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Lego David

Why is Constraction So Disrespected?

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On 6/21/2019 at 8:51 PM, Lego David said:

I can't help but notice how people who are not into constraction constantly ignore it, say bad things about it, or even straight up insult it sometimes. I see people doing LEGO Themes tier lists and putting themes like Bionicle or Hero Factory in the "garbo" tier. MOCers would just completely ignore any constration MOCs, despite how amazing they are. People looking trough old LEGO catalogs would just instantly skip every time they get at the Bionicle/Hero Factory pages, and not even take a small look. All those things really make me angry sometimes. I mean, ok, constraction is not your cup or tea, I get that, but going as far as saying it's garbage just because it's not "real LEGO" is a bit way too far. Something that is brought up against this would be that "people have different opinions". Yes, that is true, but can you really have an opinion if the only thing you know about it is that it's not "real LEGO" ? If you would do your research, read the entire Bionicle lore, and take a close analysis on the sets, and still think it's garbage, than I would respect your opinion. If not, than you are just hating on it for no valid reason.

 

Those people have 0 respect for Bionicle and it's community. The Bionicle community is one of the biggest branches of the LEGO community, and people just insult it for no real reason. That, in my opinion, is worthy of shame, and it's something the really should be changed about the LEGO community.

What do you think?

 

Gonna go ahead and give the bionicle community the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're not all this defensive, accusatory and dictatorial towards those who don't share the same fondness of the theme. I'm sure most of them are fantastic Lego fans who don't really have any desire to force others to think or feel the same way that they do about something.

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Constraction isn't my cup of tea, and neither is Bionicle, but I get why people enjoy them.  I'm also not that big into Pirates, but I think it's a very cool theme nonetheless.  The only real theme that I wondered about was Galidor.  I guess you can be into it, but it seems kind of cheesy just looking at it.  I don't really get cheesyness from the constraction and other such themes, but that is just my opinion.

What I really find offensive are the exclusive themes that TLG produces only in one region or only for one event, like the SDCC.  Those are just waiting for scalpers and rather than making an interesting, cool product, they are just putting money into the hands of the unscrupulous.  So as far as themes go, I do, in fact, look down on the 'exclusive' themes, but not really for any aesthetic reasons.

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As a LEGO fan, I have always found great inspiration in trying to use everything LEGO have made incorporated in the same build. I have used System with DUPLO, Znap, Bionicle, Jack Stone, Belville - I just see it as an interesting challenge.

An example, where a Belville baseplate is combined with DUPLO wall bricks and System bricks and figs: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=67190

Another example, where a Bionicle part is used as a window in an icecave: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=596348

I must admit though, that I still haven't managed to combine Galidor with anything else - but, hey,  thats a mountain still waiting to be climbed.

So I just dont get all the fuss about loving and hating different LEGO themes. To quote: "Everything is awesome"!

Edited by ArneNielsen
Forgot a link

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Based on simple observation, it's easy to see that Constraction garnered a unique audience. 

We don't have the facts to really say anything for certain- but a common assumption is that during the era of Bionicle, most people tended to either fall into "System fans" or "Bionicle fans." A huge part of the Bionicle community grew up loving the toys, many of which were only interested in Lego for that brand. Bionicle wasn't targeting the same competition that standard system sets from City, Castle, Pirates etc were- they were action figures. 

There is pretty solid evidence that Lego struggled to marry people interested in system with people interested in Bionicle. The playsets, the invasion from below sets, even the gradual switch to using more system in their builds, all of these things were attempts to get these communities more conjoined. We see the ball and socket system continuing on in a rare set here and there, and of course the Mixels system is doing what CCBS never could when it comes to system accessibility. 

My point is, I think there was always some hostility among people because when you have two different groups with different interests, you tend to form biases against the other group for whatever reason. Bionicle was very far removed from System. And Bionicle spent a lot on marketing, from comics to books to films- but what of the system fans? Why couldn't they get similar  treatment? (That's rhetorical, I'm just making a random example of an argument that could have existed.) As someone who has always been a fan of both sides of Lego, (Technic included), and has been around Lego communities for many years, I never really saw too much hostility, but rather a general acceptance that the other systems exist. The difficulty was in getting fans of Bionicle to appreciate the art of system, and vice versa

Now that CCBS is toast with no replacement in sight? Declining forum activity both on these constraction boards here and of course on the Bionicle megasites like BZP show that a large chunk of fans were here for constraction, and constraction only, further showing this disparity between two groups. And make no mistake, I am not saying the community is dead- there are still many active constraction fans out there, especially at conventions. 

 

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Probably wrong thread, but this is the most recent active Bionicle discussion.

Lego "Leaf" sets 71360 - 71373. 

2016 Bionicle ended at 71300-71316 , but then we got some 2017 Dimension sets from 71340-71349.

I am just guessing here based on set numbers what those 14 sets might be , Bionicle and Dimensions set numbers are just very similar for 2016.

I can't find any other set numbers used from 713xx-72000 however (72001-72006 is the small 2018 Nexo Knights wave)

Edited by TeriXeri

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On 7/16/2019 at 2:55 PM, VBBN said:

Declining forum activity both on these constraction boards here and of course on the Bionicle megasites like BZP show that a large chunk of fans were here for constraction, and constraction only, further showing this disparity between two groups. 

 

Yup, this, I ran across hostile system fans in my earliest interactions with the lego community and it's led me to acquire a homogeneous collection and a tendency to be extremely abrasive to system fans. Honestly, if it weren't for Technic barely keeping my interest in anything recent and related to lego, the company could disappear tomorrow and I likely wouldn't notice or care

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I did'nt care for constraction because I didn't grow up with it. Even thinking "Well come on, that's not really Lego."

Then I began looking at MOC's, characters mainly, built using it. I recognised it was another powerful part of the Lego tool set I was not using. Therefore my MOCs were not as good as they could be.

Combining it with system and of course technic (from whence it originated) can produce MOCs that are not limited by sticking to one sub genre.

 

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On 7/16/2019 at 12:55 PM, VBBN said:

Now that CCBS is toast with no replacement in sight? Declining forum activity both on these constraction boards here and of course on the Bionicle megasites like BZP show that a large chunk of fans were here for constraction, and constraction only, further showing this disparity between two groups. And make no mistake, I am not saying the community is dead- there are still many active constraction fans out there, especially at conventions. 

I feel that's more of a result of Bionicle and constraction fans generally being younger (I say that as one of them!) and moving to new and different platforms for discussion. Years of forum drama, losses like BZPower's database issue, plus Bionicle's two cancellations + Hero Factory kind of pushed the community away. So now you mostly see folks engaging in discussion and sharing builds on platforms like /r/bioniclelego, Discord servers, TTV's forum, etc. I'm probably far too late to the discussion but there's a surprising amount of connectivity between system and Bionicle parts. A lot of the piston details are capable of accepting clip pieces, all of the parts have technic connectivity, etc. It's a lot more closely linked than a lot of fans would think. 

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