..There. I said it. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only AFOL who feels the same way.
One of the (few) things that really bugs me about LEGO is the fact that it now has so many custom and bespoke elements. In fact, for the last several years it’s been basically impossible to accurately recreate a new set with your own pieces if you don’t actually own the original set. This is entirely down to the fact that there will be at least one unique element in the new set. Sometimes this may be as insignificant as a minifig, or simply a new colour for a particular element, but it’s still kind of annoying and, I feel, goes against one of the main principles of LEGO.
Often these elements are so specific or ridiculous in shape that they are practically useless for anything other than their originally intended purpose and nowhere is this more evident than with Bionicle.
Despite this it appears that we do actually own rather a large amount of Bionicle sets and pieces so I thought I’d overcome my fear and loathing and see if I could figure out the point of Bionicles. And this freak is the result of my efforts.
I’ve put a few more shots of him on my Brickshelf page too if you’re interested.
I have to say, in conclusion, that actually building with bionicle was pretty much just as rewarding as building with “regular” LEGO (if there even is such a thing these days?). all the elements connect together in multiple ways and all the standard LEGO rules still apply. You can even connect most of the bionicle elements to regular LEGO too, so while I’m still not a convert, I appreciate that they haven’t copped out as much as I originally thought with Bionicle. And hey, the kids like it I guess!
Oh mighty good Sir Ninja Frogman of Clawshire!! 😀
I don’t like the bionicle stuff either. But you posed him pretty cool!
The tank on your brickshelf gallery!! I love it!
Comment by eRiC — February 17, 2009 @ 11:13 am
I hate Bionicles, too.
They are pretty annoying. My brothers leave them carelessly in so many different places that I actually accidentally STEP on them and break them by accident. =o=
And the most creepiest thing about (one of) my brothers getting those stupid dolls is that he has like, 75 of them. =___________________________=
(___________________________)
Comment by Gen — March 8, 2009 @ 8:47 pm
I absolutely hate bionicles!
When they first came out (I was like 7 or something) I thought they were kinda cool, but i stuck with the Star Wars Lego Sets. So now i’m 15 and my triplet little brothers who can’t stop buying the Fu*king things! Aren’t Bioncles meant to be put on a shelf or something? Well my brothers play these retarded as* bioncle games which involves them breaking them and throwing them on the wall because they “died”. They’re all over the basement floor, so whenever i go to play the X-Box i always step on those pieces and they HURT! Sometimes i accidentally break them because i stepped on them. Then my brothers yell and scream at me…then they turn around and whine, complain, cry, etc. You know those Bioncle Vehicles? Yeah my brothers got them for christmas. I had to built one for one of my brothers because he was getting fussy about it. It took me somewhere between 4-6 hrs. to complete. Guess what? I haven’t seen it anywhere, but all of the exact pieces were in their “Emergency Pieces box” which is basically every bionicle they bought trashed in pieces in their own box used for other bionicle creations (They also fight over the pieces claiming that the other stole from them). My brothers ruined me on bionicles. I wish that the lego company didn’t use their favorite song on the commercial which was “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects. That was partially on why the got them. Oh Well…i’m stuck to a never-ending bionicle torture for another 3 yrs.
Comment by Jon — July 14, 2009 @ 3:07 am
FUCK YOU JON I HATE BIONICLE TOO AND BY THAT STUPID FAG IN YOUTUBE BEACHBUM111111 I HATE 111111 IR’S A WORST NUBER EVER BY A HERO FATORY IT’S WAS SAVE A F1GG3N GAXLAXY BIONICLE SUCKS I BORN AT 2002 THAT MEANS I HATE BIONICLE R.I.P BIONICLE 2001-2010
Comment by alex — March 12, 2012 @ 10:26 pm
very insightful Alex, now maybe if you could turn your caps-lock off you would sound less like an imbecile.
Comment by Naughty — March 13, 2012 @ 8:25 pm
oh sorry XP
Comment by alex — March 13, 2012 @ 9:50 pm
Lol, it seems a lot of the commenter’s reasons for hating the things is because of their crazy siblings xD
I’m a lover of Bionicle though, but your opinions here are totally valid. They are a rather specialized line of sets compared to regular legos. (I used to love those lego creator sets and X-pods they released.) To each their own! But if you do some digging, you can find many lego creations that infuse both bricks and bionicle pieces (Or even just solely made of bionicle and technic pieces) to produce creations that look anything but bionicle.
On a side note, that’s actually a pretty nice looking creation. x3
Comment by Cyrus — February 2, 2013 @ 2:28 am
Speaking as someone who has been a fan of Bionicle since it began… I completely respect your opinion. I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way, but I can’t entirely blame you, as Bionicle’s emphasis on highly specialized pieces (especially in the later years) makes it rather difficult to work with unless you have a pretty strong collection already, case in point being your attempt up above. Personally, I’m a fan of it for the story first and the sets second anyway, but I can also appreciate just how hard it is to follow that story without having been there from the start.
I personally feel the best line so far for Technic Action Figures (discounting CCBS as that’s a whole different setup) was the initial Slizers line, which featured very tight engineering despite a small piece count, several functions per figure, and still had pieces with a very broad range of potential uses, particularly the main torsos. They’re hard to actually obtain these days, but I reccomend you look them up at some point, see what you make of those.
Comment by ColdGoldLazarus — December 26, 2015 @ 5:37 pm