dareth is overrated
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Huh, thought there’d be a lot of ninjago fans here.
Well, when it comes to Bionicle I don’t really care about having posability and functions together. When G2 did that the movement felt too slow and clunky and made it unnecessary imo. Don’t really get the obsession of making everything poseable as possible.
Also don’t like overly detailed mocs. They look less like a lego toy and more like an untouchable figurine.
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My unpopular opinion is that the Michael Bay Transformers actually look nice. I quite like that they show the actual mechanical bits of the characters, as well as realistic joints and armor, whereas some of the other figures have very unrealistic or even cartoonish joints. Case in point: original Optimus Prime’s knees. They work, but their construction wouldn’t work as well aesthetically in a movie, as they are chunky and limit his motion when walking.
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that doesn’t seem very Lego-related
we need just a general unpopular opinions topic
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My mistake. I didn’t read the topic title.
BIONICLE
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I love early years of G1 rather more than the later, but I think the giant robot twist actually fits early G1 spirit pretty well. I think people dislike it partly because of bad phrasing commonly used to describe it. If described well, this twist would not seem as unfitting as it seems when it is said Mata Nui was a giant robot.
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I think having multiple Makuta is not a bad idea. I have also little problem with Makuta being name of species. (But I still very much dislike name Teridax. They should have picked something different.)
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G2 had somewhat better sets than G1 as whole.
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I like Skull Scorpio. It is creepy and interesting.
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CCBS is not bad fit for BIONICLE. G2 also looked very different than Hero Factory (and much better than Hero Factory. I just do not think that Hero Factory’s aesthetics were as good as BIONICLE’s)
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G3 should not be continuation of G1. G1 is already well-fleshed world, goal should be to make a new iteration of BIONICLE that is just as good as G1.
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G3 should focus more on making new fans than G2 did to not fail. Proper BIONICLE revival should not just be about nostalgia for us, but also about making a new generation of BIONICLE fans, recapturing initial success of G1. G2 failed because it was marketed poorly, and had bad presentation and story, not because BIONICLE would not work today.
HERO FACTORY
- If HF was not cancelled so soon, its story would likely be at least on level of NINJAGO. They had big, amazing plans, but these were cut short.
NINJAGO
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Ninjago is one of my favorite LEGO themes. I like the sets very much and the story is good. It just was extended for too long.
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I do not mind the focus on snakes, through it could be lessened. It helps to add to the world, with there being two main species, unlike some settings where all main focus is on humans.
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Ninjago is actually rather diverse in body-types: In G1, most named characters were standard humanoid with various proportions, but in NINJAGO, which is not even constraction but a minifigure theme, we have humans, snakes of various forms, skeletal humans, snakes made out of snakes, and multiple four armed characters.
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Vermillion are in particular actually pretty good concept, because they are a very interesting variation on snakes. Humanoid snakes made out of normal snakes contained within an armor is rather interesting idea in my eyes.
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Skullkin-Serpentine someone once made up as joke would actually be a cool idea.
CHIMA
- Chima could be actually rather good if handled better by LEGO.
Chima has as (if not slightly more) interesting basic concept than Ninjago, and should be as good if properly fleshed out. If LEGO focused on actually developing story and world of Chima, it could be as good as Ninjago, through it likely could not be as long as Ninjago currently is.
STAR WARS
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Star Wars is one of my less favorite LEGO themes, having uninteresting aesthetic, and story that ,while interesting, is not even made by LEGO.
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I avoid Star Wars sets, as they are boring and pricey, and I am only basically familiar with Star Wars. I think big part of this is the color palette. Star Wars have bad color palette for LEGO set. There is no problem with having more muted colors in LEGO sets, but Star Wars overdoes it to an extreme. I like Harry Potter color scheme, or Pharaoh Quest color scheme, these are good examples of muted colors in LEGO.
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Main reason why LEGO Star Wars are so popular has nothing to do with the LEGO theme. Kids pick Star Wars over other themes because of the merits of the movies, not because of merits of sets. The sets are good toys for fans of Star Wars, but do not stand as well on their own. BIONICLE or Ninjago have good sets and good story. They are best together, but can stand separately. I would not say same about Star Wars. If these sets were not Star Wars, they would not sell as well as they do.
LICENSED THEMES
- Unlike some, I am not against LEGO licensed themes in general. I like LEGO Harry Potter for instance. Unlike Star Wars, I think sets are very interesting, and I am not even a big Harry Potter fan.
There just should be more focus on original stories, but that is not an unpopular opinion at all.
ELVES
- I like Elves very much even though I am not female, and even though I find Friends utterly unappealing. Elves just have a really pretty aesthetic. It helps it is a story theme and not a partial reskin of City, one of my least favorite themes.
HIDDEN SIDE
- I think other than over-reliance on the app, this is a cool theme. I love spooky LEGO themes, and this is better fleshed out than Monster Fighters, which I love.
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Do you have any opinion on Nexo Knights? Just asking, because it was in a similar situation.
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Nexo Knights had cool premise, and great potential. Monstrox is one of LEGO’s best antagonists, and Merlok is a great mentor character: an old wise wizard turned into a disembodied technological spirit in this modern age. I watched a part of the show, and it was enjoyable enough.
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Well said!
Both of these points are great, but I like the second one best from the list you posted for Bionicle.
Especially since it’s something that I don’t think is emphasized enough in the fandom, despite its importance to the future of the theme.
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Yeah, it’s not gonna sell well if you make something purporting to be new while trying to make it a nostalgia trip for previous customers. They could have at least made two separate lines of sets the way they did with Star Wars, one for AFOLs, and the small play sets for kids.
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CCBS constraction would be alive and well if Lego had gotten their hands on the Barbie IP
Idk if that’s an unpopular opinion or a hot hot take but I sure did say it
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Or maybe they could have done Lego Friends CCBS? Idk how well it would translate though, I’d suspect they’d have to use fabric or more system to remove the gaps etc. Now that I think of it, a spiritual successor to Scala/Belville would have been pretty cool. Although I’m sure TLG did their research when developing Friends as a minifig scale line.
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Good point on the Friends IP. Hey, they made fabrics for Scala, and it would have been a good competitor for dolls in general
Oh I’m sure you’re right. Still, those SW CCBS heads make me feel like it would have adapted well, and maybe Friends fans would love a doll-scale version of their favorite character. Lord knows we Bionicle nerds say the words “Bionicle minifig” often enough
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another stab at marvel could’ve kept CCBS alive, honestly.
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utterly based
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Now, this is going to be an interesting one:
IMO, the 2016 Toa Uniter sets were neither better nor worse than the Masters.
Although, I agree with others that in terms of look and appearance, the Masters were much more streamlined and consistent in their design aesthetic.
But at the same time, the Uniters’ designs more closely reflected the G1 style in detail.
The build quality of the masters wasn’t bad (on the contrary!), but the whole “Backpack” solution with their gearboxes detracted a lot from their looks for me.
In contrast: The waist-swiveling gimmick of the Uniters, while aesthetically better looking, pushing the feature down to the hip area resulted in a much more squished upper body, which was not the best. (Yes, it was done that way to give the Elemental creatures enough space to be attached to the backs of the Toas with the whole uniting feature, I know, but still.)
Not to mention that they made two very over-specialized and otherwise almost useless molds just for the waist rotation.
I mean, why not use this already existing turntable element to solve the gimmick instead:
That would have saved some money and materials for something more useful for Moc-ing, IMO.
To sum up, both set waves were fantastic, with many great features and attributes.
But even then, both suffered from quality problems of this and similar kinds, which is why they are on the same level for me.
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Because that piece has no friction.
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It has friction, just on the other side if you look closely:
An example:
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that’s not what I meant by friction
The turntable is completely loose, not to mention how problematic it’d be to try and fit hip joints on there
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