. Then you learn about another ship that came here and was also shot down. So if you weren’t trying to learn how your ship crashed before, you most likely definitely trying to find out how and why the ships were shot down now. So on and so forth.
Story gives purpose, it gives direction. Without it, all you have is a nice pretty world and nothing more. So, I guess I’ll vote for the Story portion. Though I do believe the core of Bionicle to be a blend of Story and World Building, with sets just below the two.
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Well, that probably depends entirely on personal taste, but in theory I’d say that if you have a defined world, you can make up your own stories pretty easily to fill that gap.
But yeah, only story and world together make the basic thing really complete.
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