How to easly ease the conflict around LEGO's 90 anniversary between Bionicle and System?

[koalayummies]

6 minutes ago, Taohe Netrus said:

Last time we've seen Johny Thunder or Lord Sinister, it was in 2003.... And Johny Thunder really deserves to come back :) 

2019 there he is.

Get building!

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Tube Map Central said:

Should Lego have just one anniversary set? A single winner is not only divisive, it throws away sales. I voted for trains, if architecture had been there, that would have been my second choice. Now I don't care what the anniversary set will be, I certainly won't be buying it. Perhaps there might have been enough demand for five anniversary sets.

It is up to them how many they do. The 90th anniversary is not that important. Presumably they will do something better for 100th.

13 minutes ago, Taohe Netrus said:

Honestly, if any system series really deserve to get an Anniversary set, it should be Adventures. We had Space Police 3 not very long ago- in 2009, Pirates of Caribbean in 2011, Castle themed series around 2009 too. All those sets were aviable about 10 years ago. Some callbacks to them were present in LEGO Movie series too. But there wasn't so many series about exploring ancient temples connected to the culture of Egypt, India etc. Maybe you had sometching of chinese architecture in Ningago. Last time we've seen Johny Thunder or Lord Sinister, it was in 2003.

It isn't based on longest wait though. If it was, Fabuland, or Homemaker, or Town, and so on beat Adventurers. 

Plus the last time we saw (named) Johnny Thunder was 2014. If you count callbacks to Castle in Space in TLM, then you should also include TLM Johnny Thunder.

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by MAB

[howitzer]

I was deeply in my dark years when Bionicle happened so I don't know much about it, but since I've gotten back and have been buying parts, I have always felt that Bionicle parts are a sort of toxic waste of Lego. Hard to use for anything other than their original purpose, always polluting lots of mixed bricks and nobody wants to have them. My local brand store even has a separate bin for them in their used bricks section, sold for less than other parts. So I'm really not that keen on seeing Bionicle as an anniversary set, for me it's obvious that other classic themes (space, castle, pirates) are even much more popular but their votes were split between various incarnations of the said themes - and still they managed to get into the final round of voting.

That being said, the whole voting feels a sham, as the final round results are not released until the release of the set itself, so basically TLG can do whatever they want and say that's what people voted for, there's no transparency. When the set is released, I will buy if it's good and will align with my interests but otherwise not - like with any other set available.

[MatthewRC]

On 2/4/2021 at 3:25 PM, Taohe Netrus said:

As we all know, vote caused a conflict between Bionicle fans and System fans. The main reason is fact that all of Top 4 series (exept Bionicle) have already some great sets. LEGO Pirates fans have 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay set, LEGO Space fans have 70816 Benny's Spaceship and 21109 Exo-Suit. Fans of Castle series have 21325 Medieval Blacksmith and I'm sure, we'll see some kind of Castle-themed series soon, even without voting.

What about LEGO Bionicle fans? After cutting short its story in 2010, and waiting 5 years for proper continuation, LEGO created a reboot that failed in many ways. But gave us great parts to creating MOCs. Unfortunatelly, Bionicle G2 ended in 2017 and since that, it's really hard to get any pieces for normal price. Remnants of LEGO Star Wars buildable figures are expensive cause of license and Bricklink is the only place where we can get CCBS parts now. Bionicle fans are affraid that LEGO will soon destroy moulds from G2, making impossible for us to get bricks like 24189, 24190, 24191 or 20474 that were great for building MOCs.  

The conflict will increase until LEGO start caring about Bionicle fans. If LEGO doesn't want to give us new sets, it should at least release some jars with CCBS parts in three size variants: Matoran, Toa and Titan, which will contain skeleton parts, shells (not only in standard colors, but sand-green, purple etc. too), weapons, technic joints, technic panels and recolored masks that will allow us to reforge our anger into creativity. Bionicle has great potential to create action figures, giant fantasy creatures and vehicles with lot of technic functions. But it's hard to build MOCs without parts. If there's a LEGO theme like LEGO Classic, we can have LEGO CCBS too. I know, part of system fans doesn't care, but what about you, Bionicle fans? Do you think, there's a chance for CCBS jars or we'll continue to buying sets like Corvette ZR1 just to have parts to create another Rahi? :p

Only if LEGO decides to revisit the G1 Mata-Nui timeline.

[Lego David]

On 2/10/2021 at 7:17 PM, Taohe Netrus said:

Honestly, if any system series really deserve to get an Anniversary set, it should be Adventures. We had Space Police 3 not very long ago- in 2009, Pirates of Caribbean in 2011, Castle themed series around 2009 too. All those sets were aviable about 10 years ago. Some callbacks to them were present in LEGO Movie series too. But there wasn't so many series about exploring ancient temples connected to the culture of Egypt, India etc. Maybe you had sometching of chinese architecture in Ningago. Last time we've seen Johny Thunder or Lord Sinister, it was in 2003. 
In times of original Indiana Jones trilogy, exploring and artifact-hunting were much more present in LEGO stories, nowdays, everything looks this way: one motive (ninja, animals, cyber-knights etc) is choosen by LEGO and gets weird wehicles, TV series, motive of collecting some kind of weapons or crystals and lasts three years, when LEGO decides to continue or finish those series. It would be great to see series out of those scheme.

We still got the Pharaoh's Quest theme in 2011, which was basically a re-imagining of the original Adventurers Egypt wave. 

On 2/11/2021 at 9:24 AM, howitzer said:

I was deeply in my dark years when Bionicle happened so I don't know much about it, but since I've gotten back and have been buying parts, I have always felt that Bionicle parts are a sort of toxic waste of Lego. Hard to use for anything other than their original purpose, always polluting lots of mixed bricks and nobody wants to have them. My local brand store even has a separate bin for them in their used bricks section, sold for less than other parts

I can understand the sentiment that they are different from the rest of LEGO, but calling them "Toxic Waste" comes off as rather rude to be honest. System MOCists probably don't have much use for them, sure, but Bionicle MOCists use them all the time in order to create all sorts of amazing brick-built characters, robots, mechs, and creatures. Those people also invented a thing called "Nice part usage" where they think completely outside the box and use parts in completely different ways than their original purpose. All it takes is a little creativity. 

This style of building is probably not for you, but dismissing those parts as "toxic waste" is completely disregarding the Bionicle MOCing community and all the amazing creations they've built. So please, be very careful before you make any statements like that. 

Edited February 12, 2021 by Lego David

[Peppermint_M]

On 2/10/2021 at 5:26 PM, koalayummies said:

2019 there he is.

Get building!

I am! Johnny Thunder and his brother Tommy Thunder! If only lockdown had not scuppered my plans to display!

[howitzer]

7 hours ago, Lego David said:

I can understand the sentiment that they are different from the rest of LEGO, but calling them "Toxic Waste" comes off as rather rude to be honest. System MOCists probably don't have much use for them, sure, but Bionicle MOCists use them all the time in order to create all sorts of amazing brick-built characters, robots, mechs, and creatures. Those people also invented a thing called "Nice part usage" where they think completely outside the box and use parts in completely different ways than their original purpose. All it takes is a little creativity. 

This style of building is probably not for you, but dismissing those parts as "toxic waste" is completely disregarding the Bionicle MOCing community and all the amazing creations they've built. So please, be very careful before you make any statements like that. 

My apologies, I should've been more careful with the wording there. The sentiment is not exactly an opinion of mine (I have nothing against Bionicle in itself), but more the feeling I get from observations on how people tend to think of them. I'm not dismissing Bionicle creations as unworthy, it's just that most of those parts are so difficult to use in a meaningful manner with other Lego that they are almost useless (and thus mostly a nuisance) unless you're a Bionicle builder. I've seen a few builds here and there which make use of Bionicle parts but those are few and far between and even in those cases I often get the feeling that the builder wanted to use a Bionicle part so they designed the rest of the build around it, rather than making use of the part's unique properties in a manner that would be difficult to achieve with non-Bionicle parts.

[doomguy]

I'm not a fan of Bionicle, I respect what it has done for LEGO and it's community but I don't appreciate it as much as typical system themes. I think logically the only think LEGO could do if Bionicle wins the poll is choose one character to make a D2C set off of. I think they'd do something like a large Brickbuilt version of Mata Nui, using those same pieces and joints used for modern LEGO mechs.

Including Bionicle in the poll is such a tricky situation because almost all of those pieces have been retired for years and there's a lot of controversy behind the CBS pieces that came along side Hero Factory and the Bionicle revival. It's much easier to make a one off set based on Lego Space, Castle or Pirates in comparison to something as expansive as Bionicle.. Maybe they're gonna use this poll data to gauge interest in future Ideas decisions or D2C products?

[Grover]

I think there's animosity on both sides for whatever reason (personally I don't care, it's all Lego to me).  Regardless, it is interesting that a large number of Bionicle fans only want Bionicle and not system, and vice versa.  It seems to be some sort of division that has attracted fans that would not ordinarily be attracted to system, and probably for the same reason, does not appeal to many system fans.  There are people who like both out there, but it remains a divisive issue.  I personally like system and have never been interested in Bionicle, but I don't hate it, it's just not for me.

[Lego David]

14 hours ago, howitzer said:

I've seen a few builds here and there which make use of Bionicle parts but those are few and far between and even in those cases I often get the feeling that the builder wanted to use a Bionicle part so they designed the rest of the build around it, rather than making use of the part's unique properties in a manner that would be difficult to achieve with non-Bionicle parts.

That may be the case with some less experienced builders, but a lot of advanced builders always blend System and Bionicle together perfectly. If you want to see that, look no further than the annual Bio-Cup Building Competition . 

It's not so much about designing creations around Bionicle parts, but rather, figuring out which parts work together texturally and aesthetically. 

[Lira_Bricks]

21 minutes ago, Lego David said:

That may be the case with some less experienced builders, but a lot of advanced builders always blend System and Bionicle together perfectly. If you want to see that, look no further than the annual Bio-Cup Building Competition . 

It's not so much about designing creations around Bionicle parts, but rather, figuring out which parts work together texturally and aesthetically. 

A lot of those entries use broken Lego, like broken universal joints, broken springs or broken tubes. There is also a lot of pieces placed loosely and a simple breeze will "break" it. I have seen a lot of nice MOC's that incorporate both system Lego and Bionicle Lego, but I do not like most of these entries.

[Lego David]

4 hours ago, Lira_Bricks said:

A lot of those entries use broken Lego, like broken universal joints, broken springs or broken tubes. There is also a lot of pieces placed loosely and a simple breeze will "break" it. I have seen a lot of nice MOC's that incorporate both system Lego and Bionicle Lego, but I do not like most of these entries.

What are you talking about? Pretty much every advanced MOCist uses this kind of techniques. Sure, they may not be very stable as physical models, but they sure look pretty in the pictures. And when it comes to art, looking good is what matters the most. 

[howitzer]

7 hours ago, Lego David said:

That may be the case with some less experienced builders, but a lot of advanced builders always blend System and Bionicle together perfectly. If you want to see that, look no further than the annual Bio-Cup Building Competition . 

It's not so much about designing creations around Bionicle parts, but rather, figuring out which parts work together texturally and aesthetically. 

Few Bionicle parts (like ball joints and 1x3 tooth with axle hole) have indeed found a lot of use elsewhere too, but vast majority of them are somewhere between very hard and impossible to use for other things than their original purpose. The aforementioned 1x3 tooth for example has been used as function selector handle, pneumatic hose guide and as paneling, either standalone or to fill gaps with other panels, and that's just for Technic, so it's a very useful part. And of course every part ever is a spaceship part. But beyond those, looking at the parts catalogs, I can't really fathom a situation where a Bionicle part would be the best solution to an engineering problem unless the problem in question was about building Bionicle-like figures.

 

[MAB]

7 hours ago, Lego David said:

What are you talking about? Pretty much every advanced MOCist uses this kind of techniques. Sure, they may not be very stable as physical models, but they sure look pretty in the pictures. And when it comes to art, looking good is what matters the most. 

That depends on whether you want to display the moc or display a photo of the moc. For an online show, a photo is fine. But if you want people to see the actual moc, stability is important. 

[Alexandrina]

13 hours ago, Lego David said:

but a lot of advanced builders always blend System and Bionicle together perfectly.

I don't want to put my horse into this race, but my inner pedant compels me to bring up this quote (emphasis mine) and reply that this is a very bold statement. I have no doubt that there are plenty of builders who have the ability to use System and Bionicle parts together, and some who do so in every MOC, but I suspect there are a lot more who combine the two types of part where the MOC demands but don't always do so.

[MatthewRC]

14 hours ago, Lego David said:

That may be the case with some less experienced builders, but a lot of advanced builders always blend System and Bionicle together perfectly. 

I definitely agree with you, @Lego David! Let’s hope LEGO is aware that Bionicle can work out in System form. In fact, Bionicle doesn’t always have to be limited to Constraction. It can also work as brick-built figures.

[Flak Maniak]

If Bionicle (with whatever story and setting will please the Bionicle crowd) can work as system-based brick-built figures, as a persistent theme... Then I'm all for it. Mid-size figure builds using Mixel-style joints and other similar stuff... Sounds good to me. I mean, think about it. If you can get the hardcore Bionicle crowd on board with system as opposed to large-ball joints (big if, but sure), then... What parts do you have to resurrect or make? Probably just new masks, right? That seems pretty feasible.

Well, perhaps I should be asking if the age 5-10 crowd want mid-size, non-mech, brick-built figures with weird-looking masks and a story based on some stuff that came out 10-15 years before they were born.

But, how about this: I'll selfishly ask for this concept, just in order to get Mixel-style ball joints and other smallish joint parts in new colors. Surely we can all agree on that, right? The Bionicle crowd can get... Whatever it is they get from this, and the rest of us can get small joint parts in new colors. Or, maybe there are some new small joint parts to be made! It might be daft to do "CCBS with Mixel-size joints", but, maybe a couple of parts in that direction could be made. I'm sure you can think of concepts for parts with a towball or towball friction socket on them, that's NOT just a 1x2 plate. Something with a towball on each end, and mechanical-looking detail in the middle including a couple bar-sized holes. (Think an early Bionicle limb part, but smaller, eh?) Sky's the limit here; just don't accidentally make it mini-CCBS. (Unless that's your grand plan, in which case, sure, unleash the madness on us.)

[Lira_Bricks]

But the big ball joints still exist... https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=57909b&name=Technic, Brick Modified 2 x 2 with Ball Joint and Axle Hole with 6 Holes in Ball&category=[Technic, Brick]#T=C came out in sets in 2021, and a single ball with an axle hole comes out a lot as decoration.

Also, I think it is funny people call the small ball joints "mixel joints", since they already came out in the seventies long before Mixels came out. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3614a&name=Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Tow Ball with Round Hole (Maxifigure Hand)&category=[Plate, Round]#T=C

[1974]

Those joints are not the same. There is no friction in the old parts (the ball hinges used for vehicles), the Mixel joints are some of the most precise parts TLG have ever created (hence the colour lock, just changing the colour messes with the design)

Edit : There is some friction in the Homemaker hands (and shovel/digger bucket) (actually it's in the arm/wrist part) but they don't stand the test of time

Cheers,

Ole

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by 1974

[danth]

6 hours ago, 1974 said:

Edit : There is some friction in the Homemaker hands (and shovel/digger bucket) (actually it's in the arm/wrist part) but they don't stand the test of time

I tried using the old Homemaker hands with the new Mixels joints but the old towball is slightly too big. I mean it kinda works, but you can see the socket stretch around it, which doesn't happen with the new towball. I was kinda bummed because that part would be amazing for MOCs.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3614a#T=C

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3614b#T=C

[Lira_Bricks]

Ok, in that case just ignore my comment ^^" The fact that it does not fit correctly might be the reason I thought it had friction (which it did, but not intentionally)

[Flak Maniak]

Huh, I thought the Mixel-style joints did use the old towball size, just with the new high-friction cup as opposed to old low-friction hitches. (And, aren't some of the plate-with-towball-sticking-off parts still in production, and used with Mixel joints frequently?)

Or, is it mostly a matter of changing tolerances over the decades, like with minifig necks and heads?

[Stuartn]

3 hours ago, Flak Maniak said:

Huh, I thought the Mixel-style joints did use the old towball size, just with the new high-friction cup as opposed to old low-friction hitches. (And, aren't some of the plate-with-towball-sticking-off parts still in production, and used with Mixel joints frequently?)

I thought they did, albeit when they join there is more friction and it can't really work as a towball, I assumed that was just intentional.

But having a look I see they are different. You learn something new every day!

[TheBohrokMan]

I think Bionicle has so much potential. But as pretty much all of LEGO’s constraction endeavors since Bionicle G1 haven’t sold that well, I wonder if it makes financial sense to them.

Also having an intense fanbase for Bionicle is both good and bad. It means there are still fans, but also that backlash over minor decisions can happen.