Bionicle 2015 Discussion

[Quisoves Pugnat]

Red Star as jetpack was planned the entire time, but I'm 99% certain Greg has said the revival aspect of it was all him at the eleventh hour.

Indeed, hence discrepancies like the alternate Tuyet's (whose status as such was a retcon, I think) corpse. That said, I believe that the story team deliberately refused to portray graveyards in Bionicle or to answer the question of whether the MU's inhabitants buried their dead, because they intended to do something unusual with that element of the story. I could quite easily be wrong.

[Dorek]

Citation needed!

I'm probably just misremembering. I know there were definitely certain unrevealed elements (like the aforementioned graveyard), about where Matoran come from, that I thought were being saved for its relation to the Red Star, but maybe that was all just sort of co-opted near the end.

[Creature]

Citation needed!

I'm probably just misremembering. I know there were definitely certain unrevealed elements (like the aforementioned graveyard), about where Matoran come from, that I thought were being saved for its relation to the Red Star, but maybe that was all just sort of co-opted near the end.

You're potentially thinking of one of the story serials from 2007 where it was either Gali or Kopaka that used the telescope on Mata Nui and saw objects moving within it. that seems like enough evidence that Greg was planning something for the Red star beyond a jetpack function. But I agree the answer we got, as well as all the other 2010 serials, were a mess.

[Mandate]

So, can someone please explain to me why 1,000 year old robots seemingly forgot about Metru Nui until they found it? (I honestly have no clue about that plotline, forgive me for getting the entire concept wrong)

[Jacen Torq]

IIRC, Vakama and the other Turaga knew of its existence. The other Matoran had had their memories wiped after the whole incident with the Matoran spheres and all. So, when they woke up on Mata Nui, all they knew were the Turaga and what the Turaga told them. Once it was rediscovered by Takanuva, Vakama ended up having to spill some secrets to everybody. Enter the Metru Nui story/2 years of flashbacks.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Jacen Torq

[Mandate]

IIRC, Vakama and the other Turaga knew of its existence. The other Matoran had had their memories wiped after the whole incident with the Matoran spheres and all. So, when they woke up on Mata Nui, all they knew were the Turaga and what the Turaga told them. Once it was rediscovered by Takanuva, Vakama ended up having to spill some secrets to everybody. Enter the Metru Nui story/2 years of flashbacks.

Ah, thanks for that.

[Dorek]

(Ahkmou also knew, because the Toa lost his Matoran Sphere and Teridax found it. Teridax then told Ahkmou the truth but made himself out to be the hero and made Ahkmou his ally in fighting against the "corrupt Toa". Which leads us to MNOG.)

Edited October 7, 2014 by Dorek

[Chimaninja454]

So. is the 2015 storyline a throwback to the 2001 (old) storyline?

[Dorek]

You have the habit of asking the strangest questions...

As I'm sure has been answered by reading the topic, yes and no. Are they shooting for a similar vibe? It looks like it, and the reuse of the OG 6 certainly helps, along with facehugging critters (so excited for that!). Will the story itself play out like that? Impossible to say. It could be something much darker, lighter, etc. If LOSS isn't the "big bad", and that's being saved for summer, that in and of itself is a fair deviation from the original storyline, wherein the final boss battle was much more... metaphorical in nature.

[SirPuddings]

Agreed ^

Edited October 7, 2014 by SirPuddings

[Chimaninja454]

You have the habit of asking the strangest questions...

As I'm sure has been answered by reading the topic, yes and no. Are they shooting for a similar vibe? It looks like it, and the reuse of the OG 6 certainly helps, along with facehugging critters (so excited for that!). Will the story itself play out like that? Impossible to say. It could be something much darker, lighter, etc. If LOSS isn't the "big bad", and that's being saved for summer, that in and of itself is a fair deviation from the original storyline, wherein the final boss battle was much more... metaphorical in nature.

Apologies, but this is only mask collecting, a island location and a much mature story than the 2001 one....

[Mandate]

Apologies, but this is only mask collecting, a island location and a much mature story than the 2001 one....

Whether it will be a more mature one is yet to be seen. A lot of LEGO's past "big" themes have had horrid starts for plot and maturity, namely HF and Chima. Chima is... working out, from what I've heard. After the last time it started getting mature it took a big dump on itself and I gave up after that. And HERO FACTORY's plot was more or less axed with Brain Attack. I don't care if it was part of continuing the plot, but it was a silly move. Brain Attack's general performance from what I've seen ranged from "good" to "absolute disaster" (even in the Constraction community). I didn't really mind it, I only picked up Rocka (impulse buy, nothing more I swear). It (Brain Attack) was made to look cartoony in style, it had a tacky B-movie theme draped on top of it, and quite a few of the builds were incredibly unpopular (we still have an abnormally large amount of space on the shelves at the local Target dedicated to Ogrum alone), namely the Creatures. It doesn't surprise me LEGO decided to cut HF for a new Constraction line.

Honestly, if the new plot isn't a train wreck disaster (not implying it will be), LEGO could successfully milk this for a few years. Let's just hope they don't do three-year-long story arcs again, and that they actually develop a unique look for BIONICLE with CCBS. Right now I'm unimpressed with the style, although I suppose it's expecting too much out of LEGO to change CCBS in any meaningful way with how much standardization it's comprised of.

edit: clarified some things

Edited October 7, 2014 by JayWalker

[Lord-Vorahk]

You're potentially thinking of one of the story serials from 2007 where it was either Gali or Kopaka that used the telescope on Mata Nui and saw objects moving within it. that seems like enough evidence that Greg was planning something for the Red star beyond a jetpack function. But I agree the answer we got, as well as all the other 2010 serials, were a mess.

Those were probably just meant to be the pilots on the Red Star. Even the GBs in their infinite insanity wouldn't make that thing automatic, right?

Whether it will be a more mature one is yet to be seen. A lot of LEGO's past "big" themes have had horrid starts for plot and maturity, namely HF and Chima. Chima is... working out, from what I've heard. After the last time it started getting mature it took a big dump on itself and I gave up after that. And HERO FACTORY's plot was more or less axed with Brain Attack. I don't care if it was part of continuing the plot, but it was a silly move. Brain Attack's general performance from what I've seen ranged from "good" to "absolute disaster" (even in the Constraction community). I didn't really mind it, I only picked up Rocka (impulse buy, nothing more I swear). It (Brain Attack) was made to look cartoony in style, it had a tacky B-movie theme draped on top of it, and quite a few of the builds were incredibly unpopular (we still have an abnormally large amount of space on the shelves at the local Target dedicated to Ogrum alone), namely the Creatures. It doesn't surprise me LEGO decided to cut HF for a new Constraction line.

Honestly, if the new plot isn't a train wreck disaster (not implying it will be), LEGO could successfully milk this for a few years. Let's just hope they don't do three-year-long story arcs again

This. I've seen Dragon Bolt still shelfwarming in 2014 (I was tempted to pick it up, or one of the iFB figures, but Droid Gunship). Brain Attack was a huge letdown in the story department, and while there were some things in their that I liked... Honestly, the sets just felt awkward. Too much silver and grey, it was like being in 08 again, except I actually liked the 08 set design, for the most part. The weapons were terrible for most of the figures, the creatures were just another hoard of army-builders, and this time, there wasn't even a solid big bad. Basically, another line where the main antagonist is not present. He's just a guy that makes a horde of Not-Krana and then does nothing. I mean, hey, at least the Morbuzahk got a sponge made in its likeness.

The only three-year story arcs I remember are Mata Nui and Ignition, and I thought they went pretty well. There was at least something new in each year.

[InfurnallDragon]

That is crazy... My town stopped keeping all the brain attack stuff...

OT: They are definitely going to have a more complex plot than Hero Factory as was in their sales pitch to retailers. Good odds that this means story arcs with better conclusions and transitions to the next arc.

They are trying for the 2001 look, but I really doubt they will have something like "the spiders appear bad but they are really part of a system for recycling the world" or "they are just animals that were possessed to become evil", which is the case of the first 2 villains of BIONICLE G1. The spiders seem aesthetically made to look like they are evil and will most likely be that. I find this whole mind controlling animals theme funny because there were at least 3 ways for it to happen in BIONICLE that were featured in sets. Then there was Savage Planet and Brain Attack.

[Loki]

Whether it will be a more mature one is yet to be seen. A lot of LEGO's past "big" themes have had horrid starts for plot and maturity, namely HF and Chima. Chima is... working out, from what I've heard. After the last time it started getting mature it took a big dump on itself and I gave up after that. And HERO FACTORY's plot was more or less axed with Brain Attack. I don't care if it was part of continuing the plot, but it was a silly move. Brain Attack's general performance from what I've seen ranged from "good" to "absolute disaster" (even in the Constraction community). I didn't really mind it, I only picked up Rocka (impulse buy, nothing more I swear). It (Brain Attack) was made to look cartoony in style, it had a tacky B-movie theme draped on top of it, and quite a few of the builds were incredibly unpopular (we still have an abnormally large amount of space on the shelves at the local Target dedicated to Ogrum alone), namely the Creatures. It doesn't surprise me LEGO decided to cut HF for a new Constraction line.

Honestly, if the new plot isn't a train wreck disaster (not implying it will be), LEGO could successfully milk this for a few years. Let's just hope they don't do three-year-long story arcs again, and that they actually develop a unique look for BIONICLE with CCBS. Right now I'm unimpressed with the style, although I suppose it's expecting too much out of LEGO to change CCBS in any meaningful way with how much standardization it's comprised of.

edit: clarified some things

Define mature. Since, from what I see a lot of people saying, the type of "maturity" people want to interject into Bionicle wouldn't save it from what you described. Might even catalyze it.

[gedren_y]

Brain Attack? I bought one of them (Ogrum) for parts on the Lego Shop, and got the black Brain Attack creature. Those creatures actually have some great design, but since I never watched the show I can't comment on the story behind it.

Looking at the prelims again, it seems that the skull spiders might be control masks. The position of the face on the skull spiders when compared to the character faces makes me think it is a good mask/bad mask situation.

[Agent Fusion]

I was thinking enchanted evil masks, possibly created by LOSS.

[Toa of Gallifrey]

I really liked the BA sets. (Furno XL is my favorite HF set, followed by Dragon Bolt and then Breakout Stringer) To me their designs were really cool and the futuristic knight design of the heroes that year appealed to me. The story was pretty lame though, even if I did like Breez and Surge's side-story.

[Still Raindrop]

There's a new video on the Facebook page. It doesn't show much, but we get a clearer look at some designs/writing on a pedestal of some sort.

[Antrozek]

omg that is a stand, for the toys. so pretty!

god help me if they do a 1:1 mask of creation for the stand too

[TheGreatSpirit]

New video just released on Lego's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1510266335881111&set=vb.1472651449642600&type=2&theater

Looks like a IRL, life-size podium for the MoCr for Comic-con. You guys attending better take lots and lots of pics...

[Clone 01354 Productions]

That is definitely not Matoran writing.......rest in peace, Matoran.

And yeah, whoever attends needs to take pictures, videos, and should probably steal the display.

[Quisoves Pugnat]

That is definitely not Matoran writing.......rest in peace, Matoran.

Assuming that it is writing at all. It seems to be the same pattern on the Mask of Creation, which, as someone pointed out, is symmetrical, suggesting that meaning is not intended.

[dviddy]

That is definitely not Matoran writing.......rest in peace, Matoran.

And yeah, whoever attends needs to take pictures, videos, and should probably steal the display.

I will definitely take pictures, but I don't think I'll steal anything!

[arc]

While not much, it's still interesting to see. I think you guys are right about it being something at the NYCC though, Will anyone from eurobricks be there?