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LEGO BIONICLE has been in the news quite a lot lately as LEGO BIONICLE fans pushed the theme to the top of the list in the first round of votes for the most popular classic LEGO theme. LEGO is planning to release a 90th anniversary set based on one of the top four themes selected during the voting process (more info here). Fans of other classic LEGO themes were taken by surprise and even came up with various theories of how and why BIONICLE became the most wanted LEGO theme. The bottom line is that LEGO BIONICLE is still very popular and fans are hungry for more.

LEGO BIONICLE was originally launched in late 2000, early 2001 as a sub-theme of LEGO Technic. Over the following decade, it became one of LEGO’s biggest-selling properties; spawning into a franchise and playing a part in saving the company from its financial crisis of the late 1990s. BIONICLE was even named as the number one LEGO theme in 2003 and 2006 in terms of sales and popularity. However, despite a planned twenty-year tenure, the theme was discontinued in 2010. The decision was made due to dwindling sales and a lack of new interest in the theme (possibly brought on by its decade-long back-story and lore). BIONICLE was rebooted in 2015, but it only lasted a couple of years due to lack of sales. People criticized the simplified story and undeveloped characters of the reboot and thus it never took off.

The popularity of BIONICLE had to do with its rich, original story depicting the exploits of the Toa, heroic biomechanical beings with innate elemental abilities, whose duty is to maintain peace throughout their universe. The whole narrative was told across a multimedia spectrum including comic books, novels, games, movies, online content, and a series of direct-to-DVD films – BIONICLE: Mask of Light (2003), BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui (2004), BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows (2005), and BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn (2009).

The first three films have been upscaled to 1080 HD by the BIONICLE Animation Archive with accurate noise removal on characters and textures, original unaltered color profile, original 16:9 aspect ratio, and sharpening on smaller textures for more fine, intricate details. These are hour-long films, but if you grew up with BIONICLE, or even if you are new to the story, I think you will enjoy them. You can watch below.

BIONICLE: MASK OF LIGHT

BIONICLE 2: LEGENDS OF METRU NUI

BIONICLE 3: WEB OF SHADOWS

If you enjoyed the films, and you would like to own the films, they are still available on DVD on Amazon. Below are the links.

We won’t know for quite a while which of the four top voted themes (LEGO BIONICLE, LEGO Classic Space, LEGO Pirates, and LEGO Castle) LEGO is going to select as an anniversary set. But LEGO BIONICLE fans made it known that they are still loyal to the theme and they would like it to come back at least as a single set celebrating BIONICLE’s important place in LEGO’s history.

What do you think? Did you grow up with BIONICLE? Are you still a fan? Would you like it to come back in some way, shape, or form? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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(Written by Geneva – gid617)

A week or so ago, I reviewed the #21325 LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith, and toward the end, I pointed out a few things that I didn’t like so much about an otherwise fantastic set. Of course, the beauty of LEGO is that if you don’t like it, you can rebuild it! So, I decided to go for it and see if I couldn’t make it better. The following was the result.

Above is a picture of the original, so you can play a game of spot the differences.

The first and most obvious change is the roof. I’m not the only one to have made negative comments about the sand-green moss; there’s just too much of it and it’s not the prettiest color when paired with blue. So I got a handful of dark-blue and black shield tiles (didn’t have any bright-blue in my collection) and took the moss off. However, I realized after taking all the green off, that it actually had done a nice job of tying the roof in visually with the landscaping. So I reintroduced just a tiny bit of moss on top. (Yes, we have some unattached pieces there…)

For the back, I added a few brown grill tiles to create more gaps in the roof. It helps make it more interesting for the eyes and saves on shield tiles too.

After this, I decided to touch up the smaller roofs. I wanted to bring them more into the style of the main roof, without the strict limitations a LEGO designer would have about being able to withstand play.

As you can see from the above picture of the inside of the construction, my solution is not attached by much, but it doesn’t fall off under normal circumstances.

I also touched up the other small roof. I was originally thinking about doing something totally different when the obvious problem with the original roof hit me: it looks terribly incomplete, because the tips of the shields are hanging over the edge. The main roof ends in a straight line, so I fixed the small roof to end in a straight line too.

Of course, I had to find a few more shield tiles in order to pull this off. It’s also not quite as sturdy as the original solution. But this isn’t a spaceship, so it doesn’t need to resist being swooshed, does it?

The next difference is the apple tree. I was far less than impressed by the original tree; it has some creepy angles and branches sticking out. For my tree, I took all the horns and stalks out, and tried to create something that looked a little more organic with arch bricks.

After all, apple trees are hard to build. I relied heavily on espresso plates (Bar 1L with 1 x 1 Round Plate with Hollow Stud) for attaching the leaves at organic angles. Also, note that I added four or five medium-green leaves, but mostly only used the ones that were in the set.

One thing I did like about the original apple tree was the use of those large dark-brown bow curves. They give some sturdiness to the lower trunk, although my version is in general much less sturdy than the original.

A relatively minor change was the well. I got rid of the lime-green round piece on top – who wants to drink out of a well with a rim that color?!

I switched the husky out for a few chickens, and made the very minor adjustment of taking out the olive 1×2 plates behind the decorative triangle on top of the arches (there are three of these on the bottom story in different places).

Last but not least, I gave the wagon a thorough overhaul. I even looked up some pictures of medieval wagons to get a feel for it!

The original wagon seemed incredibly blocky to me; for this one, I got a subtle tilt on the sides and even managed to use one of the fence pieces on the first one as the back gate!

So these were my adjustments to the LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith. This set has lots of potential and I’ve just scratched the surface. There’s a lot more you could do to it to make it fit your own medieval aesthetic. I especially recommend toning down the moss on the roof, and if you have a bit of patience, try working with the tree.

I hope it seeing the changes I made give you a better feel for what you’d like to do with this set. If you’re eager to get building, the Medieval Blacksmith is now available at the LEGO Ideas section of the Online LEGO Shop!

What do you think? Have you gotten the Medieval Blacksmith, or are you planning to? What adjustments would you like to make? Do you like the roof better with less moss? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comments section below!

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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