Agreed, though like you say, it definitely kind of stinks with how many of them there are 
From what I understand though, the previous entries fared much better outside of the US during their runtime, so that’s probably part of why the ended up being so insanely successful, likely even among non-AFOLs (perhaps even more so among non-AFOLs) worldwide.
I still think it’s unfair. they Literally chose a dumb stupid typewriter over they’re IP that people actually like and want
like. who even made the typewrite? why did it got so many votes? and why did it have to ruin everything?!?
I don’t know exactly who, but they were a competitor on the UK “Lego Masters” program and apparently they built a similar MoC there - so that might have something to do with it.
Tell that to typewriter
Okay. I’ve had a bit of time to cool down. I’m not as depressed anymore. My arguments against the other sets were more out of spite than any logic or reasoning, which is a bit childish and immature of me. I apologize to whoever worked very hard to make those sets a reality, and congratulate them on their dream’s realization.
Now, this is definitely a blow. It’s not one we’ll never come back from, and we certainly can use this to strengthen each other more. I mean, there’s got to be something we can learn from this, maybe we just don’t know what it is. And, no, the lesson is not “LEGO hates Bionicle.”
I really don’t think that’s a fair assumption to make. People say LEGO was so embarrassed by G2 that they canceled Bionicle and will never let it be anything more than a bunch of stickers in future, but I just don’t see that.
If Bionicle was really unredeemable, and if LEGO didn’t want anything to do with it ever again (excluding the aforementioned stickers), I really think they would have let G2 keep running until it died a miserable death and would be tossed in with Chima and Power Miners and Nexo Knights as themes that “were cool for a bit.” But they didn’t do that. They ended it while it still sold “averagely.” I think LEGO realized that they weren’t doing Bionicle the justice they believed its fans and potential customers deserved, and maybe they weren’t ready to give the time and energy needed to do this. Why not? I dunno, maybe they have all of their favorite writers over at Ninjago or something. It doesn’t matter, my point is that I don’t believe LEGO “hates Bionicle” or whatever.
But why didn’t this set make it? I can only speculate. That’s all we can ever do, really. LEGO knows what LEGO wants more than we do, and Sokoda’s project just didn’t fit that at the moment, and we may never know why.
There are rumors that LEGO is planning something else, but, as much as I would love that, it’s incredibly unlikely. Or, at least, nothing worth getting hopes up about because it will hit even harder if this project was denied and still there wasn’t anything planned.
I am kind of afraid that Christian Faber had something to do with it. It would be dreadfully ironic and terribly irritating if Biovival “killed” Bionicle, but who knows? He hinted at meeting with LEGO, and as blatantly misleading as he’s being, who even knows at this point what he’s been up to? Maybe LEGO signed some sort of contract where they had to hold off on sets or something. This probably isn’t accurate, but it’s my worst fear, so it’s worth mentioning.
Maybe it’s the diorama-style. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember any LEGO Ideas sets appearing in this format. The sitcom sets are always “doll houses,” others are display pieces that don’t depict specific scenes, and some are just jumbo builds of certain structures or characters. I think it’s worth mentioning that this project truly felt one-of-a-kind, and maybe it just didn’t work with what LEGO believes would sell. It’s disheartening, because I adore Sokoda’s work with this set, but I can’t shake that feeling.
Where should we go from here? This is the question I think will have crossed every fan’s mind at least once in the coming few days. I honestly think we should rally to the other Bionicle Ideas sets. I mean, Zelda’s been at it for a while, and when LEGO’s partnership with Nintendo was secretive and some designers have hinted at potential other themes created from the relationship, every single one has gotten shut down. People have shown again and again that Zelda is popular and want LEGO to make it, and LEGO never does. I think this is a pretty big clue into LEGO’s behind-the-scenes.
The problem is, we haven’t really shown LEGO that. I don’t want to 501st it, but I really think that showing our community’s unity to LEGO is our duty, and these sets could become our destiny. If LEGO has anything planned, or can’t possible remake Bionicle in this way, we’ll learn by repeated denials. If it was just a fluke, and Sokoda’s project was overshadowed, or if it was some other reason specific to this circumstance, we will discover that too. It’s just our job, as a community, to never give up. If we fight for it, maybe, just maybe, we can actually revive Bionicle. Maybe we can’t expect that from LEGO, and we can’t idly wait and hope and get mad every time we’re wrong, maybe it really is in our hands.
And Sokoda, you are still a hero in this community. You are the first of us to tread in these waters, and hopefully your path will guide the way for many more to come.
I’m clearly very passionate about this theme and this community, and also pretty tired, so much so that I’ve been saying things I may not even agree with. And yet, I 100% agree with my final statement in my speech, no matter what you take it to mean:
We are Constraction’s last hope.
Or maybe New Girl?
But seriously, I agree. They’re just playing favorites. All Lego ever wants to make is sitcom dioramas. Never mind that the Bionicle set was a diorama, too. And Seinfeld…I was never that attracted to it before, but now I think even less highly of it.
And the usable typewriter? Didn’t they JUST do a playable piano? Ugh.
It seems like whenever there’s an Ideas project that I want to be made into a set, it always gets rejected in favor of something that I’m not even a fan of. Like, a few years back, there was a Back To The Future train project that I thought was really cool, and I wanted it to become a set. But…it didn’t. And now, I made a Lego Ideas account just so I could support Sokoda’s project, but it got rejected. 
And do you know what really rubs salt in the wound? This.
This project just got released this year as a set. The original Pirates Bay Ideas project had absolutely nothing to do with the Black Seas Barracuda. Don’t believe me?
Yeah. It was just another pirate hideout. It was a pretty cool model on its own, but Lego decided to add its own twist on it. The Black Seas Barracuda is a pretty popular set among Lego fans, and Lego decided to add their own spin on the Ideas project to honor this major part of their history (the BSB got a rerelease or two, if I’m not mistaken). They went the extra mile and gave the pirates bay hideout the ability to be turned into an actual pirate ship. Lego didn’t have to go that extra mile to honor their history, but they did.
With Bionicle, just making the project into a set would’ve honored their history. While I understand that Lego Ideas sets are seldom identical to their original projects, the set would’ve been a love letter to the part of the Lego history with or without changes. And besides-IT WOULDN’T HAVE REQUIRED A LICENSE! I don’t know what gave Lego the idea to turn the pirates bay into a BSB tribute, but turning down this Bionicle project was a HUGE missed opportunity.
TLDR: If Lego could use the Pirates Bay set as a means of honoring their history, then why couldn’t they do that with Bionicle?
Well, a lot of watery eyes, vicious scowls, and tired fingers here. And everyone’s finding something to blame Lego for… Even TTV.
I hate to be that guy, but I told you so.
In my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t going to win. If LEGO learned anything from G2, it’s that Bionicle, in this day and age, won’t sell well. That may be their fault, or anyone’s fault, or mine for trying to collect every single Akaku on the planet but the one thing they certainly weren’t going to approve was a nostalgic love letter which would only sell to the 10K people who voted for it and not anyone opposed to the minifig character representations. Whereas Seinfeld and Home Alone have massive nostalgic fanbases with the money to afford collectibles like that, and a functioning typewriter (as hinted by the LEGO reps in the video) or even a non-functional one would have a specific targeted market, Bionicle would have nowhere near as much people with the interest, money, and nostalgic attachment willing to buy the product.
No, it wasn’t going to happen. Any competition would have beat it, not because of its design, but it’s an incredibly poor choice for LEGO to make. As TDPrince said earlier in the topic, LEGO made the commercially smart move and not the one to please the incredibly small amount of people who freak out because of a sticker in a Hidden Side set.
Now I’m not going to quote anyone in the topic (unless you quote me and/or contest something I’ve said) but I do want to address something Meso said in the video:
We’re just trying to convince LEGO that we’re here, but they know we’re here, and they don’t care.
I’m sorry, what?
LEGO’s put up with the Bionicle fanbase for all of this time, and because they don’t give you an Ideas set (which got 10,000 likes in an incredibly fast and from a big company’s perspective rather suspicious amount of time) they don’t care? Why does LEGO have to cater to us at all?
And this isn’t just towards Meso. If not getting an Ideas set is really ticking you off (as some people here seem to be), you need to calm down. LEGO isn’t your dream company, they’re a multimillion corporation whose primary incentive is (and rightly should be) continuing as a multimillion corporation, not becoming plastic build-a-bear for a handful of needy people in its massive market.
To quote… Me,
Let’s pretend, for a moment, LEGO doesn’t care and G2 was entirely a marketing campaign to get money and nothing else at all. We hated it, shot it down, refused to buy it, and wondered why it died.
Why would LEGO in their right mind give us an Ideas set? G2 wasn’t good enough, so why should they care?
Alright, time to wrap things up a little.
If you’re getting legitimately heated or depressed because of this, go sit down, read a good book, take your mind off the topic.
…
Okay, you finished? Good. Now let me finish with a few painful reminders:
LEGO does not owe us anything.
LEGO does not refuse to acknowledge us.
LEGO will not approve a Bionicle ideas set if it has any competition.
Sokoda does not deserve an angry mob of people tearing each other to shreds online and dramatic, three-hour text walls on message boards.
Sokoda does deserve support in his future endeavors.
If you forgot to calm down, you should do so.
TTV does not need to deal with the fallout of the Ideas project so don’t give them a hard time please.
LEGO will always have the option to renew the Bionicle IP for the next 70 years by American copyright law.
None of us are the only hope, the final line of defense, the sole defenders of constraction, Bionicle, or anything.
There is always another chance.
And on a final note, I want to applaud Sokoda for having the guts to respond to the Bionicle community - THE Bionicle Community - after he received the Ideas review results. Probably knowing full well the angry comments, the walls of texts, the sad videos, and all the vitriol about LEGO.
Now, I would really like to see if Sokoda would be willing to release the instructions/custom prints for the stud.io file (unless he has and I missed it).
I want to agree with you here, but I don’t know. If a Bionicle Ideas set wasn’t released this time, then where’s the guarantee that it’ll pass another product review for another anniversary?
(hint: nowhere)
I’ve been thinking about this all day at work today, and I can’t help wondering if Lego rejected this set because they’re planning on doing something with Bionicle in the future. True, there’s the whole smaller-demographic issue, but if Lego was planning G3 or something similar, then it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to release a set that basically says “Yay, this now-retired theme was launched 20 years ago!”
But even then, there’s still doubt. Christian Faber’s been teasing 3ionicle for quite some time, but nothing ever seems to get anywhere. So I don’t think G3 is gonna come anytime soon.
Now, the question that comes, is… Is it worth trying again? Getting a project to 10K supporters wouldn’t be that hard (In the Quest for Mata Nui Discord server alone there are more than 10K people), but is it gonna be worth the effort? It took us 8 months to find out the results for this review stage, and I don’t think we can afford waiting 8 more months to get the next set in the review stage.
For future attempts though, it might be worth trying to figure out what went wrong with Sokoda’s set so we can have a even bigger chance when we try submitting another set. So, no more diorama-style sets. I think attempting a Voltron-style Great Spirit Robot could be another set idea that could have a chance (since it can have a more general appeal than Sokoda’s diorama that was aimed at Bionicle fans alone).
I think what went wrong was what we had to go up against. Even though I don’t particularly care for any of the stuff that Sokoda’s project lost to, they still had larger demographics than Bionicle’s.
I think the most viable tribute we’ll get is some small-scale set at a relatively safe price point. Lego’s done things like classic castle minifigure packs and whatnot that are clearly only going to appeal to a niche - but never at a massive scale. I’d love to see something like that for the 20th anniversary, and there’s still a chance of that.
I would not expect Lego to have a big-scale thing in the works for us, and if you’re holding out for that, you will likely be disappointed.
What? Why? Where else are we going?
Seriously, though - aside from maybe requiring a bit of, like, good 'ol fashioned patience, there’s no reason we can’t keep going at it with every review section we’ve got.
This.
They’re not going to say “oh, it was fast, therefore it’s popular”. They’re going to say “oh, it’s fast, I bet they posted it on one of their fan forums.”
Similar things likely happen with other branded products, though. The key to proving that we’re serious is not to swamp the votes on a single idea, but do it consistently (that could mean for numerous upcoming review periods, like the Zelda fans have apparently been doing) and discerningly (so that we’re not just liking anything that’s Bionicle, but showing appreciation for genuinely quality designs.)
I think the turntable was more of an issue than the diorama itself. It’s extremely difficult to depict something like that on eye-catching box art.
Lego also cares about the build experience, not just the final product - they don’t want you to have to repeat build the same massive thing three times in a row. They want you to have as much fun putting it together as you do looking at it afterwards.
A great big box of grey-and-brown bricks is not hugely attractive to your everyday buyer.
Yes and no. There was some good competition, but there will be good competition pretty much every review season (remember, 10k people voted for each of those things too, and I don’t think the typewriter had a forum of specifically-dedicated fans clamoring for it to reach the top, either).
The build should be good enough where it can stand next to those and still show enough universal appeal where Lego can say “this still has a solid chance.” We can’t bank on the next review period being “easier”.
Well that’s the thing…those other projects had large enough demographics that they didn’t need people to start voting campaigns in their favor.
Exactly. And Bionicle, like it or not, doesn’t - which is probably, quite frankly, the #1 reason that the set didn’t get through. Because Lego knows all this. Even their acceptance update of the set was something like “Congrats on rallying the nostalgia-filled Bionicle community!” which actually says nothing about the build itself.
That’s why I think that if (big if) they’re going to choose (not talking about Ideas here) to give us a 20th anniversary set, it’ll be something small, and at a cheap price point, and a limited release. And, if we’re lucky enough to see that actually happen, it’s something I would be perfectly be ok with.
I don’t think we can expect that 100%. I mean, I agree that that would be awesome, and I do want Lego to do something like that. But again, there’s no guarantee. And, knowing Lego, it’s possible that they’ll just skip over it entirely.
When Lego did the Stars line in 2010, it made sense to do a 10-year-anniversary thing, because 1.) the line was still going, and 2.) what better way to end the series’ run? And the rumor is that next year, the 10th anniversary of Ninjago, we’ll get a special set that celebrates that anniversary. Obviously, nothing is confirmed as of now, but since Ninjago is still going, it would make sense for Lego to do that. Bionicle, on the other hand, is dead. Even though we are fans of it and talk about it all the time, we are a minority. If you went up to a random guy on the street who was in high school or college and asked him what Bionicle was, he’d probably say “Uh…isn’t that that Lego robot figure thing?” And an elementary school kid…forget it! He’d just give you a quizzical look and walk away. My point is, Bionicle is nowhere near as relevant as it was in the 2000s. And even when it WAS relevant, I’d hesitate to call it a Barbie or Mr. Potato Head contender in terms of cultural impact.
That was kind of what I was saying. We will either get something small, or we won’t get something at all.
I’ve been looking at a lot of the Bionicle sets on LEGO Ideas with the thought in mind that whatever wins, it has to sell well, and I think I know which one has the best chance of becoming a set. We should support every Bionicle Ideas set, of course, but the Brickheadz set by Merovinchi by far has the most likelihood of succeeding.
A lot of people remember Bionicle, but only the first couple years, so the Mata/Nuva have to be a focus of whatever Ideas set could actually win. The set can’t be constraction, since a lot of those molds are out of production by now, so Brickheadz is already close just by being buildable figures. Finally, the Toa are recognizable enough in this form to be eye-catching to people who were ever vaguely interested in Bionicle. Sokoda’s set was wonderful, but a lot more people are likely to go “Oh cool, I remember getting the red one when I was a kid!” than they would’ve to recognize everything from TLOTB: Celebrating 20 Years of Lego Stories.
Sokoda’s set was a labor of love, and I think it was very well built. The main thing that prevented it from reaching the same audience the winning sets did is that it was made for the fans specifically. LEGO Ideas has proven itself to be a platform for making money first and foremost, and out of the sets I’ve seen relating to Bionicle, I just think Brickheadz would be the most profitable to the widest audience. Honestly, it sounds like a realistic Lego move to split it up into six sets and sell them as a limited time (emphasis on limited - they probably wouldn’t produce more than the first batch) Bionicle wave of the official Brickheadz line instead of having it be an Ideas set.
Am I saying it’ll certainly become a set if it gets to 10,000 supporters? No. I really don’t know if Lego will ever do anything with Bionicle again after cancelling it twice. What I’m trying to say is that out of all the Bionicle sets on LEGO Ideas right now, this one is the most on the right track, and I think if a Bionicle set does win in the future, it’ll probably be pretty similar to this.
with all this going down should I just give up on Bionicle and stop being a fan?
because this is hurting a lot more then it should have. and seeing all this Negativity and Anger is making it a lot worse.
if Lego doesn’t care… why should I?
Did I say there was a chance for an Ideas set?
No. In fact I spent the entire post giving reasons for why people shouldn’t whine about it, and also saying I knew it wasn’t going to happen and why that was. I’m saying there’s always another chance for Bionicle.
Hey man, if you want to quit being a fan, go ahead. The Bionicle community’s been through much, much worse than an Ideas set being rejected. Two cancellations, major fan sites disappearing into obscurity, and the Bionicle community being terrible to itself and everyone else for twenty years - this little proposed set is nothing in comparison.
This is the number one issue with Sokoda’s set: It really isn’t a marketable construction kit. It’s a spinning diorama, something that LEGO very rarely ever leans towards. Every set they’ve made has some sort of play feature and Sokoda’s model is, well, a display piece and nothing more than a display piece.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when it comes to selling a display piece in a buildable toy company aimed almost exclusively at children… Yeah. It’s made more ironic that it’s a Bionicle homage.
I’m sorry if I sounded super pessimistic, I’ve just been burned out by Lego for years.
In my opinion, being a fan of Bionicle hasn’t been about buying new sets for a decade now, and that was only ever a part of it to begin with. To be a fan of Bionicle is to build new mocs out of what we already have, to share stories and art, to make movies, and so much more. We don’t need new sets to keep being active fans (though it wouldn’t hurt 
).
We just have to keep moving along.
just… I ran out of ideas. I’m in a moc block and I got nothing to work with for my story. I just want a another CCBS theme and just something to look forward too.
Then find something in this community to be excited for.
A LEGO Ideas set got rejected. In other news, water found to be wet.
The world keeps spinning, life goes on, and so does this community. I’ve said elsewhere we’re more alive now than in the past 5 or so years. Let’s analyze that statement:
The Biomedia Project is STILL finding obscure and forgotten Bionicle content to archive.
Litestone studios is finishing The Legend of Mata Nui, and making an enhanced version.
The Quest for Mata Nui game is nearly here.
Team Kanohi is making a game of their own.
YouTube is bursting with animators like Vrahno, Peri, and more.
We are currently voting on the appearance of Toa Helryx. I’ve seen so many jaw dropping concepts in just the first contest.
Christian Faber is…here too. Maybe.
We are still here discussing Bionicle on these message boards and on BZPower.
And much more on the different social media groups.
If you seek a spark of life for Bionicle, merely look around.