For 2 years of BIONICLE G2, let them rest of these brave and honorable soldiers well if not the Second Coming BIONICLE coming we’ve be stuck with Hero Factory forever.
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It’s a nice thought, but I just can’t wrap my head around the prospect of Lego cancelling a line after 2 years (following a 9 year run) only to bring it back for a third time.
Because Bionicle is story-driven, it is very difficult to make it an evergreen line. The only way that Bionicle lasted for so long in Generation 1 was because Lego was putting all of its eggs in one basket when they originally developed it: it was either Lego made Bionicle excellent or they ceased to exist as a powerful company. Times aren’t the same nowadays, so there’s less of a reason to put as much energy into developing Bionicle to its former glory.
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but seriously, Exo-Force did not have an ending, the hole theme just stoped.
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Yeah that would be awesome :’( it’s so sad though Lego all we’ve done is love you why do you hate us.
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I guess we were all expecting it. My greatest hope is that we can stand strong as a community. Hopefully we can continue to create awesome content more worlds, and lore. As long as we keep making content and stories, Bionicle is still alive, as something more than a Lego theme.
That aside, I doubt that we’ll get a Gen 3. Bionicle was able to be revived because it sold well in it’s first iteration. Retailer’s wont be as open to taking it back again. As people have been pointing out, Lego kind of screwed themselves in marketing. I’m not sure I saw a single advertisement in 2016. I’m exited to see what Lego does with constraction in the future, but we’ve got to keep bionicle alive, as we’ve done before.
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At best I want elements from Bionicle to spread onto bigger and better things out there so I can enjoy those elements in ways they deserved to be enjoyed.
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To be quite honest that applies to pretty much every toyline.
I made a power miners forum, I played with the sets, they didn’t felt like plastic when I imagined them as actual characters when I was a kid. How many people repeated the part where the monsters farted on that one video? I sure did, many times. It didn’t have much story but it felt more real because of that.
I am just very pissed on the whole situation and really fearful of constraction’s future in general. As the decision came in the middle of JtO’s production it’s very likely we won’t have the replacement before next summer.
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Wow, this is very disheartening news. I won’t say it’s a shocker, but let me give some words on this whole thing, as someone who was active during G1’s ending as well.
Let me start by saying, as much as I wish it could, spreading petitions, etc won’t do a whole lot. I’ll outwardly admit that during 2010 I was one of the people that originally was in support of these petitions, and was probably very annoying about it. Back then I was 12 years old, and, I’m sure some of you are around the demographic now. Please don’t spread these petitions like wildfire, they will be on the internet, don’t spread them.
I’m sure many of you feel angry, or sad, or cheated out of more years of this toyline. You never truly appreciate what you have until it’s gone. Let me just say this: The community will NOT die. I was a part of this fandom on and off during the 5 years of downtime between G1 and G2, and during that time I saw fanfics, fan games, fanart, and many, many mocs. I love this community because the whole point of bionicle is to create, and build, and that’s what we’ll keep doing,
In my honest opinion this could be a good thing for our community here at TTV. Traffic may slow down on here, and we may get some more serious discussion, our community may improve, and mature in a sense.
And to end on a joke, thank GOD as a moderator to no Bionicle 2017 topic, you guys have no clue how bad those topics get 
-Indi
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[spoiler]You know, this can easily result in arguments like those in the speculation topics.
But hopefully, we can civilly discuss why G2 was ultimately cancelled. [/spoiler]
One large reason that G2 was cancelled because of the lack of mystery or lore (and sales, if anything the sales are the main reason for G2’s cancellation).
Explaining everything that happened prior to the current story isn’t a good idea. Some may argue that G1 did the same thing, what with the stone stories, but that still had a realm of depth and mysticism behind it, one that drew would-be buyers in.
What G2 did was a premise. A prompt for a story to be built off of. But the way that G2 built the story was significantly less interesting, and was plagued by predictable writing.
To be fair, G1 was often predictable in it’s early years, where the Toa would be beaten back because of stubbornness only to return with the SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK and win. But at least that was mostly ironed out later or had more diverse character interactions between the bickering teams, thus creating more tension and feeding the suspense. In addition, it made many of the characters more likable.
Now pulling off an air of mystery that makes the targeted demographic want to become invested in a toy line is extremely hard, but Lego has done this in the past, and thus should at least have some ideas to use for marketing from the old line. The wildly successful G1 commercials usually followed this formula:
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Create an original concept.
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Only hand out some information, invoking the viewer’s appetite to see what happens next, be it through showing off the heroes/villains or by subtly telling parts of the story.
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Give more of that information via the sets, bios, and short stories.
The G2 promotions and story telling was rather straightforward, and left little for the audience to wonder what would happen next aside from obvious cliffhangers (I say obvious due to the easy-to-predict writing). And because of this, the targeted consumer was not as interested, and did not become invested in the sets.
Now, this may ultimately be the ramblings of a jaded, older fan. But the point still stands that one of the crippling points of G2 was its promotional and story material. What do you think?
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There’s already a topic where you can post this
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I don’t think it was the story that got the line cancelled. It was sales. Toys are sold based on their appeal in the toy aisle. The backstory never has a chance to reach a person’s eyes at that stage. They had those cool displays that lit up when people walked past them, but what they saw inside just didn’t do it for them.
So what this really comes down to is the visual design of the toys. I think that they misfired a bit with that. You had the sort of skeletal, medieval demon looking villains, versus armored storm trooper looking heroes. This style choice just didn’t sell well enough. It didn’t grab kids’ attention enough. That’s what it really comes down to.
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Just because G2 is cancelled doesn’t mean Bionicle is dead, and that my sets are gonna self destruct. I still have the memory.
My G2 sets look great next to the old ones, it’s as if they never left. In my mind, this cancelation doesn’t mean anything anymore,a s I know the fanbase is now mature enough not to pull of another BBB.
So far, everyone has been taking this ending in an upset but understanding way. Let us all stay on this path.
Long live bionicle
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I dunno.
We can be pretty obtuse when we wanna be…
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Have faith young padawan
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Believe me, I want too.
But there will be those among us who dream of schemes, plots and other crazy things…
I’m well aware that the sales are the largest reason why Bionicle ended (should’ve pointed that out), but I also wanted to point out the different points too.
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Just sitting here reading all of this, waiting for the next Reviving Bionicle and TTV podcast to come out.
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Well.
I guess all of us are here now.
I’d say I’m sad or whatever but I’d be lying. I’m glad to see it go because it could never live up to G1, but I am sad the newer generation will never have what I did growing up.
G3 will likely never (and should never) happen, so this is the final goodbye.
But if the past is true to the future, we’re not going anywhere. The community survived for five years on nothing.
It’s been a good run, but all good things come to an end. But instead of saying goodbye, I’m going to say welcome back. Welcome back to your legacy, community. We aren’t going anywhere.
See you around.
~Eko/rak
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