Aanchir

Overlord was basically presented as the ultimate evil in Ninjago (though i don't know if it was said in those words), but now that we know there are other realms, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a greater evil. Or who knows, maybe some other evil force in Ninjago can somehow attain even greater evil power now that the Overlord isn't in the picture anymore.

Hero Factory definitely had some advantages over the Bionicle reboot, though some of that can be chalked up to the theme's four and a half year lifespan. For instance, Hero Factory had Technic-based vehicle sets, something the Bionicle reboot hasn't had (yet). It also had a greater variety of villains: towering humanoids like Witch Doctor and Black Phantom; wacky "theme villains" like XPlode, Splitface, Voltix, and Toxic Reapa; and quirky non-humanoids like Thornraxx, Jawblade, and Tunneler Beast. There are also some storytelling differences between Bionicle G2 and Hero Factory that could lead some people to prefer the latter. First of all, Hero Factory was a futuristic sci-fi story, which some people might prefer to Bionicle's more anachronistic blend of ancient and futuristic styles. Also, Hero Factory drew a lot of cues from the later years of Bionicle in terms of its storytelling, with all its diverse character powers, detailed origin stories for the villains, and technobabble. By contrast, Bionicle G2 draws more cues from the earlier years of Bionicle, which had fewer elements and powers, villains with more mysterious origins and motivations, and weapons and masks that were treated more like mystical artifacts than like advanced technology. And of course, Hero Factory had longer TV episodes instead of shorter webisodes. There's no doubt that might influence people's opinions. Overall, though, I think the Bionicle reboot definitely has the potential to more decisively surpass the Hero Factory sets and story as it continues to grow.

I've always been in the camp that ideas are an inexhaustible resource. They don't simply "run out". LEGO has enough bright minds at their disposal that they could probably keep ANY theme going indefinitely if it continued to sell the way Ninjago's been selling. When themes end, it's generally because they exhaust their momentum, not because they exhaust their ideas. I suppose you might be able to make a case for certain movie-based themes "running out of ideas" if all the iconic scenes from the source material have been recreated and it's too soon to release new sets based on those same scenes. But themes like Ninjago are a different case entirely, because all it takes for LEGO to introduce new ideas into the theme is to write them into new scenes in the ongoing story. Not only would pirates be something fairly new for Ninjago (there was a "Pirates vs. Ninja" episode back in season two, but it was a one-off rather than a full story arc), but chances are any Ninjago pirate wave would have a decidedly different flavor than the pirates theme from this year. It would be able to take full advantage of the Ninjago theme's Asian influences as well as its playful anachronism. Perhaps to tie in with the "skull and crossbones" motif, this arc could revisit the Skulkin faction just as this year's first wave revisited the Serpentine. But it's just as possible this might be the set debut of Captain Soto and his crew. And if this year is any indication, there's no reason a pirate story arc would have to last all year. They could move on to a different story arc in the summer. My brother just recently played through most of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, so needless to say I'd be totally geared up for one of my favorite themes to go on a seafaring adventure!

Honestly, I don't see why names or titles made from real words are such a big deal. There are plenty of adult fans of My Little Pony, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Transformers, yet all of those franchises have characters who go by simple, understandable monikers. This isn't a new debate, of course. I've gotten quite used to people complaining about names with obvious meanings from my time as a Hero Factory fan. But it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. This isn't limited to actual character names either — I hear a lot of complaints about things like the new story using the term "Masks of Power" instead of "Kanohi", or "Region of Fire" instead of "Ta-Wahi" (never mind that those terms mean the same thing...). I suppose some people forget that in G1 Bionicle, islands had names in in-universe languages but landmarks usually didn't, aside from the landmarks of Mata Nui and the villages of Bara Magna. Is "the Ancient City" or "the Temple of Fire" really that much more simplistic than "the Valley of the Maze" or "the Sculpture Fields" or "the Coliseum"? Likewise, for every tool or artifact that had a Matoran name, there were many more that didn't. Even some G1 Kanohi masks never had proper names, and did just fine without them. The Lord of the Rings does have a lot of terminology. Tolkien loved his languages. But it was not written in such a way that you had to know those languages backwards and forwards to follow the story. Most created terms in the series, other than individual character and place names, were basically just trivia — you could just as easily refer to the Nazgul as the Black Riders, or the Sindarin language as Elvish, or the Rohirrim as the Riders of Rohan, or even to Sauron as the Dark Lord or the Necromancer. These terms added complexity to the story, but usually without obfuscating it. The same couldn't always be said for the Matoran language in Bionicle G1. What do you call a Bohrok other than a Bohrok, besides a vague, broad term like "creature"? Some people have argued that the Protectors, at least, should have names, but I'm not sure I agree with that. Even if we ignore their limited story roles, I don't see why a title can't suffice for characters of their standing. Avatar: The Last Airbender had plenty of characters who were never referred to by their proper names in the show itself, up to and including the Earth King, Kuei (who is only named in supplementary media and the comics). I'm not even sure that we need proper names for the Protectors if they start to appear more prominently in the story. Really, their titles should suffice unless we have to compare numerous Protectors of the same element, or reflect on their lives before they took on the title of Protector.

You hit the nail on the head. Bionicle was more profitable than the company as a whole because the company, at that time, was not very profitable at all, and pretty much all other themes were operating at a loss. Source: Brick by Brick, p155.

Well, Transformers has one called "Construct-Bots", and also a simpler style called "Hero Mashers" that are more Galidor-ish in terms of using mostly swappable prefab limbs. Mega Bloks has one called "Kapow! Blok Bots Fighting League", and also buildable Halo figures. Ionix also has Tenkai Knights buildable figures. Those are just the ones I know of from store shelves and the Internet.

It's definitely important to remember that when Bionicle was the LEGO Group's top theme, it wasn't just because Bionicle was exceptional, it was because their core themes were failing and the company was in crisis. Today, the company is doing better than ever, with lots of extremely lucrative themes like LEGO City, LEGO Friends, LEGO Ninjago, and LEGO Creator still going strong. The LEGO Group is already investing plenty in new molds and marketing for Bionicle, but it's unlikely it will ever again be as important to them as it was back when it was practically the only thing keeping them afloat. Of course, the LEGO Group is definitely going to be more cautious with G2 Bionicle than they were with many of their older themes. Exercising caution and avoiding overspecialization is part of the reason LEGO isn't in crisis anymore. It's not like being in better financial straits gives them free rein to invest their resources recklessly, when the only reason they're NOT in dire financial straits is being smart about how they invest their resources. Another thing that's important to remember: During Bionicle's most successful years, it was one of the only toys of its kind. Mega Bloks had Blok Bots, but still, the "buildable action figure" market was very small and no competitor could have anticipated a theme like Bionicle becoming such a big hit. Today, it's a different market — buildable action figures are not so novel, and there's really nothing the LEGO Group can do about that. They just have to design and market for whatever situation they're faced with.

Well, as far as sneak peeks are concerned, Dan and Kevin Hageman posted this pirate flag to Twitter. Maybe the rumors of a pirates vs. ninja wave have some substance to them!

Well, they're ninja. The usual complaint I heard about previous waves was that the ninja looked too strange, colorful, and different, and the current black, traditional-looking robes seem like a direct attempt to address that. Also, the six ninja and Sensei Wu are the theme's main characters, so including them in the set will greatly boost its appeal with fans of the theme. Omitting them would have been like omitting Luke, Leia, Han, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, C-3PO, and R2-D2 from the Death Star set. The ninja probably don't add too much to the cost of the set anyway since they all use current parts from other sets, unlike Sensei Wu, Misako, Dareth, and the postman who all use brand-new decorations (and in Misako's case, a brand-new recolor for her hair).

I don't know if we can expect any 2016 set info at SDCC, since it's a US event and not even all of the summer 2015 sets have been released in the US. I don't think LEGO wants to show their hand this early and risk distracting people from the sets that are going to be released sooner. However, info on the next season of the show is a lot more likely. Remember, last year's Ninjago panel is where it was first revealed that the Ninja would encounter other people with elemental powers in the Season 4 storyline — even though Season 3 hadn't ended yet in the US by that point. By the time of the Ninjago panel this year, all of "Possession" will have aired (since the finale airs this evening and the Ninjago panel is on Sunday).

Seeing as the synopsis in question seems to confuse Ronin for a main villain, which he has not been outside the latest video game, I'm also inclined to believe that synopsis is completely made-up. It wouldn't be the first time a fake synopsis for future stories showed up on IMDB.

Well, that's not to say that they wouldn't be able to share designs. But perhaps more importantly, the Ninjago movie is still over two years away so I question whether the character designs for it would even be finalized at this point.

Well, we do know some of the landmarks of the Ancient City thanks to the summer set descriptions and packages, such as the graveyard where Skull Scorpio prowls and the ancient arena where Skull Slicer was a former champion.

Well, it's not one unbelievably huge building, but it is three really detailed buildings. You can almost think of it as Ninjago's answer to the beloved Medieval Market Village. Nope. Same yellow color as all the rest.

There are more details and a clearer pic here.

Very cool mask. I'm not attending SDCC and probably won't go out of my way to get this one, but it's cool that Bionicle will be getting some more exposure at SDCC, and that some fans will be lucky enough to bring one of these home with them! After so much radio silence about further exclusives I wasn't sure there'd be any Bionicle exclusives at SDCC. I'm sure some people might not be as interested in this as the transparent Tahu and Gali masks, since as the mask of a brand-new character it doesn't have nearly so much nostalgic value attached to it. Nevertheless, I'm sure it'll fetch a pretty penny on the aftermarket and will look incredible on MOCs. I look forward to seeing what sort of packaging it comes in! I expect it'll be a reclosable blister pack like the other exclusive minifigures and masks use.

New character videos would be interesting, since obviously they'd have to have a different format than the Toa's character videos. A map of the Ancient City would also be quite cool. Honestly, I don't know quite what to expect, but I've been pretty pleased with what story info we've gotten on the characters, tools, and regions of Okoto so far so I hope there's more in that vein.

Because the theme wasn't doing that well and didn't have much momentum left. There's no sense investing huge amounts of money in a theme that's already on its last legs. And smaller BIONICLE sets were generally more profitable than larger ones anyway. I don't know if the LEGO Group handled the Bionicle theme's end the best way they possibly could have, but realistically they didn't have a lot of options, and I can see how releasing affordably priced versions of popular sets from throughout the theme's history might have seemed like the best recourse. There's no way the theme would ever have ended with a pair of $30–50 titan sets, considering that figures priced higher than $30 were rare even in the theme's strongest years.

Really? Alright, then, I guess somebody has to make a topic for the TV series and webisodes if there isn't one already. Unfortunately, it'll probably bring activity in this topic nearly to a standstill. It kind of bugs me that Eurobricks breaks up story and set discussion like this, especially since it means shoving pretty much any kind of story discussion to the same place as non-LEGO discussion. I'm glad the action figures subforum generally keeps things more contained.

Wow, I wish you could remember as well! If it's something like that then I certainly haven't seen it, but would certainly like to! I always love any kind of "behind the scenes" insights into the themes I collect.

I don't know how likely that is, really. A lot of people assumed from the leaked pics that the green ones would glow in the dark, but if they truly did then they probably wouldn't have even looked green at all in those pics, since the LEGO Group's current glow-in-the-dark color since 2012 is almost completely white. The same thing happened with this summer's Ninjago sets. A lot of people were drooling over the glow-in-the-dark pieces they used, not realizing that most of those were just Spring Yellowish Green. Granted, one Ninjago set — 70736 Attack of the Morro Dragon — DOES use glow-in-the-dark pieces. But they're not the greenish-looking pieces at all — they're the white cones from the ghost weapons and the white plates used to construct the lanterns.

That's not reason enough to assume that nobody was put off or confused by those kinds of names. Parents and other gift-givers in particular, who generally lack insight into the story, will have an easier time remembering which set is on a kid's wish list if its name means something in a language they understand rather than just being gibberish to them. For that matter, parents having a better understanding of what the theme is about can lead to them being more open to the theme as a whole. LEGO has had great success in many of their other themes using set names that have self-evident meanings. For that matter, so have lots of other toy lines like Transformers and My Little Pony. I don't see why BIONICLE would be harmed by this approach. I can agree to the bit about keeping the same style of head, though. This is my favorite head piece to date, and the interchangeability of masks is a great selling point for BIONICLE. So I see no need to change that.

I think he meant in terms of the mask having a pointed chin, compared to the previous two Gali masks which had a squared-off jaw.

Note that the Canadian Issue 3 is labeled June–July instead of July–August in the URL. Since the official release date for the summer BIONICLE sets in North America is August, it makes sense that they wouldn't show up until issue 4. Not sure why it's labeled that way... maybe Canada only gets five issues a year instead of six?

I don't think any of these names are meant to be "species names". More like ranks/titles. And I figure it's meant to be identify them as grinders/warriors/slicers/bashers/scorpio...s with a skull theme. Same way the Fangpyre Wrecking Ball is a wrecking ball with a Fangpyre theme, not a ball that wrecks Fangpyre. Or how the Fire Starter Set is a starter set with a fire theme, not a set for starting fires. In other words, it's a noun adjunct describing an agent noun. Anyway, it doesn't make any less sense than the term "combiner" that BIONICLE fans have collectively claimed from the Transformers franchise. So-called "combiners" don't combine, regular sets combine into THEM. Still drives me crazy to this day.