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Saberwing40k

Galidor Vs. Bionicle

Galidor or Bionicle?  

74 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is your favourite LEGO theme?

    • The groovy Galidor theme
      0
    • The boisterous Bionicle line
      67
    • I don't understand, there's no LEGO in either of them!
      7


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Okay, I started a thread, and it degenerated into an argument about Galidor Versus Hero Factory. So, why not take it outside? Which is better, Galidor or Bionicle?

I personaly think that the joints in Galidor are better, but the overall design loses. The pieces are just so hard to use with other Lego parts. :cry_sad: The pieces don't even have any studs or Technic attachment points! From the one episode of the show I've seen, I'd say it isn't that bad, but the prices of the sets were optimistic at best, which is why it lost out overall. I really think that the money spent on that show and line should have gone to a Bionicle series. Just imagine, we could have had more sets like the Rahi, and especially the Manas. And a nice TV series to boot.

So, what do you think?

Edited by Saberwing40k
Poll added!

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I don't think very many people will be fond of this 'Vs.' topic. Either way, I think BIONICLE wins this match. Galidor is one of LEGO's worst sellers and BIONICLE is one of the best. It's obvious that BIONICLE is better.

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Galidor was IMO an example of LEGO taking BIONICLE's early success a bit too far. They apparently got the idea that since people loved story-driven action figure sets, they would love something that took said premise a bit more literally with a TV show and traditional-looking "action figures". It didn't work out too well among AFOLs, and apparently not among kids either-- though I'm sure the high price of the sets and the poor promotion of the television show played more of a role in its failure than any faults in the story or products themselves.

BIONICLE definitely wins just by virtue of having been around long enough to really flesh out its universe, establish a personal connection between fans and the characters, and bring its main story to a much-awaited conclusion. Even if aspects of it got weaker as time went on, it held strong and managed to leave a lasting impression on a great number of fans.

Galidor's joints are better in one major respect: being able to support more weight than a BIONICLE ball joint by itself. This is why that basic style of click-joint lives on today in a more System-compatible form. I don't think they were a major benefit to the Galidor products themselves since with the theme's more lifelike action figures, the constant clicking of posing the sets differently really took away from the role-play aspect for me.

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I've added a poll, so let's see how this goes! :sweet:

As far as I know, Galidor sets never reached New Zealand, so I've never seen Galidor pieces in person. Galidor does seem to be an excellent theme if you want to challenge your ability to find creative uses for restricted-purpose pieces.

And just a note to Saberwing, please watch your capitalization in your posts. :wink: Thanks!

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Allow me to rephrase the point I was trying to convey to LewiMOC.

I think a ratchet joint system, such as that used in the Galidor line, would fit a Samus Aran figure better then a ball joint system.

As for this poll.....to me it's a draw.

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Allow me to rephrase the point I was trying to convey to LewiMOC.

I think a ratchet joint system, such as that used in the Galidor line, would fit a Samus Aran figure better then a ball joint system.

As for this poll.....to me it's a draw.

Oh. I thought you were referring to big, premolded parts that could never be used again. I understand now.

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Bionicle, of course. Even if I was not a long time Bionicle fan, I would say the same. Galidor was one of Lego's worst selling lines, based off of a downright strange TV series, and was hardley even recognizable as Lego. The plastic was cheap and the toys didn't have that much playability or customization ability. Bionicle on the other hand...I could write a ten page (maybe more) report on why Bionicle was great and Lego's best ever line, but I won't do that here on EB.

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Bionicle, of course. Even if I was not a long time Bionicle fan, I would say the same. Galidor was one of Lego's worst selling lines, based off of a downright strange TV series, and was hardley even recognizable as Lego. The plastic was cheap and the toys didn't have that much playability or customization ability. Bionicle on the other hand...I could write a ten page (maybe more) report on why Bionicle was great and Lego's best ever line, but I won't do that here on EB.

I think the "not recognizable as LEGO" thing was probably intentional, just looking at when the theme was introduced. Again, I think Galidor was in many ways trying to take the ways BIONICLE had been different than regular LEGO and push them to their absolute limit in hopes that the result would mirror or even outdo BIONICLE's early success.

As I've often noted when comparing BIONICLE to Hero Factory, BIONICLE was fairly unique among LEGO themes in that it did try to distance itself from the LEGO brand. BIONICLE packaging usually had the LEGO logo at the bottom of the package, either centered or off to the side, with the BIONICLE logo much larger and more conspicuous. There are very few other themes that do that-- in most cases, TLG's brand manual dictates that the LEGO logo should always appear directly beside the theme logo. Likewise, when used in text, TLG insists that most themes be accompanied by the word LEGO® (i.e. LEGO® DUPLO®, LEGO® MINDSTORMS®, LEGO® Hero Factory, LEGO® Technic. Even as late as 2010, BIONICLE followed different rules than other themes-- in text, it's just BIONICLE®. Allegedly BIONICLE has its own separate style guide from the regular LEGO brand manual, though I haven't found any copies of this online.

In many ways it's easy to understand the justification for this. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the LEGO Group was suffering financially. It's easy to see how they might feel the LEGO brand was a liability rather than an asset for some themes, especially ones like BIONICLE that were very, very different than the other products they were selling. They might also have been concerned that the LEGO branding would make the products feel like "little kids' toys" and thus the products and story would fail to appeal to the preteen and young teenage demographics they were targeting. And of course it can't be ignored that since BIONICLE was one of the first LEGO action figure themes, the LEGO Group may have wanted it to compete more with other (non-buildable) action figures, so they didn't want to connect it too closely with a brand name people associated with building blocks and not quality action figures.

The same could apply for Galidor. Chances are that besides being a building toy with compatible connection points, it was not meant to be recognizable as a LEGO product range. And I imagine that even more so than BIONICLE it was intended to compete with other action figures and TV shows, not with other building toys. It's understandable, then, that they would sacrifice the brand recognition that they sought with their other themes for high-detail, lifelike creature parts. Overall I think they did an OK job with this-- the Galidor figures certainly had higher quality than many other action figures on the market, with several points of articulation, high-quality materials and printing, and of course interchangeable parts.

Obviously this experiment failed. The Galidor TV show performed poorly, at least in the critical United States market. The toys also did poorly, and I think one of the main reasons for this isn't that they were too different from LEGO products but rather that they were too similar in one key respect: price.

If the theme was intended to compete with non-buildable action figures, then it's understandable that people wouldn't want to pay LEGO prices for them, even if they were higher quality than some action figures on store shelves. One of the main reasons people pay high prices for LEGO products is that they associate the LEGO brand identity with quality building toys. By distancing the theme from this brand identity, TLG lost their usual justification for those prices, and the Galidor figures could easily be overlooked in favor of cheaper Transformers, Power Rangers, or superhero action figures which had their own, less expensive gimmicks.

Fast-forward two years and it becomes clear TLG learned from this mistake. The Knights' Kingdom theme, their next attempt at an action figure theme, used similar joints to Galidor but didn't for a minute try to hide that it was a LEGO product. Studs were evident on most of the sets. Faces were yellow. The LEGO branding once again took precedent over the theme branding. And the action figure sets were balanced out by basic LEGO playsets using standard minifigures. Even without a TV show or a complex story to promote it, Knights' Kingdom lasted nearly two years longer than Galidor.

More recently, Ninjago has had an extremely successful TV show, despite its traditional minifigure-based character designs and building toys. And this is in part because it was developed in a different climate: the LEGO Group has been experiencing great success with their traditional products in recent years, and there is now greater precedent for heavily story-driven LEGO themes. People associate the LEGO brand not only with quality building toys, but also with quality media like the LEGO Star Wars video games. And of course TLG now has ten more years of precedent for which ideas are successful and which-- like Galidor-- are not.

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I'm not sure how many sets of Galidor were released in Germany (I do know the release was very limited - they were exclusives for Toys"R"Us), and I missed pretty much all of them (they weren't even mentioned in the catalogues - unlike the video games which I don't even know if they were released at all).

As far as I can judge from pictures, Galidor looked... interesting. The very lifelike characters were a interesting idea (since they were also compatible with LEGO, at least to some extent), and I remember a mecha MOC on MOCpages who used a large piece from Galidor for the Cockpit, and it looked pretty good.

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BIONICLE wins a mile off. It had a building system, whereas Galidor just had interchangeable limbs. Also, the ratchet joints were very awkward.

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Somewhat off topic, but until I did a quick search, I had no idea what galidor looked like. Now that I did a search, I remember all the way back to 2002, when my Dad and I went to a McDonalds, and I got a happy meal with a galidor toy. II never palyed with it, and hadn't really thought about it untill now, but it brings back a major wave of nostalgia. But Bioncle wins, hands-down.

Edited by Dakar A

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Could someone tell me where I can watch the series or at least a clip

Edited by fabioman

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Could someone tell me where I can watch the series or at least a clip

I used to watch this show quite a bit, but it was definitely not worthy of a Lego line. Bionicle wins hands down.

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To me, Bionicle/HF parts work for Bionicle/HF, not human characters such as GL, Batman, Samus, etc.

Galidor-like parts, however, did work well for human characters, thought the hands could've been molded better.

As I said before, both lines are equal in and of their own theme. And remember, the Galidor figures are based off the show, not the other way, as it was a liscensed theme. Bionicle was a pure idea from the people at LEGO and nobody else.

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I used to watch this show quite a bit, but it was definitely not worthy of a Lego line. Bionicle wins hands down.

You know the the first scene looked a lot like power rangers, Don't ask, don't know why

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Bionicle is certainly better. Galidor was never an Action Figures theme, it was somewhat like Mega Blocks, which i never loved. Personally, Bionicle has a great storyline as well as the sets. I was so excited seeing when i first saw Bionicle in the Lego Catalog, or in the Retailers Catalog.

So my opinion is clear, Bionicle is the best Action Figures theme ever, and it will always be.

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To me, Bionicle/HF parts work for Bionicle/HF, not human characters such as GL, Batman, Samus, etc.

Galidor-like parts, however, did work well for human characters, thought the hands could've been molded better.

As I said before, both lines are equal in and of their own theme. And remember, the Galidor figures are based off the show, not the other way, as it was a liscensed theme. Bionicle was a pure idea from the people at LEGO and nobody else.

Actually, Galidor was not a licensed theme as far as I'm aware. Information on it is hard to come by because it of course isn't a brand TLG likes to brag about, but as I understand it TLG created the franchise just as they have done with BIONICLE and Ninjago. It's possible that being their first foray into creating a full-length TV series, they gave up more creative freedom to the producers of the show than they have done with Ninjago, but TLG was still the driving force behind the brand's promotion from beginning to end.

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Galidor? Oh god no. My friend has one and he offered me a complete fig for Von's helmet and I said yes, But I'm gonna have to get that back now. :tongue:

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An odd comparison. I really liked Bionicle back in 2001, when it was one of the most original action figure lines around. I do feel like it degenerated quickly, but it maintained a LEGO-quality standard as far as parts and building technique is involved. Galidor introduced an entirely new building system that was way too restrictive and, frankly, completely devoid of LEGO. It flopped for a reason, and Bionicle persisted for a decade. I think the winner here is clear; you don't even have to like Bionicle that much to see that.

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Well, I didn't see this one coming. :sarcasm_smug: Somehow, I knew Galidor would lose by a large margin. But zero votes? That frankly amazed me. :sarcasm: Ah well, now all we need some Bionicle click joints.

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Bionicle is way better than Galidor, but Hero Factory reigns supreme.

Edited by CabooseBM

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That doesn't actually surprises me. To me the only good thing about galidor was, that some pieces were actually usefull for mocing. :sceptic:

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bionicle had a amazing storyline, but galidor had a pretty good one to, it only was never finished, i am trying to obtain al galidor sets and review them

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I think a ratchet joint system, such as that used in the Galidor line, would fit a Samus Aran figure better then a ball joint system.

As for this poll.....to me it's a draw.

Also, the ratchet joints were very awkward.

Sorry that I have to go off-topic here, but...

While I can't speak for the quality of the ratchet joints used in the Galidor figures, I made rather positive experiences with ratchet joints in poseable figures. Some of the Voyager class Transformers use them, and I also happen to own a few Revoltech figures (and the revolver joints are somewhat similiar to ratchet joints).

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