About damn time. After five years of sighing and shaking my head at the Hero Factory line that replaced it, LEGO’s Bionicle line of “Constraction” constructable action figures returns on January 1, with a new story and new cast of colorfully masked heroes.
Launched in 2000 in Europe and 2001 in North America, Bionicle was created to combat a decade of declining LEGO sales. The idea was that a new LEGO property with its own ongoing storyline could revitalize the brand, and damn if it didn’t do just that. For nearly a decade the Bionicle line was everywhere — toys, video games, animation — until in 2009 production was stopped, the Hero Factory line brought in to replace it.
Bah, Hero Factory. Every time I see Hero Factory sets on the shelf the same thought pops into my head — these are not Bionicle.
No, this is Bionicle.
My only problem with Bionicle was that I had no idea what was going on in the story. The new line delivers a fresh story and setting while retaining enough of the fiction of the original to appeal to older fans. From the official announcement:
The new storyline takes place on the mythical island of Okoto, where the forces of darkness are on the move and the evil Makuta is once again materialising. He is overcome by the desire for the three mythic masks that will cast the world into darkness – the Mask of Creation, the Mask of Control and the Mask of Ultimate Power.
The desperate island inhabitants enlist six heroes – each masters of a sacred element – called the Toa- to help save their beloved island. The Toa must embark on a quest for Okoto’s ancient power masks that will allow them to unlock the full potential of their elemental powers. Only when the heroes are united, will they be able to battle the forces of evil, defeat Makuta and save Okoto.
I read this to my nephew, who was one of the world’s biggest Bionicle fans back in the day, and he said “Oh, they have changed it a lot.” He then attempted to explain the first series to me, something about six protectors with six masks and then six more masks and then I stopped him. I’ll get on at the next stop.
The series launches on January 1, 2015, with a set of six Protectors — Jungle, Ice, Fire, Water, Stone and Earth — and six Masters — also corresponding to those elements. There’ll also be a Lord of the Skull Spiders, because we can never escape the Skull Spiders. Sets will range from $US9.99 to $US19.99, which means at least $US120 of next year’s tax return is accounted for.
Comments
15 responses to “LEGO Bionicle Triumphantly Returns In January”
Bionicle was also responsible for year of shitty proper Lego made almost entirely of BS custom pieces that were of little value to the creation based core of the Lego product.
Bionicle is the only kind of LEGO found in abundance at op and tip shops. It sucked then, and it doesn’t look any better now (although I have some neat ideas for the legs from that spider!).
Yeah, don’t see the appeal here. There don’t seem to be any useful parts in here. I don’t see it as ‘proper Lego’.
I’d have to disagree. Looking at a lot of the retinence’s builds, these custom pieces can actually result in the development of new building techniques and unique MOCs.
Lego would have been better off relaunching the classic space theme IMO. Look how many people loved the Exo Suit and Benny’s Spaceship.
This! These Bionicle/Hero Factory toys are a blight on the whole Lego toy line! (Says 38 year old man who should not really care either way…)
I take it you remember a time when the back of the box didn’t show you the features, but something else built from the same parts.
I do rember that! I always tried to make both things too!
My 7yo would disagree with you. He loves Lego but complains when it comes to making robots that it doesn’t have a patch on Bionicles. He’s a big fan of this and will be happy to see a new batch.
Slizzers and Roboriders is what I used to have… good times
Cue people lining these, how should i say it, legends with characters that have come after them, right now i can think of 2. Kopaka with hakumen from blazblu & gali with sayaka from magica madoka. Welcome back bionicles, welcome back
Looks like the masters are the original bionicles?
It says their name in the bottom right corner of their boxes.
I noticed. Hence my comment. It has been a good 10 years + though, so wasn’t sure if I was remembering their names correctly.
These look pretty much the same as hero factory to me… not sure why one is worse than the other.. source: my 6 yo has one hero factory toy lol