Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

I agree. We need more of the original sized cars, though. The two-seaters are too big for road plates.

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Honestly how I feel about many things, especially Star Wars fans and the sequels.

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The Ninjago Movie isn’t worse than the show.

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2009 is my third favourite year for bionicle (07 and 01 are still better)

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Constraction shouldn’t be limited to Bionicle only. It is a building system of its own, just like Technic is its own building system. Bionicle and Constraction in general should not be synonymous.

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If that’s an unpopular opinion, it shouldn’t be; it’s not even really an opinion: constraction is the building system/type, Bionicle is the theme.

I think the lack of distinction is a small part of why there’s so little clarity on what it means to “bring back Bionicle”; a certain proportion of people asking for a return of Bionicle really just want more constraction in general.

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It is quite a popular opinion in the space. To quote past me from various sites and point in the timeline, you can find my overly long definitions and separations below. But it is something I often encounter.

The long rants

I think what would help your discussion is if you separate Bionicle and Constraction. I understand they’re intertwined and often used interchangeably, but it is what causes a lot of conflict.

Constraction: A buildable action figure. Examples include Throwbots, Bionicle, Galidor, Knights Kingdom II, Hero Factory, Ben 10, etc.

Bionicle: An action-story theme from 2001–2010 and/or 2015-2016 primarily consisting of constraction sets.

Constraction is generic, Bionicle is more specific. Constraction can use any pieces and building system for its purposes, even those outside of the dedicated ones for it. Bionicle is largely based on an aesthetic built around specialized pieces made for its run; the setting and how it looks is wholly dependent on the sets and canon. There’s an expectation of what a Bionicle character or creature should look like and failure to meet that often brings disappointment. Can you use a lot of custom Technic or System builds and recreate the look of Bionicle’s specialized parts? Certainly, but plenty will still wonder why you bothered.

I use this distinction due to certain crossover of items. Bionicle had System playsets, I wouldn’t say those aren’t Bionicle. So while Bionicle is largely constraction, it isn’t fully beholden to it. In a similar vain, just because you can create some bust using CCBS or parts made specifically for constraction doesn’t make it a constraction build. If it was from a character or thing from Bionicle, it can be claimed to be a Bionicle bust, regardless of parts used, but simply using what were parts made for Bionicle would not.

Constraction, per its name, should only be concerned with creating some sort of buildable action figure (or action figure adjacent, e.g. vehicles). So that goal in of itself, which is largely foreign to typical Lego builds, will generate the unusual or innovative builds that username seems to appreciate. And that really shouldn’t be limited to just Bionicle.

Where it can get really iffy, outside of other subgroups within Lego with custom parts, painting, cutting, gluing, etc., are poseable models and figures. So something like Gundams I wouldn’t count as non-Lego constraction, as most wouldn’t survive the purposes an action figure is made to perform. But do mechs and mechas count in general, since they share a lot of the same qualities? Or the old Technic Star Wars figures, are they just display models or do they feature enough action functions to count as an action figure? Up to the beholder I suppose.

It’s more here are labels that work better in distinguishing purpose/build types and edge cases that make the definitions difficult. Bionicle has a harder line than Constraction, but that only matters if the builder is trying to keep within its established rules.

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I’m not a fan of purple being associated with the element of Earth as well, as it is the secondary color of Onua in G2.
I know that many people loved the return of that color in Bonkle, and don’t get me wrong, I do love it too it’s just that I don’t think it works with Earth as a secondary color for two reasons:

  1. Makuta in Gen2 already had it, and just like his G1 self, He’s the embodiment (for more or less in G2) of darkness and shadow. So, adding purple to Onua somewhat breaks the visual consistency of the elements for Me a bit.

  2. Green, as a color in general, IMO works better for Earth because there are more things out there that the element can be associated with, like lots of minerals and vegetation.

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which makes me think if Onua would get Green then what would Lewa’s Color be?

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I meant that as his secondary color, but I didn’t formulate that part well enough, so I apologize! :sweat_smile:

But anyway, Lewa can remain mainly green, and Onua would still be primarily black, but his accent color could be another type of green.
I think either sand green or lime green would look nice as Onua’s 2nd color.

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Or trans dark green! I think that would look very nice. Now that I think of it, an interesting way to show earth’s connection to plantlife would be by adding fungi, lichen etc. to Onua’s armour.

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This is kind of why I imagine that Earth’s colour scheme is simply black/gray with any bright colour as a secondary. Earth already has one of the most diverse spreads of secondary colours of any Element, so we might as well go all the way.

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Onua began with a black/dark gray and and transparent green color scheme, so it would make sense to use it on the reboot figure.

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I vastly prefer the aesthetic of the character designs from the Miramax trilogy over both The legend reborn and G2’s Journey to one.

Even though the masks acting like faces on the characters is not my cup of tea, the rest of their appearance feels way more alive and “believable” than the straight-up digital copies of the toys with some rusty textures & weathering effects thrown onto them.

As for the JTO models, they feel too busy in some areas, and while the stylized/ cell-shaded 3D art style is a nice touch, they’re still feeling over-designed with too many unnecessary details on them.
(Plus, everyone’s masks being able to squish and squash around the eye areas when they’re making expressions, but they don’t has any mouthpiece is both strange looking and silly IMO.)

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I think that the original 3 years have the worst story arc of G1. The world building is quite good and the atmosphere is strong, but everything is so repetitive. There’s trouble, the Toa collect masks and have to learn to work together to save the day, go underground and fight the final boss, while Takua travels around the island for the 19th time. We have 2 mask quests (3 if you count the Krana quest as one), 5 Takua travels (Quest for the Toa, MNOG, Bohrok Animation, Bohrok-Kal Animation, Mask of Light), 2 Bohrok arcs, 2 Lewa possessions, and 5 final battles that take place underground. There are quite good ideas, concepts, themes and characters, but there’s a lot of things where I think to myself one time would have been enough. Unlike Ignition it sometimes seems as if there was actual story progress undone, like the quest for the Nuva masks.
The other arcs seem to me to have much better story progression.

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I definitely agree with this part. The early years had a ton of mystery, world-building, and character development, but the story itself was pretty basic, especially compared to the multiple interweaving plot threads of the later years.

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Honestly, I think 2001-2003 in general is kind of overrated. They did have their own unique atmosphere and aesthetic, laying the ground work for what was to come, yes… But I see a lot of fans idealizing those years as the golden standard of what Bionicle should be… And honestly, I feel like they speak that from a place of nostalgia rather than anything else.
Just like Makutros mentioned, the storyline was very repetitive. But on top of that, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t even that good in general compared to what came in later years. 2001 in particular feels like a very simplified Heroes vs Villain story, that although benefited greatly from the unique world building and aesthetic, was pretty hollow if you take that aside. Basically, you can summarize the whole thing as following: Heroes come to island. Heroes look for masks. Heroes beat the bad guy.
Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with simplicity. While it may be very simple compared to later years of the theme, it definitely did it’s job of laying the foundation and grabbing people in. But I definitely wouldn’t say 2001-2003 was the best of what the theme had to offer.

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honestly whilst i do love 2001 ,the world building really carried it, i still think 07 has the best story

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I don’t understand why these are unpopular as I agree with pretty much all of them (except for love being cannon… for that topic I don’t have strong opinions). The Hau Nuva is the ugliest mask I have, the Pakari Nuva is a close second, buying Axonn’s mask was a mistake, I envy everyone who has all of the Hordika, the animation in the original movies could be improved, and all of the stuff you said about Hero Factory is very true.

My own opinions:
I think the reboot of Ninjago was a mistake. Just keep the old character designs and update set designs.
I think Technic minifigures were seriously cool and should have kept going.
I think 2004 and 2005 were great additions to the Bionicle lore (and 2004 is the best Bionicle year).
I think a brick-based Bionicle would be an amazing way to continue the series.
I think The Lego Movie 2 was the worst movie they’ve ever made in the modern era (after 2010-ish).
And now one that probably a lot of people share - I think Lego Star Wars is overrated, overpriced, and the set slots it takes up should be replaced by more Lego original themes.

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I think Star Wars would be better with more sets of buildings and locations, preferably with vehicles included (such as the UCS cantina).

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