Bionicle 2015 Discussion

[Lind Whisperer]

After examining the new picture, my thoughts:

• The background picture is definitely a volcano.
  
• The volcano is scenery, and probably not important enough to be a major part of the story line(If it was, it would probably be at least a little more central to the picture.).
  
• The Mask in the center is the thing we should be talking about.
  
• The Greg Farshtey book that finished the last movie had Mata Nui's spirit/programming(whichever way you want to look at it...) sheltering in the Mask of Life.
  
• It specifically said that there was a chance Mata Nui would return.
  
• Granted, the mask doesn't look exactly like the Mask of Life...until you remember that the Mask has had multiple shapes over the years.
  
• Although this is speculation, this might seem to indicate that Bionicle will be a continuation of the classic storyline, and not a reboot.
  

Having said all that, is there a possibility that it might not be the Mask of Life, or that it's a complete reboot? Yes. But when you have all of these things together...sometimes the best answer is the simplest one.

[Voxovan]

No way this is Mask of Life. It just looks too... evil...

[Gatanui]

I do hope they will be called Toa in the story...

-Gata

[Aanchir]

Are you using a currency converter? Because New Zealanders pay some of the worst markup for LEGO. For example, EVO Walker is $20 over there, and Crystal Beast is $25, so the Guardians/Defenders will probably be more like 10 USD/GBP, and Gali 15 USD/GBP.

That's cool. Those are sort of the prices I was expecting. While I would have loved if the defenders could be available at a lower price like $5, and the Toa between $10 and $15, I recognize that this might not be realistic, especially if you want the defenders to have any real variety. As long as the piece counts are high enough to justify these prices I'll be happy.

[davidr]

Master sounds so silly. It has to be just a "description" that they control elements, not what they will be called.

[GK733]

No way this is Mask of Life. It just looks too... evil...

I won't say it looks just evil... it looks humanoid. nose and everything, could very well be misunderstood as a tribal mask people use... It however is a special mask, toa are maybe more humanoid creatures this time or Great Beings actually resemble more of a human, rather than toa or glatorian.

Edited August 27, 2014 by GK733

[Mutant Orc]

I'm glad to hear that the prices will be fairly low. Although I don't know anything about Bionicle (at all), I'll be picking up a few if the parts and the look are good (not for the story aspect- I don't know any story!).

[Anexcuse]

I'm glad to hear that the prices will be fairly low. Although I don't know anything about Bionicle (at all), I'll be picking up a few if the parts and the look are good (not for the story aspect- I don't know any story!).

There's nothing stopping you from gwtting into the new story! ;)

[SirPuddings]

NZD.

-Sci

These are far cheaper than I expected, I'll be honest. Usually it's expensive as hell.

[Shakar]

The "Master" thing aside (which sounds really weird, I agree), it just feels really weird to see such long names for constraction sets (well, aside from special ones like the BIONICLE playsets and IfB).

They already used the "XXXX Toa insert-Toa-name-here" scheme in 2008, sure, but was that problematic to use the 2001 scheme (simply "XXXX insert-Toa-name-here")? HF Hero sets used the exact same names in 2012 and 2013..I guess that didn't work.

That's cool. Those are sort of the prices I was expecting. While I would have loved if the defenders could be available at a lower price like $5, and the Toa between $10 and $15, I recognize that this might not be realistic, especially if you want the defenders to have any real variety. As long as the piece counts are high enough to justify these prices I'll be happy.

I assume that the small Spiders shoot the price up by about 2-3 Euro, as the equivalents of this year's mini-Heroes. Seems like we went from 2008's "ensure there's inner conflict inside each wave" (3 Toa vs 3 Makuta, Heroes and Villains mixed, etc) to 2014 "ensure there's conflict inside each set (Beasts vs mini-Heroes, Defenders vs Skull Spiders, etc..) as it's been the norm in System sets for years. I guess it eats up some of the main model's budget, especially on the Defenders. Still better than the awful piece-to-quantity ratio of 2008-2010 (it got only slightly better with the 1.0 Heroes).

And Gali (and most likely Lewa and Pohatu as well) are 15 Euro as I expected- they're too big to be 10 Euro sets. That seems like a fair price for me.

[Kalhiki]

It still bothers me that that half the Toa are more expensive... Just rubs me the wrong way.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Kalhiki

[Aanchir]

I assume that the small Spiders shoot the price up by about 2-3 Euro, as the equivalents of this year's mini-Heroes. Seems like we went from 2008's "ensure there's inner conflict inside each wave" (3 Toa vs 3 Makuta, Heroes and Villains mixed, etc) to 2014 "ensure there's conflict inside each set (Beasts vs mini-Heroes, Defenders vs Skull Spiders, etc..) as it's been the norm in System sets for years. I guess it eats up some of the main model's budget, especially on the Defenders. Still better than the awful piece-to-quantity ratio of 2008-2010 (it got only slightly better with the 1.0 Heroes).

And Gali (and most likely Lewa and Pohatu as well) are 15 Euro as I expected- they're too big to be 10 Euro sets. That seems like a fair price for me.

I can't imagine the skull spiders adding that much to the cost of a set. We can already tell that they're just five pieces each and that in the pictures we've seen they all use the same molds. That's a big difference from the mini-heroes which included nine pieces (not counting accessories like rocket boosters, data pads, and weapons), including one unique helmet mold. And each set only includes one skull spider in addition to the main figure, unlike Rocka Crawler which included a mini-robot, a cocoon, AND a jumper, or Evo Walker which included a mini-robot and THREE jumpers.

My goal for the new sets would be for all price points to have a price per piece of 20–25 cents USD. So the $10 Defenders should have 40–50 pieces, the smaller $15 Toa 60–75 pieces, and the larger $20 Toa 80–100 pieces (ideally, all towards the higher end of that range, especially at the higher price points). All of the Invasion from Below sets met or exceeded these thresholds, as did most of the Brain Attack sets. The Chima constraction sets have not consistently met these thresholds, but to their credit they have elaborate printed, pre-assembled head pieces that are no doubt more expensive than the simpler heads and masks of BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets. For the new BIONICLE, I do not anticipate that being a problem, so I would expect their prices to be more like what Hero Factory has demonstrated for the past two years.

I do not think that it will be difficult for the defender sets to meet these thresholds — each has not only a five-piece skull spider, but also six ammunition pieces and possibly as many triggers (if the new blasters are anything like the click shooter used for this summer's Hero Factory sets). And each defender seems at LEAST as complex as Aquagon from the Brain Attack series, a set that managed to meet these thresholds even with very simple weapons. However, I am not so sure about the Toa. None of my doodles of them on LEGO Digital Designer even approach these piece counts. Hopefully that's a sign of how little of them I've been able to figure out correctly, and not how little complexity the actual sets will offer.

I wonder how long we have to wait to learn official piece counts. That would give me a better sense of how complex the various sets are.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Aanchir

[Dorek]

It still bothers me that that half the Toa are more expensive... Just rubs me the wrong way.

I like it because right out of the gate we can do away with any complaining about why characters are different sizes. That's been a recurring point of debate over the years, and I'm not sorry to see it go.

After examining the new picture, my thoughts:

• The background picture is definitely a volcano.
  
• The volcano is scenery, and probably not important enough to be a major part of the story line(If it was, it would probably be at least a little more central to the picture.).
  
• The Mask in the center is the thing we should be talking about.
  
• The Greg Farshtey book that finished the last movie had Mata Nui's spirit/programming(whichever way you want to look at it...) sheltering in the Mask of Life.
  
• It specifically said that there was a chance Mata Nui would return.
  
• Granted, the mask doesn't look exactly like the Mask of Life...until you remember that the Mask has had multiple shapes over the years.
  
• Although this is speculation, this might seem to indicate that Bionicle will be a continuation of the classic storyline, and not a reboot.
  

Having said all that, is there a possibility that it might not be the Mask of Life, or that it's a complete reboot? Yes. But when you have all of these things together...sometimes the best answer is the simplest one.

Or it can be a reboot AND that's the Mask of Life; no rules in reboots!

[TheLastToaofLight]

My idea about why Toa have been renamed masters: Toa is a Māori word. When LEGO got sued by the Māori people,LEGO might have gotten permission to keep the main character's names(Tahu,Gali,Lewa, etc) and their titles(Toa, etc) while the theme was running. When BIONICLE was discontinued, LEGO lost access to the words. When they tried to reclaim the ability to use them they were only allowed to use the names and the title Toa couldn't be used anymore. (Just my idea)

Edited August 27, 2014 by TheLastToaofLight

[Aanchir]

My idea about why Toa have been renamed masters: Toa is a Māori word. When LEGO got sued by the Māori people,LEGO might have gotten permission to keep the main character's names(Tahu,Gali,Lewa, etc) and their titles(Toa, etc) while the theme was running. When BIONICLE was discontinued, LEGO lost access to the words. When they tried to reclaim the ability to use them they were only allowed to use the names and the title Toa couldn't be used anymore. (Just my idea)

I don't think it's anything like that, to be honest. The new BIONICLE will be trying to appeal to an audience that may never have heard of Toa (the youngest of them would have been babies when BIONICLE ended), and many people in that audience have probably never HEARD of a Toa. So instead of throwing a bunch of vocabulary they've never heard at them, the set names explain their role in words pretty much anybody of the right age will understand.

Even the old BIONICLE never used the word "Toa" in set names until the Toa Metru in 2004. Before that, characters just went by their names and nothing else.

[CabooseBM]

Yeah, I can see it as an effort to cut down on unnecessary jargon to make it more accessible.

[King of Nynrah]

Anyone else find it a bit odd that Gali is a "Master" instead of a "Mistress"?

Edited August 28, 2014 by King of Nynrah

[Aanchir]

Anyone else find it a bit odd that Gali is a "Master" instead of a "Mistress"?

Not really. In this day and age "Master" is fairly gender neutral, and "Mistress" carries an entirely different set of connotations. You don't see female martial arts champions being called "mistresses" — if they master the art, they are considered masters.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Aanchir

[Leewan]

The new BIONICLE will be trying to appeal to an audience that may never have heard of Toa (the youngest of them would have been babies when BIONICLE ended), and many people in that audience have probably never HEARD of a Toa. So instead of throwing a bunch of vocabulary they've never heard at them, the set names explain their role in words pretty much anybody of the right age will understand.

So what you're saying is that they're not named Toa for marketing reasons ?

Anyways, they can give the name they want to the sets, as long as the characters still are called Toa in the storyline.

[Aanchir]

So what you're saying is that they're not named Toa for marketing reasons?

Sort of, but I think that might even be overcomplicating it a bit. The main purpose of a set name is to describe the set and tell people what the set is. Calling sets "Toa" doesn't tell people anything about them if they've never heard of Toa before. So it's just an effort to make the set names more legitimately descriptive.

Another thing worth noting — even if the characters are called Toa in the new story, there's no reason to automatically assume that the word Toa will still be used as a title or honorific like "sir". Before BIONICLE: Mask of Light, Tahu was never officially called "Toa Tahu". His name was Tahu, and he was a Toa, but you wouldn't necessarily expect to hear him addressed as "Toa Tahu" any more than you'd expect to hear Superman addressed as "Superhero Superman" or Spock addressed as "Vulcan Spock".

In future years, we might see a "Toa Tahu" set, or we might not. Depends on whether they want to go back to using Toa as a title, and on whether they still think that would make a good set name. It's worth noting, though, that despite becoming "Toa Tahu" in his 2008 set, Tahu went back to being just "Tahu" in 2010, so it's possible that having titles like that in the names of sets was perceived as pointless overcomplication. Certainly Hero Factory never bothered naming its characters "Hero Furno" or "Villain Jawblade".

Edited August 28, 2014 by Aanchir

[Dorek]

They might not be called Toa in the storyline; would it be so bad?

[TheGreatSpirit]

They might not be called Toa in the storyline; would it be so bad?

For nostalgic purposes, yes. I can't believe a lot of you old timers seem to be ok with that.

I mean, the sets don't need to have the world Toa on them, but completely getting rid of it would be greatly disappointing.

Edited August 28, 2014 by TheGreatSpirit

[Aanchir]

They might not be called Toa in the storyline; would it be so bad?

They might not, but it would seem a bit random to me to keep the names of classic characters who were used in the main story for a handful of years and stop using a term that was used in the main story every year. Furthermore, "Master" as it is used in the titles does not seem like it's at all meant to be understood as a species name, and unless they do not refer to the characters' species at all (which would be possible, but a bit strange), they have to have SOME term for it.

[Dorek]

For nostalgic purposes, yes. I can't believe a lot of you old timers seem to be ok with that.

I mean, the sets don't need to have the world Toa on them, but completely getting rid of it would be greatly disappointing.

Just because we're old doesn't mean we're reticent to change =P. That's a stereotype, man.

They might not, but it would seem a bit random to me to keep the names of classic characters who were used in the main story for a handful of years and stop using a term that was used in the main story every year. Furthermore, "Master" as it is used in the titles does not seem like it's at all meant to be understood as a species name, and unless they do not refer to the characters' species at all (which would be possible, but a bit strange), they have to have SOME term for it.

Which gets back to the whole thing of "why BIONICLE?". We'll probably see some terms, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the concepts are generalized; we have "Defenders", or whatever they'll be, and Hero Factory worked pretty well without introducing any specific terms that weren't derived from proper names.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Dorek

[Master_Data]

If this is a complete reboot, would they be required to change the names of the characters and their titles to avoid another Maori language controversy?

Edited August 28, 2014 by Master_Data