Quisoves Pugnat

Methinks it's to do with a thinness of character where Ekimu and Makuhero are concerned. It makes them more interesting, if only by suggesting hidden depths.

One possibility that occurred before we even got news of the line's cancellation is that LEGO as a whole is doing poorly of late, and BIONICLE simply took the fall, being a niche-theme. I have no data for this, so this is merely idle speculation, but it would reconcile claims that LEGO has apparently made about the line not selling poorly with the fact that it got cancelled.

As with any extremely successful franchise, BIONICLE has to compete with itself. Gen1 wasn't the first constraction theme, but it was among the first and it was the breakout one, thus it ran for nine years, thus it was replaced by Hero Factory, and thus Gen2 was nowhere near as novel as its forbearer. That's not to say that Gen2 couldn't have become a runaway success, simply that it was always going to have to work a lot harder to achieve it.

It seems the prophecies have changed. Shame about that. My feelings are well and truly mixed. I am by turns darkly amused, morbidly curious, sad, and rather relieved. Let's start with that ending. Hmmm.... Not my piece of cake. I had already given up on Journey to One being even passable fare, so I only watched the finale to see what all the fuss was about, but still, it's hilariously rushed. "Makuta is coming through the Black Gate Shadow Portal. It's a good thing that we're actually stars! All we need is to believe in ourselves! Bye-bye!" I am genuinely curious as to how much of this they planned from the start. It looks to me like they made it up on the spot, but I know from experience that this is a tremendously unfair assumption. If nothing else, it does parallel the climax of LoMN. Then there's the loose ends... The Mask of Time's the biggie, but I don't doubt there were many other stillborn concepts. Let's hope they all see the light of day. I'm quite curious as to how Gen2 bombed so badly. Hero Factory sold well enough to run for five years (though it was playing the porter for BIONICLE on both ends, to be fair,) and yet BIONICLE didn't last three. What changed? I almost wonder, absurd as this may sound, if the target audience at large mistook it for a licensed IP, and were turned off by knowing nothing about it. It's a shame it had to end on this note. A death at three years would have been natural. Sure, we'd have been disappointed at not seeing the Once and Future Theme return to take its rightful place in the Immortal Pantheon of Break Out Themes (for now occupied only by magical assassins with a penchant for outrageous vehicles,) but hey, there's no shame in doing well enough. It's also rather sad, IMO, to see the decline in set quality. Winter 2015? Awesome. Summer 2015? Not quite as cool, but still pretty good, not to mention novel and with some fantastic pieces. Winter 2016? Disappointing, overly-greebled Toa (Onua being a major exception,) but at least Umarak and the creatures were lovely. Summer 2016? Blargh, meh, humbug. Winter 2017? Well, hopefully they'll have learned from the reaction to the 2015 sets and they'll make a- Oh. But in a strange way, it's a relief to know that Gen2 is dead. Gone is the oppressive uncertainty and fear born of hearing whispered reports of the theme's ill-health. It failed, yes, but we are at the wake, and the funeral is not long in coming. It will not bring joy, but it will bring closure, and that can not be undervalued. On the bright side, provided LEGO doesn't decide to jump the in-house contstaction ship all together, Gen2's successor must be more than just a cut-price BIONICLE. Perhaps we'll get something new and wonderful. Perhaps out of this tragedy, much good will come. Regardless, I would like to thank the Gen2 team for their efforts. It's clear they put their hearts and souls into this, and for that I commend them. Thank you all. Thank you for helping to recapture some of the magic of my childhood. Y'all rock!

What of the Piraka? They look pretty monstrous to me.

Self-flagellation, thy name is fandom.

The italicized bits read like spoken interludes in some sort of kitschy rock ballad. Those lousy comets!

So... LEGO circa 2002, with a dollop of '06, sprinkled liberally with hallucinogens and put into a blender? Sounds good to me.

Whatever comes next, I hope it's not a cut-price Bionicle. Hero Factory had its moments, but it seemed shackled by the shadow of its illustrious predecessor. Something rather offbeat, perhaps Manga/Anime-inspired, would be lovely.

As I mentioned above, three years is a long time by the general standards of LEGO System. Ninjago is the exception that proves the rule. Heck, Hero Factory stayed around for five years. The last time a constraction theme lasted a single year was Roboriders, way back in 2000.

Out of curiosity, what are the reports of Bionicle doing well? I've not seen any, which is not to say they don't exist, but I would like to know how founded they are. While much of the doom and gloom surrounding Gen2 has been unsubstantiated, the reports of stores not stocking the theme are reasonably solid evidence, as these things go. Anyhow, that's an interesting post. He might be right, but I feel like its premise is flawed. Oil is a commodity, not a brand. One can not simply replace it with something else if its sales decrease (though that may one day change.) Bionicle, on the other hand, is replaceable. LEGO needs only to develop another constraction theme in its stead, something it has done before. Similarly, we know that the initial lifespan of Gen2 is three years. If the theme does exceptionally well, it may continue, but if, as reports suggest, it isn't doing so, it seems reasonable to assume that it will go the way of so many themes before it (Adventurers, Knights Kingdom, Exo-Force, Chima, etc.) If Gen2 ends in 2017, it will be business as usual.

Also, weren't Gen1's books advertised in the catalogs? I know they were on shop.com, which doesn't seem to be the case for Gen2's.

What really sold me on Gen1, before I even got into the story (and before I could read, for that matter) was the sense of wonder it evoked. Now, it's been a decade-and-a-half since I was five, so I might not be the best judge of how Gen2 is doing in that regard, but I suspect that if it is failing to hook young consumers, that is where it is deficient. Certainly, it seems to me that less has been made of Okoto, its splendors, and its mysteries than was made of the island of Mata Nui. This is not a matter of Tolkenesque detail, but rather of the sort of beauty and charm that draws one to Hobbiton and Lothlorien. Gen2 certainly has the potential for it, as evidenced by much of its box-art, but I'm not sure it's quite managed to actuate it. Another potential pitfall is the comparative lack of novelty. Gen1 may have ended in 2010, but Hero Factory was singing from the same hymnbook aesthetically, even if the songs were different. One would be hard-pressed to mistake a BIONICLE for a Slizer or a Roborider, while most Hero Factory sets (IFB excepted) could pass as part of some species of BIONICLE (that Gen1 ran for so long rather compounds this problem.) Gen2 is still visually distinct from its predecessors, but the basic scheme of mechanical humanoid warriors has been in play almost nonstop since 2001, and many of the same CCBS parts have been in use since 2011 or 2012 (not that this is inherently a bad thing.)

Well, that's a bit... Anticlimactic.

Going by the admittedly imprecise metric of "How much do I want to buy them," Summer 2016 loses. I haven't bought any of this wave's sets yet, but they're remarkably unappealing. The beasts in particular are far too generic to get me excited (though Lava Beast comes close to dodging this,) and the designs of all the sets save Ekimu are decidedly variable (and he lacks a certain pizazz instead.) I'm particularly unfond of the clumsy, ill-fitting new crystal add-on. My favorite set from this wave is probably Umarak the Destroyer, which, at least, knows what it wants to be and isn't trying to play things safe.