TwistLaw
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Everything posted by TwistLaw
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Stopped reading there.
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The Bohrok were miles better than the Skull Squad for very simple reasons. For the time they were an incredibly original toy, they had a coherent design, they were cute in their own way and last but not least they had a lot of play value. All things the Skull Squad had partially or missed completely. You're zombies? I get it. But that's not a good design choice to begin with, since you're selling ROBOTS (I hate to inform you that plastic is terrible to represent biomechanical beings, unless you do things à la Piraka), and robo-zombies aren't an amazing concept for kids. The closest thing to a zombie robot popular culture offered us was Terminator, and I wouldn't call that exactly kid friendly. But we had the zombie squad anyway, and it was... well. The concept was executed reasonably well keeping in mind the restrictions designers had, but it still was short from being amazing. They were just there, not standing out even from the winter Toa. Let alone the Bohrok... BIONICLE needs something original and coherent like the Bohrok and the Rahskhi. Until that day it will struggle to be noticed again by the great audiences. And the summer beasts sure don't look promising.
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Neither I implied such thing. As an italian I'm pretty sure Ninjago exceeded BIONICLE a long time ago. Italy's a small market, with a overwhelming majority of people enjoying bricks rather than bones. Besides I think nobody in his/her right mind would ever state that BIONICLE is selling better than Ninjago nowadays also, ninja'd lol. Completely agree on that. Especially since we all know that worldwide LEGO is synonym with bricks, and everything related to that has far better chances of being successful. (better chances of being successful under the LEGO brand, of course)
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Here you go. Right column, second dot. It's in italian, but it should be easy to translate.
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Weeeell technically yes, is conjecture, but the 4-points difference between the searches of the two themes suggests me that it may be reduced to 0, or at least 1, if we could count in the years that sold by themeselves almost half of the BIONICLE sets that were sold during G1. Is that enough? Besides this is really a pointless argument, we would need actual sales data from LEGO in order to seriously discuss the matter, and not some searches on Google that are inflated by a TV show. All we know is that in late 2014 LEGO defined BIONICLE as its strongest IP of all times. That said, things may have changed (let's say they did, for the discussion's sake), but officially, that's what we know.
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Weren't you the same guy that, when I noticed the Google Trend divide, told me that it was mostly because of the Cartoon Network show? Le ebin meme aside, it should have been pretty clear I was talking about sheer sales, and having been on the market for a longer time sure helped BIONICLE being marketed as "LEGO's strongest IP ever" last year when it was rebooted (I'm not saying that, LEGO itself did on the retailer catalogues). Besides I'm surprised, Aanchir, that you mentioned Google Trends without adding that it didn't exist during BIONICLE's strongest years (2001-2003). I'm pretty sure that, if it did, the overall percentage of searches would still be in favour of BIONICLE up to this day.
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The team behind the second generation of BIONICLE did an amazing job, especially considering the limited budget they had. Now, if we wanna talk about the aforementioned budget and how in general LEGO did handle the return of their strongest IP ever... that's another story. I sure like to be pessimist and enjoy using hyperboles and such, but for sure there are many things to be disappointed about G2. But very few of them are caused by "laziness" or any other derogatory term.
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-half new molds in summer than last year's -fewer sets than last year... -...yet all of them cost less than all of last year's Do you people realize that the situation of BIONICLE G2, in its second year, is much worse than the one Hero Factory experienced in 2011? Back then we had an entirely new building system, with the introduction of CCBS, a greater number of sets than in 2010 (even though january had seen the last wave of BIONICLE, true dat) and a TV show, and I'm just naming the most relevant stuff. It's been often said that the second generation of BIONICLE is far from being a priority for LEGO, but the picture is getting clearer day by day and 2017 seems more than ever the end of tracks.
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I apologize for saying that the summer wave from 2015 looked worse than the one from this year's summer. While functions may be nice, aesthetics are just thrown in the bin. This is without many doubts the ugliest wave in G2 BIONICLE. Some things here and there don't make any sense even from a function standpoint, like Umarak's hands and the jaws of the beasts.
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What would you like to see in future bionicle sets?
TwistLaw replied to Ikaatril's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Since a man can dream, I'd kill for a G2 Tahtorak sold in stores. -
[Review] Kopaka: Mata, Nuva and Phantoka
TwistLaw replied to MightySlickPancake's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Since these days I have a little more time on my hands (thanks god I'm done with exams until spring), I might do a huge review comparing the five Kopaka sets. Oh wait, I don't have Kopaka Phantoka But I own every form of Pohatu, I guess I might review him. Owning both Kopaka M and U, I think they're on par. Kopaka M in general looks better, but does still have a strong Hero Factory feel, even though at its best. Kopaka U feels much more BIONICLE in appearance and construction, but has a couple of spots where things don't make much sense (golden armor on legs that without Melum looks out of place, for instance, but the Metru blue shells are growing on me). -
I see. I've always seen the story problem mostly an american one since, being european, we always had very little story material translated in our languages -or close to none, like in Italy's case-. For us it had always been more or less "bad guys vs good guys", with the setting changing each year. I myself began to learn about the real deal in 2007, and I clearly remember that until 2006 I thought the Metru Nui arch was a sequel to the Mata Nui one (I got into BIONICLE in 2004). There was a website, indeed, but it didn't add much when we had no books, nor serials in later years. Besides during the early '00s the internet wasn't as widespread as in the States. The only strong medium we had were movies, and they never got into too much details anyway.
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Honest question, have you ever talked about the decline of BIONICLE with a european LEGO employee?
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In other news I just found out that in 2008 they made a BIONICLE book in italian, named "Alla Ricerca Della Maschera Della Vita" (literally "searching for the mask of life"). I'm still astonished, especially since it was an exclusive for the italian market; to this day it's the only book about BIONICLE ever published here, and 2008 is for sure much later than the golden years the saga had even in my country. Whatever. Now that I think about it, the USA (and Poland, to a lesser extent) is the only country that ever got a consistent story material throughout G1. And it's a shame, since the lore of G1 is really interesting besides the fault that are often pointed here. In general I still think to this day that the "convulted story" is really the last of the reasons tied to the decline of BIONICLE, while it being not anymore a novelty, having repetitive builds in its later years and leaving charming settings like Mata Nui and Metru Nui (and you can understand the charm of a year just by looking at the boxes and instructions) played a much larger role. While I'm quite sure no story material will ever be translated in any other major language, at least mine, the Netflix series will do justice to the italian fans of BIONICLE.
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What special Kanohi/Masks do you own?
TwistLaw replied to Logan McOwen's topic in LEGO Action Figures
I have the golden Kulta mask, trans orange G2 Hau, Ultimate Dume Kraahkan and not much else that wasn't available to the large public. I'm planning to buy copper masks in the near future. -
It may be, sure, but it may also be that they split the four episodes into two two-episodes seasons.
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Journey to One premiers on march 4th, at least in Italy. I don't like this delay.
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Is It Still Worth Getting The 2015 Toa?
TwistLaw replied to Chilly_Productions's topic in LEGO Action Figures
This. Pohatu '15 may have been a little too vanilla compared to sets like Onua or Kopaka, but he definitely was one of the best looking ones. His '16 form has very few faults to my eyes, and manages to be even better (burnt tan is awesome, just like the mask). -
>BIONICLE fandom in december 2015: "bwaaaah those overtextured-gappy-nonsense-gimmicky sets are horrible, this kills the CCBS" >BIONICLE fandom in february 2016 "well you know what, these sets aren't half bad, they're fun and creative!" Always. The same. Sheet. Every freaking year. (but that's secretely one of the reasons I missed BIONICLE the most) (and I was myself skeptical about 2016, especially with my new lover named Umarak)
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It's embarrassing that we're few hours away from february and we still have NO air date for Journey to One. How's that even serious? I don't know much about Netflix, but I think their exclusives have air dates announced months before.
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Hold on, I didn't mean to disrespect you nor your opinion. Neither I remember any other time I "took personally" a matter over toys. I like to be theatrical, that's true, but that's my cheeky way to promote discussion. The 2015 Toa accomplished the emulation of the (very small) curve we have to our spine, that's true, but at the price of exposed ball joints (ew) and arms a little too rearward for my tastes. My post wasn't of course directed at you personally, but to the general attitude I seem to see in the community. The "if this doesn't concern you neither proportions ever should" part was refered to the fact that I see human backs as pretty flat, a little less than the 2016 Toa do have. BIONICLE sets not having human-like proportions is one of the main complaints the sets received during G1. In general the part I fail to understand isn't exactly complaining about things that were already happening in G1, I was there and I remember how harsh we could be towards new sets. It still amazes me to see some people nowadays describing 2007 as "the best year" when back in the day "last nail in the coffin" was the average definition. What gives me a hard time is understanding why a certain complaint happens (e.g. flat backs, that I personally see closer to the human shape) when a similar one (heroic proportions in Tahu15 being unhuman) was caused by opposite reasons.
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Every time someone mentions "flat backs" as a fault of the new sets my gears grind with the force of a thousand suns. Except last year BIONICLE sets have always been flat (the Mata torso was more like a box, giving a goofy appearance to the toys). Humans in real life have very flat backs, and if this doesn't concern you neither proportions ever should.
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Is It Still Worth Getting The 2015 Toa?
TwistLaw replied to Chilly_Productions's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Umarak alone is better than all of the 2015 lineup. Yet, sets like Onua and Protector of Earth still make last year shine. In general I find that the sets from this year are far more interesting to build and look at, since they have much more things going on (one word: shoulders). But as many people here seem to do, it's understandable to prefer the much more streamlined look of the Masters. In short: if you like creative buildings and a feeling as close as possible to classic BIONICLE, stick with this year and buy just the very best from 2015 (Onua, PoE, Kopaka). If you are a CCBS lover, last year we probably saw the best the system has to offer. Get all of them until you can if that's the case. -
Actually G1 did an awesome job in reusing pieces, especially with titans. And I'd love to remind you that from 2006 onward the amount of new molds introduced declined dramatically, causing the well known Inika syndrome. The reuse of pieces greatly helps not only LEGO's pockets, but in conveing the idea we're dealing with beings from the same universe. In like, you know, the way Brutaka used Rahshki legs as arms, symbolizing somewhat that it was one of the basic pieces used in the Matoran Universe for long limbs. The very same way we have bones similar to those of apes and other mammals, and even reptiles, you may find identical pieces used across the universe for different purposes. The same is happening in G2, although in a weaker way. Umarak uses the sword from last summer, and personally I really dislike the overabundance of the ribcage this year. While it may be fine with Umarak, it really looks out of place with the beasts.
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I've noticed that too, I hope it's just a prototype matter.