The Three Virtues: Historic Recap
Ok so recently at NY Toy Fair Lego had a huge presence at the show. They Show off their Marvel, DC Super Heroes, Lego City, Ninjago, Chima, Scooby Doo, etc. So much was there at the show from the company that created the construction toys genre, however one line stood out even to me and would of caught me by surprise (much like Toynami Voltron did) had I not seen them on store shelves just the week before. That toy line was Bionicle and now seeing at the line was going to grow in a huge way I went out and bought one with a review coming as soon as I can rebuild my light tent.
Now I have a mixed but loved but jagged history with this toy line. It came out in 2001 and I was just starting high school that year. Now I had three major problem at the time in relation to the toy line. The 1st was after an incident with my best friend that started as a simple build a catapult from my legos to launch legos at one another. That devolved into take cover and through them and hard as I can at each other. Well this incident put 100s of small indents in the wall as well as scattered my legos to the far reaches of the house where my mother would find them by stepping on them. Needless to say I was banned from buying legos. This one had a work around as I able to convince both parents that these sets had less of a risk of falling apart and where more figure like less building block. The 2nd one was money again i was entering high school and become a gamer in my own right. I owned both a Xbox and a PS2 in high school and games where expensive but more desirable at the time. The last problem was my age I was socially to old to be buying kid toys. Despite this I did manage to get five of the original six, and when the line moved on and added more figures in 2002 my chances went out the window to collect all six for this reason alone I stay away from buying the new ones.
Now as time went on so did the story, and the ways to follow it. Like I had said I was coming into my gaming at this time and my favorite type of game for me where point and click adventures. This played a huge factor into my staying with the Bionicle story. On the lego website there was a flash game called Mata Nui Online Game that put players in the shoes of a Matoran (a widespread villager-like populace) at the time known as Tohunga. As our six Toa heroes arrive and begin their hunt for their masks and challenge the evil Makuta. The game would later be followed up with a series of flash animations that kept this perrestive on the world. The game was a great way to tell the story and Bionicle had other ways as well a monthly comic and a series of chapter books published by Scholastic.
These books both chapter and comic had there problems. The comics didn't quite tell full stories until the 3rd incarnation of the Toa, and even those lacked. The comics were too fast in too much of a hurry to tell the story. The chapter books I didn't give that much of a chance as they where small and not meant for high school reading. I am working on fixing this but it will take time.
While the printed word was the primary way to tell the story of Bionicle there were two others methods to tell the story. A series of video games some good most meh. Movies were also used to tell the story, and where OK the 1st two were good the 3rd was OK and the last one was good but felt like there could of been more. However all of this came to an end with Bionicle Stars and the last 6 figures sets and the end of the Bionicle story. That was until of January of 2015 and Bionicle returned.
With this return I have a least another two articles planed for Bionicle one will be a review of the story for the 2015 sets. This will be based on the Lego.com animated shorts. and one talk about what needs to happen to progress the series out side of the toy line.
Now I have a mixed but loved but jagged history with this toy line. It came out in 2001 and I was just starting high school that year. Now I had three major problem at the time in relation to the toy line. The 1st was after an incident with my best friend that started as a simple build a catapult from my legos to launch legos at one another. That devolved into take cover and through them and hard as I can at each other. Well this incident put 100s of small indents in the wall as well as scattered my legos to the far reaches of the house where my mother would find them by stepping on them. Needless to say I was banned from buying legos. This one had a work around as I able to convince both parents that these sets had less of a risk of falling apart and where more figure like less building block. The 2nd one was money again i was entering high school and become a gamer in my own right. I owned both a Xbox and a PS2 in high school and games where expensive but more desirable at the time. The last problem was my age I was socially to old to be buying kid toys. Despite this I did manage to get five of the original six, and when the line moved on and added more figures in 2002 my chances went out the window to collect all six for this reason alone I stay away from buying the new ones.
Now as time went on so did the story, and the ways to follow it. Like I had said I was coming into my gaming at this time and my favorite type of game for me where point and click adventures. This played a huge factor into my staying with the Bionicle story. On the lego website there was a flash game called Mata Nui Online Game that put players in the shoes of a Matoran (a widespread villager-like populace) at the time known as Tohunga. As our six Toa heroes arrive and begin their hunt for their masks and challenge the evil Makuta. The game would later be followed up with a series of flash animations that kept this perrestive on the world. The game was a great way to tell the story and Bionicle had other ways as well a monthly comic and a series of chapter books published by Scholastic.
These books both chapter and comic had there problems. The comics didn't quite tell full stories until the 3rd incarnation of the Toa, and even those lacked. The comics were too fast in too much of a hurry to tell the story. The chapter books I didn't give that much of a chance as they where small and not meant for high school reading. I am working on fixing this but it will take time.
While the printed word was the primary way to tell the story of Bionicle there were two others methods to tell the story. A series of video games some good most meh. Movies were also used to tell the story, and where OK the 1st two were good the 3rd was OK and the last one was good but felt like there could of been more. However all of this came to an end with Bionicle Stars and the last 6 figures sets and the end of the Bionicle story. That was until of January of 2015 and Bionicle returned.
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