Aanchir

Well yeah, I'm not saying they're a close likeness. But judging from their position on the body that's really all I could expect them to be, besides the belt itself.

Glad to hear that the dragons will look cute and friendly! That was my biggest concern about how to create an adult dragon for LEGO Elves — how it could be made to fit the design language of the smaller LEGO Friends and LEGO Elves people and animals. In minifigure-based themes it is not too difficult because the regular people and animals are already rather blocky. But in a minidoll-based theme it at least demands a really smooth and streamlined head design. These sets sound excellent. I hope the adult dragons have plenty of posability. LEGO Ninjago has had a great track record with dragons over the years so I have confidence that LEGO can design impressive brick-built dragons, especially with more useful joint elements than ever! Overall, though, I'm sure I'll have a much better idea what the sets look like when pics emerge. In the meantime I'm as hyped as ever!

This might interest some people: a teaser for the LEGO Ninjago ride coming to LEGOLAND California next year! The video doesn't tell us much about the ride, though the description promises it will feature "technology guests have never experienced at any other theme park in the world!" What the video DOES show us pretty clearly, though, is a never-before-seen Sensei Wu minifigure. It resembles the original version from 2011, but his shirt buttons all the way down his torso instead of just his collar, his belt is tied around its waist rather than his hips, the flower icons embroidered on the front and back of his torso have six petals instead of eight, and most notably, the Sacred Flute from season one is tucked into the back of his belt! Think we might get this figure in a set next year?

I don't know how popular either of those brands is currently with kids ages seven to fourteen. Certainly they're not anywhere near as trendy and well-known as many of the LEGO Group's other recent licenses like The Hobbit or Minecraft. Besides, part of the point of a "big bang" theme is to help ensure LEGO doesn't rely entirely on licenses. They are story-driven themes that LEGO owes no royalties for and maintains complete creative control of. Relying on pop culture licenses outside their control is a big part of why they nearly went bankrupt in 2003 (since sales for licensed themes tanked without a new Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Spider-Man movie in theaters), and Bionicle was the only thing that saved them, hence why it became the template for "big bang" themes for years to come. Anyway, all the news about this theme sounds pretty cool to me so far! Obviously it's still very action-oriented so I'm sure it won't deliver the truly livable castle that LEGO Castle has long been missing, with a bedroom and a kitchen and a banquet hall (though if it has a library that's a step in the right direction). Regardless, it sounds very exciting and unique, which might be what LEGO Castle really needs after two far more "conventional" iterations in a row.

I believe they represent the little control panels on the sides of his belt. I guess it'd be a better likeness without the vertical 1M beams/bushings, but those are probably there to try and fill out the hips a bit better.

I don't see why so many people get so frustrated with the book repeating the dialogue and events of the webisodes. Half of the book is an original story (based on the bits of the story that were told via montage in the webisodes) and half of it is an adaptation of the events of the main story. Besides the 50/50 split, that's not all that unusual for Bionicle. When Greg Farshtey's books covered the same material as the Bionicle movies, he likewise used the exact same script, with the only differences being things that got altered or cut between the version of the script he used and the final movie (like the Lohrak scene in Legends of Metru Nui or the nest-building scene in Web of Shadows). The alternative to the book's dialogue being exactly like the webisodes in the scenes that overlap between them is the book contradicting the webisodes, and I hardly think that would be a better outcome. Anyway, as always I'm going to wait for the episodes to come out in English.

I was thinking about this just the other day. Looney Tunes is an incredibly iconic Warner Bros. property, and while it's not as popular with kids as it once was, it remains fairly kid-friendly and timeless, much like some of the other older brands in the series like The Wizard of Oz, Back to the Future, and Ghostbusters. Hard to really think of what vehicles they might include for the more iconic characters like Bugs Bunny, but I'm sure they could either find some or make some up. I can easily picture a Marvin the Martian fun pack with some sort of rocket ship or flying saucer.

New behind-the-scenes video! A little over three minutes long, it goes into the set design, character design, graphic design, illustration, voice acting, and animation of the LEGO Elves sets and media. No narration or interviews or anything like that, but it does leave me really wanting a LEGO Elves art book... and a soundtrack! Probably not realistic to expect either of those things less than one year in, but maybe if the theme expands in the years to come we might be lucky enough to get these sorts of things!

This is incredible! Amazing work!

The Clone Wars movie and TV series are not considered Expanded Universe and are still canon. Same goes for the more recent Rebels TV series. I don't know how likely it is for the size of the Star Wars constraction waves to get bigger, but even if they do, there's no reason to assume that they'd be cannibalizing demand for Bionicle sets instead of generating new demand for constraction in general. Also, there has been no indication of a third CCBS theme next year. That's something some people have assumed based on "Ultimate" versions of the Nexo Knights characters being available as individual sets. However, those are 10-Euro sets, same size as a Protector and considerably smaller than any of the Chima, Super Heroes, or Star Wars constraction sets. So it's somewhat doubtful that those will use CCBS at all. They might instead be brick-built models similar to the LEGO Legends of Chima Legend Beasts, or gimmick-based sets like the Ninjago Airjitzu flyers.

It's hard to say what they "usually" do because their presence there in recent years has been kind of erratic. Last year their booth there was entirely devoted to Bionicle. The year before, they didn't even attend because they had blown that part of their marketing budget on the life-size X-Wing display in Times Square earlier in the year. In 2012, their booth was not strictly devoted to any one brand, as you can see here, but new set reveals and exclusive minifigures included Super Heroes and TMNT. In 2011, they did not have a booth but distributed Super Heroes themed exclusives and revealed the Batcave set at the DC Comics booth. I do not know whether there was any official LEGO presence at NYCC prior to 2011.

I generally try to appreciate all themes for what they are. For instance, I have no personal interest in collecting LEGO City, but it's basically the minifigure version of "real life", and other themes are essentially defined by how they diverge from that standard. LEGO Castle, Pirates, and Space are some of the LEGO brand's oldest "evergreen" themes, so they have a long history to live up to, and I think they usually do a rather impressive job of it. The LEGO licensed themes are LEGO versions of familiar characters, vehicles, and settings from popular culture, and often use very creative building techniques to recreate their subject matter. It's amazing to see how much they have evolved since the early days of LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Harry Potter. And of course, LEGO Classic and LEGO Creator are the themes that most embody the creative spirit of free-building. The only current theme I really dislike is Disney Princess, and that's mainly because I dislike how the Disney Princess brand tends to distort and sanitize the subject matter of the actual movies that inspire it. I'm fine with the characters and stories, I just wish the sets themselves focused more on recreating the actual settings and events of the movies like other licensed themes tend to instead of on the broad idea of "life as a princess". That's more on Disney's shoulders than the LEGO Group's since even outside of the LEGO brand, Disney Princess products frequently misrepresent Disney's own characters and storylines. However, I try to keep the themes I actually collect fairly concise, since I'm not organized enough or bringing in enough income to justify getting every set that interests me. Currently, I collect LEGO Bionicle, LEGO Ninjago, and LEGO Elves. These themes all use different types of figures but they actually do have a lot in common: ancient and mysterious fantasy worlds, colorful heroes with elemental powers, and character-driven storylines. I'm trying to avoid buying too many sets outside of those themes, though I don't always do a great job of it.

I'll never understand why so many people get so bothered by voices in cartoons. That's in general, not just in reference to Bionicle, but in general. Even in real life, some people have bubbly voices, some people have raspy voices, some people have high-pitched voices, some people have deep voices, and some people have distinctive accents. And cartoons have free rein to exaggerate any of those characteristics for dramatic effect. So why is it that some people have such a deep loathing for certain types of voices? After the release of Bionicle: The Legend Reborn, for instance, some people complained at great length about Kiina and Berix's voices. Why? Berix's voice would fit in just fine in plenty of high-quality cartoon productions from companies like Nickelodeon or Disney (understandably, since James Arnold Taylor was not at all new to the voice acting industry), and Kiina's voice sounded like one you might easily encounter in real life. Likewise, I've heard My Little Pony fans say Applejack is their least favorite character because they "hate southern accents", which is about as petty a reason to hate a voice as I can imagine. It can't be easy to go through life if you are that picky about what types of voices you are able to tolerate even in a work of fiction.

I don't think so, no. First of all, making playset figures large enough to accommodate a gear function would partially negate the main advantage of having minifigure versions of the characters in the first place, which is making it easier to build larger vehicles and settings at a reasonable price. Sets of iconic settings like the Forge of the Mask Makers would easily double in price compared to a version designed for smaller minifigures. Also, even figures the size of the old Technic figures would require gears much smaller than any LEGO has ever produced outside of pre-assembled components like electric motors. If LEGO did playset-style figures again, I'd honestly prefer them to have a similar build to the Hero Factory mini-robots from last year, perhaps with a new torso armor piece that better resembles the full-size sets' armor.

Favorite Toa: Gali - Master of Water Favorite Protector: Vizuna - Protector of Jungle Favorite villain: Skull Basher

In this case, you're right. Other than the sword, there's nothing here that Disguise could be said to be ripping off from Ninjago. They're just multicolored ninja, which LEGO has no exclusive rights to. However, there do exist some costumes from other companies that pretty blatantly rip off Ninjago minifigure designs, like Party City's Ninja Avenger costumes. It's fortunate that LEGO chose not to partner with a company with such a cavalier attitude towards their own IPs.

I don't see how new Toa masks would be any less tied to their wearers than the current ones. Unless you meant it could free up the old masks for new characters, with the new ones taking their place as the de facto faces of the Toa themselves? Still, I don't know how well that would work. That'd be sort of like giving Darth Vader a new helmet so you could use Darth Vader helmets on ordinary Stormtroopers. Giving the character a new appearance doesn't somehow make their old appearance less indicative of the character — it just becomes indicative of the character at a previous stage of their life. You could always write it into the story that Ekimu starts making and distributing masks based on the Toa's original masks to honor them, but that would work just as well (perhaps even better, actually) if you didn't give the Toa new mask shapes, and just started giving new characters the same masks in different colors.

I think it would be good for themes like Bionicle and Ninjago to have more female characters, but not just for the benefit of girls who like or potentially could like those series. It's also important for boys to know that girls and women can be interesting characters or even role models, and that they can be interesting or admirable without fitting some one-size-fits-all "action girl" archetype. This isn't just a gender issue, but an issue with "token characters" in general. When a series has only one woman, or only one disabled character, or only one non-white character (though that particular issue generally doesn't come up in Bionicle, which lacks human races in general), those characters often end up standing in for that whole category of people, whether or not that's the author's intent. And thus they can give audiences an inaccurate sense that real people in that category should look or act a particular way, just because that's what they see in those particular characters and they don't have any other characters in the same world to offer a "counterpoint". This also can tie the hands of writers, which is part of what leads to the stereotypical "action girl". If you're too afraid of offending boys to have more than one girl, but also don't want to offend girls by making that girl character seem weak or vulnerable, it's easy for her to turn into a one-note character whose sole purpose is showing she's not dumb, she's not weak, she's not vulnerable, etc. And suddenly it starts to seem like she's not allowed to have any flaws that would make her genuinely relatable. Whereas if you have multiple female characters with different personalities (Avatar: The Last Airbender is a good example of a kids' action series with diverse male AND female characters), you can show that girls can have strengths and weaknesses without making it seem like they have those strengths and weaknesses BECAUSE they're girls. In kids' media, thinking about what lessons kids take with them is particularly significant because kids learn about the world from whatever they can get their hands on, even if it's a work of fiction meant purely for entertainment. And biases kids pick up in childhood can be difficult for them to let go of as adults.

I think it has less to do with what LEGO cares about and more with what kids care about. When's the last time a popular cartoon was strictly historical, or strictly space opera? Especially with pre-teens and teens (who have experienced more traditional portrayals of pirates, space travel, and medieval times since preschool), themes that can deliver some combination of concepts or tropes that they have never experienced before tend to have a lot more draw than the "old standards" that their parents and grandparents grew up with. When you look at the Duplo and Juniors sets, the subject matter is still generally very "tame" and conventional, the kind of subject matter that kids' parents will understand as much as kids themselves will. Same goes for themes directed chiefly at ages five and up, like City, Pirates, Friends, and Castle. But once you hit themes for ages six and up or seven and up, like Ninjago or Legends of Chima or Bionicle or Elves, things start to get more wacky and experimental, to draw in buyers who are tired of playing with the stuff their parents grew up with and want to experience something wild. Personally, I think the recent Pirates and Castle sets are incredibly underrated. Their subject matter is conventional, but their building value is quite impressive, with lots of great brick-built detailing. The latest King's Castle, for instance, is similar in structure to the beloved Black Monarch's Castle. But with that said, they ARE aimed at a younger demographic than most of the "action themes". And they ARE playing things very much by-the-book instead of pushing the boundaries of what LEGO Castle or LEGO Pirates can be. After all, if kids want sets that don't adhere so strictly to the archetypes they've seen all their lives, many of them might opt for one of the zanier action/adventure themes to begin with.

Nice review, with good photos! In terms of new parts, there are only five actual new molds: the lightsaber blade, the lightsaber hilt, the head, the cape, and the shells that cover the shins. One build error I see — the shells on the upper legs should be attached to the sides, not the front.

Interesting perspective. I personally would have expected lot of Bionicle fans to actually want creatures that represented whole species, for the sake of worldbuilding — after all, Mata Nui's diverse fauna is one of the things that set it apart from Okoto, where the only animal species we've seen in media are monsters like the Skull Scorpios and Lord of Skull Spiders. Creatures like Ussal Crabs, Gukko birds, Ruki snapper fish, and Hoto fire bugs helped the world of Mata Nui feel very alive and helped establish that the Matoran were a part of a larger ecosystem. Several of them even played an integral part in Matoran culture. I can't particularly say I have a horse in this race. I am most interested in how the creatures will fit into the story, and I can see pros and cons to having them as either unique individuals or a larger species. Having them as unique individuals would be a great way to set them up as animal companions for the main characters, which is something I've been yearning for in either Bionicle or Hero Factory for quite some time. Conversely, having them represent entire species would help Okoto feel like a much more lively setting rather than just a world of constant danger.

I would not like a female Takanuva in G2 for the same reason I do not think a seventh Toa in the G2 story should be named Takanuva. Takanuva's identity is firmly tied to the events that transpired in the G1 story: his origins as the inquisitive wayfarer Takua and the journey he took to discover the hero inside himself. Retell the same story and the surprise is ruined. Change the story and he's no longer really the same character at all. The Toa Mata are a much different story. Their identities are defined more by how they act and what they do than by the surprises they've been through. In G1 we met the Toa Mata with clear-cut personalities but zero knowledge of their backstories, and that can happen no matter what universe we meet them in. By contrast, people have already jumped to call any villager who stands out in any way this generation's Takua — so if the writers at any point deliberately write a character as this generation's Takua, anybody familiar with the G1 version of the character on any level is going to see their destiny to become a Toa from miles away. If we get a seventh Toa, I'd be happy for them to be a female character, no matter what their name and element. And I do not think that making Takanuva female would in any way be a disservice to the character. But I do not think Takanuva's story could be told again in a way that stays true to the character without ruining the surprises that made his story so memorable in the first place.

I think Gali sounded plenty feminine in the most recent couple episodes, myself. Easily at least as feminine as most of the female characters in, say, the official Harry Potter audiobooks. As I understand it, the original idea was to go with a single narrator/storyteller reading all the lines for the webisodes sort of like an audiobook, and there were only meant to be short snippets of dialogue. But as the writing process continued the creators found themselves wanting to work in more and more dialogue. If they had anticipated this stylistic shift, perhaps they might have worked with a full voice cast from the start. Or perhaps not. Hard to say for sure. It's probably not a budget thing, since for the English-language webisodes at least there are plenty of people already employed at Advance who could have voiced the characters just like in the Hero Factory FM podcast. Of course, with that said, I don't remember how many languages Hero Factory FM was translated into, whereas these Bionicle webisodes are available in a lot of languages from the get-go. So that might have had some impact on the cost? Again, hard to say without having an "inside scoop". Tahu's effectively the Bionicle theme's most iconic character, and the Protector of Fire is the one who has to accompany Tahu. So I don't think the Protectors' designs or genders made a lick of difference in determining which Protector got the most screen time in the webisodes — it's purely a matter of which Protector was involved in Tahu's scenes and which five were not.

If the vehicles were big enough for the characters to sit in them like they are in the game, they wouldn't fit as well on the bases. And the difference between the models can be way more than just a few extra parts in many cases. Also, some of the in-game models like the Samurai Mech wouldn't even fit the characters unless you separated the arms from the body, which LEGO doesn't like to encourage (it weakens the connection).

New interview with the Hageman brothers, with some teasers for the upcoming season!