Okay,so many of you know that till the return of Bionicle,Bio’s fans have been up at arms against Hero Factory.Many hated it because it replaced Bionicle,some because they didn’t like the sets,others because the story was pretty dumb.
Ever since Bionicle returned,people kinda forgot about HF and those who hated it surely felt like they obtained a huge victory when it got cancelled.
For the last 5 years,many people viewed HF as Bionicle’s biggest enemy.
But HF was actually vital for the return of Bionicle.
Here’s why.
Okay,so let’s go back to 2008.
2008 was the year that many people viewed as Bionicle’s final one,and many expected it to end that year.Story-wise,it was the year that the Toa would finally awake Mata Nui,destroy Makuta for good and live happy ever after.Lego sure made some great sets.The Phantoka Toa and Makuta were awesome,and even though i dislike the Mistika,they sure weren’t completely awful.But,around that year,sales started to go down.The sets became kinda repetitive,as they were still using the Inika build 2 years after it’s launch,and by that time the story got far too complex for small kids to follow.But Lego had no plans of canceling Bionicle.So,what did they do?
They try to very-softly reboot Bionicle,which leads us to 2009.After the cliffhanger of 2008,2009’s story was something completely different.After Teridax took control of Mata Nui’s body,the Ignika was shot in the space and landed on a completely different planet,Bara Magna.There,the Ignika made a body for Mata Nui,and he started exploring and i won’t say what happened next cuz many of you already know that.
Personally i really liked 2009.
But others surely didn’t.
With 2009,Lego tried to revive Bionicle so the sets could sell well again.
For that they try to make a new story,that was still kinda conected to the old one,so the younger fans could follow it.Depending on the sales of that years,Bionicle would’ve either go into a hiatus,or continue the Bara Magna story for a couple of years.Lego put a lot of money into Bionicle that year,and even made that Big Budget movie.They expected 2009 to be a homerun.But as you already know,2009 failed.Miserabily.
In my opinions,for 2 reasons:
1.The older fanbase didn’t care about the new story,so they didn’t buy the sets.The story was still conected to the old one,and it was still hard to follow for the little guys.
2.Lego tried to completely reinvent Bionicle,but the sets were still using the Inika Build.That was an issue,in my opinion,and the sets got incredibly repetitive and boring,another reason for the lack of sales that year.
Seeing that in 2009 they sold even less sets than in 2008,and also that year they put a lot of money into Bionicle,Lego decided to make a new building system,but as that was really hard and needed a lot of time,they decided to give the story a quick end and put Bionicle into hiatus.That happened in 2010.
Alright,and now HF kicks in.
Many people thought that HF happened just because Lego wanted to kill Bionicled,and they hated HF for that.
But that was not the case.
Here’s the thing about Hero Factory:
It was an experiment.
With it,Lego tried to make a new building system for Bionicle,and see if people were still interested in buildable action figures.They tried to make it as appealing as possible for the young kids,this time.
HF lasted for 5 years.Each year,the CCBS got better and better,and the sales were amazing at the peak of HF’s popularity (2012).After seeing the experiment going well,Lego decided to start working on Bionicle in 2013.
The Brain Attack Pieces were important for the new Bionicle sets,and Lego also used the CCBS in a few other themes like Chima,in order to perfect it.In 2014,everything was done and Lego decided to bring back Bionicle and end HF.That’s also the reason why the 11th episode,Invasion from Below,sucked so much,Lego stopped working with the guys who made the HF tv series up until that point,as it was expensive to work with,and replaced it with a much cheaper animation studio.That because they weren’t interested in HF anymore.So,after that,the experiment was concluded and Bionicle returned with a new story and a new building system.
HF was important for Bionicle for the reasons i mentioned above.
It gave Lego the opportunity to create a new building system for Bio,and see if people would still buy buildable action figures.Lego never wanted to kill Bionicle.They realised why Bionicle was failing in the final years of the original story,and put it into hiatus so they could fix those issues.
I compare HF to one of Bio’s most loved characters:
The Bohrok.
At first,it seems like it acts distructive and tries to “kill” everything that is important for you,so you take action and try to kill it back.Afterwards you find out that it was just doing it’s job and was actually vital for the survival of the said thing.It never wanted to destroy it,it was just doing what he was tasked to do,for the good of the said thing.
So for anyone that still hates HF,i suggest you to change your mind.If HF never existed,maybe Bionicle would’ve never returned.
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Yes.
All of this, yes.
And I especially love the Bohrok analogy.
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A very nice job of analyzing the situation, sir.
I agree with all of it.
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Very good analogy of Bionicle’s situation, but Lego would still be thriving, just without constraction figures. HF was definitely an experiment to see if constraction figures would sell.
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Coolio… but
Does HF double as a wash clothe?
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This is a nice topic, especially for people tat still think that HF was there to destroy Bionicle.
As I was writing somewhere, HF was awful to me, for various reasons, but it wasn’t perceived by me as Bionicle’s destroyer, and I was kinda happy that Bionicle ended even, because a break was just a need for our favorite line.
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This is a very interesting viewpoint to take. But it is so true
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I’ll admit that I haven’t read the post yet but the title is definitely accurate
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I really like this topic.
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well now I have a new perspective…
also, I hate to be that guy, but I love your prof pic
…I’ve been saying this to people for a while now.
FINALLY someone with similar thoughts.
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hehe thx,yours looks pretty awesome too man 
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awwwwww shux 
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yeah 
Loved Hybrid Theory and Meteora.