Bionicle as a sub-theme of LEGO technic, as it used to be in 2001, alongside technic cars.

Well, I think it’s quite obvious that bionicle was concluded because it wasn’t able to compete with other WAVE themes like ninjago in terms of profit in the later years.

I think this isn’t as much of a problem with bionicle as it’s a problem with the wave-based release cycle, it means every year has to have at least 10+ sets of various prices range. It was obviously straining bionicle as a lot of writing and production has to be done in a hurry.

If you look at lego technic vehicles, they have a much more content release cycle, of only a few sets a year, but each set is always complex and have more thought and time put into it’s design.

Now, imagine what if bionicle simply stopped being a wave-based theme and adopted the same cycle as technic cars, the technic hasn’t had humanoid buildable figures since early g1 bionicle and the technic star wars droids (At least that’s the last ones I know of), so the niche still exists and it could be filled.

I think it’s the only viable way of bringing bionicle ip back for lego, becasue otherwise it has 95% chance being cancelled mid-way, like g2 due to the straining nature of wave-releases, compared to something like 2 years to release 6 larger toa figures. After all, technic cars are still running after all this time.

What do you think?

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I agree with what you said, however, I would have to point out that simply slapping the “Technic” branding on it rather than having it be its own thing isn’t gonna make Technic fans buy it. Technic fans only care about the cars and the mechanisms those cars have… So Bionicle, unless it ends up being super functions-heavy like Mindstorms, ain’t gonna be of much interest to them. So if you would like Bionicle to return to its roots and become a Technic subtheme, I am afraid you would have to trade the rich lore in exchange for rich functionality.

At the end of the day, Bionicle’s success or failure still rests on the shoulders of Constraction fans, and just changing the branding won’t do much besides just alienate the very demographic it tires to expand into.

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A suitable sacrifice for something like technic animals that are packed with functionality. Clearly robotic figures that try to mimick the natural way for example a predators jaws move. It wouldn’t necessarily require tons of pre-planning to get it off the ground either as it could be just easily retired if the concept didn’t prove succesful with sales.

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That actually sounds pretty cool.

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But data and money talks and the bare bones attempt of it called Forma did so poorly they probably don’t want to touch the idea.

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I mean, FORMA had such a weirdly limited release and distribution, that honestly it’s failure can be blamed on LEGO themselves rather than theme’s concept. I think the sets were only briefly available at LEGO.com for only like… three months, and then completely vanished, never to be seen again.

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I agree that technic car fans would likely not jump on board with this idea so easily, however for bionicle fans it would be a viable option as every other direction is either blocked, or not going to work: Bringing back g1 construction style - nope, all part molds are destroyed (and making tonns of new ones for almost every set in a wave doesn’t worth the effort for lego); Bringing back CCBS -nope, didn’t work with g2, plust the molds might be gone as well by now; Using brick-based constraction like in those marvel mechas I think would not sell well either, since a lot of people wouldn’t be on board with bionicle becoming complitely system without minifigures (cuz that’s too many prints for lego to do), but this is the second most viable option.

And as for technic, most people still interested in the bionicle seem to have a stronger connection to the technic than to the system, well, at least me personally. As unpleasand as it is to pay 100+ bucks for a set, I think it’s targeting just the right people - collectors and adults in general. Because I doubt it would be possible to make bionicle viable for modern kids, even with a lot of advertizement (which might end up costing just as much as production), especially with other wave themes in the way.

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I definitely would prefer Technic Bionicle over System Bionicle as well, because Technic parts are much larger and you can build larger things with it without the price being as expensive as with system. Plus, Technic is much sturdier and thus would be a much better material for action figures, compared to system which may tend to fall apart rather easily.

However, I disagree with the notion that Bionicle can’t be successful at all with modern kids. Even if that were the case, the adult audience for Bionicle will probably still be way too niche for LEGO to justify giving it a shot.
The key is go get in a new generation of fans, and there are multiple ways you can do that… especially now in the era of the Internet, where fanbases can form around pretty much anything. However LEGO have never quite proven themselves very good when it comes to marketing for their original themes, sadly. It is quite funny how every time they get a smash hit of the size of Bionicle G1 or Ninjago, it is always mostly by accident… Not because the company had a well thought out plan.

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I loved the original Technic-based BIONICLE Rahi - both for the functions they included and for their abstract/minimalistic representation of “animals”.

MOCists have been making some incredible creations with BIONICLE/Technic//CCBS. But the idea of an actual Technic lineup of animals is intriguing, and a return to that aesthetic is quite cool - at least in theory.

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That would be a pretty cool idea. It would also allow them to branch off a bit from the main line. The only issue is that I feel it might have to sacrifice the story to make it work well.

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