Why I think the New Bionicle Story will be Terrible

Fair enough; I was half-joking anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You say that to Huki (or any Po-Matoran for that matter), and they’ll hit you on the head with a Kohlii stick!

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As will @HewkiiTheKohliiHead… If he was still HERE! :rage:

Also, we are arguing over what we wanted! What happened to the “Bring back Bionicle!” posters? We should be grateful for Bionicle. Personally, I have made multiple MOCs without even worrying about the island of Okoto. Besides, MT, if there was no world building, we would have no Okoto, or Regions of Elements. As I said, be grateful for what we have. Have this topic closed, mods.

I dislike board members be willing to fight fist on fist just for a TOY LINE!

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Well, I didn’t think this was a fist fight. More like a calm discussion of opinions. And it’s been going rather well, IMO.

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I’m gonna comment because I think I can answer why people’s jimmies are getting rustled.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, the way you are using your tone and words are highly aggravating and make me WANT to disagree. “Why the New Bionicle Story will be Terrible” indicates that this is NOT opinion, but is rather is indisputable fact. When people see this topic name, they automatically want to disagree with you, even if they understand and agree with some of your points. Heck, when I saw the topic title I thought for sure that an angry illiterate fanboy had written it.

In sum, I would probably agree with your points if you presented them in a less pretentious way. However, your phrasing and word usage makes me feel angry, and want to fight with you.

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Pssst
It’s MT
That’s exactly the response he wants. =P

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I’d agree, though if people are genuinely getting upset about this, then I guess not. A good debate is always a plus. Even if we all have serious differences of opinion here, that’s totally fine. We all learn stuff.

Worst French ever

I cannot disagree enough with this, though again, this is where we’re moving off into nothing but personal taste land. Arguably nothing in any good story should be there simply for it’s own sake. Character development is important, at least in most cases, because it helps the viewer/reader connect with the character. It’s hard to care for any particular character unless you can connect with them, and developing characters is one way to build a bond between reader/viewer and character.

This, in turn, relates to story because it’s difficult to get engaged in any story where there are no characters that one can care for. To bring up a personal example, I found myself only getting invested in Fire Emblem Awakening’s story because I cared for the characters. I probably wouldn’t have cared one bit about some dragon overrunning generic fantasy land #528 were it not for the characters that I found myself connecting to. The characters, then, served as a mechanism for truly getting me engaged in the struggle that was taking place.

Again, doesn’t necessarily have to be this way, but it most certainly can be.

Fite me u skrub

-MT

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MT, what the heck. You’re slowly becoming the Eljay of the TTV Message Boards. I’M supposed to be the Eljay of this place. Gosh.

Next you’re gonna make a Power Rangers comic with certain hand-made garments. You’re toast as soon as that happens.

As far as this discussion goes, I want to throw in my own two cents. But I’m gonna clear two things out of the way first.

This train of logic is slightly flawed. I’ve heard this several times over the last few years, and my only response is that kids stories shouldn’t immediately excuse themselves from proper story telling. My primary examples here would stand to be Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter, and the Percy Jackson series.

Avatar: TLA was a TV show aimed primarily 6 to 11 year old children. Despite this being the case, the show did remarkably well in older age brackets and has been praised highly for its story telling and writing. The show did not dumb itself down (for the most part) to appeal to those children. It was a cartoon, but a grounded one that children could get invested in.

Harry Potter (the books) did not initially have a set age range for its readers. As I have heard and understand however, the publishers initially targeted children aged nine to eleven. Personally, while I have seen the movies, I have not read the books. I do not know if this remains to be the case, and can not comment on it too much. On the chance that this held true and the books ended up being marketed toward that age range… That should speak for itself.

And then Percy Jackson. Now this is a series I have read fully. I do not currently know the targeted age range, but I am aware it’s young. The books, however, do not always end up seeming young. I’ve heard they’re praised (at least, the writer is) for their attention to detail and descriptions as far as surroundings go. As far as the books, they certainly aren’t dumbed down. There are a lot of difficult names in there due to the Greek mythology involved. Despite that, you can certainly tell it’s aimed for younger readers. At least, the first five are.

Now, I won’t attempt to make any claims that these are master works of children literature or anything of the sort. They’re merely examples that come to mind when this argument is brought up. They’re all meant for children and younger individuals. However, despite that, they manage to hold a great deal of maturity about them, and are not often seen as simply childish. The reason I bring all these examples up is to try and explain and show that something aimed at being for children doesn’t have to end up being poorly written or executed. That shouldn’t be an excuse. If it’s poorly written, then it’s poorly written. If it’s poorly handled, then it’s poorly handled. There shouldn’t be that much more to it after that.

I’ve only gotten the chance to scroll and skim through this topic, but I have gleamed a few things in this regard.

MT is doing something I like to do a lot during debates and discussions. He’s being a snarky, sarcastic stick in the mud. This agitates people and generally makes for uncomfortable discussion.

But it also brings out a lot of what people are like during a debate.

I’m pretty sure we do it for very separate reasons. I certainly don’t do it in order to figure out what makes people tick. I doubt MT does either. But the most telling thing about a debate is how people react and respond to sarcasm.

Responding calmly and patiently is the best way to go about it. Don’t pay it any mind and you should be fine. If you focus on the debate and discussion in front of you, then eventually the sarcastic jabs will lessen and will prove useless to flustering you and rendering your ability to debate and discuss incapacitated. Maybe even go along with the joke, laugh a little bit. Laughing at ones self is the best way to handle critique and jabs.

Getting emotional and offended is the worst way to go about it. You get flustered, you get angry. You end up focusing more on attacking the person as opposed to debating their view point, and presenting your own. You then end up losing an onlooker siding with you, as you were the one that fell under pressure and ended up sounding distraught and ludicrous. Sometimes you even go on rants and start hate clubs directed toward that person on other websites. Not a very nice thing to do.

So just keep calm. Don’t get offended. If you get offended during a debate or a discussion… Game over, you lose.

I’ll likely be back to this topic to voice my fleshed out opinion on this topic. For the moment, I agree with MT and disagree with him at the same time. I think he’s right that G2 needs to focus more on world building. But I disagree that Lego will be completely unable to develop these characters, or that the first 3 months will condemn the new line.

That and more on the Eljay Long Post Show!

TL;DR Hahah nope go read it.

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probably missed my window since you folks write a lot of essays but
I really like 2006-2008

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[/quote]
always upvote Saint Walker

Hopefully a stupid and semi-irrelevant post will relieve the tension here. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I… Actually agree with almost everything you just said.

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I’m truly offended. I settle for nothing less than pristine Miracle-Gro to be a stick in.

-MT

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oh yea eljay I know all that. What I was saying that it will be a dumbed down version of G1 well at least for now.

^ why eljay is my least favorite cast member :stuck_out_tongue:

But seriously, I find this very annoying. As someone who usually gets ticked off easily, I don’t like how the other person takes advantage of your weaknesses. It’s seriously the worst way to have a debate IMO. Debates should be limited to making genuine and good points.

But whatever, I’m doing exactly what you’re saying I shouldn’t do, so I’ll stop now. Just remember to think about all the children that you’ve condemned by following this strategy. :slight_smile:

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I don’t care about g2’s story.

Honestly

back in g1
I didn’t care about its story either

I just wanted to see two robots duke it out.

Nowadays I got into the story because its interesting, but it does have its flaws.

Now if they do the ninjago way of storytelling
cool

if they make a breakout 2
cool

if they make a hero factory 2
meh

I love hf
but breakout was the best story they had, and they ruined it by not continuing it.

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Come on, @Eljay, you respond to everyone except the person who specifically asked you to respond to them?

Honestly, MT, you seem to think that going exactly the same way as 01 is the only way to make a good story. I am a fan of 06-08 and the serials, so I don’t really agree with you there. Bionicle evolved over time and was given more media. It had a game in 01, but a game, online animations, and a movie in 03. In G1’s time, Lego was willing to take huge risks, giving larger budgets to new lines. But notice Lego’s trend now. With most themes, for example Minecraft, Ninjago, or Chima, it starts out with a small pilot (Micro set number 1 for Minecraft, pilot episodes for Ninjago and Chima) If there is positive feedback, Lego will allot more time and money to the theme, making it more and better. Even older lines like Star Wars or G1 Bionicle started smaller but grew. I think there is a good chance of G2 Bionicle growing. You shouldn’t give up just yet. But if you want to be depressed about how G2 isn’t like 01, you can do that. Just don’t expect me to too.

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Considering I’ve praised 2006 and countless other character driven stories on this thread already, I’m not quite sure where you’re getting that notion from. What I am saying is that, generally speaking, Lego is sub-optimal at writing stories that rely on lots of character development or complex narrative writing. I suppose I’ll stick the qualifier that this is all my opinion here before everyone fills my notification list with a bunch of angry messages once more, but as Bionicle went on (specifically Mask of Light and beyond), I thought it became less and less interesting, as Lego abandoned world building more and more and moved towards trying to create plots that focused on characterization with supposedly “impactful” emotional moments (Takua’s learning to assume responsibility, Vakama’s betrayal, Matoro’s sacrifice, etc).

Therefore, Lego basically wasting its brief window of opportunity to make world building actually a way to draw people in more than concerns me.

I’ve responded to this argument at least twice already, and I don’t particularly want to rewrite what I wrote earlier, so I’ll simply respond by saying that I’ve already addressed this in paragraph 5 from the OP and in a few of my replies to CGL.

-MT

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Uhh… I’m still here, just changed my name/avatar (which I’ll change back soon, don’t wanna keep the face of the ugliest Toa :P)

By the way, it’s @HewkiiDaKohliiHead.

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I have attempted to remain optimistic, but I have held no punches in insulting the story’s current state. Reading through your analysis…there isn’t much I can say to refute these concerns, since Lego has failed to provide anything to work with. Our only hope now is the books, which will hopefully start the story over and build the world right. If they aren’t good, this reboot will officially be a failure. Meanwhile, here’s a gif to signify Lego’s treatment of the story so far.

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I agree LEGO has missed out on so many opportunities, and those are going to have a major effect on how well the line will do. However, I don’t condemn it just yet. I’m going to say they’ve done a darn bad job thus far, but I’ll judge if they fail once they’ve had a good long time to try. I disagree that a story has to hook you right at the beginning. Some stories can start off really bad, but if you stick through them, they can get better.

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Starting off badly is still a flaw. Having a hook in the beginning is vital for a story to work. Does starting off badly make it a complete failure automatically? No. But it’s still important, and it forces the story to rally to get back up.

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