Thank you Kini, I concur with pretty much everything you said.
I want to just chime in with a brief reaffirmation of my standpoint here, even though I’d hope, at this stage, it would be largely unnecessary.
This is, intrinsically, the whole point. Sarcastic remark about complaining aside… nobody gets annoyed at him about Rebel Nature. Why?
If you were being disingenuous, you’d say “because people are just complaining because they want BIONICLE back and they want to hold Faber to some unrealistic standard!” Obviously that isn’t always true; I’m one of the most vocal critics and I don’t really want BIONICLE back in any form (I’d rather it be in the hands of the community). So why, then?
Because Rebel Nature is an independent project, an original IP developed solely by Faber. I am not ignorant that creative projects take time to develop, so I’m aware that it might not come out for a while. I’m not impatient for it because the Rebel Nature project is a new, untested, uncharted property and when it comes out, I plan to give it a fair shot and appraise its merits just like I would any other piece of media. It could be good, it could be bad, but I’ll be fair and give Faber the benefit of the doubt whenever I watch it.
#Biovival could also very well be a new project. It could carry on similar themes to BIONICLE, but be a wholly original property for the modern era. It could be a unique take on similar concepts, with a creative spin on a lot of things which could be appreciated by BIONICLE fans. If this was the case (and if it turns out to be this), I will treat it the exact same way as Rebel Nature. A fair appraisal with an open mind, not concerned with anything from the past which may give me a bias, positive or negative. I have always maintained this point.
The issue comes from the implication that this will be a revival of BIONICLE. Because of this notion, which Faber has used to garner support, likes, and attention for this project, a whole different set of expectations is placed upon the idea. Because the BIONICLE community is diverse and not a hive mind, you have some people who want BIONICLE G1 to come back and be continued by Faber right where we left off. Some people want a continuation far into the future on Spherus Magna. Some people want a G2-style reboot, because that’s the only way Faber can be truly creative in a modern era. Some people feel G2 was way too reliant on nostalgia-pandering, so they want a completely fresh take on the BIONICLE concept. Some people believe LEGO products are the core of the BIONICLE experience, while some prefer the story and worldbuilding, finding the LEGO sets themselves expendable to the overall experience.
These groups are very, very different from each other. There is no way to please them all. Assuming, for a second, that Faber does somehow manage to revive BIONICLE (which is extremely, extremely unlikely, in which case EVERY SINGLE listed group will be heartbroken and angry with him for making people believe his project is BIONICLE), he will then have to contend with the fact that his take will alienate a large amount of the fans he has cultivated who have set their own particular, often unrealistic hopes for what they want the project to be. All this will inevitably lead to a wave of negativity and disappointment, as the thousands of people that follow his posts will either not get the BIONICLE they want, not get the LEGO sets they want, or not get BIONICLE at all in lieu of a spiritual successor.
The solution is not to please everybody; that is ludicrous and impossible, Faber shouldn’t try to do that. The solution is to set expectations accordingly. If this was just a new product being released, or a revival like G2, this wouldn’t be a concern. A product is put out there, and the audience chooses to either like it and engage with it or dislike it and… well, not. However, because the multi-year advertising campaign he has gone on, peoples hopes have been inflated and their expectations raised with every nostalgia-fueled post he shares, implying a return to BIONICLE’s glory days, a time where it was beloved, a time not unlike its peak popularity. Setting clear expectations for what the project’s ultimate goals are would alleviate all of this, because while many would undoubtedly drop off from following it now, he would then be able to cultivate an audience who will give him unimpeded positivity because they’ll be in for what he’s offering, full stop. Nobody will complain about the direction he takes because the only people who choose to engage with it will be okay with it!
I don’t understand the incessant need to be cryptic and vague about core details. If he doesn’t aim to have LEGO sets or ball-jointed figures because of environmental concerns, why not make that clear? Why have followers need to infer that from a cryptically worded sentence on an April 1st livestream? If he doesn’t place much value in a lore-rich “canon” with a defined set of rules but rather an open canvas that inspires creativity ala a theme like Hero Factory, what harm does the project suffer from being clear about that? Why are people left to infer that through guesswork?
If he actually aims to revive BIONICLE as we once knew it, in name, property, and spirit, then why does he pepper his cryptic statements with potential things that would detract from that goal? Statements about how ball joints are forever gone, statements that seem to place more value on fan-works and creativity than a singular story with a multimedia focus, statements about how “the journey is what matters.” If he wants a more open-ended community centric group project of sorts in lieu of a more traditional “Story with toys and movies/books/comics/games,” why are we left to infer that through guesswork? And if he doesn’t and he instead wants to bring it back as it was, why are people left to infer that through guesswork? Why would he continue to make statements that imply the contrary?
Finally, if it’s not BIONICLE and a instead a spiritual successor… why not just say that in those exact terms?
The conclusion I’m forced to draw, unfortunately, is that he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He fears that he will lose enough support from disclosing these things to where this social media campaign will ultimately turn out to be more of a negative than a positive for him. In that hypothetical, the success of the project and leveraging social media interaction would matter more to him than transparency with the fans and community goodwill, because if he committed to one specific idea instead of all of them, he fears the exodus will be too large. IF (and a big IF) that is true, he fails to realize that he’ll inevitably have to face that reality anyways when the product comes out, and it would be overall better for him to curate a dedicated, non-controversy filled audience NOW.
I sincerely hope that isn’t the case, and I look forward to the opportunity to discuss it with him in our interview (if he replies to our email…)
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