The key difference is that with Bionicle, as soon as someone Googles Mata Nui, (assuming they keep that name for G3), they’ll find the GSR as the second image. With Infinity War, there’s slightly more effort needed to find out the ending. Sure, you needn’t read the books, but you do generally have to search for the ending specifically.
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Speaking of the LEGO Movies, LEGO has recently signed a 5-year contract with Universal and they will be making future LEGO Movies together, after the contract they had with Warner Brothers had ended. And since Warner Brothers still holds the rights to the LEGO Movie characters, that means the Universal LEGO Movies would be a complete reboot of the LEGO Cinematic Universe, with new characters and (most likely) a new format.
While this seems very unlikely, could Bionicle be considered as a potential candidate for the rebooted LEGO Cinematic Universe?
…who said he has to be called Mata-Nui?
tbh, I’d be really cheesed if he wasn’t, but if the GSR was called, say… Ekimu (
) you wouldn’t have this issue.
That’s not to say that I think the name Mata-Nui is off grounds, either - in a sufficiently large and popular reboot your new images will make it to the top fast, and just seeing the GSR in a google search isn’t really enough to hammer home the significance of the robot, either - you have to actually understand that he is the universe. Watching something like “The Rising” animation would be more of a clincher, but a picture of just “a big robot” doesn’t quite hit it. Consider also how much of the wider movie going audience actually does research on the franchises their watching - not as many as you might think.
So there’s a few avenues you could take - the easy way out is just to change the name though.
This actually happened? ew. I don’t think I like that. Universal isn’t making much quality content, lately… and even if they were, rebooting something this fresh (when the old movies were clearly working at least somewhat well) is not at all an appealing idea.
Is this a word now? I don’t know if I should be happy I can now describe it, sad it’s become so common that it’s got a name, or laughing because of how goofy it looks.
(Of course, there’s the possibility you just coined it yourself, in which case we need to start campaigning for people to adopt this term. )
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No, it’s a thing. The first example that comes to mind of one would be Cobra Kai.
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I think the best translation of this will be “all of the old fans will see it coming, and that would still be bad.” Unless the old fans are actually making the new Bionicle, we’re still part of the target audience for the show, and if the old fans are unhappy, them making a stink could ruin everything.
If they do the giant robot again, all of the old fans will deride the new Bionicle as predictable and rightfully so. When G2 first came out, everyone was like “no more giant robots, please” - I remember that. Surely they can come up with another mystery - I mean, they did for G2, just never solved it.
G2, with the elemental planets, reminded me of the BZP Expanded Multiverse (which also never got solved, either). The mystery had to do with what the planets were and how they were aligned in the BZP version, and the G2 version had them respond to a temple on Okoto - I mean, we are talking about 6 whole planets here that do that. Whatever Okoto was supposed to be, pretty significant to need the resources of 6 planets. We just never found out what it was.
There’s a bunch of extant G1 mystery material that could be explored, starting with “Who are the Great Beings?” and going into the people Mata Nui was supposed to research. The biggest question is probably “how did Mata Nui fix the core of Spherus Magna so it didn’t use energized protodermis?”. Then there’s Bota Magna, and the psychological adjustment of all of the Toa and Matoran to SM which could make for a lot of good character development. This could even come into play with a 100-year or 1000-year G1 continuation. In comparison to Kek’s idea, this one is comparably very easy to write - I have even wrote a large amount of fanfiction exploring this space.
Whether you can get mass-market penetration with that is another argument entirely. Which puts us back into the same debate we had on G2’s eve…
How would you like Bionicle to come back?
- Direct G1 continuation that begins right after G1 ended (with new fan entry point)
- G1 continuation that takes place 100, 1000 years in the future (time-lapse) continuation
- Direct G2 continuation
- G2 time-lapse continuation
- Full reboot
- Other
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…only we have more options this time.
What might work is giving new fans a different entry point into this time-open G1 continuation space and onboarding them that way.
Let’s not forget that G1 pulled (literally) the giant robot trick twice - first the 8 year mystery exploration/reveal, then the reveal at the end of 2009 when the prototype robot was buried in the sand.
The obscure lore, however, has been a turn-off to new fans. That’s the big obstacle to a G1 continuation, time lapse or no - new fans will have to learn the species terminology like Matoran, Agori, Glatorian, etc.
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The GSR mystery feels, to me, like a Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of deal. So G3 would need a similar world-centric mystery that also reveals something about biology and the origin of life on the surface. Another example is the planet in the Discworld novels being a flat disc balanced on elephants atop the back of a giant turtle- which isn’t a mystery, rather, it’s a world origin- but it has a similar feel.
For any Bionicle revival to have a mystery equivalent in grandeur and thematic relevance to the GSR reveal, Faber probably needs to be involved since the GSR mystery was his idea inspired by his own life. His art for both 14B2020 / “Biovival” and Waveborn have already developed intriguing mysteries such as “What is hidden in the ice beneath the surface of Antarctica?” and “What is found at the bottom of the ocean?”
G1 was about a man composed of machines taking medicine to save his internal ecosystem from a cancer. Faber’s new project or any hypothetical G3 could have a similarly concise thematic pitch; Men composed of machines planting seeds and exploring depths to survive in a world that has already died. maybe we aren’'t told that the world is already dead, and that’s the big mystery. On the other hand, it’s a very pessimistic mystery. Maybe a better one is there is another world on the other side of the one the characters know, and they just have to dig through the Ocean floor or travel over the edge of the flat Earth to reach it.
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This might fit better in the actual Faber topic, but I want to say that this sort of thing in particular is something I’d really love to see in 14b2020.
Not to mention that it fits thematically with the reveal of Metru-Nui, except in the inverse. In many ways too it’s like Vakama’s realization that they need to travel beyond the Great Barrier. This concept that there are other, grander worlds lying just beneath the surface isn’t a new theme for Bionicle, and making it the central focus in a post-GSR reveal environment is a really good idea.
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If a bionicle open world game winds up existing, I really hope I’d get the option to make my own custom characters similar to how lego racing let players build their own cars.
Also- Never let the flame die. I hope my children one day will build mocs that rival mine, and so forth. Whether bionicle parts become obsolete and we make our builds of CCBS and lego parts, the flame will never die out. The flame is alive in more people than it may seem- only recently have I gotten back in to mocmaking after giving all my toys away when I was approaching my teen years.
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I think part of the problem is that Lego isn’t really the type of company that can support such a franchise. As a toy company, their first priority is selling sets.
The story has to revolve around the gimmicks in the sets, and if the sets don’t sell well, the story’s gone.
For Bionicle to reach its full potential, it has to be under the guidance of someone who is passionate about the story and the characters.
For example, look at the serials that Greg started writing outside of his contract. This might just be me, but those serials are some of the best parts of the story, and they’re what really got me hooked on the franchise.
The reason they were so good was because Greg didn’t have to worry about forcing a ‘6 Toa vs. 6 bad guys’ plot, and could instead play with pre-established characters and ideas.
So if Bionicle is ever going to become a mainstay in pop culture, it has to be under the creative control of someone who prioritizes story over action figures.
(Fingers crossed for #biovival being a G1 continuation)
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As much as a reboot would be nice, I’m personally far too attached to G1 to leave it, especially since there’s so many story possibilities that can come from it. I don’t just mean finishing it, but going back and filling the gaps. There is more than 100,000 years of history, and for Bionicle’s 10 year run, the main story took place over a year or so (minus the Toa Metru flashback of 04-05). There is too much potential in the G1 story for there to be a complete reboot in my opinion.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Bionicle will ever get popular enough in pop culture to be given a theatrical release or anything of the sort, but it doesn’t need one. Per Oomatu’s tweet, that game is fan made, and it’s far better than any game Lego made for the IP. Perhaps Bionicle is best left in the hands of the fans at this point.
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Well said, Dag.
(Although, I would really enjoy more sets being released that I wouldn’t have to pay through the nose to get on amazon.)
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This is why I really regret not buying more of G2. The only G2 set I ever got was 2015 Tahu. And if you think G1 sets are crazy expensive on eBay and Amazon…oh boy.
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the only stuff I buy now is just bulk random parts.
edit: or I order specific stuff of Bricklink
Very true. And the sad part is, LEGO seemed to want to move BIONICLE away from the story that ultimately made it so popular during the run. I just recently listened to the GregF interview with Gathered Friends from last year, and my some of what he said was shocking.
I’ve always had this theory that something went wrong with BIONICLE in 2008 and that it was always intended to be the end of the story and move on to something else. Side thoughts on that were that Icarax was intended to be Teridax’s final form, Teridax takeover wasn’t planned, and all the “Final Battle” marketing was intended to signal to fans that it was ending. As a kid, I legit thought it was the final year of the line and was going to end. Turns out, I wasn’t all that far off. Per Greg, he went to a meeting in Billund to discuss the 08 story. The team, ADVANCE and most of LEGO hire ups had already made up their mind and wanted to end the story in 2008. They wanted to just use the BIONICLE name but in a completely unrelated location and characters, not linked to the MU story. When Greg protested, they said “No one cares about the story”, “no one will even notice if we change the location and stop connecting it”, “kids don’t care about the story”.
Greg lost the argument, but convinced them to let Makuta take over the universe and link the new location to the story via the Ignika/Mata Nui. But hearing that was telling. LEGO was trying to remove the stories influence, believe no one cared, and to make BIONICLE essentially the name for “constraction” much like system is a blanket for things like City. And at the end of the day, it failed. 09’s drastic change, abandonment of the heroes we followed for 8 years, and their lack of understanding on just how much the story was critical to its success. From this, it comes as no surprise why G2 went the way it did.
BIONICLE, ultimately, outgrew LEGO. The story became more important and popular than the sets, and in 08, most of my friends only cared for the story, and didn’t bother with any sets beyond the Toa Nuva - if even them. BIONICLE has staying power, it always has. Greg, in that same interview, even said that he could’ve been writing the story every 2 months for the last 10 years since it was canned, and wouldn’t be any where near its completion. BIONICLE can only come back and thrive as a story. And that’s not gonna come from LEGO, who uses story to sell a product. Maybe some day they liscence BIONICLE out to a publisher - it would thrive. But any other resurrection, or a LEGO produced G3 will have the same issues G2 will, and likely will fail again.
As for Biovival…Ya. Faber is being a bit too cryptic. If he is getting the liscensing rights to make a G1 story continuation, then I am more than excited. But I feel its just an advert for his next project - which I’d also support, but I just want to know what it is and not get hopes up. Time will tell the final tale on that though. We shall see.
EDIT: Sorry I wrote a mini essay. Tldr, Bonk was gonna end in 08. LEGO no like story. Simple good, complex bad.
-Sol
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To be honest it might have been better for 2008 to have concluded G1, with Teridax’s final defeat and the Great Spirit Robot being a final twist reveal. It would have avoided the massive story bloat of introducing Bara Magna, only for everything to be wrapped up super quickly anyway.
That said, that account seems to contradicts the idea that G1 at one point had a 20-year story arc planned, with the location switch to Bara Magna always part of it. (Not sure where that idea originally came from though.)
LEGO has always failed to realise that it is the products themselves that killed “constraction”, not side stuff like story. G1’s decline began with the switch from Technic subtheme to “buildable action figure”, and no subsequent LEGO action figure line has been successful.
Re: Biovival. It won’t be a G1 continuation because 1. late G1 wasn’t really Faber’s story and 2. the “BIONICLE” that is culturally remembered is the '01/'02 stuff, when it was genuinely very popular.
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The interview mentioned Bob Thompson’s “7 Books of Bionicle”. Greg assumed much of what happened in the story post-05 was repurposed from that, but Bob never explicitly said all of it, at least to Greg, before he left LEGO in 05’. For example, he speculated that Bob always planned for the 7th Toa, but Gregs role on the story team suggested it was a bit of a late edition. So presumably, Spherus Magna was book 5/7 by that logic. But it was never concrete. He said that most of those billund meetings, most of the story wasn’t even planned out and they decided stuff there, and the 08 meeting was a bit different than usual, where everyone save him had their mind set on ending and a Glatorian reboot.
But ya, a part of me always thought 08 should’ve been the end. Heck, as a kid in 08, I thought it was and was super excited. Just defeating Teridax and the Big robot reveal would’ve been enough as one heck of a conclusion. That and I always felt that Glatorian had staying power as its own theme and thought it would’ve been really interesting as its own setting, in the BIONICLE universe but not really connected to the robot, as was LEGO’s original plan.
-Sol
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I agree that ‘Bara Magna’ should have had its own few years before linking it back to the main story.
In fact, wasn’t that the original plan? There was going to be a trilogy of Glatorian movies?
On that topic, I think there also could have been a few years of story out of Teridax’s Reign. Of course, that stuff was only written because Greg Farshtey was given more control of the story because Lego was discontinuing the theme, but still.
If Lego had been willing to commit to the story, maybe the set releases could have been back and forth, with the Winter waves being Glatorian, and the Summer waves being Teridax’s Reign.
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The pre-billund meeting plan, was Glatorian was gonna be its own thing in the BIONICLE universe/with the BIONICLE Brand name, completely unrelated to anything in the MU with 08 ending with MN rising and a happy ending. They wanted a fresh scene and to toss off the story, as they believed it was both too convoluted and that “Nobody cares about the story”. Greg convinced them to let him make Teridax take over the MU and connect the story, do another trilogy, and then see how it went. 09 underperformed and they canned it, and Greg/Story team convinced them to do the Stars and 1 last book to end it quickly without a cliffhanger.
I’m glad we did get an ending that wrapped things up, but I feel like linking them ultimately ended up screwing over the idea of Glatorian as a line (which I still think had potential, such a cool concept) and BIONICLE as a whole. Heck, constraction as a whole. Glatorian, functionally, would’ve been the new constraction theme under the BIONICLE line (ala BIONICLE was under Technic in at first) and who knows what would’ve happened with things like HF and CCBS later down the line. Fun what if scenario.
And Ya, I agree. Greg believed that MN shouldn’t even rise in 08 and he had ideas for at least 2-3 more years of MU stories before raising him, but the folks up top were adamant that he needed to wake up in 08. Reign of shadows would’ve been a great line of sets and story, alot of potential there. Shame.
-Sol
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Hero Factory was popular (in it’s early years, at least), and LEGO themselves have stated that. So saying that no constraction line post-G1 has been successful is bit of a bold claim to say the least.
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Depends how you measure success, but the theme (and CCBS itself) was not able to maintain enough interest to become evergreen like Ninjago, Star Wars, City etc.
Even with a popular IP like Star Wars, CCBS was not particularly desirable. (A “successful” CCBS would have become an ongoing third branch of LEGO building, like System and Technic, but instead it has been shelved.)
When it comes down to it, System and Technic are two products largely unique to LEGO, with a near monopoly on their market. “Constraction” tried to move into the already-packed action figure market, but lacked the qualities to succeed against all that extra competition.
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