Hero Factory 2014 Discussion

[Aethersprite]

Speaking of the summer sets, could someone take some better screenshots of them? I'm sure we all want to have better close-up shots of them, they were a little difficult to make out in the show.

[ShadowWolfHount]

That's more or less what I thought. The summer sets seem to have a lot of MOCcing potential. I'm going to be combining all of Evo's mechs, the same goes for Rocka.

Well hope both of your Evo and Rocka MOCs come out good. I may going to combine Evo and Rocka mechs and maybe combine Evo Walker, Bulk and Breez mechs in to one

[Timeline15]

Actually, playing the game now, they've got new VAs. All of them. And Evo's personality got changed yet again. I fear that Nex and Stringer were deleted and their personalities were given to Evo and Breez...

Jesus Christ, that's Evo's 2nd core transplant in 2 years! what keeps happening to that guy. What makes you compare Breez to stringer though. I've only seen the mini movie, but she doesn't seem that stringer-y. No offensively daft westernisms or anything. And that's the only reason I liked savage planet's episode!

[Mesonak]

I just watched TTV's full review on the show, and I have to say I agree with Kahi the most. It's kind of odd how Mesonak disliked it so much. However, I do think that the plot could have been developed better and the same goes with the characters. It was probably due to the short time constraints and low budget, though. But, as I stated earlier, I thought it was the best episode yet.

It is pretty odd that I disliked it so much. It surprised me too! Something about it didn't click with me for some reason. XD

[ShadowWolfHount]

Worst. Episode. Ever.

The voices: WTF

The faces: Bad

The heads: oh my, what have they done.

It was getting good too. I'll still get the sets, but if they ever do another episode like this again......ugh.

THANK YOU, the faces are the worst thing i have ever seen. The voices are really bad, i mean did everyone in that team lost there old voice and have to get new ones... that are bad. Another thing is where are the other heroes that was backup before the queen called of baby's to go back in to there hole there was not one Hero ,i mean did they all died that easy.

But there was one good thing and that is this lovely face

Edited January 11, 2014 by ShadowWolfHount

[Takanuinuva]

I think Nex stays behind in the Hero Factory to work with Zib and Stringer just left to become a Country Music Star

As for thoughts on the new episode. I thought it was ok. I'm one of the few who prefers the original voice actors. I even liked Evo's first voice actor over his replacements. The animation was spot on. But the way the mechs got easily wrecked makes me think the mobile builder needs more work in its part quality. I suspect older joints in the build

And the Heroes without there helmets.

I didn't even notice the Hero Recon easter egg or the Mayor bot. Gonna have to rewatch the video to see those.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Takanuinuva

[Zenerius]

It is pretty odd that I disliked it so much. It surprised me too! Something about it didn't click with me for some reason. XD

I don't mind. Anyway, it would be nice to get some good screenshots of the sets. I'm going to go look for any interesting images that could pop up, and I'll take some pics. Is it possible to upload pictures from an IPad....?

[Timeline15]

just watched the full episode.... MY GOD. That was the most emotionally dead thing I have ever seen. Were the heroes all lobotomized immediately before this episode? The lines were terrible, the voice actors lent no emotion to the heroes thinking they might be watching their friends die. breez's solution, while in character, was randomly ruined by one bug just so that the episode could end with the villains dying dramatically, despite the fact that it would have been more satisfying had they let them live. There was no space between lines of dialogue, so it looked like the whole thing had been hastily edited together. Noone sounds right, everything felt rushed, and we get yet ANOTHER cliff-hanger that will never be mentioned again.

Positives (and somehow, there were some): animation was beautiful (aside from the heroes' heads, uurgh) and the movie poster parodies in the background were really fun. Also, they at least started to have a more mature ending than "heroes beat up the bad guys" (though it was then abandoned so they could have another action scene) breez was in character, unlike everyone else (even then, she seemed to take charge constantly, has she been promoted?)

But what offend me the most is that Lego, LEGO, the company that has inspired children's' imaginations for decades, could produce something do devoid of imagination, emotion, or effort.

TL;DR version: unfortunately HFs worst episode to date :(

Edited January 11, 2014 by Timeline15

[ShadowWolfHount]

I think Nex stays behind in the Hero Factory to work with Zib and Stringer just left to become a Country Music Star

As for thoughts on the new episode. I thought it was ok. I'm one of the few who prefer the original voice actors. I even liked Evo's first actor over his replacements. The animation was spot on. But the way the mech got easily wrecked makes me think the Mobile builder needs more work in its part quality. I suspect older joints in the build

I still say that Nex and Stringer are both dead plus They Sent NEX After XT4 so i think Nex is %100 dead.

Anyways i agree with you about Evo first voice actor, they should have kept it but they can't because i think some of you guys already know plus there was one good voice in the IFB and that was Surge but i think he should still have his old voice actor.

[coolcab1]

The events of robot rampage explains about stringer and nex who knows

[ShadowWolfHount]

Oh i forgot to say to look at that as well.

[Gatanui]

Not sure why you all hate the faces, honestly. They look kind of cute to me.

-Gata

[ShadowWolfHount]

Not sure why you all hate the faces, honestly. They look kind of cute to me.

No Gatanui No, this is cute

What your talking about is not but hey it's your opinion.

[Aanchir]

Not sure why you all hate the faces, honestly. They look kind of cute to me.

-Gata

I agree, personally. They look much less skull-like than the Glatorian heads did, and they don't have the exaggeratedly large chins of the 2.0 heads. They have much of the same smooth aesthetic of the current building system, and I think that's a very good thing.

It almost makes me wish that the sets had printed heads. However, single-color heads do feel more "classic" and as such help ease the transition from full-scale figures to minifigures. Speaking of which, has anyone tried using eye colors closer to the traditional eye colors for the minifigures?

Still need to watch the full episode myself but I'm making my judgments from the look of the male civilians in this episode (who use the same body type as civilians from previous episodes but a new head design).

[Bfahome]

It almost makes me wish that the sets had printed heads. However, single-color heads do feel more "classic" and as such help ease the transition from full-scale figures to minifigures.

The problem with printed heads and helmets with eye holes is that you end up needing to take the helmet off to turn their head, otherwise the helmet turns and the head doesn't move. Though I suppose this could be solved by using the "back" of the head when the helmet is on, like the old Jango Fett minifig.

(Before I remembered that the heads in this case were minifig heads, I started thinking about how awesome it would be if they introduced multi-piece constraction heads again. A solid-color base with attachable trans-eyes, like how the Mate and Metru heads were built. I'm not as big a fan of the fully transparent heads.)

As for the episode, I watched the mini-movie so I'm not going to bother watching the whole thing. I still like the heroes' body designs a lot, though. Much better and more solid-looking than the set-like ones of previous episodes.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Bfahome

[Bigger Fish]

I just watched it and I thought it was waaaayyyyy better than the atrocity that was Brain Attack. It still had it's problems, (The wooden acting and the rushed dialogue among other things.) I started laughing out when I saw them build their machines by effectively building the set version. (Wasn't Clutch Powers enough product pushing ego stroking, LEGO?) And when Evo just tripped over the chain they placed to stop Splitter beast. I was right about this being a reaction face gold mine though.

[RCS]

I didn't like that episode except for the animation quality. The show overall was very anti-climatic and had the feel of a very rushed story. It should have been a two-parter.

[Zenerius]

I will provide a link to my photostream that will show the new summer sets I saw in the movie. There are approximately 54 photos, and I apologize if some look blurry or low-quality. I took these pictures on my iPad.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Zenerius

[ShadowWolfHount]

Hey you forgot one (i just love this face XD)

[Zenerius]

Hey you forgot one (i just love this face XD)

Ha, ha ha..... I guess I did forget that one. However, I don't think Bulk's face will be included as a summer set.

[ShadowWolfHount]

I wish it was aka, i wish that face was a shirt i buy that %100. Plus keeping of set, i don't like that they used the same Hero more then once (like Evo and Rocka), i like if they used the same HF Helmet but in recolors

Oh i forgot you also forgot this that was seen in the background, go to 6:31

Edited January 11, 2014 by ShadowWolfHount

[coolcab1]

By the way I loved the episode best one yet my opinion. Also can someone do a photostream of wave one sets from the episode.Please.

Edited January 11, 2014 by coolcab1

[Aanchir]

I started laughing out when I saw them build their machines by effectively building the set version. (Wasn't Clutch Powers enough product pushing ego stroking, LEGO?)

You obviously can't please everyone. One of the biggest complaints I ever see about the LEGO Ninjago and Legends of Chima TV series among LEGO fans is that nothing is visibly made out of LEGO and there's barely ever any building. I don't think it's "product-pushing ego stroking" for the building experience, i.e. the single most defining feature of the Hero Factory franchise, to be a part of the TV show. In fact, it's been a central part of the franchise since the beginning, hence the "assembly tower". I was actually a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see the process of building the underground vehicles to the heroes' specs.

I just watched the episode. Overall, I was impressed. The voices (there are five different voice actors, and they are not ADVANCE's in-house talent like Hero Factory FM used) didn't seem bad to me. If anything, I liked them better than the incredibly forced voices that were used for Stormer and Bulk in Hero Factory FM. However, since the voices are new, it is sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking, particularly when the speaker is off-camera.

The pacing seemed a bit off in places. More than the voices, what bothered me sometimes is that often the characters didn't stop talking, even during climactic action scenes or scenes that perhaps should have been quiet and suspenseful. Of course, right when I started to notice this becoming a problem, there WAS a quiet, suspenseful scene (the one with Bulk, Breez, and Evo climbing down into the crystal cavern). So it's not a problem that affected the whole thing, just certain parts of it.

Another pacing issue that bothered me is that at many points, it felt like a more involved and memorable musical score would have been more appropriate to maintain appropriate rising and falling action. Even moreso than the Hero Factory series as a whole, the music felt generic and forgettable. There were no distinctive or iconic themes that stuck with me, unlike Ninjago or the original BIONICLE movie trilogy.

The CGI was excellent, in my opinion. Lots of fantastic scenery, awesome character designs, and powerful action scenes. The action didn't feel stilted like it does in some LEGO TV episodes or series. The scene in the magnetic field deserves special praise, I think. Props to the folks at Ghost for setting a nice high standard their first time doing a full-length LEGO TV special.

I've seen a lot of criticisms of this because allegedly, the heroes seem too violent. But at the same time, I think this deals with the episode quite effectively. Breez does turn out to be right in the end in deciding to negotiate with the queen instead of relying on force. I think it is likely that the queen and much of her brood did survive in the end. And I don't believe any of the actual beasts, even the jumpers, were lost to the acid. All we saw fall in the acid were cocoons, which hardly amounts to "genocide" like some critics on BZPower attest.

Characterization was solid in spite of the new voices and any worries I might have had regarding Evo's bio on the new website. His personality here was more or less the same as it was in Breakout — a powerful rookie who struggles a bit with self-control. It was nice to have Breez as the standout character. And surprisingly, Furno and Stormer both took a backseat, disappearing entirely for a substantial amount of the episode. If Rocka had been captured instead of Surge, then all three of the theme's usual main characters would have been out of the picture during the climax.

Finally, Surge calls his vehicle a combiner, and that STILL bothers me. Just getting that out of the way right now. I guess it's a bit better in that it's two vehicles that actually combine and not one thing created from the parts of two other things. The reason I hate the term "combiner" as used in constraction themes is that it seems to confuse subject and object — a combiner, taken literally, should ostensibly be something that combines, not something that other things are combined into.

[ShadowWolfHount]

Here Stormer, Furno and Rocka

http://cache.lego.com/r/herofactory/-/media/franchises/hero%20factory%202014/explore/universe/battle%20machines/intro.jpg?l.r=557670937

[Lyichir]

http://www.pockyland.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=59473

This has scans of the retailer's catalog, one of which features a slightly better pic of the Queen Beast set! Looks like her horns ARE a new piece...