Do People Really Think Bionicle's Story Got Too Convoluted?

[pocketmego]

I hear it all the time. Bionicle's Mythology and backstory got too complex and weighed the line down and caused people to loose interest. Sales fell and a new simpler concept was launched with Hero Factory.

Um, wasn't Bionicle still basically one series after another of 6 Primary Colored good guys fighting a bunch of monsters and demons?

Isn't Hero Factory a Bunch of Primary Colored Good Guys fighting a bunch of monsters and demons?

Ok, granted, the setting and trimmings changed with Bionicle. You had Mata Nui and the battle against Makuta, and the Bohrok...etc Then Metro Nui and the Vahkti and those Spider-Things later. And that Island where the Piraka hung out to Rap Music. And then under water and in the sky. And then Mata Nui and his other planet.

Lots of changing settings and fresh characters in 10 years...I get that. But, Hardly Rocket Science.

Is it so different than Hero Factory characters changing armor twice a year and fighting enemies in all sorts of different environments?

Is Brain Attack all that different than Krana?

Was it really so hard to follow, just because the Toa changed to different characters with each wave. If they had changed the armor but kept the same TOA characters, would it have made any difference?

What do you guys think? Because, I'm not buying that Bionicle became all that hard to follow or jump intop atr any given time in the run.

[Brickthing]

And then Mata Nui and his other planet.

To be fair, everything about the final storyline came out of nowhere to the casual fan, although that story only existed in order to tie up the theme anyway.

As you say, the basic premise for each year was quite simple. Good guys vs. bad guys with some setting that justifies the cool new gadgets and monsters. But that was just on the surface, whereas the more detailed stories such as the books and serials drew upon the years of backstory that a new fan wouldn't know about. I can speak with a small degree from experience since I mostly dropped out of following the story from 2004 to 2007. When I had last seen the story of Bionicle the Toa were on Mata Nui and were fighting Makuta, but now the Toa had been replaced with new Toa who were supposed to be Matoran, fighting aquatic mutants underneath a completely different island? And 2004 and 2005 was just a flashback? Vakama was an evil monster? It was reasonably difficult to figure out what I'd missed, and I needed the assistance of non-official (but invaluable) sources such as BS01 to set my mind straight.

I think the problem is that the supplementary stories and even the comics in later years required fans to have read or read up about too much backstory, which locked out casual fans from getting more involved. If you were determined enough to figure out what was going on, the story was fantastic, but then if you missed too much you could get locked out again. There was a bit of an odd situation where everybody could access the complex serials and podcasts online for free, but needed to buy the more straightforward stories found in the comics and 2009 flm. Naturally you'd check the more easily accessible content first, and you'd be turned away by stories involving characters no longer available as sets doing things seemingly unrelated to the year's plot. Would you then want to try your luck with buying a book or comic?

[MakutaNocturn]

I'm a really implusive person and I get frustrated very fast. When bricks broke after first connecting I got totally anoyed. Bricks in 2006-2010 were terrible. But Bionicle story was fantastic, when I was 11 years old I checked every day all new Bionicle facts and serials. That was amazing. I have never thought Bionicle was childiish even now. Expect the fourth movie. I still like re-watching old trilogy, however I usually watch something more mature like psychological movies. When I see the simplicity of HF movies it's just like "I don't want to live on this world". Please compare Web of Shadows with Breakout. Then go to shop and look with a miserable face on the shelf with HF. Enjoy.

Edited April 29, 2013 by MakutaNocturn

[Shakar]

I'm a really implusive person and I get frustrated very fast. When bricks broke after first connecting I got totally anoyed. Bricks in 2006-2010 were terrible. But Bionicle story was fantastic, when I was 11 years old I checked every day all new Bionicle facts and serials. That was amazing. I have never thought Bionicle was childiish even now. Expect the fourth movie. I still like re-watching old trilogy, however I usually watch something more mature like psychological movies. When I see the simplicity of HF movies it's just like "I don't want to live on this world". Please compare Web of Shadows with Breakout. Then go to shop and look with a miserable face on the shelf with HF. Enjoy.

Ooooh joy.

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Well, it started off okay with the whole island setting, 6 heroes, one evil dude who uses Aizen-hax planning, simple. Then the flash-back stuff came and I kinda lost track due to both a lack of internet and comic books. 2006 was pretty decent, so was 2007-08, but that's after 7 years of commitment. Even I couldn't keep up with all the side stories and extra plot, I mean, I didn't even know Velika...oh wait. Spoilers. So yeah, I can kinda understand the switchover to Hero Factory's simplicity for sake of accessibility. Looking back, I wonder how those heroes would deal with a muaka. Ponder this while I brew some tea.

[xboxtravis7992]

I followed the story pretty well from 2001 to 2007, then I lost interest. I don't know if the plot became more confusing at that point, or if 2006 was such a great story 2007 seemed to be a let down. I also think 2007 had some weird sets in comparison to 2006. I ultimately caught up with the story right before the line ended, and I enjoyed reading the final Bionicle comics, I thought it wrapped up stuff well. However I still have no clue what was up with most of the Bara Magna plot, only that "Hey Mata Nui, Takanuva and Tahu are back!"

I do get the impression Hero Factory is not being given the same treatment, I don't notice many Hero Factory comics or films, I just think "Gee they are just robots who fight random villains." While Bionicle was that on the surface, there was a depth to it which made it interesting. Everything about Hero Factory seems like it never advances a plot.

[Aanchir]

Overall, while the basic premise of each year of BIONICLE was very simple, for a story-driven theme like BIONICLE people aren't going to get committed unless they can understand who the characters are and what their motivation is. In Hero Factory, the villains are usually creating fairly generic chaos and mayhem, while the heroes are law enforcement. In BIONICLE, it was not nearly so simple.

And that showed up even in the names. It wasn't just "heroes" and "villains". Kids had to understand what all these foreign-sounding words and names meant to even know just what kind of character they were buying. Just what is a Rahkshi, or a Piraka? What makes a Toa Metru different from a Toa Mahri? Why is this character a Toa when they were a shorter Turaga three years ago? These not only made things harder for kids to understand without following the deeper layers of story; they made them harder for their parents to understand. I speak from experience.

Also, BIONICLE's story had some really heavy continuity. A lot of the suspense in the story was driven by mysteries from previous years being answered very slowly as new mysteries took their place. To a kid jumping in partway through, they wouldn't see any benefit from these mysteries being answered unless they were exposed to previous years' story media to understand their importance. BIONICLE thrived on this mystery-driven formula, which helped it — buy also eventually hurt it.

In contrast, Hero Factory's story has a very basic premise each year: the heroes have to capture or stop the villains. Any more specific details can usually be summed up in a sentence: Villains have formed a gang to take down the Hero Factory! Fiery villains are trying to steal more energy! A villain on a jungle planet has corrupted the native creatures! The villains have escaped from containment and fled to the corners of the galaxy! Evil brains from outer space have turned innocent creatures into rampaging villains! It's all very simple stuff, and you can jump into any given year without any need to understand what happened previously.

Characters have simple, intuitive names, there are not many overarching "universe rules" like the confusing Matoran life cycle, and there's no need to remember what each character is up to at the end of each year — almost inevitably, at the end of each year, every villain is taken care of so they don't cause any additional problems, and the Heroes return to headquarters safe, sound, and ready to be upgraded for the next mission.

Does that clear anything up?

[DraikNova]

I followed the story pretty well from 2001 to 2007, then I lost interest. I don't know if the plot became more confusing at that point, or if 2006 was such a great story 2007 seemed to be a let down. I also think 2007 had some weird sets in comparison to 2006. I ultimately caught up with the story right before the line ended, and I enjoyed reading the final Bionicle comics, I thought it wrapped up stuff well.

I had more-or-less the same thing happen. I followed it pretty well from when I jumped in (late 2002 or early-mid 2003) to about 2007, tried to understand the story of 2008-2009, got more-or-less utterly confused, and then decided to look at every single piece of media in 2010.

Anyway, to sum up Aanchir's big block of text, there were only two "levels" of story a fan could be in, extremely simple or full-media-mode, with little option to simply be casually interested in the story without reading up on every single story.

[pocketmego]

Lots of fantastic answers here.I dunno. I followed it hardcore for the first 2 years. And actually was not the "target" market, as I was in College at the time. But, the concept was so cool and engrossing. I loved the designs and the story was s well told. I played the flash game and even subscribed to the club so I could read the comics. Afterward, I followed it off and on, but I never had a problem getting the when and where of things. The packaging and commercials more or less explained things...well maybe except the Piraka years, but still...

[The Mugbearer]

Follow these steps thoroughly:

1) Go to Google.com

2) Type in 'biosector01.com'

3) Go to this site, it should be at the first page for sure.

4) Read all the articles and learn how to spell the damn Metru word.

5) ...

6) Find out that there is way too much info for you to comprehend because you need the whole damn 11 years of sets, comics, books and web-serials to understand what the hell is going on here, who are those people and why the hell this series is goddamn better than any Hero Factory they will release.

7) Ultimate PROFIT.

Enjoy. =P

Edited April 30, 2013 by -N13OS-

[pocketmego]

Now I want to make a metru-sexual joke. ;p

[The Mugbearer]

Now I want to make a metru-sexual joke. ;p

Does that suppose to shock me? =D

[pocketmego]

Just kidding around, brother. :)

[The Mugbearer]

I know. ;)

[ZORK64]

After the beginning of the Metru Nui story line, I lost interest into the story of Bionicle and continued to buy the sets just for the sole purpose of MOCing.

To be fair, I still have no idea how much of the Bionicle lore even made it to Germany anyway. There was apparently a comic magazine, and at least one book with information about the Makuta, but aside from that... no idea.

The thing is though, all that stuff never interested me all that much in the first place. When Bionicle started (and I was still in the age to buy and collect those sets to actually play with them), me and a friend of mine took the few bits of story we learned from the LEGO catalogues (and some other merch, like promo CDs) and used it as a template for our own universe. We had soon created original characters, both heroes and villains, and as this story progressed, we included only rarely the stuff from the official canon into our fanon.

From that point of view, I can totally understand why TLG doesn't want Hero Factory too complex in terms of plot. LEGO is after all a toy about creating and building things, and not only the stuff in the actual sets, but your very own creations as well. And keeping the story loose and open as in Hero Factory makes it much, much easier to add your own personal creations into this universe - because there is a place for them where they can breathe, grow and exist alongside the heroes and villains in the official stories.

Edited May 6, 2013 by ZORK64

[Dorek]

I think you can easily break any plotline down to bare elements and make it sound simplistic. The Avengers was a group of primary colored good guys fighting against monsters and aliens, to line up with your analogy.

While I, personally, didn't find BIONICLE hard to follow, that's because I was actively following it, and all the peripheral info; I still work on BS01 (we're doing new templates now! Exciting!), but the less actively attuned to it I am, the more convoluted I find it. I had the same problem with LOST, and even (more recently) Fringe; the story made sense on a day to day basis, and even in an overarching sense, but looking back on it, there were a number of twists and turns that would have made it hard to understand if I wasn't watching the show sequentially and from the beginning.

[davidr]

BTW does anyone know where could I get Bionicle e-books, here were released only 3 or so comics and all movies so I couldn't read anything about Bionicle. Aaand I am connected to the Net since 2007 which isn't awesome either. I saw only comics, but there isn't so much story.

When I think about it was kinda complicated in the later years, but you could make the basics outta it. As I said I had no info about pre 2007 storyline and I still followed it as much as I could. It depends on your will. There is some info in TV spots, Lego catalogs, and such materials. But many passive fans IMO wondered "wtf, so many makutas" in 2008. It was weird without some knowledge. And what would these people say about 2009... Its a shame they canceled more storyline, everything was prepared, but... The good side of the thing is that we've got much better ball cups.

[Dorek]

Comixology sells the graphic novels digitally, so it's a pretty good place to start. I've been meaning to check them out too, if only to find some textless images from recent comics =P. The books themselves are not anywhere digitally, as far as I know; for plot summaries and such, there's obviously BS01, but not the actual novels; try a library?

[Kalhiki]

Personally, I feel that the story was convoluted, but mainly to people first being introduced midway through the story (I think I speak for everyone on this part). Heck, even someone who lost interest for a while and came back may have had trouble getting back on course. But to hardcore fans who had access to the story, you should be fine.

There's a ton of info in the story that just seems irrelevant. For instance, Av-Matoran dying and becoming Bohrok was just pointless and, for me, seemed like a hacked together origin story for them. Bohrok could just have easily been made alongside the Mata-Nui Robot by the Great Beings for the sole purpose to clean Mata-Nui's island acne. And then there are other things like that punk Mavrah who we thought was dead, but it turned out he's just chillin' in the Red Star with those black and purple dudes who turned out to be the same folks from Journey of Takanuva. And Tuyet who it turns out was kept up in a pocket dimension because she had a bit of magic rock in her armor while a decoy from a different dimension took her place.

Which brings up my next point: too much story. More specifically; story mediums. We had, what? Books, comics, movies, online serials, games? Plus some? Not to mention some (mostly games) were non-canon which would confuse the heck out of some people. And with the online serials: people needed to follow those to see how such-and-such character got from Point A on their journey to Point B.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the complex story. But I feel that they should have stuck to the meat. Any extraneous side stories just messed with it and added mostly unneeded information. Stick to the basics, keep the epic feel, and get rid of story that is unneccessary. There. I fixed everything. Now can Bionicle come back?

End rant.

Kalhiki

[Aanchir]

Personally, I feel that the story was convoluted, but mainly to people first being introduced midway through the story (I think I speak for everyone on this part). Heck, even someone who lost interest for a while and came back may have had trouble getting back on course. But to hardcore fans who had access to the story, you should be fine.

There's a ton of info in the story that just seems irrelevant. For instance, Av-Matoran dying and becoming Bohrok was just pointless and, for me, seemed like a hacked together origin story for them. Bohrok could just have easily been made alongside the Mata-Nui Robot by the Great Beings for the sole purpose to clean Mata-Nui's island acne. And then there are other things like that punk Mavrah who we thought was dead, but it turned out he's just chillin' in the Red Star with those black and purple dudes who turned out to be the same folks from Journey of Takanuva. And Tuyet who it turns out was kept up in a pocket dimension because she had a bit of magic rock in her armor while a decoy from a different dimension took her place.

Which brings up my next point: too much story. More specifically; story mediums. We had, what? Books, comics, movies, online serials, games? Plus some? Not to mention some (mostly games) were non-canon which would confuse the heck out of some people. And with the online serials: people needed to follow those to see how such-and-such character got from Point A on their journey to Point B.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the complex story. But I feel that they should have stuck to the meat. Any extraneous side stories just messed with it and added mostly unneeded information. Stick to the basics, keep the epic feel, and get rid of story that is unneccessary. There. I fixed everything. Now can Bionicle come back?

End rant.

Kalhiki

I think the Bohrok's origin as transformed Matoran was planned from early on (there were numerous hints, including set-design-related hints), and the revelation in 2008 that they were specifically transformed Av-Matoran was an attempt to work that origin into the story before it left the Matoran Universe more than a spontaneous decision to give an origin to the Bohrok. It does end up feeling a bit shoehorned-in, but it doesn't at all strike me as a spontaneous, unplanned detail.

Overall, I've read some interviews from early in BIONICLE's lifespan that expressed that the idea of not getting the whole story from any one medium was a core part of its marketing strategy from the beginning. Basically, it was attempting to tap into things like the Star Wars expanded universe or The Lord of the Rings which were riddled with side-stories that explained unanswered questions. It's worth noting that in 2001, there were no BIONICLE books at all, and the BIONICLE comics, which would become the most accessible story medium in later years, told just brief snippets of story (not even covering the year's climax). It wasn't until 2002 that the comics began following the adventures of the Toa more rigorously, and it wasn't until 2003 that those adventures were compiled into book form.

Naturally, trying to create this kind of universe from the ground up, purely as a marketing platform for a toyline, was incredibly ambitious. But it's understandable where the appeal came from. Is it really that different from the viral marketing campaigns some movies and video games get prior to their release, other than that it was carried out for the long term? As far as building hype was concerned, this strategy of dividing the story between media definitely had some advantages.

And truly, with such an ambitious mission, I think BIONICLE fared admirably. Was it the best strategy from a long-term business perspective? Probably not, but it crafted one heck of a story, and those with the patience and dedication to follow it were fortunate to be able to tag along for the ride.

[Dorek]

Honestly, if you think about it, BIONICLE was pretty ahead of the curve with the whole transmedia effort. These days, companies and brands really struggle with branching out into separate forms of media; for every BIONICLE, or Pokemon, or even Grumpy Sparrows, there's a "The Last Airbender", or Mortal Kombat, or something.

Edit: Really, EB? That's up there on the list of bizarre forum filters.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Dorek

[Kalhiki]

I think the Bohrok's origin as transformed Matoran was planned from early on (there were numerous hints, including set-design-related hints), and the revelation in 2008 that they were specifically transformed Av-Matoran was an attempt to work that origin into the story before it left the Matoran Universe more than a spontaneous decision to give an origin to the Bohrok. It does end up feeling a bit shoehorned-in, but it doesn't at all strike me as a spontaneous, unplanned detail.

Now that you mention it, I think I knew it was planned. Still, it just seems unneccessary, and like you said, shoehorned in. It was, what, six years later after the Bohrok story when we got an origin for them? By that time it seems like the Bohrok would have been a forgotten detail as another enemy of the Toa (until their inevitable re-awakening when we found out their purpose). I guess that all makes sense. Kinda hard to explain what I'm thinking.

As for the story mediums, I guess what you said makes sense. And I agree that it was ambitious. But in the long run, it probably wasn't the wisest decision as it made it extremely difficult for people entering the story mid-way to catch up. Which is why I think narrowing story mediums would probably have been better as a whole.

Kalhiki