Aanchir
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Everything posted by Aanchir
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Not so! Toa Mahri Kongu and Toa Mahri Hewkii were both 22.5 modules tall (7 inches/18 centimeters) — about the same height as a Toa Nuva. Toa Mahri Nuparu and Jaller were both 28 modules tall (8.75 inches/22.4 millimeters) — the same height as a Toa Inika. Naturally, all the Toa Mahri cost the same price. Now, let's look at some $15 and $20 sets from this year... but to be fair, let's compare some fairly humanoid figures from the Legends of Chima theme rather than the more varied builds from this year's Hero Factory sets. CHI Fluminox, a $20 set, is about 30 modules tall, like Furno XL. CHI Laval and CHI Panthar, both $15 sets, are both about 25.5 modules tall. The difference in height is smaller than between the largest and smallest of the Toa Mahri! The extra cost into not just extra height, but also more elaborate armor and accessories. Overall, if the Toa Mata are indeed split between the $15 and $20 price points, I think there's no fear of their heights being too different — not if you were able to tolerate the varied heights of the Toa Mahri. Personally, I'm a little bit more worried about the average height, but that's mainly personal bias. I was really thrilled when the Hero Factory 2.0 series basically reset the basic hero size to the same as the Toa Mata or Toa Nuva. It'll be a little bit frustrating for me if the Toa sets return to post-2006 proportions. But I suppose it's worth it to get smaller Matoran-sized sets again. I guess the LEGO Group feels like $10 "defenders" (consistent with the smallest price point for regular Hero Factory sets) will sell better than $5 ones. The defender sets are definitely a few modules taller than "classic" Matoran, but not much different in height from 2004, 2007, or 2008 Matoran. And best of all, their designs seem to offer plenty of variety and complexity.
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No, but I'm not assuming they're different prices based on height. The biggest clue is that they have different recommended age ranges (7–14 for the smaller ones, 8–14 for the larger ones).
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I believe there was a Hero Factory panel at SDCC in 2010, along with costumed characters and other things. Just as there had been a lot of hype around BIONICLE at SDCC for most of that year's run (including comic signings and other things). Granted, Hero Factory had already been announced and revealed well before SDCC. Which is to be expected, since it was due for a summer release that year and not a January release.
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I understand that. But I was explaining why that was such a big deal in that particular case. Ninjago was also amazingly successful (in fact, the most successful LEGO product line launch of all time), but the LEGO Group didn't feel the need to put "From the makers of LEGO Ninjago characters" on LEGO Legends of Chima packages, because thanks to the branding and visual direction of those themes any child would be able to recognize immediately that LEGO created both brands. With BIONICLE it was not so obvious.
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I think it's unlikely. The main reason why the LEGO Group had to do that in the first place is probably that BIONICLE was never branded as "LEGO BIONICLE" before (unlike most themes, which are called "LEGO {theme name}". BIONICLE, according to official style guides, was just identified as "BIONICLE". Even though BIONICLE packages always had the LEGO logo towards the bottom of the packages and the BIONICLE movies always had the LEGO logo in the opening and closing credits, it would be easy for people to make the mistake of thinking that the LEGO Group didn't create the BIONICLE brand and characters, and instead just produced the sets under license, or sponsored the movies. So the disclaimer on Hero Factory packages could tell people something they might not realize on their own: that "LEGO Hero Factory" sets and story by the same creators as "BIONICLE". I don't think there will be nearly as much confusion over whether the new "LEGO BIONICLE" is by the same creators as "LEGO Hero Factory", especially since not only do the two theme names disclose the parent company, but also as far as we can tell the two themes will share the vast majority of their parts.
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I think you may be overestimating his height. Part of that might of course be wishful thinking (I like Matoran to be shorter, generally), but from the picture it looks to me like the lower legs might be the same Reddish Brown 3M beams from CHI Mungus. It also looks to me like the set's shoulders and hips are a lot narrower than that design. I have a feeling that maybe it uses the XT4 torso... The Defender of Fire has a much beefier torso than the Defender of Wind, but shorter arms and legs. It's good to see that there will be some considerable variety in the design of the Defender sets. The Defender of Fire has the same narrow hips as the other ones, though, which makes me think that its design is still based on the XT4 torso or a variant thereof (just with custom shoulders, maybe sort of like those of Frost Beast). I also have a feeling there is a new armor shell for the torsos of both the Defender of Wind and the Defender of Fire. It appears to have a similar level of detail to a Breakout torso shell, but fitted to a smaller torso, and still narrow at the top so it can fit between the two 3M shells that make up the Defender of Fire's chest. Perhaps this might also be used as a leg shell on some of the larger figures? It seems to slightly resemble Kopaka's lower legs... It may not be a shell, but rather a shell detail, but either way it seems very useful.
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Doesn't seem terribly likely to me. I'm sure the sales have slipped since the theme began, because as a general rule that's what sales do... BIONICLE's sales peaked in 2002 but its decline was long and profitable regardless. The LEGO Group rarely releases any specifics on a theme's sales except to say that it met expectations, failed to meet them, or exceeded them. If they release anything more specific than that it's usually to describe sales that are particularly exceptional (like LEGO Friends and Ninjago sales in those themes' debut year), not to describe sales that aren't worth bragging about. One thing I will say is that if Hero Factory sales were really on a steep decline, the first reactions I'd expect to see is a decrease in the total number of sets released, and a decrease in the average price point of a set (like in the case of the BIONICLE Stars). That has not been the case. Although there were fewer sets per wave in 2013 than in 2012, and fewer in 2012 than in 2011, this year there are actually the same number of sets as there were last year, not counting co-packs or polybags. This year's sets also hit higher price points than last year's. The Brain Attack series had six $10 sets, six $13 sets, two $20 sets, and a $35 set ($225 total, $15 on average). The Invasion from Below series had four $10 sets, seven $15 sets, a $20 set, two $25 sets, and a $35 set ($250 total, $16.67 on average). To me that doesn't seem consistent with the reaction I'd expect from a sales slump.
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No way any of those are $30 sets! I expect $10 for the defenders (age range 6–12), $15 for Lewa, Pohatu and Gali (age range 7–14), and $20 for Tahu, Kopaka, Onua, and Lord of Skull Spiders (age range 8–14). This seems consistent with the size of the packages, and with the price points and recommended age ranges for this year's Hero Factory sets. I hope the height of Tahu, Kopaka, and Lewa isn't too much greater than the heights of the other three Toa. I've already basically given up on the possibility of the new Toa being 7 inches or 18 centimeters on average.
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I can't imagine Nurp-Naut being from the Glorp Corp. He's got the Bright Yellowish Green, but otherwise his colors are Tr. Red, White, Medium Stone Grey, and Warm Gold. Quite a wacky color scheme. Glorp Corp I think is just generally slime-based. So Glurt is a slobbery dog, Glomp has a huge runny nose, and Torts has slime shooters for arms.
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Clearer Mixels pictures here.
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True! They did a great job redesigning the hero head to be more expressive and less uncanny-valley in that, I think. Great eyes and faces. I get that that's probably not what you meant, but I for one was glad to get a head design that wasn't excessively masculine and didn't look like a robotic skull.
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Three new Mixels have been revealed at Comic-Con! 41529 Nurp-Naut 41532 Burnard 41533 Globert Burnard and Globert look like they could belong to existing tribes (Infernites and Wiztastics, respectively), but hard to tell what's up with Nurp-Naut. He's got some wacky colors for sure. Clever things are being done with the eyes — Nurp-Naut has a new half-closed eye print, Burnard has this year's ball joint eyes inside 2x2 inverted domes, while Globert has a 4x4 glowing dish with a printed 2x2 round tile as the pupil! The wave that includes these three is launching February 2015. Price remains $4.99.
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Also, the story explanation for the Inika masks would not have seemed quite so out of left field if the heads had glowed in the dark like they were apparently intended to (some media at the time even mentioned it as a feature even though it wasn't present in the final sets). Personally, when it comes to simple cosmetic changes I often think a contrived explanation makes the change worse. Some of the excuses used for the Inika's design changes, for instance, were supposed to be a part of why the Inika were so out-of-the-ordinary — but it leads me to wonder how the LEGO Group would have explained things if these design changes had been extremely successful and had been used for all future sets. Would ALL future characters get super-energized in the storyline, or receive "organic" masks? I'm glad Hero Factory didn't try to come up with some stupid explanation for the new head designs for the Brain Attack arc... not that they really needed to, since there are hardly ever any occasions where a hero doesn't wear a helmet of any kind, so from a story perspective their helmets can basically be considered part of their heads.
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I think the CMFs are a different case than BIONICLE collectible packs because no matter what you get, one pack basically guarantees you a play experience. You get a unique, fully-articulated figure that you can play with or display on its own. BIONICLE collectibles were invariably just accessories for the larger sets — the closest you ever got to a complete play experience was the Kanoka pack, which at least had two disks and a launcher. I was thinking earlier that it would be possible for Matoran-sized sets to sort of take the place of collectible packs if they were to include randomized masks. However, that was when I thought a Matoran-sized set could be priced at about $5, like the Mixels, Ninjago booster packs, or Friends animal packs. Since the Defenders seem larger and more complex than what I envisioned, I expect they'll be priced at $10 instead, so buying multiples of the same set carries a slightly greater risk. I think an average buyer is less likely to spend $10 than $5 on what might turn out to be an exact duplicate of a set they already have.
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I hope you realize that things like Light-Teridax and Shadow-Takanuva were things Greg made up for the serials that would probably never have gotten sets no matter where the focus of the story was. I always think it's ridiculous when people talk about things that should have been sets which were never actually envisioned with sets in mind. The only character of that sort we ever got as a set was Karzahni, and look how that turned out — barely a passing resemblance to his appearance as it had been established in previous media.
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Yeah, him putting Hero Factory or Friends under "past projects" doesn't mean either theme is ending. They're past projects for him, which is to say, he's not involved in those themes currently.
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I had hoped that Hero Factory and the new BIONICLE could coexist if Hero Factory continued to focus on constraction-based battle machines with minifigure pilots and BIONICLE took its place with full-size humanoid action figures. But sadly I'm beginning to think that's very unlikely, just judging from the size of this BIONICLE lineup. Thirteen sets in one wave is a lot compared to what Hero Factory had been offering us (for reference, that's the size of last year's summer Hero Factory wave and Legends of Chima constraction wave combined). And while that's pretty much to be expected given the excitement that a new theme tends to generate in its first wave, I don't think it would leave much room in the product portfolio for even a small Hero Factory wave. I'm not too broken up about it, of course. I doubt I'd have been able to fully invest in both BIONICLE and Hero Factory anyway — not without cutting out some of the System themes I collect. But it would have been really cool to see the constraction category as a whole expand to include a wider range of themes.
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Something I realized — if the Matoran blasters ARE the same ones from the Wookiee Gunship, that completely lays to rest any doubts that the images are not in fact real. The Wookiee Gunship has been revealed for less than a week. Unless these images are real, there is absolutely no way that a piece that was never seen before would show up prominently in these pics, from multiple angles.
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Some people speculate it could be the same blaster as in this recently-revealed 2015 set
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I think you're right! Awesome decision in my opinion. I wonder what prices these will be. I guess defenders are $10 and Toa are $15? That seems consistent with their relative sizes and recommended age range. I was sort of hoping for $5 Matoran sets, but I guess this is more consistent with what the LEGO Group has found sells best.
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But early to be thinking about that! It's not even fall yet!
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Build-wise, yes, but they seem to have a different piece for the center (with eye holes so it can be used as a mask).
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From a branding perspective, I'm REALLY glad they stuck with "LEGO BIONICLE" rather than just "BIONICLE". :)
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Yep, and Lord of Skull Spiders comes with a mask that matches the ones used for the bodies on the Skull Spiders themselves. And yes, the Skull Spiders have articulated legs! Woot! Are those BOOMERANGS Pohatu is wielding? :D
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Here's the image in a much larger size. I definitely like what I see.
