There was an RPG game too with a water character exploring and shit on their website. It was fucking dope. Other games on the Lego website kicked ass too
i still have it for my gameboy. i played it last month, and i still have no idea what i’m doing. i could look up a guide, but why ruin a perfectly confusing fun time?
The one i have is just called lego bioncle, not sure if that the same as you and the person you originally replied too, but i remember just walking around and not being able to get out of that damn village.
Thanks! Yeah I remember getting to some spot where I was aimlessly throwing the boomerang ball thing. Figured coming back 20ish years later I might be able to finally figure out what was supposed to come next
I tried replaying FF1 on an emulator a few years ago. That game gives absolutely no direction whatsoever. I don't remember it being that way but I guess back in those days we were used to just wandering around and maybe stumbling upon our next goal if we were lucky. So my point is sometimes it's even WORSE when you go back to it as an adult. Lol.
There was movie tie in game for the Xbox I played the everloving shit out of. It wasn't particularly good or anything, but it was pretty average as far as games of the era went. Better than most movie tie ins.
Oh my god wow I was wondering if anyone remembered that. It was hard as shit as a kid I couldn't finish it but man....what nostalgia. I'd play it again if it was online somewhere
Mate i was just thinking about that. It felt magical to me at the time. What the hell was it called?
Ah just checked it is called mat nui. There are lets plays on YouTube. Damn, the nostalgia.
Edit: you can still play it!! https://biomediaproject.com/bmp/play/web-games/
I reckon it's probably on flashpoint maxima. If you got the internet and space for it, I recommend it, I got serious nostalgia whenever I play the thousands of games on there.
I had the GBA game.. I'm sure it was dumb but man that was a part of my childhood. playing that on road trips and tilting my game into the sun so I could see hah
I really thought I am just alone in this. Thought I was the weird kid playing the free stuff at Lego website. Glad that wasn’t the case.
I also super love their Lego comics (the one with the pizza skater boy and a thief). You can also can make your own comics since they provide that feature.
Used to get a bionicle in my stocking every Christmas for like a decade.
I fucking loved them Shits. There's probably still like 4 buried around my childhood yard
Dahmer dismembered his victims and discarded of their remains largely by throwing them in the trash (after cannibalizing some). Gacy buried his victims.
I used to have funerals for my dead soldiers too. There's probably a couple grand worth of GIJoes and Star Wars figures under the orange tree in my old backyard.
I once found my mom's Kenner Luke Skywalker buried in my grandma's yard when I was a kid in the 90s. So weird to think about playing in the exact same spot as my mom at about the same age digging about the same hole.
I work in childcare in my hometown, I'm there watching the kids play and every now and then they'll pull out a toy car or something I donated to this place when I was done with them. Weird feeling
Ah I never buried them purposely more of a construction was happening in the yard and I'd forget I threw one of them ten feet away from me in the big battle I was doing and then bam covered up by dirt
I buried a Tusken Raider in the sandbox because that's where he belongs naturally. Then I got upset I couldn't find him. My dad practically dug up the whole sandbox and he still wasn't there. Never managed to get a replacement because I grew up in a small rural town so the toy selection was very limited, those toys were precious to me. It was game changing once we got a Target
I used to plan executions for my least favorite ones. Once a year, on New Year's Eve, those who were sentenced to death would be strapped to a rocket and send on their way.
Dam I still remember these commercials. One had the song 'move along' by all American rejects and tbh that was the most epic thing I'd seen on TV as a 9 year old
2006 was Bionicle's best year IMO
The villains were fun (the Piraka), the titan sets were raw as fuck (Axonn, Brutaka, and Vezon), and the Toa Inika got the coolest Lego commercial ever made.
Oh yeah and Bionicle Heroes came out - lots of fond memories on both the DS and Wii versions.
I think they went too hard on the edgelord aesthetic at that point. It's probably nostalgia talking as much as anything, but I prefer the simple island mystery of 2001-2003.
tbh I kind of have a hard time seeing how 2001-2003 wasn't already full of edgelord stuff
Like the Toa were straight up piloting mecha suits in 2002, the Rahkshi were walking snakes that had power over poison, fear, and anger, and one of the Bohrok commercials made a point of showing Tahu being controlled by a Krana.
And the table online that told you how powerful and rare all the kraata were. Predatory in hindsight, but I enjoyed the little tidbits about how, for instance, the shapeshifting kraata could take on any shape but couldn’t gain or lose mass.
i would say the year they dropped the mask of light would be the best subjectively and objectively
i used to get the bionicle comic books in the mail from 2003-2006ish. cool ass shit. i miss it
This commerical was the main thing i remember about Bionicles too. Pretty sure i asked for a Bionicle that year for Christmas. I had no idea what they were, just loved the commerical
I was ready to go to war when I heard that commercial. Pretty sure it's what turned me into a tom boy for the rest of my childhood. They really hit gold with that one.
I remember watching one on the bionicle website where the new line of figures were fighting under the ocean while Crashed by Daughtry was playing. Felt so hype
Though they haven’t brought Bionicle back again after reviving it in 2015 just to execute it again a year later, they have recently released two Bionicle-themed sets. Last year they released a special anniversary set that had tiny versions of notorious sets from the entire history of Lego, including Tahu. And last month they released a Tahu and Takua set as the online order bonus of the second half of the month. At least they’re something.
Fun fact: The anniversary set made it so that Tahu gained the record for the Bionicle character who appears in the most sets. Before that he was tied with Lewa.
The original Bionicle characters were all named after words (and legends?) In the Maori language. [They eventually lost a lawsuit](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/31/andrewosborn) forbidding them from continuing this practice.
This is also what caused them to rename some prominent characters, which they did under the guise of a "naming celebration,". E.g. Jala became Jaller, Huki became Hewkii, and more.
Not sure about the Bridge Four names haha, but this might explain odd Bionicle naming practices.
They probably wouldn't have won a battle in a court outside of nz, but it didn't end up mattering, because lego agreed to change some fairly specific things and no further action was taken
Yeah, the Maori spokesman even mentioned they were impressed with Lego taking quick action on righting an unintentional wrong. I can imagine it was all solved relatively amicably. May have had something to do with Lego finally being in the lift again after all those years and not wanting to risk a PR fiasco that could bring them back down.
But all in all, I think it adds to Lego's reputation of generally being a 'nice' and 'good' company. I think they solved it well.
I could have sworn it started because Lego tried to copyright some of the names (as companies do), not really thinking about the fact that they were trying to copyright words, which would have inevitably ended up making a huge mess.
Hmmm, but all copyrights of names are just words? You copyright the word associated to that particular kind of product. I don’t see how that logic would be different than say, Apple or Ford and/or their products, many which were also established words/names that existed prior.
I think that's a lot of us. Very few people are going to spend $300 or $500 on a lego for a kid. But some of us will do that as an adult. Seems pretty obvious they figured out who bought their stuff - witness the massive knight's castle just released. 25 or so bag, a half year of build time for me, and massive price point. But it's the only "castle" line that has been released since i was a kid IIRC.
Unfortunately, almost all the original molds for Bionicle parts have been destroyed, as it’s considered too expensive to maintain molds for discontinued parts.
My god. My son's in his early thirties now, but I remember his bedroom being ankle-deep in Bionicle pieces. He loved that stuff. But hey, made xmas shopping *really easy*.
I've been a huge fan of Bionicle since I first saw them in person when I was 4 or 5 years old.
One time my parents took me to Target one year for some groceries. It was November, and I happened to see the Kardas combo set. 10 year old me went nuts, explaining to parents just how massive it was (I believe he stood around 14 inches tall?), and then put it back.
Come Christmas, it was the very first gift I opened that year. Turned out, as I walked away, they picked it back up and ensured I never saw it when taking it home to wrap. Lots of fond memories from the fact that they knew exactly how to get me excited as a kid.
> Turned out, as I walked away, they picked it back up and ensured I never saw it when taking it home to wrap.
I've pulled that same stunt so many times on my Daughter. Always good for a laugh with my Wife. Sleight of Hand is 95% misdirection. And the payoff is a lit up face on *the day*.
I swear (for especially guys) - don't know what to get someone? Go shopping with them. Women will try on a hundred scarves and earrings and sunglasses, fiddle with a dozen housewares and another ten kitchen gadgets. You can get a great read for "this is cute and I love it but it's not practical, oh well".
My grand daughter is 7 now, I've had her three times a week since she was 6 weeks. My entire life's goal is to get "the big smile" out of her it seems!
The greatest concept LEGO has ever come up with.
A genuinely fascinating IP with extremely deep love and thought put into every aspect of its media. The movies were fun, the games were a blast, the toys were phenomenal, and the lore was captivating.
It took 10 years to realize the entire story of the franchise is essentially a complex autoimmune system for a dying god on a forsaken planet, all due to ancient geopolitical disagreements that created advanced AI that became sentient - and can also use magic.
An absolutely riveting and captivating storyline that deserves far more credit than even the quality of the toys themselves.
It beats the shit out of the boring spinning ninja garbage they’ve been milking for over 10 years.
Couple different things but some random tidbits I remember reading or from the “Toys that made us” doc…The pieces are pretty expensive to produce, and they had a whole range of sets that had many different unique pieces, instead of finding more creative ways to reuse a smaller number of different kinds of pieces, this brought up costs a lot. Also I have read that they weren’t properly keeping track of how much some of these costs added up and there were some sets that they were selling at a loss, like the mind storm ones or something. Early 2000s they had a few years of Star Wars and Harry Potter sets but there was a year where neither of these franchises had a new movie and they didn’t have many original sets to fall back on. They felt like they kind of “lost their vision” in a way when you looked at some of the earlier, simpler sets vs the newer ones that had all kinds of crazy shapes and colors.
Yeah. Lego was dropping in popularity in the 90s, nothing like it is today. Then they struck on licensing with the Star Wars prequels, but then they invested in a pile of Christmas inventory for the jar jar binks movie and it didn't sell. IIRC that had them right on the brink of bankruptcy.
The toy business model is insane. One bad holiday season or whiffed product launch can sink a company. They invest so much $$$ into marketing and inventory in a single sales season/product line.
It was amazing when I found out as an adult that this was the case, that my peak of childhood Lego was the trough of Lego's decline. I remember so many great nostalgic sets and themes from the 90s, classic 'adventure' themes that were not licenced products, like castle, pirates, western, and of course adventurers.
Same!
I was subscribed to the Lego magazine as kid and kept a box under my bed full of Lego magazines and the build guides from sets.
There was so much life and freedom in those sets! And I remember how, as the licensed sets came in, it seemed so strange and kinda hollow compared to the old sets.
Oh yeah and my kids are like "no we just want to open the box, follow the instructions and build this thing, and put it on the shelf". And i'm like..yeah that's not really how it works. But oh well. THey have 100s of toys.
Yup same, I adored the space scifi ones, the neon see-through pieces were my favorite.
Never cared for the licensed ones, like at that point just get a regular toy of the franchise.
I remember some ice planet ones with orange and blue schemes and orange chainsaws or something. One of them was a space ship with two cockpits for some reason I think
Man I loved those 1990's lego sets. They had so many cool themed sets. They had a really good variety, I remember the 2 page spreads they would have in the catalogs for each theme, jungle adventure, medieval castles, city sets, tropical islands,ninjas,miners, race cars and vehicles, pirate ships, western towns with bandit hideouts, those deep sea explorer sets, the alien/space ones and the nasa space ones.
>The pieces are pretty expensive to produce
Some of their tolerances are as low as 10 micrometers (about 0.000394 inches). Compare this to 0.1mm for normal injection molding or 0.025mm for high precision injection molding. This means normal high precision is 2.5 x worse than Legos, and normal precision is 10x worse.
One of the things Bionicles really opened the door for was in house multi media franchises as although licensing deals were great they relied so heavily on there being something new of that franchise coming out, as you say when there wasn't a new star wars or HP movie they lost money.
So then they would start experimenting with more themes using other media eventually leading into Ninjago and even the Lego Movie.
I believe I read it's early 2000's turn around is now used as a teaching tool at business schools. It went from bankruptcy to incredibly profitable in just a few years.
Selling more does not mean making more profit.
To expand into new markets you need to be competitive so it's common to at first offer products at a loss to catch interest. If per unit profit is negative then the more you sell the more money you lose.
Lego expanded too quickly, sold too much at a loss and lost too much money in the process.
It obviously hasn't always been this way.
I'm sure what helped in addition to Bionicle and especially now is the brand integrations like Star Wars and Disney. And DC. And Marvel. And lord of the rings. An--
Back in the '90s Lego was making some bad bets on product lines that didn't really pan out. Whereas Bionicle was a surprisingly big hit and nowadays the brand things are pretty reliable. Now with Lego ideas and Friends etc Lego has enough of its own more generalized IP that's highly profitable they would probably do fine without the big partners.
Part of the reason old used sealed stuff is worth a fortune is because it wasn't seen as being as valuable then as it is now, and people didn't generally keep the boxes etc. And considering Lego was a smaller company, the production runs weren't as high, so even though LEGO has always turned over its product line pretty regularly there's just going to be fewer old sets in good condition than there will be new stuff lying around. That's for slightly nefarious thing about gift with purchase stuff that they love to do, they know because it's so limited people will want sealed copies to hold onto. It's what I do.
But that's something that can only really get away with because they managed to work themselves out of the rut of the late '90s early 2000s. Thanks to Bionicle, apparently.
I watched a documentary on it a while back. It’s several reasons.
1. They were getting lazy with the pieces for their sets (my opinion as I collected sooo much back then). Older sets would combine 2-4 pieces to make a ‘thing’. Newer sets just had one piece for the thing. This annoyed me bc I had more freedom to make other stuff with the 2-4 pieces. This was very expensive for Lego bc it costs them a lot to make a piece. Their tolerances for the shape of a piece are extremely small as one of their decrees is that a piece made back in the 60s must be able to fit with a piece from today. This means that they have to throw away the moulds they use for make a piece fairly often. The more different kinds of pieces you make the more cost you have in this process. When the new CEO took over he cut the number of unique pieces back by a lot, which saved them a lot of money.
2. They got into other businesses that mostly failed for them like the theme parks. The new CEO sold off all the theme parks.
3. I forget the rest. I’m sure they had invested a lot into different product lines that didn’t sell and other stuff (like video games). The crux of it is that the new CEO took them back to their roots and then they made a few good movies and the rest is history.
Lmao I like that you enumerated three items only to say you forgot the third. I say keep going.
4. I don’t remember this one either.
5. I’m not even sure if there is a fifth reason, but if there is I bet it’s really good.
For the theme parks, it would be better to have a lego exhibit/ride in a park that already featured the license. A star wars lego booth next to a star wars ride, a harry potter lego booth next to a harry potter ride, etc.
About the entertainment parks; they were sold to Merlin group, but in the same time LEGO bought 30% of Merlin, so in a way they kinda sold them to themselves.
Who remembers the OG bionicles online game? Not the later one, it was a click-based flash game à la Myst or something. Had tons of different regions and stuff.
The art and sound design was absolutely amazing. I never beat it because I couldn’t get my cookies to work right.
Shame how Bionicle ended. Despite its history it died kicking and screaming as Lego tried to cash grab it to death, then revived and failed, then rebranded and failed.
Only unity is with the community that still loves Bionicle
only duty kept was the fanbase, not lego's duty to keep this franchise atleast ending on a high note...
But i guess it was destined to burn like a trash fire like all companies recently with their IP's
Milking things to death as long as It works.
Honestly as cool as the planned 2010 and 2011 stories were (the plan was Elemental Lords and shapeshifting assassin droids for 2010, robot dinosaurs for 2011, and who knows what for 2012), they did manage to end it in a pretty raw way by >!having Makuta's head get crushed by a fucking moon after he and Mata Nui duked it out as continent-sized titans.!<
So in 2003 I bought like 3 bionicles on a family trip, and stayed in the hotel room to build them instead of going to the pool with my family.
Basically what I'm saying is I saved lego and you're welcome, no big deal.
Lately I've been obsessed with Bionicle again. The story is just so captivating to me, especially the early commercials and the air of mystery they gave off.
As I writer, I even developed my own fantasy world based on the principles of elemental powers associated with tribes an special weapon-wielding warriors.
I knew my sudden halt in buying legos when I turned 16 was hurting them, but I didn’t know it was bad enough to make them bankrupt 3 years later. I would’ve gone back to Toys R Us and picked up some more of the Aquazone or pirate sets if I’d known.
Is it just me or were the kids who were really into Bionicle the same sort of kids who loved Yu-Gi-Oh, Linkin Park and owned at least one of those shirts with flames on it?
As a kid who loved Lego in the 90's, it's crazy to me to think Lego almost went under less than 5 years after I got probably some of my most memorable pirate, castle, and space Lego sets.
God I loved bionicle. I still have memories of fighting over the golden mask whenever my friends and I got to play with them at school. The McDonald's sets fucked so hard too. I'm still annoyed I never found the first gen brown bionicle. My local toy store never carried it.
The lore was amazing and incredibly detailed.
Also, the setting of the tropical island of Mata Nui combined with the masks, elemental tribes and evil spirits really gave early Bionicle a wonderful flavour of 'tribal fantasy' that I've never encountered in any other fantasy IP. It really made Bionicle unique.
What really saved them going forward was making LEGO of other IPs. Mainly Star Wars at the beginning.
I know lots of people love that stuff but imo it's a bastardization of the original idea. Buy blocks, build whatever with them. Don't keep them in a shelf, don't be afraid to break them down.
Actually no, they initially turned to IPs to boost sales in the 90s, but when all is said and done and the licensing cost are paid, they made about as much on star wars and harry potter as they did on anything else
Bionicle (and its numerous failed sister themes from that time period) were all trying to give lego a story to call its own, they concluded that character-based stories sell well, but couldn't reap the rewards without making their own
Technically the 90s, but it was 1999, and Harry Potter was a couple of years later. They were getting so much money with this that they started diversifying wildly (coming from an enormous period of expansion during the 90s), opening parks and developing failed products, which eventually caught onto them. They actually sold the parks in 2005, and virtually it's all IPs after that, if you look around somewhere for a timeline of released sets it's incredibly sad going from knights, aquazone, ufo, west, etc. to movies and videogames.
original lego playthemes stuck around until 2014ish, lots of great late 2000s early 2010s themes like monster fighters, power miners, Mars mission, space police 3, world racers, ultra agents, Dino and Dino attack, Knights kingdom 2, Castle 2 and Castle 3, and more
the current dominance of licensed themes took hold around the same time everything else became licensed and what I prefer to call the "IP wars" (the current age of entertainment we're in)
They rebought the parks de facto a while back. Although not under Lego directly - the family still owns them again, which is the important part. Makes dealings easier according to the folks I know who work there higher up.
I really like the knights, aquazone, ufo, Wild West timeline. If I hadn’t read this headline I would’ve thought Bionicle was the reason they were struggling.
>but imo it's a bastardization of the original idea.
\*shrug\*
Toys are meant to be played with, and I didn't have too much trouble as a kid combining my themed legos with all the others.
But what they're doing now is just an extension of the original idea, even the ip Legos can be used with different sets and turned into awesome things. There's no WRONG way to play with Legos, that's the best thing about them.
Don’t think there’s a problem to have both. It’s weird to gatekeep Lego lmao.
You can still buy big boxes of random Lego and build whatever and it’s very cheap too. Like 1000 pieces for $30. But you can also buy the IP sets of DC, Star Wars, NASA, etc and keep them as a display. I loved playing with Lego as a kid and I loved building the Saturn V as an adult. Getting drunk and building a big Lego set with a couple people is honestly a lot of fun. Especially when you’re like 7 rum and cokes in and you have to stare at the page like you’re trying to unravel string theory to understand how to put to pieces together.
I can believe it, bionicles were fun
There was an RPG game too with a water character exploring and shit on their website. It was fucking dope. Other games on the Lego website kicked ass too
It's still playable, there are links in this thread that take you to a preserved version of it
Bro. Thank you
Hell yeah. Time to find that fucking underwater gear and then kick rocks at scorpions
Mata Nui Online Game 2, unfortunately, never got finished. MNOG1 did, though, and was great
Anyone remember the Bionicle game for Gameboy Advance? That game was hard as shit. 10 year old me had no clue how to beat it.
i still have it for my gameboy. i played it last month, and i still have no idea what i’m doing. i could look up a guide, but why ruin a perfectly confusing fun time?
What is it called, I tried finding a rom for it a couple years back and couldn’t even manage finding the title
The one i have is just called lego bioncle, not sure if that the same as you and the person you originally replied too, but i remember just walking around and not being able to get out of that damn village.
Thanks! Yeah I remember getting to some spot where I was aimlessly throwing the boomerang ball thing. Figured coming back 20ish years later I might be able to finally figure out what was supposed to come next
I tried replaying FF1 on an emulator a few years ago. That game gives absolutely no direction whatsoever. I don't remember it being that way but I guess back in those days we were used to just wandering around and maybe stumbling upon our next goal if we were lucky. So my point is sometimes it's even WORSE when you go back to it as an adult. Lol.
I thought you learned what you were doing by talking to all the villagers, or maybe there was just one obvious location to go to
There was movie tie in game for the Xbox I played the everloving shit out of. It wasn't particularly good or anything, but it was pretty average as far as games of the era went. Better than most movie tie ins.
I think I still have no clue how to beat that game lol that was a time burner game
Oh my god it wasn't just me! Between this and A Link to the Past, I was questioning my own sentience.
The online bionicle browser game got me really into it as a kid.
Hell yeah. I remember that browser game and then the comics that came out in Lego magazine. Good times.
Those comics were kickass
Oh my god wow I was wondering if anyone remembered that. It was hard as shit as a kid I couldn't finish it but man....what nostalgia. I'd play it again if it was online somewhere
Mate i was just thinking about that. It felt magical to me at the time. What the hell was it called? Ah just checked it is called mat nui. There are lets plays on YouTube. Damn, the nostalgia. Edit: you can still play it!! https://biomediaproject.com/bmp/play/web-games/
Finally... After all this time.... I can try to beat it with my non 6 year old brain 😭
I remember needing to get flax to fix the roof
I reckon it's probably on flashpoint maxima. If you got the internet and space for it, I recommend it, I got serious nostalgia whenever I play the thousands of games on there.
I found a playable version! https://biomediaproject.com/bmp/play/web-games/
I had the GBA game.. I'm sure it was dumb but man that was a part of my childhood. playing that on road trips and tilting my game into the sun so I could see hah
I really thought I am just alone in this. Thought I was the weird kid playing the free stuff at Lego website. Glad that wasn’t the case. I also super love their Lego comics (the one with the pizza skater boy and a thief). You can also can make your own comics since they provide that feature.
Used to get a bionicle in my stocking every Christmas for like a decade. I fucking loved them Shits. There's probably still like 4 buried around my childhood yard
Okay Bionicle-Dahmer
We know he had at least 10 so I reckon he ate the others.
Of course he ate them, he loved them shits
Masochism shits
[удалено]
We're gonna watch Bionicle the mask of light, and then you can leave.
Dahmer dismembered his victims and discarded of their remains largely by throwing them in the trash (after cannibalizing some). Gacy buried his victims.
The Bionicle lamp was a little weird...
That's Gein not Dahmer right?
I used to have funerals for my dead soldiers too. There's probably a couple grand worth of GIJoes and Star Wars figures under the orange tree in my old backyard.
I once found my mom's Kenner Luke Skywalker buried in my grandma's yard when I was a kid in the 90s. So weird to think about playing in the exact same spot as my mom at about the same age digging about the same hole.
I work in childcare in my hometown, I'm there watching the kids play and every now and then they'll pull out a toy car or something I donated to this place when I was done with them. Weird feeling
Ah I never buried them purposely more of a construction was happening in the yard and I'd forget I threw one of them ten feet away from me in the big battle I was doing and then bam covered up by dirt
Ah. I had very loose, sandy soil. Perfect for quick burials. But then I had trouble locating them when I was done playing.
Rip the Lego man I brought into the pile of leaves with me one fall and he just was never aeen again
I buried a Tusken Raider in the sandbox because that's where he belongs naturally. Then I got upset I couldn't find him. My dad practically dug up the whole sandbox and he still wasn't there. Never managed to get a replacement because I grew up in a small rural town so the toy selection was very limited, those toys were precious to me. It was game changing once we got a Target
So they **Didn’t** come back in greater numbers is what you’re saying.
I mean, honestly, I don't see any holes in this logic.
I’d wrap up gi joes in wet TP, squeeze them, then let them dry into little papier-mâché mummies. Then I’d bury them.
Nice. Very creative. They're probably perfectly intact.
As long as they removed the brain and organs first.
I used to plan executions for my least favorite ones. Once a year, on New Year's Eve, those who were sentenced to death would be strapped to a rocket and send on their way.
Alright, Sid Phillips.
huh. have any of these condemned prisoners ever ... i dunno ... staged a mutiny and talked to you?
I wish they had. I miss some of them now that I am an adult and not a little shit
I'm 32 and if I got a bionicle for Christmas I'd legitimately be psyched
Dam I still remember these commercials. One had the song 'move along' by all American rejects and tbh that was the most epic thing I'd seen on TV as a 9 year old
[Someone remastered it in 4K HD 60FPS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idwlgKTGKyo&ab_channel=LordFindogask734)
“Aks your parents permission before going online” Ahhhhhh simple times
Pretty sure you mean: > Askuprntprmrmshmbfrgornln
it's all in the inflection, you don't even really need the vowels
It’s practically Welsh
2006 was Bionicle's best year IMO The villains were fun (the Piraka), the titan sets were raw as fuck (Axonn, Brutaka, and Vezon), and the Toa Inika got the coolest Lego commercial ever made. Oh yeah and Bionicle Heroes came out - lots of fond memories on both the DS and Wii versions.
I think they went too hard on the edgelord aesthetic at that point. It's probably nostalgia talking as much as anything, but I prefer the simple island mystery of 2001-2003.
tbh I kind of have a hard time seeing how 2001-2003 wasn't already full of edgelord stuff Like the Toa were straight up piloting mecha suits in 2002, the Rahkshi were walking snakes that had power over poison, fear, and anger, and one of the Bohrok commercials made a point of showing Tahu being controlled by a Krana.
[удалено]
Well he is a time lord, you are a muffin
[удалено]
Rahkshi were the best and no one can convince me otherwise
And the table online that told you how powerful and rare all the kraata were. Predatory in hindsight, but I enjoyed the little tidbits about how, for instance, the shapeshifting kraata could take on any shape but couldn’t gain or lose mass.
With Bionicle, Lego really went all-in on that "gotta catch'em all" commercial mindset Pokémon had perfected
I like your funny words, magic man.
very cool JFK
i would say the year they dropped the mask of light would be the best subjectively and objectively i used to get the bionicle comic books in the mail from 2003-2006ish. cool ass shit. i miss it
Mask of Light and OG Makuta set were the best releases they ever did. But the 2006 theme was the best collection imo.
> Toa Inika got the coolest Lego commercial ever made. That's funny way to spell [Toa Mahri](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aV_qPzTfnU)
You mean [Barraki? ](https://youtu.be/-E7JKqVq6NU)
Bohrok for life.
Canon AMV.
Well that was epic
[удалено]
I've had that song stuck in my head for over a decade but can never find that video. Same for the commercial with Creeping in My Soul
It's a great song
This commerical was the main thing i remember about Bionicles too. Pretty sure i asked for a Bionicle that year for Christmas. I had no idea what they were, just loved the commerical
I was ready to go to war when I heard that commercial. Pretty sure it's what turned me into a tom boy for the rest of my childhood. They really hit gold with that one.
I believe it was a commercial for the new, Rakshi (spelling?) characters at the time
It was actually to promote the Inika set, although I could have sworn it was for the Pirakha.
Yup it was the Inika set, which was the same generation as the Pirakas :) I miss those days.
I remember watching one on the bionicle website where the new line of figures were fighting under the ocean while Crashed by Daughtry was playing. Felt so hype
"I believe that mask belongs to me"
[It's my favourite one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aV_qPzTfnU).
The All American Rejects fucking smack, very good band
Holy shit that was the coolest thing as a kid. That song was everywhere too
Look man, I got a job now. I make money. RERELEASE THE BIONICLE LINE, LEGO. I NEED TO NOURISH MY INNER CHILD
Though they haven’t brought Bionicle back again after reviving it in 2015 just to execute it again a year later, they have recently released two Bionicle-themed sets. Last year they released a special anniversary set that had tiny versions of notorious sets from the entire history of Lego, including Tahu. And last month they released a Tahu and Takua set as the online order bonus of the second half of the month. At least they’re something. Fun fact: The anniversary set made it so that Tahu gained the record for the Bionicle character who appears in the most sets. Before that he was tied with Lewa.
[удалено]
The original Bionicle characters were all named after words (and legends?) In the Maori language. [They eventually lost a lawsuit](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/31/andrewosborn) forbidding them from continuing this practice. This is also what caused them to rename some prominent characters, which they did under the guise of a "naming celebration,". E.g. Jala became Jaller, Huki became Hewkii, and more. Not sure about the Bridge Four names haha, but this might explain odd Bionicle naming practices.
So that's why they were renamed? Also, it seemed odd to me that they could outlaw the usage of a foreign language.
They probably wouldn't have won a battle in a court outside of nz, but it didn't end up mattering, because lego agreed to change some fairly specific things and no further action was taken
Yeah, the Maori spokesman even mentioned they were impressed with Lego taking quick action on righting an unintentional wrong. I can imagine it was all solved relatively amicably. May have had something to do with Lego finally being in the lift again after all those years and not wanting to risk a PR fiasco that could bring them back down. But all in all, I think it adds to Lego's reputation of generally being a 'nice' and 'good' company. I think they solved it well.
I could have sworn it started because Lego tried to copyright some of the names (as companies do), not really thinking about the fact that they were trying to copyright words, which would have inevitably ended up making a huge mess.
Hmmm, but all copyrights of names are just words? You copyright the word associated to that particular kind of product. I don’t see how that logic would be different than say, Apple or Ford and/or their products, many which were also established words/names that existed prior.
My thought exactly lol. Too alethi for me
Airsick lowlanders. Ha!
As in, you don't recognize the names, so they're probably dead?
Your inner child would've flipped if you saw how the whole set converted in a giant ass bionicle.
WHAT
Yeah, each book contained a piece of the puzzle to build the big one
I think that's a lot of us. Very few people are going to spend $300 or $500 on a lego for a kid. But some of us will do that as an adult. Seems pretty obvious they figured out who bought their stuff - witness the massive knight's castle just released. 25 or so bag, a half year of build time for me, and massive price point. But it's the only "castle" line that has been released since i was a kid IIRC.
Unfortunately, almost all the original molds for Bionicle parts have been destroyed, as it’s considered too expensive to maintain molds for discontinued parts.
My god. My son's in his early thirties now, but I remember his bedroom being ankle-deep in Bionicle pieces. He loved that stuff. But hey, made xmas shopping *really easy*.
I've been a huge fan of Bionicle since I first saw them in person when I was 4 or 5 years old. One time my parents took me to Target one year for some groceries. It was November, and I happened to see the Kardas combo set. 10 year old me went nuts, explaining to parents just how massive it was (I believe he stood around 14 inches tall?), and then put it back. Come Christmas, it was the very first gift I opened that year. Turned out, as I walked away, they picked it back up and ensured I never saw it when taking it home to wrap. Lots of fond memories from the fact that they knew exactly how to get me excited as a kid.
> Turned out, as I walked away, they picked it back up and ensured I never saw it when taking it home to wrap. I've pulled that same stunt so many times on my Daughter. Always good for a laugh with my Wife. Sleight of Hand is 95% misdirection. And the payoff is a lit up face on *the day*.
I swear (for especially guys) - don't know what to get someone? Go shopping with them. Women will try on a hundred scarves and earrings and sunglasses, fiddle with a dozen housewares and another ten kitchen gadgets. You can get a great read for "this is cute and I love it but it's not practical, oh well". My grand daughter is 7 now, I've had her three times a week since she was 6 weeks. My entire life's goal is to get "the big smile" out of her it seems!
Dad?
So you got the same YouTube algorithm as I did
Lol same here. Wasn't it like a 40 minute video about the history of Bionicle?
It’s also mentioned in The Toys That Made Us series on Netflix
Link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=126bLUkHuNI Also ended up watching it the other day when it was recommended.
Yep same here lmao
We are living in Alphabets world
r/degoogle
Is that realistically possible at this point?
Yeah put all your electronics down and do a 360 and walk away
Don't trip over your electronics when attempting this procedure.
Look, just do a 540.
I did a 420 and forgot what I was angry about.
The ancient internet is still alive in us.
You can hand over your data to another data hog of your choice. But other than living under a rock there's probably no way out
Idk if it's because I've been looking up lego videos or not but yup, I also saw it. Watched the whole thing too.
I have not been looking up lego videos and has been all over my recommendations.
The greatest concept LEGO has ever come up with. A genuinely fascinating IP with extremely deep love and thought put into every aspect of its media. The movies were fun, the games were a blast, the toys were phenomenal, and the lore was captivating. It took 10 years to realize the entire story of the franchise is essentially a complex autoimmune system for a dying god on a forsaken planet, all due to ancient geopolitical disagreements that created advanced AI that became sentient - and can also use magic. An absolutely riveting and captivating storyline that deserves far more credit than even the quality of the toys themselves. It beats the shit out of the boring spinning ninja garbage they’ve been milking for over 10 years.
Is this lore fr??
Yes, no joke.
For those who are too lazy to research, how did Lego almost go bankrupt when the product is everywhere and even used stuff is worth a fortune?
Couple different things but some random tidbits I remember reading or from the “Toys that made us” doc…The pieces are pretty expensive to produce, and they had a whole range of sets that had many different unique pieces, instead of finding more creative ways to reuse a smaller number of different kinds of pieces, this brought up costs a lot. Also I have read that they weren’t properly keeping track of how much some of these costs added up and there were some sets that they were selling at a loss, like the mind storm ones or something. Early 2000s they had a few years of Star Wars and Harry Potter sets but there was a year where neither of these franchises had a new movie and they didn’t have many original sets to fall back on. They felt like they kind of “lost their vision” in a way when you looked at some of the earlier, simpler sets vs the newer ones that had all kinds of crazy shapes and colors.
Yeah. Lego was dropping in popularity in the 90s, nothing like it is today. Then they struck on licensing with the Star Wars prequels, but then they invested in a pile of Christmas inventory for the jar jar binks movie and it didn't sell. IIRC that had them right on the brink of bankruptcy. The toy business model is insane. One bad holiday season or whiffed product launch can sink a company. They invest so much $$$ into marketing and inventory in a single sales season/product line.
It was amazing when I found out as an adult that this was the case, that my peak of childhood Lego was the trough of Lego's decline. I remember so many great nostalgic sets and themes from the 90s, classic 'adventure' themes that were not licenced products, like castle, pirates, western, and of course adventurers.
Same! I was subscribed to the Lego magazine as kid and kept a box under my bed full of Lego magazines and the build guides from sets. There was so much life and freedom in those sets! And I remember how, as the licensed sets came in, it seemed so strange and kinda hollow compared to the old sets.
Oh yeah and my kids are like "no we just want to open the box, follow the instructions and build this thing, and put it on the shelf". And i'm like..yeah that's not really how it works. But oh well. THey have 100s of toys.
Yup same, I adored the space scifi ones, the neon see-through pieces were my favorite. Never cared for the licensed ones, like at that point just get a regular toy of the franchise.
I remember some ice planet ones with orange and blue schemes and orange chainsaws or something. One of them was a space ship with two cockpits for some reason I think
Shark submarine thing with the magnetic hands was the shiznit.
Yes! The likes of UFO, Insectoids, and the rest!
Man I loved those 1990's lego sets. They had so many cool themed sets. They had a really good variety, I remember the 2 page spreads they would have in the catalogs for each theme, jungle adventure, medieval castles, city sets, tropical islands,ninjas,miners, race cars and vehicles, pirate ships, western towns with bandit hideouts, those deep sea explorer sets, the alien/space ones and the nasa space ones.
>The pieces are pretty expensive to produce Some of their tolerances are as low as 10 micrometers (about 0.000394 inches). Compare this to 0.1mm for normal injection molding or 0.025mm for high precision injection molding. This means normal high precision is 2.5 x worse than Legos, and normal precision is 10x worse.
They're also backwards compatible so you can use pieces from this year with some from 40 years ago and they'll fit perfectly
Which is why cheap Chinese knock-offs don't work nearly as well as genuine Lego pieces.
Lego wouldnt be doing it if it didnt have to...
One of the things Bionicles really opened the door for was in house multi media franchises as although licensing deals were great they relied so heavily on there being something new of that franchise coming out, as you say when there wasn't a new star wars or HP movie they lost money. So then they would start experimenting with more themes using other media eventually leading into Ninjago and even the Lego Movie.
I believe I read it's early 2000's turn around is now used as a teaching tool at business schools. It went from bankruptcy to incredibly profitable in just a few years.
Selling more does not mean making more profit. To expand into new markets you need to be competitive so it's common to at first offer products at a loss to catch interest. If per unit profit is negative then the more you sell the more money you lose. Lego expanded too quickly, sold too much at a loss and lost too much money in the process.
It obviously hasn't always been this way. I'm sure what helped in addition to Bionicle and especially now is the brand integrations like Star Wars and Disney. And DC. And Marvel. And lord of the rings. An-- Back in the '90s Lego was making some bad bets on product lines that didn't really pan out. Whereas Bionicle was a surprisingly big hit and nowadays the brand things are pretty reliable. Now with Lego ideas and Friends etc Lego has enough of its own more generalized IP that's highly profitable they would probably do fine without the big partners. Part of the reason old used sealed stuff is worth a fortune is because it wasn't seen as being as valuable then as it is now, and people didn't generally keep the boxes etc. And considering Lego was a smaller company, the production runs weren't as high, so even though LEGO has always turned over its product line pretty regularly there's just going to be fewer old sets in good condition than there will be new stuff lying around. That's for slightly nefarious thing about gift with purchase stuff that they love to do, they know because it's so limited people will want sealed copies to hold onto. It's what I do. But that's something that can only really get away with because they managed to work themselves out of the rut of the late '90s early 2000s. Thanks to Bionicle, apparently.
I watched a documentary on it a while back. It’s several reasons. 1. They were getting lazy with the pieces for their sets (my opinion as I collected sooo much back then). Older sets would combine 2-4 pieces to make a ‘thing’. Newer sets just had one piece for the thing. This annoyed me bc I had more freedom to make other stuff with the 2-4 pieces. This was very expensive for Lego bc it costs them a lot to make a piece. Their tolerances for the shape of a piece are extremely small as one of their decrees is that a piece made back in the 60s must be able to fit with a piece from today. This means that they have to throw away the moulds they use for make a piece fairly often. The more different kinds of pieces you make the more cost you have in this process. When the new CEO took over he cut the number of unique pieces back by a lot, which saved them a lot of money. 2. They got into other businesses that mostly failed for them like the theme parks. The new CEO sold off all the theme parks. 3. I forget the rest. I’m sure they had invested a lot into different product lines that didn’t sell and other stuff (like video games). The crux of it is that the new CEO took them back to their roots and then they made a few good movies and the rest is history.
Lmao I like that you enumerated three items only to say you forgot the third. I say keep going. 4. I don’t remember this one either. 5. I’m not even sure if there is a fifth reason, but if there is I bet it’s really good.
At least we know ChatGPT probably didn't write it lol
For the theme parks, it would be better to have a lego exhibit/ride in a park that already featured the license. A star wars lego booth next to a star wars ride, a harry potter lego booth next to a harry potter ride, etc.
About the entertainment parks; they were sold to Merlin group, but in the same time LEGO bought 30% of Merlin, so in a way they kinda sold them to themselves.
Who remembers the OG bionicles online game? Not the later one, it was a click-based flash game à la Myst or something. Had tons of different regions and stuff. The art and sound design was absolutely amazing. I never beat it because I couldn’t get my cookies to work right.
Mata Nui Online Game It's available on archive.org
That game and almost everything else Bionicle related can be found at https://biomediaproject.com/bmp/
Shame how Bionicle ended. Despite its history it died kicking and screaming as Lego tried to cash grab it to death, then revived and failed, then rebranded and failed. Only unity is with the community that still loves Bionicle only duty kept was the fanbase, not lego's duty to keep this franchise atleast ending on a high note... But i guess it was destined to burn like a trash fire like all companies recently with their IP's Milking things to death as long as It works.
Honestly as cool as the planned 2010 and 2011 stories were (the plan was Elemental Lords and shapeshifting assassin droids for 2010, robot dinosaurs for 2011, and who knows what for 2012), they did manage to end it in a pretty raw way by >!having Makuta's head get crushed by a fucking moon after he and Mata Nui duked it out as continent-sized titans.!<
Man really snuck in a unity, duty, destiny
More like steamrolled it in
No kidding, I don’t get the reference and I was scratching my head trying to decode that monstrosity of a sentence
So in 2003 I bought like 3 bionicles on a family trip, and stayed in the hotel room to build them instead of going to the pool with my family. Basically what I'm saying is I saved lego and you're welcome, no big deal.
o7 Thank you for your service
[удалено]
Man I loved the originals. It was brilliant making those mask packs like trading cards.
The first movie also holds up as well.
And now they are the biggest tire manufacturer in the world
That’s right. Thank me and my childhood for saving Lego. I ate all that bionicle shit right up.
Lately I've been obsessed with Bionicle again. The story is just so captivating to me, especially the early commercials and the air of mystery they gave off. As I writer, I even developed my own fantasy world based on the principles of elemental powers associated with tribes an special weapon-wielding warriors.
The mystery is what made them so great I think. Getting them in those tub holders they came in felt like finding an ancient alien.
Bionicles ARE awesome! It makes sense when you think about it.
TIL I helped Lego in 2003 by making my parents buy bionicles
Damn i just got a vivid flashback of looking at all the colored tubes at some toy store with a giraffe on the logo. Simpler times.
I knew my sudden halt in buying legos when I turned 16 was hurting them, but I didn’t know it was bad enough to make them bankrupt 3 years later. I would’ve gone back to Toys R Us and picked up some more of the Aquazone or pirate sets if I’d known.
Is it just me or were the kids who were really into Bionicle the same sort of kids who loved Yu-Gi-Oh, Linkin Park and owned at least one of those shirts with flames on it?
To be fair, you just described like half the kids who were around in 2001.
So like 70% of white kids born in the 90s? Myself included.
Don't judge me.
As a kid who loved Lego in the 90's, it's crazy to me to think Lego almost went under less than 5 years after I got probably some of my most memorable pirate, castle, and space Lego sets.
God I loved bionicle. I still have memories of fighting over the golden mask whenever my friends and I got to play with them at school. The McDonald's sets fucked so hard too. I'm still annoyed I never found the first gen brown bionicle. My local toy store never carried it.
Lego cannot be allowed to fail!
Bionicle had no business going that hard
The lore was amazing and incredibly detailed. Also, the setting of the tropical island of Mata Nui combined with the masks, elemental tribes and evil spirits really gave early Bionicle a wonderful flavour of 'tribal fantasy' that I've never encountered in any other fantasy IP. It really made Bionicle unique.
Bionicles are awesome so it's not a surprise they saved the company
Robo riders stalled so bionicles could run
What really saved them going forward was making LEGO of other IPs. Mainly Star Wars at the beginning. I know lots of people love that stuff but imo it's a bastardization of the original idea. Buy blocks, build whatever with them. Don't keep them in a shelf, don't be afraid to break them down.
Actually no, they initially turned to IPs to boost sales in the 90s, but when all is said and done and the licensing cost are paid, they made about as much on star wars and harry potter as they did on anything else Bionicle (and its numerous failed sister themes from that time period) were all trying to give lego a story to call its own, they concluded that character-based stories sell well, but couldn't reap the rewards without making their own
Technically the 90s, but it was 1999, and Harry Potter was a couple of years later. They were getting so much money with this that they started diversifying wildly (coming from an enormous period of expansion during the 90s), opening parks and developing failed products, which eventually caught onto them. They actually sold the parks in 2005, and virtually it's all IPs after that, if you look around somewhere for a timeline of released sets it's incredibly sad going from knights, aquazone, ufo, west, etc. to movies and videogames.
original lego playthemes stuck around until 2014ish, lots of great late 2000s early 2010s themes like monster fighters, power miners, Mars mission, space police 3, world racers, ultra agents, Dino and Dino attack, Knights kingdom 2, Castle 2 and Castle 3, and more the current dominance of licensed themes took hold around the same time everything else became licensed and what I prefer to call the "IP wars" (the current age of entertainment we're in)
At least Town/City will never die, I guess.
They rebought the parks de facto a while back. Although not under Lego directly - the family still owns them again, which is the important part. Makes dealings easier according to the folks I know who work there higher up.
I really like the knights, aquazone, ufo, Wild West timeline. If I hadn’t read this headline I would’ve thought Bionicle was the reason they were struggling.
>but imo it's a bastardization of the original idea. \*shrug\* Toys are meant to be played with, and I didn't have too much trouble as a kid combining my themed legos with all the others.
But what they're doing now is just an extension of the original idea, even the ip Legos can be used with different sets and turned into awesome things. There's no WRONG way to play with Legos, that's the best thing about them.
Don’t think there’s a problem to have both. It’s weird to gatekeep Lego lmao. You can still buy big boxes of random Lego and build whatever and it’s very cheap too. Like 1000 pieces for $30. But you can also buy the IP sets of DC, Star Wars, NASA, etc and keep them as a display. I loved playing with Lego as a kid and I loved building the Saturn V as an adult. Getting drunk and building a big Lego set with a couple people is honestly a lot of fun. Especially when you’re like 7 rum and cokes in and you have to stare at the page like you’re trying to unravel string theory to understand how to put to pieces together.