Shaddup XD
Oh yeah, forgot to reply to this too:
I don’t necessarily mean either of those things. I guess I should probably elaborate a little; when I say “better off with the fans,” I mean that Lego has proven themselves incapable of replicating the widespread success and quality standard that BIONICLE once had. This is because they are a company, and they are understandably worried about producing good sales results. These problems and anxieties that Lego may be facing can cause them to make mistakes as they try to do what is best for all of their various properties and figure out how to best sell them to today’s kids, especially if you believe, like me, that BIONICLE G1 was like lightning in a bottle and may be hard, if not impossible, to perfectly replicate. It’s been said time and time again; Lego sells sets, not stories, and for what it’s worth, many of the sets produced for G2 were spectacular. However, they mismanaged the storytelling aspect of G2 pretty severely.
I’ll use the obvious example to elaborate on my point; the 2015 animations. Why do they exist in the form they’re in? Why are they short, online-only animations that were clearly not made with an incredibly large budget? Is it because Lego was not confident enough that BIONICLE would turn a profit to invest in a full TV show, as most of their other story-driven themes typically receive? Is it because they were testing the waters to gauge reception and ease fans into the theme before committing to JTO? Is it because of outside factors, like allocation of marketing budgets for all of their respective themes and the fact that BIONICLE is merely a constraction line, and unlikely to ever truly “take off” like their Big Bang System themes? We’ll never know the answer to these questions, more likely than not, and that’s just for one aspect of G2.
Fans don’t have to worry about that stuff whatsoever. They have the capability to just immerse themselves in the world of BIONICLE and make good stories, and let Lego handle the plastic toy portion of things (although even that seems to be changing, as fans have started to do what Lego will not). Pereki’s Trial by Tahu Short is a better told story than anything G2 produced and he created it in his spare time. I’m just speaking from a story standpoint, but the same thing is true with MoCists; look at what people have been able to achieve without having to worry about a set’s budget and price-to-part ratios and all that stuff that goes into set design. It’s the main reason why people were so excited back when G1’s story was going to continue past the BIONICLE Stars. BIONICLE could finally have a chance to tell a story that wouldn’t be shackled to whatever new wave of sets was on shelves at any given point! Obviously, that didn’t happen, but the spirit of the idea still applies today.
Obviously, not everybody in the BIONICLE community is immediately capable of telling master-level stories or making top-notch MoCs, but their freedom to do so without worrying about outside factors and marketing budgets and all that stuff is why the concept of BIONICLE will always have a greater chance to flourish outside of Lego’s immediate control.
-Mesonak