I know what killed Bionicle 

Tell me which Toa you owned immediately

Honestly I feel that there’s enough Bionicle nostalgia that lego could sell sets targeted to adults like they do with technic

18:55 “Did Makuta succeed?” Yes, actually. He did. And it wasn’t the Toa who defeated Makuta in the end, it was the revived Mata Nui who did

The lore is the reason I loved Bionicle, and is honestly is probably the reason I went into English in college ngl

Bionicle didn't last 20 years, but it damn near had enough content to expand on for that length of time. By the end of the brand's cycle (which took 10 or so years) they'd only really started to touch upon the greater cosmic forces at play. They had plans to introduce a brand new main antagonist who we'd already met which cold easily take the place of Makuta Teridax. Not to mention there was an entire new planet that hadn't been explored yet. That's easily another 10 or so years of lore to dig into right there.

The fact that you started stumbling in your words not 1 minute after starting to explain the lore brings a smile to my face cos it shows the already complexity of the lore

If I were a Billionaire (or Millionaire I guess lol) I would spend a good chunk of that money obtaining all the original Bionicle sets. and mos def those Kanohi packs. I'd get two of each Bionicle set if I could, sealed. I miss my Bionicle so much.

I've been a Bionicle fan for 19 years and know both its lore and its real-world history inside out. Yet there were points made in this video that I had never considered. Plus you seem like a really chill guy. Subscribed!

I sold all my Bionicles at a yard sale a long time ago and I regretted that so much nowadays that I went to eBay and bought all the first gen Toa again. They just make me happy and were such a big part of my childhood. I’m going to put them on display. 💕

And then people grow up, get disposable income, and start to buy back their childhood...looking at you, EBay!

what happened to bionicle? it never left. there will always be people who are still actively making mocs to this day. bionicle never left. not really, just fairly recently. nothing killed bionicle because bionicle isnt dead!

Didn't know bonkle was this important.

I never understood why the Netflix show was only 5 episodes. If they gave it an actual budget and good animation, it could have been a new hit show that franchise deserved.

I definitely would not say that Bionicle is "DEAD" The creator Greg Farshtey after all is working with the community on finishing the tales, even having Moc-ing contests to depict canonical representations of characters that never received sets like the mythical Artakha and the first Toa to be created Toa Helryx

Looking back on it now, it's kind of amazing how formative bionicle was for me. Even back on my first bionicle, the ice lad from the first season, echoes forward into things I think are cool today: ice as an element, the asymetrical design, and a need to customize everything to make it cool and one of a kind. Gotta wonder if those things in my formative years might still be having some impact on me today and what kind of a different person I might be if I hadn't been exposed to them, or maybe even a different bionicle

I never had a Bionicle set when I was young. I got into Lego in Summer 2010 where Bionicle was gone and the first Hero Factory sets were released. I really loved Hero Factory but I never heard about Bionicle before. I only played a bionicle stars turret defense game. After I knew more about Bionicle in 2015, I wanted to knew more. I realized there were so many of them before Hero Factory. In 2016 I lost the interest on the G2 sets. I didn't have Netflix to watch The Journey to One series. I was more interested on the G1 sets. After 2016 I was confused, because there were no new bionicle sets. In 2018 I noticed that it was cancelled.

I am Maori, I loved Bionicle growing up and still do. I still wished I kept the action figures I had from 20 years ago. Here's hoping LEGO brings them back.

This really hit me in the feels when I was a kid I had the original bionicle movie on vhs. And I remember tha McDonalds toys, and the 2nd wave had these reptile bad guys and I loved the bad guys so much. This was fantastic ♡

I love how his hat just pops on randomly. Kinda reminds me of Lego.

Bionicle is one of my favorite toys growing up and it left a huge impact in my life in a big way. It taught me to love things from creativity, lore, worldbuilding, imagination, story, character arcs. In a sense, Bionicle is the reason why I love other brands because of those reasons. Bionicle was a major part of my childhood, but if it doesn't come back, I'd be okay with that. It's like what you said, it served its purpose. I will forever cherish the fond memories I have of bionicle. I moved on to other interests as I grew older, but Bionicle will forever have a special place in my heart. Thank you for this video because it brought back wonderful memories and nostalgia.

all my friends are going to hate me when i tell them all my new bionicle knowledge and its your fault

This is so in depth I love it

One reason it died was because there was literally millions of years of lore what with individuals easily living for a 100,000 years or more. I think because it was so vast they felt they couldn't tie it all together. The books and comics were my favorite things to read as a kid because they held so much more info than the movies.

I love the passion in your voice, amazing video! I love Bionicle, been a part of my life since I was 6 years old. I did dive into all the multimedia, bought the novels, encyclopaedias, movies, have to this day 95 of the 221 sets released. I was really sad when Lego cancelled the theme, when they rebooted the franchise I was too busy with school and didn't noticed. This year during the lock down I rebuild all my sets and looked for Bionicle content on RU-vid. If you can watch nick on planet ripple's retrospective on the theme, is very good. Keep the good work, just subscribed so I'll be waiting for more content.

I kind of wish Lego would fall on hard times again just so they would have to rely on Bionicle once more.

i came here because i found my old collection that my lil brother destroyed, and set as my task to bring them back to life....

God, this video made me realise how much I loved Bionicle. I had like every form of the red one. Just like you I never engaged with anything but the toys. I particularly loved those little worm things that came with the bad bionicle.

I mean honestly the whole "limitless imagination thing" is why I was never a lego kid as to me the legos were just blocks without character. My parents got me and my brother a castle set when we were small and the only thing I played with in the set was the dragon who ended up being one of my favorite toys for years until I lost him tragically in a move. Legos are an incredible creative medium but like how some kids just don't like playing with cars or balls some kids don't like building. I really got invested in the Bionicle story and followed it for a long time caring about it far more than just as toys though the organic nature of bionicle pieces did mean me an my brother did make some of our own unique characters and monsters from them.

This past half hour went by so fast watching this. The waves of nostalgia crashing over, remembering all the great times I had with Bionicle. I still have most of mine and I plan on sharing them with my kids when they're older. I remember my moc builds, including an arm the size of mine and an Elite from Halo. Really well put together vid, man. Got a subscriber for this glorious effort

I genuinely remember what may be my fondest memory with the line as a kid (I should open by saying I still make Bionicle mocs today) I had checked out of the prescribed story we were given by 20005, so me and my friends made up our own, discussing the setting, using chalk on my driveway and carport to draw locations, digging trenches in the back yard and all kinds of crazy stuff, and we ended up doing this massive RPG with the toys for the better part of a week, I mean my friends would be knocking on my door at 7 in the morning, bag of bionicles in hand and we'd go right outside and continue where we left off from the night before. It was so wholesome

I am Russian and I translate through transliteration, sorry for the mistakes. I am a fan of bionicles for 14 years so my first set at 6 years old was toa wakama (we still sold them at the time when other sets dominated. I liked so much that I bought all the sets and collected them in the new year. I bought a 3in1 Ultimate Dume set, it was just a gorgeous new year in my life. I like Toa Metru because for me it was a revolutionary part, we have a favorite series in Russia. As for the collection, there were also others. ) as well as toa mari (jaller) and the last generation before closing. Thank you for the video, you inspired me to nastolgiya again, and I wiped my sets even from this))

Bionicle actually saved me when I was young, I had a really bad teacher in the 4th who made me despise reading, even good books were made a chore to read with the way she taught class. My mom basically told me to pick 1 book and I got The first book in the bionicle saga, mostly because I saw Tahu on the cover. It made me care about reading again, and I can’t thank the team behind the story enough for it.

bionicle: dies lego: i like money

There's also comics, actual novels, story serials and more.

I was really young when bionicle came out so I didn’t really hear about it but hero factory was my bionicle I played with it so much

I absolutely loved the video, this was a really good watch. Looking forward to other videos

Loved this video, I'm currently relapsing back into Bionicle currently and watching whatever I can related to it. I started my journey all the way back in the Piraka era (the ones with the rubbery masks attached to the big spines) and I was super involved in the story while also coming up with my own. As a kid I was definitely heartbroken when they discontinued it... twice, but watching this and hearing you say that their work was done kinda makes me happy. also if you would've said that we and Lego "Moved Along" at 29:07 I honestly probably would've cried LMAO. For context if you don't already know "Move Along" was the name of a song used in some of the Bionicle ads that was an absolute banger.

this is some of your finest work tbh i've watched this too many times

Internet is a great point. My entire generation grew up with Bionicles from 2003 to 2008. We used to bring our piraka and toa mahri to school to show off, and be jealous of whoever owned a 2006/2007 titan. Then all of a sudden it was xbox and Call of duty we were crazy about.

Great video man! Keep up the good work.

Loving the deep dives!

Just discovered this channel. You've got me hooked - and subscribed! I can see this one get big. And that's coming from someone who has been on RU-vid since mid 2007

Marvelous video! I've so many fond memories of bionicles, like in the history of my profile pics on Facebook I still have the desert (I think) bionicle from the movies as a profile pic! And I also vividly remember one day at kindergarten we had like a movie afternoon and each of us could bring a VCR to watch, I remember being so excited to bring the bionicle one to show everyone but the teachers were super duper afraid it'd be too scary for 5 years old lol

That Bionicle Adventure Board game was way better than it had any business being. It started a lifelong love of overly complicated, expensive, modular cardboard monstrosities in 8 year old me that is still going strong in me to this very day.

I just wanted to drop by and say I really enjoyed this video! I loved Bionicle growing up. The story inspired me to get into world building which in turn has led me to love writing fiction. So it holds a very special place in my heart. Thanks for the great video, you’ve got a new sub in me!

Really well researched video! I like that you cited many interviews and in terms of accuracy of the info, I haven't found a lot of incorrect stuff (the biggest things I can think of is the fact that Toa Nuva were introduced over a year before the first movie came out and that the 4th movie came out in 2009 while the reboot only had a Netflix show). I do have a problem with the main statement of the video that the lack of the brick was what got BIONICLE canceled because if that was the case then why would LEGO continue to make constraction sets ("constructible action"- all the large figures with ball joints, so BIONICLE, Hero Factory and other similar themes) up until 2018? And more than that, why would they still continue to release and cite Technic as one of their main themes when, like BIONICLE, it has almost no bricks in it? I'm open to discussion about this. Once again, a very well researched video!

Never played DnD until in my 50s...still confuses the poop out of me, but my much younger friends were very willing to teach me...then CV19 happened

Amazing. Beautiful. Game changing. Loved this x

What a great video! I really enjoyed it! I feel like the title of this video doesn't do it justice, it's so much more interesting! You have a great personality and I think this style of content suits you, keep it up! I also got into Bionicle as a kid, and have been a massive fan ever since, to the point where this year I managed to fully complete my collection of every single set ever released for the theme. As a kid, most of the story material for Bionicle wasn't translated into my language, but my passion for the sets and overall atmosphere kept me interested in the toy line until its end, and looking back having now experienced the whole story, it's quite amazing how much of it I managed to grasp. One of my first vivid memories is getting my first Bionicle set after seeing an advert on TV in the morning before going to preschool, in the period when the very first movie was coming out, which I received in DVD for Christmas of that year alongside a couple of the bigger characters, and it was pure unconditional love ever since. It was a bold and innovative narrative, there was nothing like it around. The strength of this line was that it had great confidence in the maturity of its audience, and wasn't afraid to lead the story and characters in serious, darker and complex journeys, just like in the so called "Ignition" saga (which is in my opinion one of the greatest literary/multimedia accomplishments ever). The toys, especially in the earlier years, had a very strong sense of "evolution" of their building system, which made the hype for their new releases all the more exciting, and the incredibly unique and experimental designs they managed to come up with each time made them all the more special (I mean, you'll never find a "Rahkshi", or "Bohrok" or "Piraka" in any other franchise!). Bionicle was experimental, avanguarde and ahead of its time, and I wish Lego could bring back to their current lineup some of this mindset instead of mostly piggybacking on other familiar external IPs or simply sticking to the tried and tested formulas they've had for years (including Ninjago). I wonder what will be their next Bionicle, not in the sense that I want them to bring it back necessarily (after all, the story ended in a satisfactory way already), but in the way they managed to break free of the mold and boldly experiment in ways that have never been tried before.

Remember when you could slide the canister's sleeve around, to see different characters? Good times!

Sometimes I go to a friend's house and dump out their lego bin to play,then we would eventually find a bionacle having no idea how it got here because we weren't even born in bionicle times

i already fell in love with thod channel. not for this video but for the content/great explanation and good edited quality videos

I remember when they first came out and how I would beg my parents to buy me one! I didn't care at all for the lore, I just wanted the blue ones lol some kid at school would brag about owning all the colors (again, no care for the lore) and we'd be in amazement at that "achievement"

I personally believe what it was was a transition from a creative company that could push boundaries to really get kids into unique, fun toys to a company that cared about profits and cash grabs. The Hero Factory sets after Bionicle are a big indicator of this since buying one "hero" was like buying all of them and every single set except the larger ones were just the same pieces covered with a small amount of unique pieces. I think they should have maybe restarted the Bionicle story every 5 years, but from scratch in a way. New islands, new enemies, new battles, new films, etc. That way it can pick up the new round of kids and still have all the creative great parts as long as they don't budget cut it into oblivion. I can't believe now they have released their "set with the most pieces ever" and it's literally a crappy pixel "map" that has like 7 of the same pieces repeated. Couldn't be more of a cash grab, scum, lack of creativity product in my opinion. They did something similar with the lego coliseum. Sounds great at first, then you see you're just using the same pieces for everything. I think cartoon channels did the exact same thing and that's also why SpongeBob is being milked into oblivion. It's sad. Bionicle was a big risk and a ton of effort. No doubt it took a lot of high paid employees and a lot of part molding experts operating on profits that hadn't come yet. I hope someday a company does the Bionicle type building set justice where Lego failed to.

This video was amazing Jake 👏🏻❤️

I love this ^^ As a fan who was all-in on the story content, I honestly love hearing that you had fun with it in creating your own, and your perspective here is really interesting ^^ I definitely think there is a case to be made that the narrative and backstory got too big and inaccessible, but at the same time, it's oddly comforting to think that wasn't the only reason after all. It's perhaps a shame that Bionicle doesn't seem to have a place in Lego's lineup anymore, (even the reboot that you mentioned, which recieved a considerably more lackluster marketing campaign in comparison to the original run, got cancelled after only a year and a half) but alas. All in all, this was a very good video, and I'm certainly interested to see what else you may do in the future!

The Bionicle fan base is still alive and well! Telling new stories in the medium, expanding on old stories by giving faces to names only seen in text, even making video games and damn good ones at that. Bionicle: Masks of Power will release a demo on Steam within the year and Bionicle: Quest For Mata Nui has beautiful cinematics and gameplay trailers. The Ignition Trilogy, a series of comics that covered the story during the years of 2006-2008, have been brought to a visual medium through stop motion animation. 2006 and 2007 were all brought to life by one guy but 2008 is being brought to life by talented moccists, animators, and CG artists. When you see the first episode of Ignition 3: MNR, you’ll flip your lid. Bionicle is the theme that formed my childhood and continues to live on in my adulthood. It’s a great time to be a Bionicle fan in 2022 and beyond.

Very nice! I especially liked the dog drawing metaphore. When I was a kid I didn't really explore the lore

Gotta eat up all that juicy Bionicle content.

When I was a kid I always made up stories/scenarios where all the elemental tribes are always at war for resources and land (which near the end of bioncle, lego kinda did with the glatorians). The matorans were simple footsoldiers and the toas are somewhat their warchiefs. During wars, different tribes would ally with each other based on how they would counter their enemies's elements. Most of the sets I owned were the red (fire) and black (earth) tribes, so they were like the dominant factions that the others tried not pick fights with. Each elemental tribe had their own territories in my house.

This was awesome, great job jake you should be sooo proud

1) What I wouldn't give to be able to see the notes and ideas from the planning meetings for Bionicle. They had 20+ years of story already planned out and in the works before the second movie was released. The people behind the theme made my childhood so much better. You said that the Bionicle line walked so other Lego themes could run, and I think that's pretty accurate. Aside from the company side issues and getting back to their roots, one of the more commonly touted reasons for Bionicle's cancellation was the incredibly complex backstory and lore. Like you mentioned, G1 Bionicle has a full decade of lore to its name which can make for a sizable barrier to entry. 2) You briefly mentioned Hero Factory (HF) towards the end. While it's true that the line wasn't widely popular, that was mainly with a loud minority of "G1 purists" for lack of a better term. The same could be said for G2 Bionicle but that's a different nut to crack. I believe Hero Factory was truly a spiritual successor to Bionicle. Lego had seen what was going on with Bionicle and took those lessons to heart when making the HF line. While there was still a story that focused on a relatively small group of main characters ( 9 main heroes by the series end) the background details were left fairly generic so that fans could build their own heroes and imagine them having adventures within the HF universe. 3) With the initial release of HF, you could tell it took heavy inspiration from Bionicle, its constraction (construction + action) predecessor. HF also introduced the Character Creature Building System (CCBS) which was based on a ball and socket system, similar to human joints. It was a simplified building system that allowed for easier building by younger kids. Most limbs had a socket on one end, a ball on the other, and a ball in the middle where a colored armor shell could be attached. CCBS was also the basis for the Lego CHIMA and Star Wars "ultra builds" 4) Finally, if anybody at all manages to read this far, here are some resources for further consideration and perusal of the Bionicle storyline. BioMedia Project: biomediaproject.com/bmp/ is a collection of all things Bionicle from both G1 and G2 including comics, books, online games and such. Bionicle Lore Lecture by Ash Vampire: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xRlU6I5VXG8.html is an edited version of a 5+ hour Discord call in which Ash goes over the Bionicle story as it was presented to fans back in the day. Bionicle Retold: ru-vid.com/group/PLhzUYcq9zQcgSZ-cMevJTggAzkUTzSasp is a playlist by DuckBricks where he goes over the entirety of the Bionicle story in chronological order from before the existence of Mata Nui Finally I would like to apologize for the length of this, I'm a really big fan of the franchise.

"Rules help control the fun!" Biggest think of the centry. I came to know that Bionicles existed through my primary school friend who had Bionicles, we would imagine ourselves as Bionicle characters with mask powers and fight each other for fun. But sadly I never had a chance to experience the joy of building a real Bionicle as a kid because I knew of Bionicles around the time when hero factory existed. Never the less, I had collected many awsome old Bionicle sets now through online from Ebay or Bricklink, and am still just facinated by them and their stories. :D

very nice video! as a member of the bionicle moccing community and a prior fan of the toyline i really appreciate the analaysis you gave, and totally get what you mean about the story (its so confusing haha)

My first Bionicles were the Toa Inika and the Piraka. I loved them, they were my favorite line out of the whole series.

Great video! You got Stone and Earth mixed up in the introduction though - which is understandable, they're quite similar.

I didn't expect to enjoy this video. Usually when somebody tries to talk about BIONICLE when it's not the core of their channel, they often get a lot of things wrong because they cannot be bothered to research the massive iceberg that is BIONICLE. While the surface of it is "power rangers transformers things? emoji emoji" as I often see on Twitter, you actually went deeper into the subject, and that's cool. Thanks for the video, I hope you'll find other cool subjects to talk about.

Yes this is true but the 2nd generation of bionicle was meant to have 3 seasons over 3 years but the final season and the rest of the franchise got cancelled due to a lack of profit from it and it’s depressing that not a lot of people knew about it and my 6-7 year old self was really interested in ninjago despite my first ever set being a hero factory set

Actually hero factory had big potential and not everyone hated it, just old bionicle fans, but then bionicle g2 by not selling well ruined constraction as a whole. So if lego continued hero factory it could have been like Ninjago today, they both started in 2010.

My brother had Bionicle since the beginning of it but I got into Bionicle sort of through the Piraka. But when I saw that baraki commercial as a kid, I was immediately hooked and worked and saved to get all 6 baraki plus Gadunka

I know this is a year and a half late, but I will expand on some of these. 20:25 - The sets themselves didn't just suffer from lack of stylistic cohesion, but also structural integrity. In 2007 Lego started switching what kind of plastic they use, and the lime-green pieces would break. Suddenly, pieces kids would take apart, and put back together in new forms, could break quickly. Then the next year the problem extended to all pieces. By 2010, all pieces were susceptible to breaking. On top of a confusing story, audience growth (I was born in 2000, so I was there for all of it, even G2), the sets themselves couldn't stay together. It was time to move on. Also! Part of the restructuring 3 stage plan, also counted for Bionicle in a way. BIonicle was somewhat under technic when it started, but grew into its own thing, and when Bionicle was canceled in 2010, Hero Factory was meant to take its place. The first year reused alot of parts, but in year two they made a whole new system that properties like Hero Factory, Bionicle G2, and star wars figures (even ben 10) would be based on called CCBS (character and creature building system) This would leave technic as its own thing, figures as its own thing, and lego bricks as its own thing, but all can be combined if you so choose. But even when they tried to standardize the system CCBS seems to be going away because it is so niche when there are already 2 (3 if you count Duplo) niche systems for different age groups. CCBS could have been for Teens, but they never found their ground with it in an age where Teens are playing COD and fortnite.

Dude I just realized that’s why they chose move along from all American rejects for there last bionicle movie it was basically telling people there moving on to a new horizon!

The 2015 Bionicle reboot had a variety of reasons why it failed, but for me the key one was there was no more story mystery. From 2001 - early 2008 there was an air of mystery over what Mata Nui, the Toa and Matoran where. On the surface you say they were robot-ish, organic-ish tribal creatures, but the story always had a sense of "there is more going on than just robots bumming about that even the robots don't know about but they play a part in." However as you know, not knowing what was going on didn't detract from the experience, it was just the canyon beneath the bridge. We take for granted 2008 reveal nearly a decade in the making, but back in 2007, virtually all of us didn't understand the larger story. The 2015 not only immediately established the world and its detail, but also used the same names of the old characters, like rebooting Lord of the Rings as a sitcom. Same names, no depth. Nothing to subconsciously latch onto, and brain space already dedicated to better memories of said existing names.

Small correction: you got the stone and earth toa flipped, brown guy's stone and black guy's earth. I dug the vid tho, good stuff!

To me Lego technic and bionicle has always been just as important as the brick I’ve always liked both There wasn’t been anything truly like bionicle before or since I suppose there was hero factory and g2 but still But bionicle proves that not just bricks are important as it was successful

Me: **blows off dust on "Makutas guide to the universe" book**

I guess I wasn't the only one making up DBZ like stories with my bionicles as a kid. Lol, a couple months ago at least 10 years later, I found my old bionicle bin. Then I realized I could 3d print my own custom or official pieces... Been creating my own sets now for a month and I'm just obsessed!

I got into Bionicle the year it was cancelled when I picked up the first original book from goodwil land the last version of that character ever released. Was obsessed for years, still am somewhat. Even though it was a lot harder for me to get the toys having to order most of them second hand after discontinuing.

My first bionicle was 2015 Kopaka

honestly if they rereleased all the set in a row with all the lore and books all over again with nothing changed I'd be happy

Great video my man! Bionicle was THE shit when I was younger

I didn't know there were Bionicle Nikes, and I was pretty well knowledgeable on a lot of the merch that was based on Bionicle. I always learn something new whenever I watch these types of videos.

imagine a future gen 3 reboot of bionicle, one that sticks to the original story-(which was part of why gen 2 died, they got rid of the main thing that was drawing back in it's old fans: the story)-(but perhaps slightly alters it for the new fans? or finds some other way to draw in new fans) and features new largely brick-based designs, perhaps using the new sccbs pieces? while still keeping it's main selling points, unique masks and collectables the lego dream come true

This video is a treat for the fans. Watched the whole thing, thanks English Jason Momoa

I think Bionicle paved the way for my current gunpla obsession

As a Bionicle community member and moccist I like your non-lego collecting perspective. People like you can introduce people in today's society to Bionicle! You should definitely try to get your hands on those books, you will not be disappointed...I give you my word! :-)

Its great to see other Bionicle fans out there, I know everything about. Hehe, big fan, part of my childhood and always well. ^^;

I was honestly looking forward to a breakdown of why 2015 Bionicle's lack of story or worldbuilding was ironically its downfall, but I guess enough people have said as much?

Personally, I believe that if a good-quality show was made to help promote it, Bionicle could be popular again. The show on Netflix isn't bad, but it isn't great either. Same with the movies. They aren't bad, but they are kinda dated. But that's my opinion.

The big robot reveal single-handedly killed the mythology. Greg Farshtey says the whole worldbuilding falls apart without the notion of a giant robot's face under the island. Bullsh*t. The world was perfectly sufficient for us kids that were there from the beginning in 2001. When it became clear that awakening Mata Nui, the goal of the entire plot from the outset, would destroy the island named after him, the entire original purpose of the story became pointless.

I'm in my twenties now and I still don't know jack about the stories either. When I was a kid I had a big bin of Bionicle parts and I spent most of my time making my own.. I honestly think the pieces are amazing for creativity.. like look at some mocs people do nowadays. In my mind Bionicle has always been a DIY action figure system more then anything.

I don’t think there was much if any fan drop off Also the lore is part of the reason I love it, but I get why it may be hard for some to get into Also the sets always fit together

Bionicle used to be technic sub-theme, so returning to it's origin and adopting the same production cycle as technic cars (Which are doing well), 2-3 larger complex sets a year instead of wave releases would have worked quite well for bionicle. After bionicle, technic no longer has humanoid buildable figures, so the niche still exist. That way Bionicle wouldn't have to compete with other wave themes, like ninjago.

I remember in 2007-2010, Bionicle sets were being put on clearance by the truckloads. I managed to score all of them for a fraction of their original prices. The buildable action figure line did manage to outlast Bionicle by 9 years. They did however redesign the building system to be more brick associated. I can see what you mean by the "going back to the brick" though. The last series that Lego had in the buildable figures were Star Wars based, and those were shelf warmers. Bionicle style Star Wars figures could not sell!

I hope in future Technic gets back into trying fantasy or action style sets again, like maybe something like building a dragon with Bionicle as basis for the idea. We can all dream right? I feel after 2010, LEGO just struggled in developing new Bionicle ideas, hence why Hero Factory existed then was discontinued after 4 years. This happens to a lot of toys or games series. But yeah Bionicle did help LEGO stay relevant during early 2001 and onwards. I just wish Technic would dip its toes in action figure or fantasy style building pieces. So we can go nuts and fuse them with our beloved Bionicle sets.

Unfortunately I was exposed to ninjago before bionicle which gave false delusions that it was a ninjago rip off. Honestly wish I was there during its hay day

I actually knew about the 2015 reboot, I was 18, and i was with my little sister (9 at that moment) watching TV (Can't remember if it was Pokemon or Power Rangers, but it was on Pop i think). When I saw the commercial, I was so excited, I went to my mum (Because she knew how much I loved Bionicle as a kid) and told her, but she didn't remembered Bionicle. 2 weeks later my sister wanted a Lego Friends Set (The Brick), so we went to Toys R Us Croydon (The one I later got a job at)(RIP Toys R Us UK). I was expecting to see some new bionicles, but nothing, they just, didn't were there. If i'm not mistaken, they didn't arrived until 6 months later, and the worst part (at least for me). They came in BOXES

I can see why the Bionicle community was always forcing me to hate the CCBS and Hero Factory even though I was the only one that liked both but they wont let me :/ I should've gotten Exo-Force instead.

Bionicle is like the only reason I'm still a lego fan, I don't care as much about system sets as I do Bionicle now, the point about bricks being better for lego isn't a point that specifically works for my interests of the lego company, I just want constraction to come back, I miss buying Bionicle sets from store shelves, even if the only sets I got from stores were g2 it's still something I miss, so in conclusion fuck lego for taking constraction sets away from us.

I'll be real.... I deeply resent Lego becoming so laser-focused on The Brick, as if other forms of building are "unclean," especially given technic is integrated into almost every medium-larger set these days. Lego isn't just "the brick," or at least in my view, it shouldn't be. It's a cryin' shame.