Bionicle

About

Bionicle is a line of construction toy action figures created by the LEGO Group.

History

Bionicle, short for Biological Chronicle, was conceptualized after LEGO decided to create a toyline with an overarching story. Following in the tracks of it’s failed predecessors, Slizer/Throwbots^[1] and RoboRiders^[2], Bionicle was first released in Europe in December of 2000 as an online game, before sets were launched in early 2001, reaching North American markets in the summer. Though initially facing some resistance from within the company thanks to its new storyline-based format and more war-themed premise, the line was well received upon release, making £100 million ($161.7 million) in its first year^[3]. It also went on to receive Toy of the Year Award for Most Innovative Toy in 2001 from the Toy Industry Association. On November 24th, 2009 BZPower posted an article titled: “An Important Announcement Regarding Bionicle”^[4]. The email detailed that the toyline would be discontinued for the “foreseeable future” and that the story would continue on BIONICLEstory.com. BIONICLEstory.com continued to receive story updates through 2011. The site was finally shut down along with Bionicle.com on June 19th 2013.

2015 Return

Beginning of July 2, 2014, an unknown image of a black and white display image surface the internet, the source is unknown and the community heavily speculate the content.^[5]

July 25, 2014, a colored display with a similar design appeared and build more belief on the leak content shown.^[6]

July 30th, 2014, various users across different fan sites noticed that when they typed in the term “Bionicle” into LEGO.com’s search engine, they would be redirected to a “Coming Soon Page.”^[7][8][9]

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On September 8th, 2014, BZPower Reporter Adrian discovered a picture of the golden mask featured in previous “leaks” of varying authenticity on the Lego website’s servers.^[10]

On September 15th, Lego Announced on their Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages that “In 4 days time we´ll be revealing something very exciting.”

Brickset user Bricklover2013 noted on Brickset’s coverage of this^[11], that the URL for the image included at the end “Bionicle-4-new.jpg”, which again, essentially confirmed the theme’s return.

On September 19th, 2014, LEGO officially announced The return of Bionicle. LEGO Posted the announcement on Twitter^[12] linking to a video of a 3D view video of the Mask of Creation. The same video was also posted to LEGO’s Facebook^[13] and a description of the powers that it contains. The Facebook post gained over 4,000 likes in 24 hours.

On September 23rd, LEGO put a link to the “sneak peak” of the new Bionicle website on their “Products” page. The website was later updated over the months with character profiles, locations, and videos.

On January 1st, the LEGOBIONICLE Mask of Creation App was released for iPhone and iPad.^[14]

Generation 2 Animation

The writer have comprise a web-series for the 2 year run:
2015, Lego released a 1-5 minute long animation short that shows the Toa journey into the land of Okoto to collect their golden mask, work together, save Ekimu, and retrieve the Mask of Creation against skull villains.^[15] The whole premise is to make it easy to understand and easily visible for younger demographic.

2016, Unlike last year animation, Journey to One is a 4-part series that last around 20 minute episodes with a major animation redesign, new voice cast, and available only on Netflix.^[16] In this plot, the Toa’s must find elemental creatures and new golden mask to discover the Mask of Control hidden location before Umarak the Hunter can take it for Makuta.

The end of Generation 2 [2015-2016]

In July, 29 2016, Lego Group announce a press release that Bionicle will be discontinued again due to poor sales and will not complete a 3 year run. People who lives in Asia and the Pacific markets will not receive local shipment of the final set of Bionicle 2016.^[17]

Impact

Bionicle had a large impact on both the LEGO Group and the general public. Stephanie Lawrence, the global director of licensing for Lego, stated “We’ve created an evergreen franchise to complement the many event-based properties on the children’s market. An increasing number of category manufacturers want to tap into the power of the Bionicle universe, and the key for us now is to manage the excitement to stay true to the brand and the lifestyle of our core consumer.”

Since its launch, toy critics have said that Bionicle has changed the way children think and play with Lego products by combining “The best of Lego building with the story telling and adventure of an action figure”. Toy statistics have revealed that 85% of American boys aged 6–12 have heard of Bionicle while 45% own the sets.

Fandom

Over the years, Bionicle has amassed a a large following, the most of which discuss and celebrate the series on forums and wikis such as BZPower^[18] and BIONICLEsector01.^[19] On Tumblr Bionicle is tagged under at least two different tags,^[20][21] as well as inspiring several Bionicle themed single topic blogs such as BIONICLE Nostaligia,^[22] Custom BIONICLE^[23], thatbionicleblog^[24], Bionicle Captions^[25], as well as others.^[26][27][28] On Reddit there are several subreddits dedicated to Bionicles.^[29][30][31]

On YouTube there are various clips of official Bionicle animations, both unedited, as well as several that are edited in an AMV style (shown below).^[32][33] Many of these videos have near or over a million views.

Fan Films

Quite a few stopmotion and live-action series have been created on YouTube using official Bionicle sets and fan-made creations, in a similar vein to Brickfilms (shown below).^[34]

Fan Art

On DeviantArt there are various pieces of fanart depicting characters from the franchise,^[35] along with entire pages dedicated to Bionicles.^{[36][37][38][39][40][41]}

Notable Sub-memes

BONKLE

[wip]

I Didn’t Slip

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I Can Feel The Power!

[wip]

Search Interest

External References