Aanchir
-
Posts
11,930 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Everything posted by Aanchir
-
Keetorange (Flame Yellowish Orange) on an air character would be... interesting. Wasn't Umbra the last constraction set to pair it with any kind of green? It's definitely a nice combination, but not one you see very often. It's not like people can complain about it not fitting the element, since green doesn't really resemble the actual color of air either. :P But with that said, I am somewhat more inclined to expect Warm Gold shells, since Tahu, Kopaka, and Onua all appear to use Warm Gold (and because it'd be a bit weird for the LEGO Group to create a new recolored element for a fairly minor part of the build and not use it in any of the other sets).
-
It doesn't need to "continue the story", at least not directly. The movie did a fantastic job creating a playful, creative universe that is a perfect foundation for creating new stories. And is it really "all pretend"? I think that may be overstating things a bit. Emmet's world was definitely born from the imaginations of Finn and his father, but that isn't to say it isn't real on some level (particularly to the people living in it). Think of it this way — how do we even know for certain that OUR world is real, and isn't being dreamed up by some outside consciousness? We don't, but that doesn't mean that stories taking place in our world are devalued by that possibility. Also compare an idea explored thoroughly in the fantasy works of Neil Gaiman. Gods, in many of his stories, are real because people imagine and believe in them. If they didn't have any mortal belief to sustain themselves, they would cease to exist. The same could be said for Emmet and his friends. Finn's imagination gives them not only life, but identity. Without Finn's creative intervention, Emmet probably WOULD be just an "average, ordinary, generic construction worker", not a hero with unlimited creative potential. In this sense, the story is dependent on its storyteller, which could make for all kinds of interesting future stories. We've already seen how Emmet's world changes when the Man Upstairs and his daughter join Finn as storytellers. What would happen to Emmet's world if Finn were to lose interest in LEGO and begin to enter his "dark ages"? What about if he were bullied by his classmates for liking LEGO, and the types of stories he told changed as a result? The only thing that is lost due to the reveal of the movie's parallel worlds is the element of surprise. Saving the reveal of the events in Finn's world until the third act would not work so well in a sequel because viewers would be anticipating and looking for clues to what is going on behind the scenes. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't be addressed earlier.
-
Bronies? Here? I've never heard of such a thing! *furtively glances backwards at My Little Pony book, DVD, and toy collection* In all seriousness, I've stopped being surprised by the overlap between the brony community and the AFOL community, especially after getting into the show myself about two and a half years ago. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is a fun, colorful cartoon that inspires a lot of creativity from its fanbase. And as much as some AFOLs might try to hide it, simply being an active part of the AFOL community means you're more in touch with your inner child than the average joe. Also, being a fan of a toy like LEGO means the whole "merchandise driven" aspect of My Little Pony probably won't bother you as much as it would for some people, even if the products LEGO puts out are more consistently high-quality than Hasbro's My Little Pony lineup. Furthermore, from what I've seen, bronies are pretty much everywhere on the Internet (except for certain communities that are particularly hostile to them). So Eurobricks is probably not THAT far from the norm. Even Matthew Ashton, a LEGO designer and one of the executive producers of The LEGO Movie, is a brony! Which almost certainly informed his design of Princess Unikitty, particularly the Astro-Kitty variant who boasts a Classic Space "cutie mark".
-
Would you like to see Castle Action Figures again
Aanchir replied to ShadowWolfHount's topic in LEGO Action Figures
I have no idea what you mean about the proportions. Knights' Kingdom II figures honestly had VERY similar proportions to a lot of CCBS builds, such as CHI Laval or Bulk. And the proportions are in fact MORE exaggerated than some Hero Factory sets (Knights' Kingdom figures' lower arms were consistently downright puny compared to their upper arms, since the fist was integrated with the lower arm). The one chief difference is that Knights' Kingdom II figures typically had ankles placed lower on the foot (something I often wish was the case with more constraction foot designs, to be perfectly honest). -
"Pure black" just won't happen. Rare are the sets in ANY LEGO theme that are pure black without any more brightly-colored accents. Even Black Phantom used Dark Red beams, among other more brightly colored parts. The reason is that a pure black model is not all that photogenic. The details tend to just melt together and the result is a shadowy blob without many distinguishing traits (this is even true with MOCs unless you are an especially skilled photographer). Also, pure black makes instruction manuals difficult to decipher. In fact, this is true of most colors, hence why so many sets use brightly-colored bricks for the interior of the build, and why so many BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets use alternating colors for the leg and arm beams. With sets, you want the model's details to be able to stand out on the store shelves, in the instruction booklet, AND on the assembled model. Anyway, while you may be sick of red and black bad guys, there's a reason why so very many franchises have them. The symbolic meanings of those colors is well-suited to villains: black suggests darkness, while red suggests blood. It's similar to how gold works so well for heroes because it can represent the light of the sun, or how white can be used to represent light and purity. Indeed — in fact, some of her earliest bios exemplified this aspect of her. Some people dislike this characterization, though, because it plays into the stereotype of women being volatile or prone to mood swings. Personally I think it definitely makes Gali an interesting character, but it should always be treated with great care in the story. Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender is a good example of how this sort of duality can be handled effectively, without being offensive. She has both a gentle, caregiving side and a furious, vengeful side, but it's not due to fickleness or mood swings, but rather a keen awareness that there is a time for being caring and gentle and a time for letting loose and exacting justice.
-
If the companies who own the rights to the BIONICLE movies decide they want to publish them again I doubt the LEGO Group would have any reason to stop them. I recently saw BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn and LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers being sold as a double-feature, probably to cash in on hype from the LEGO Movie. For that matter, you still see plenty of horrible My Little Pony movies being republished despite having no connection to the current My Little Pony series that has done so much to rejuvenate and redeem the brand. I don't think that older BIONICLE stories would necessarily be any more problem for the LEGO Group than older Transformers, My Little Pony, and G.I. Joe stories are for Hasbro. But the LEGO Group won't be deciding to republish older BIONICLE media of their own accord. That decision is in the hands of the distributors who happen to have the rights to that media. And as long as the LEGO Group is still getting royalties from it I doubt they'll raise a stink about it.
-
I think assuming we'll see thin media support just because of Hero Factory is a mistake. After all, if you applied the same logic to System sets, then LEGO City's amazing success would have precluded future story-driven System themes — clearly, people want sets, not story! But instead, Ninjago came out with a huge multimedia presence and managed to surpass BIONICLE in many respects. There is room in the LEGO Group's portfolio for both story-intensive themes and less story-intensive ones. I hardly think they would have made the decision to bring back what has always been a story-intensive theme if they thought such themes were doomed to failure. Also, I don't see how "just repeating their past methods is a recipe for a quick cancellation". BIONICLE's past methods served it well for many years — running for nine years before finally being retired does not meet my definition of a "quick cancellation". Obviously, the LEGO Group will want to avoid some of the old BIONICLE's mistakes with this new attempt, but frankly there's no reason to think they'll have to completely change the theme's entire approach to story media just to avoid those mistakes. Themes like LEGO Ninjago have taken lots of inspiration from BIONICLE in terms of their marketing and storytelling, and have met with amazing success as a result. I see no reason why a new take on BIONICLE can't do the same.
-
Would you like to see Castle Action Figures again
Aanchir replied to ShadowWolfHount's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Not particularly. I liked the Knights Kingdom II action figures when they were out (the very idea of System-based action figures held some appeal back then, and their weapons were reasonably compatible with my BIONICLE collection), but they didn't offer much in the way of variety. Now, with a modern-day constraction series, that could be fixed to a certain extent by including not just knights but also horses, dragons, and maybe even some assorted fantasy creatures like trolls and dwarves. A theme like that, with a healthy dose of fantasy, is something I could really get behind. But I don't have any particular reason to wish for a medieval fantasy theme in particular rather than just more constraction in general. And how much I'd enjoy such a theme would depend heavily on the quality of the designs and the story that accompanies them. The idea of a theme using the Hero Factory system with more medieval-looking armor designs is definitely an interesting one, but I think it'd have to be handled a bit carefully if you want the pieces to have lasting usefulness. I don't use Knights' Kingdom II weapon and armor pieces in MOCs much in part because I feel their textures are very specific to medieval fantasy, and this clashes with the aesthetic of a lot of the other pieces I tend to use. But this is probably not an insurmountable challenge. LEGO Legends of Chima generally avoids using parts with mechanical or sci-fi textures like 98571 or 98592, but it uses basic Hero Factory shells quite effectively, and many of the parts it introduced like 11334, 11336, or 15369 are not so genre-specific that they cannot be used in other types of sci-fi or fantasy creations. -
It definitely has the potential to be bigger, since the LEGO Group has a lot more power and influence than they did back when the theme was new. And it's been increasing year by year. Back when Ninjago came out, a 44-minute TV special was a big investment for a new theme, and most of the books didn't start to come out until the theme had been out for several months. But after Ninjago's success, Legends of Chima got a lot of its media out of the gate a lot faster, with a full TV series and plenty of books released just shortly after the sets launched. With the recent success of The LEGO Movie, I think media entities are going to be lining up for a slice of the LEGO pie, and the LEGO Group can afford to be a bit choosy about which ones they trust the BIONICLE franchise to (companies like Papercutz, Scholastic, Dorling Kindersley, Ghost, and AMEET that have a strong working relationship with the LEGO Group will definitely have an advantage in that regard). But it's unclear whether the LEGO Group would want to make BIONICLE's launch too huge, necessarily. The first wave is thirteen sets as far as we know. This is big, but not necessarily what you'd expect of a "big bang" theme like Ninjago (which launched with 16 sets, including two store exclusives) or Chima (which launched with 16 sets, including three store exclusives). If there are any store-exclusive BIONICLE sets that we don't know about yet, then that might boost its numbers. Also, again, there aren't necessarily as many hopes riding on BIONICLE's success as there were back in 2001. It's not the LEGO Group's first or only foray into developing a heavily story-driven intellectual property anymore — rather, it's one of many. Since it seems we will be getting Matoran sets, I'd LOVE something like the Mata Nui Online Game again. That alone could do a great deal to set it apart from other themes like Ninjago, Hero Factory, or Legends of Chima, in which the online and mobile games don't tend to be very heavy on storytelling. I think we can definitely expect books of some sort, whether they show up towards the beginning of the year or later on. Comics, too, are likely to show up, whether as single-issue comics like in BIONICLE's heyday or as graphic novels like in the Ninjago and Legends of Chima themes. As for animated media, I have no idea what we might expect, but I have no doubt we'll see something. And a mobile game of some sort is practically a given. However, I don't know that I'd count on seeing a video game for handheld consoles like Nintendo 3DS and PSVita, even if Ninjago and Legends of Chima each got one. It could be a lot harder to adapt the established formulas for LEGO games to the BIONICLE theme that well, and even then there's no telling whether video games without minifigure characters would have the same widespread appeal.
-
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hero Factory has pretty much always been a smaller theme than BIONICLE, just in terms of the number of sets. It had 15 sets in its first half-year wave, which I suppose is noteworthy, but most years of BIONICLE averaged as many sets per wave or more. I don't think Hero Factory was ever expected to be as huge a deal as BIONICLE even when it was first developed. And it didn't need to be — unlike when BIONICLE first came out, the LEGO Group was thriving during pretty much the entirety of Hero Factory's run, so they weren't relying on the constraction category as a lifeline. Contrast Ninjago, which even back in its debut year was being promoted as "LEGO's biggest new initiative since BIONICLE!" It got its own series of books, a TV special, a graphic novel, a handheld video game, and plenty of online promotional support in its debut year. What did Hero Factory get, by comparison? A few comics, an admittedly nice promotional booklet packaged with LEGO Club Magazine, an online game, a telephone hotline, a twelve-episode podcast, and a four-episode miniseries which mainly existed to fulfill the contract Tinseltown Toons had for two additional BIONICLE movies. Not quite as daring in terms of promotional story media.
-
And, appallingly, with Exo-Force. Frankly, though, Hero Factory doesn't really have an overarching storyline that needs to be concluded. Other than the global conspiracy storyline in the books, any real loose ends the theme has were abandoned as soon as they were established. It's not like the Exo-Force or BIONICLE storylines where there were ongoing storylines that were continually progressing until the theme came to an end.
-
But that makes it even stranger. Normally you'd expect a set with lots of tiny pieces to have a considerably lower price-per-piece than a set that uses larger and bulkier pieces. But instead, the Nui-Jaga's price-per-piece is practically the same as Queen Beast's if you don't adjust for inflation, and much higher if you do. Of course, Queen Beast also has lots of small parts, particularly minifigure parts and accessories.
-
Yessiree! The Nui-Jaga had eight more pieces than Queen Beast vs. Furno, Evo & Stormer (all of which were rubber bands), but according to Bricklink it weighs 459 grams while Queen Beast weighs 469 grams. Which is especially surprising since Nui-Jaga cost the same price — $35 — back when it first came out. According to WolframAlpha, that would be about $47 in today's money. Now, Bricklink's weight measurements are not a foolproof way of comparing the size of a set, since they describe the weight of a sealed box, complete with extra pieces and instructions. It might just be that the single instruction booklet in Queen Beast is heavier than the two smaller instruction booklets in the Nui-Jaga (paper can be heavy). Still, it's interesting to say the least.
-
I was actually surprised to find out that Queen Beast has a similar price, piece count, and weight to the Nui-Jaga from 2001. Even after thirteen years of inflation and other rising costs!
-
If there is another constraction theme, it'll probably be a part of an existing System theme. I can't imagine TLG launching not one but TWO new independent constraction themes in one year, especially with how many BIONICLE sets we've already seen for just the first wave! It'd be great if Hero Factory continued, but that's starting to seem unlikely.
-
I'm not sure what you mean. The LEGO Group did pens with a LOT of their themes back then. It was just one example of the way they were wildly branching out from their core business during that time period. Looking at Brickset, it seems like the last year for the buildable LEGO pens was 2011. But that doesn't mean that the LEGO Group doesn't promote current products to the same extent — they just do it in different ways, with help from licensing partners. And don't assume we won't see promotional pushes for BIONICLE just because there wasn't a lot for Hero Factory in its later years. BIONICLE will be a new theme for all intents and purposes, so it will get a big promotional push just as Hero Factory did when it was new. We've already seen that there are 13 sets in the debut wave, which is a lot compared to what Hero Factory ever had out in a single wave other than its launch wave. So there will probably be a bigger promotional push to match.
-
What exactly are you basing this on? I don't think this will be the case at all. Generally when the LEGO Group brings back a retired line, it's because they consider certain aspects of its appeal timeless. A very simple example is Space Police — the idea of "police in space" is something that can be appreciated by fans young and old, whether or not they had any exposure to the earlier Space Police themes. With BIONICLE, "mechanical heroes with magical masks and elemental powers" seems like it will be the basis of the new set designs, and I hardly think this is a concept that only older BIONICLE fans will be able to appreciate. All things considered, I don't think the LEGO Group would even bother bringing BIONICLE back if they thought the majority of sales would have to come from older fans, because a lot of those older fans would have probably grown out of BIONICLE by now anyway. Now, with that said, there will definitely be appeals to nostalgia with the new BIONICLE, just as there were with the most recent Space Police theme. The theme isn't going to go out of its way to alienate older fans. However, the focus will almost certainly be on appealing to new fans within the target age range (6–14 years old).
-
Tanma never suffered from Lime Plastic Syndrome. The fragility issues that set had didn't have anything to do with its color — pretty much ALL the joints in 2008 had that issue. But in any case, I don't have a problem with sets having non-humanoid proportions. Still, when a figure's wrists are at or below their knees, there's a very definite problem, unless they're intended to look awkward and gorilla-like. Because that's the impression it conveys. Even the classic BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets, with arms as long as their legs, didn't have that problem.
-
I think most kids are smarter than to think of something as a helmet or helmet-like just because it goes over the head, but given this discussion maybe I'm overestimating how rational people in general tend to be.
-
CHI Fluminox doesn't offer a great value for money, but I don't think it's fair to call some of the figure's most unique features "gimmicks that don't add a whole lot to the figure". And in any case, I don't see any "gimmicks" in any of the pictures we've seen of the new Toa, unless you count Tahu's lava surfboard as a "gimmick". And as I mentioned in my previous post, Axonn was twice the price of a Toa Inika but exactly the same height. Take off Axonn's giant hands and there are barely any proportional differences whatsoever. The difference is just that Axonn is more complex and bulkier than a Toa Inika.
-
Why wouldn't it make sense, though? Just because that's the way it's always been done? Because that's not a very good reason at all. There's absolutely no rule about how masks in BIONICLE have to attach. Also, technically, many of the Glatorian helmets would qualify as masks. Not Kanohi masks, but masks nonetheless, because a mask is something that covers the face or part of the face, and most of the Glatorian masks do just that. They're even consistently referred to as masks in the catalogs and official set inventories on LEGO customer service. People made the arbitrary decision that masks that went over top of the head were helmets many years earlier — people randomly decided to call the Inika masks and Mistika Makuta masks as "helmets" or "helmet-like" long before the Glatorian (or any rational reason to call such masks helmets) existed. Basically, masks and helmets are defined by what they do. A helmet protects the head, a mask covers the face. Some things do both, and therefore, are both. Neither definition has anything to do with how they're attached to the head. This is a mask that you pull over your head, but no sane person would consider it a helmet because it is not designed for protection of any kind. Plus, if you define the difference between masks and helmets as how they're attached to the head (which makes no sense whatsoever), then what would you call these from the Splitface set? They attach to the sides of the head. Are they masks? Helmets? Neither? Both? In any case, as far as LEGO Customer Service is concerned, they're "masks", and there's really no logical reason to say they aren't. You argue that Makuta masks follow different rules than other masks, but there is absolutely no reason to assume that. Mata Nui's Kanohi Ignika attached over top of the head as well, as did the Dikapi's. The more sensible explanation is that how a mask attaches to the head has nothing to do with whether or not it's actually a mask. Which, you know, would be consistent with real life anyway.
-
Personally, I don't feel that way at all, especially in Brain Attack when you could easily change the look of a helmet by changing the color of the head and visor. Besides that, I think the Brain Attack helmets feel like some of the least character-specific designs in the Hero Factory theme other than the 2.0 helmets, since a lot of them are fairly basic and do not have a lot of specialized gear like microphones, cameras, and radio antennas. They even leave a connection point open on the back so you can attach custom gear to set the helmets apart from the official sets that share them. I love to use Breez's helmet from the Brain Attack series — it helps that it exists in a neutral color and is perhaps the most feminine mask design ever released in a constraction theme. The other day my brother used Stormer's mask with Bulk's visor to create a custom hero with an Ice Planet 2002 color scheme. And I used Furno's mask AND visor for Caitlyn Gauss XL. Sure, it confused the kiddies, but I don't think they'd be much less confused if she were a Toa wearing a bright red Kanohi Hau. These are the same sorts of kids who often insist a MOC is "a kit" if it bears even a passing resemblance to existing sets (something I've heard far too often in reference to Rise of the Dread Colossus, a model I had to dissemble most of my LEGO Atlantis collection to build). I've never understood the notion of things "connecting like masks". It's true, most BIONICLE masks connected to the front of the face. I'm not sure exactly why this was, though it might have been to help the competitive gimmick since a mask that wrapped around the head would not fall off as easily. But in real life, most people don't wear masks by sucking on a peg on the inside with their mouths. Most masks attach over the head by necessity. Even if the mask is flat and goes in front of the face (like what you might wear to a masquerade ball), you generally attach it by slipping it over your head with a strap. It's even arguable that masks that attach in unusual ways have been around since 2001 — after all, a lot of the Rahi didn't even wear the masks on their heads! In 2003 and 2004, Makuta had his mask attach to the top of his head in almost all depictions. And in BIONICLE: Mask of Light, ALL the Toa's masks wrapped around their heads — only the masks of the Matoran attached to the front of the face. Yet for some bizarre reason, BIONICLE fans developed this random notion early on that a mask that attaches to the top of the head is not actually a mask but rather a helmet — even if it covers the face, which is the only thing any "mask" in real life needs to do to be considered a mask. There are some advantages to a mask attaching to the front of the face. A mask that wraps around the head can be harder to use on things like Rahi or MOCs with custom head designs. Yet as the masks from Hero Factory Brain Attack (and some 2009 BIONICLE masks and 2010 Hero Factory masks) demonstrated, it is totally possible to design a mask that attaches to the top of the head while still leaving the back of the head exposed. If a new BIONICLE theme had masks like that, I certainly wouldn't complain.
-
Hard to say. Personally, if there is a new head, I probably wouldn't want it to look like the old BIONICLE heads. They just looked so weird and alien, and in drawings it was difficult to make them show expression. I think there's a reason the movie makers made sure never to show the actual face underneath the characters' masks, even when a character lost their mask or had to put on a new mask. It resembles an Arthron to me too, but of course that could be coincidence. Well, in many cases, yes. But as I said, the Toa Mahri had a wide range of heights, and the same is true of many other series. At 27.5 modules in height, Gresh, Ackar, and many of the other Glatorian and Glatorian Legends do tower over most small and medium Hero Factory characters, but Malum is just 22.5 modules tall — about the same height as the smallest Brain Attack heroes. Skrall is just barely taller, at 23.5 modules tall at the top of the head. Phantoka Toa Pohatu is also 22.5 modules in height. For the sake of comparison, all these sets are shorter than any of the Toa Metru sets (which ranged from 24 to 26 modules in height). But yes, the average height of canister sets definitely shot up with the Piraka and Toa Inika. The titan set Axonn from 2006 is almost exactly the same height as a Toa Inika (discounting the horn on the top of his mask), despite costing twice as much and having more than twice the piece count! Actually, that's probably a good comparison when explaining how the new Toa could be at different price points but still remain similar in height. Onua's the only one who looks like he could be anywhere near as buff as Axonn, but more elaborate armor and weapons could easily push a set from $15 to $20. Speaking of armor and weapons, if these Toa are indeed $15 and $20, hopefully that means they will all have back armor.
-
I don't know if you could really count Matoran as civilians given how they were always armed with something to defend themselves with (be it a disk, a launcher, a melee weapon, or a vehicle like the Boxor), but I agree with this sentiment completely. There's a difference between merely telling action stories and populating an entire world. Matoran did a great job helping BIONICLE to achieve the latter.
-
I haven't bought any new Hero Factory sets in a while, but at Brickfair Virginia I managed to get a lot of useful parts from Splitter Beast in the BZPower Parts Draft. Check out my haul! Hopefully I should be able to make some awesome MOCs now, including beast MOCs. I also bought some other loose parts from a vendor, including several which should prove useful.