it’s made by LEGO and it says bionicle on the box, therefore it’s bionicle.
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OP: “The reason everyone hated G2.”
Me: “Can I get G2’s G2 please?”
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The main reason i hated it was because of the fact it was too much like hero factory.It may have been the one i was introduced to,but looking back on it after pouring throught the original bionicle lore,i can say its just hero factory.They should have gone back to the darker stories and there being ACTUAL DEATHS and ACTUEL character devolpment.
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What made it “just like Hero Factory”? (aside from using CCBS)
The “Child friendly story”
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Hero Factory took itself a bit more seriously. At least there were villains with back stories and actual character arcs. And the books of HF were almost G1 level when it comes to world building and dark tone. Especially the last one gave me major Dark Mirror vibes.
G2 on the other hand felt like the result of a six year old trying to explain the first two episodes of Ninjago to his younger sibling at some points.
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Exactly.Buuuuuutt…I still think that g1 did a better job at storytelling in any point of the story than hero factory.G2 was an edgy 5 to six year olds wet dream.
Believe me, I hate that just as much as you do, but let’s face it: Kids are LEGO’s target audience. The secret is to balance seriousness with childlike charm, and I think that is one of the things Hero Factory got right.
If your story is too dark and mature, you are only going to appeal to older folks who themselves are way too niche of an audience to be considered profitable.
If, on the other hand, your story is way too childish, you are going to loose most of your audience as soon as they pass the age of 10.
I think some sort of middle ground is the way to go for any Toyline that wants to make a long-term impact.
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Terrible animation.
They could do something much better.
Look at what Ninjago received, it’s great. However, look at what we received. there are only really poor flash animations and less fallen short 3D animations
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For me it was a number of factors. Chiefly, I was bitter about G1’s cancellation and I felt that G2 was their attempt to placate us and I wanted no part of it. That was my line of thinking back in 2015-16; I like to think I’m more mature than that now
Was it even marketed? I can’t recall seeing a single commercial or other advertisement for G2.
This was absolutely a factor for me. I especially disliked what they did with the masks, having made them the source of a Toa’s power as opposed to another tool in their arsenal. I felt that this was a “dumbed down” retelling of the story that I loved for its intricacy. Makuta’s origin story seemed juvenile to me compared to G1’s Legend of the BIONICLE. G1 Makuta (according to the legend) was jealous of Mata Nui because the Matoran honored him. G2 Makuta was upset because his masks weren’t as good as Ekimu’s.
CCBS was a major factor for me. During G1’s run, the sets evolved over time, adding new pieces each year while also using pieces from the previous lines in a (usually) smooth blend. When G2 came out, it just seemed so foreign that I couldn’t imagine trying to build MOCs and having them “fit in” with my existing MOCs. The smooth armors of G2 struck a stark contrast to the rich textures of G1, and the G2 sets rarely used molds from G1.
I completely agree with this. If they’d waited another 5 years, they could have marketed on our nostalgia, but the pain of G1’s cancellation was still fresh in our minds and hearts.
THIS. They should have focused their efforts on appealing to loyal fans instead of trying to appeal exclusively to a new generation.
With all that said, I do wish I’d participated more in G2. I’m still not a fan of CCBS, but I’ve seen a lot of MOCers use CCBS parts with G1 frames in ways that were really amazing. Knowing what I know now, I would have bought up G2 just to support BIONICLE and keep it alive, even if it wasn’t the BIONICLE I knew and loved from my childhood.
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I AGREE TO ALL OF THIS
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The Netflix series could be technically considered marketing, but aside from that I can say, at least here in Germany, they aired commercials on children’s program. Bach then I was freaking out while I randomly saw it when I switched through channels. They got the original German voice actor from the old commercials. That was awesome.
I have to admit that as a Makuta fan I genuinely hate his portrayal in G2. However building a mystery around him to debunk the legend later was probably too complicated for a three year theme. I wished they had tried to merge the void Makuta and the ignition Teridax. A mastermind with an otherworldly appearance with a bit of pseudo-philosophical dialogue.
Makuta was portrayed narcissistic for most of G1, but what made it more interesting was that he was actually capable of achieving his goals.
Also if G2 regards the burning of a tree to be the beginning of a villains career G1 Tahu would be in big trouble there.
Bionicle has a loyal fan base, but is it really big enough to financially sustain a franchise of the biggest toy producer in the world? I don’t think so, unfortunately. When you look at Legos newest sets you will see that Lego wants to be mainstream, not so much by creating recognizable brands, outside Ninjago, but by giving people sets to stuff they already like. And its easy to see why. Marketing is expensive and marketing itself does not create profit, selling products does. Let someone else create interest in your product.
Bionicle is nothing compared to Transformers, Barbie, Beyblade. Especially Transformers and the Bayformer movies will overshadow Bionicle’s legacy, although they are thematically different and also have different play innovations (transforming vs MOCing). Even if it tried to be more appealing to Transformers fans, like discussed in another topic, it would then probably be considered to be an insuperior ripoff.
Also let’s be honest, how many people actually kept up with Bionicle lore.
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It had a decent marketing presence here in Romania as well. I remember at one point they were even playing the full story shorts as preview adds on YouTube videos, fully dubbed in Romanian.
I think we have compelling evidence to suggest that the European market responded much better to G2 overall than the American one. In America, the final 2016 wave ended up being Target exclusives, but they got a decently wide release in Europe as far as I am aware.
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I think the jealousy still applies to G2 Makuta; he didn’t just make worse masks and want to be better; he also didn’t like the fact that the villagers preferred Ekimu’s masks to his own.
He didn’t want to be better than Ekimu, he wanted the villagers to respect him as being better than Ekimu. This is very similar to G1 Teridax’s “evil origin” of not liking the fact that the Matoran preferred to celebrate Mata Nui, rather than himself and his fellow Makuta.
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Ironic that I experienced the same phenomenon during G2’s run in my home country, Hungary.
I still vividly remember seeing the ads for 2015’s winter & Summer waves on the TV while I browsed between the channels.
I also recall one occasion when a small banner advertising the Toa Master sets appeared randomly on the top of my screen once.
So, the theory about G2’s better performance in the European market is probably legit.
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For me, I think it just the mashup of points already spoke below that made the G2 to crash.
- The lack of advertising on a revival of a cancelled franchise (I leaned about G2 bc I saw Tahu/Gahli on a Lego shop when I was waiting a train).
- The lack of personality, the full license was rebooted, with common words and such used instead of famous already known names, destroying all of what is doing its charm, and so it not convinced the old lore fans.
- The CCBS system, despite making “cool build figures”, is just made of “reskinnable endoskeletons” with colored plate to add on it. Moreover IIRC, the Bionicle G2 sets were sold as the same time as the CCBS Star Wars figures.
- Making a full reboot instead of making a real sequel to the previous sets make some fans got backward because “original is better” trope I guess.
-The lack of characters/sets don’t help either I think. and you don’t had the “lower price villains” or small sets. Literally, to change characters in lore, you just had to reuse your already bought figure, but says “Hey, is not Billy, is Jhonny now ! Billy is dead !”. Moreover, you have the OG 6 team resold, with shinier colors.
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I don’t think this effected anything really, because, to my knowledge, CCBS SW figures were a massive flop that didn’t sell at all, so they definitely didn’t contribute to G2’s eventual downfall in any significant way
I feel like this is the real reason though. During the entire runtime of G2 I saw advertisements on TV only once or twice. It seems like Lego decided not to rely on any conventional marketing tactics because they expected the original G1 fans to do all the hyping up for them, which is quite delusional and was never gonna work because that’s not how business is done
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I didn’t hate G2, it was after all, what brought me into the series from a sets standpoint. G2’s sets mixed with G1’s lore would have been a deadly combo as the strong points of both generations respectively.
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