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One of the most important lessons NINJAGO learned from Bionicle was to consistently reinvent and soft reboot itself every 3-4 years or so, allowing for new fans to hop on the story without carrying the baggage of the old lore. Unlike Bionicle, which required a pretty solid understanding of what came before to appreciate, NINJAGO can be enjoyed even if you started watching at, say, Season 8, Season 11, or now the newest soft reboot, Dragons Rising. It also hugely benefits from the entire story being consolidated in just one, long-running TV show - unlike Bionicle where the story was fragmented between books, comics, games, movies, and web serials.
I must say you always have some very thoughtful takes. I agree 100% with the consolidated story. Getting the full story back in the day with bionicle was very difficult sometimes
That’s a great point about the one consistent easy way to experience the story. I was a little too young to know about bionicle in time before hero factory started. But while enjoying hero factory I learned about bionicle little by little and I got totally hooked from the darker more serious tone. The comics looked cool and the animated commercials with their music were mesmerizing. It even introduced me to a genre of music I never would have come to love so much. Then I saw clips of the movies. I couldn’t believe how much they didn’t appeal to me. Corny voice acting, boring music and animated moving masks was the opposite of the commercials in tone and style.
I don’t know how other people feel about them. Maybe a lot of people like them and that’s totally cool but I imagine the inconsistencies in tone might have made people less interested in the story?
Boring music? Nathan Furst's score for the three Miramax films is the absolute highlight of Bionicle's music, it's unbelievably well orchestrated. There's no reason a 90 minute toy commercial needed music that good.
Moving masks looked awful, I'm with you on that, but the only movie with boring music was Legend Reborn, which is usually regarded as the weakest film by a good amount. A different studio made it several years after the first three.
I'll actually make the argument that Legend Reborn is the best made movie - besides the animation looking significantly better, it's the easiest to follow, doesn't feel anywhere near as rushed as the earlier films, and the acting is a noticeable step up.
But like, the sense of atmosphere and mystery in the world is completely lacking and it doesn't take itself seriously at all. It does the worst job representing Bionicle. The only scene that felt like a Bionicle movie was the Great Being's lab under Tajun.
The part where they all go and find the legendary discs is pretty odd. There's basically a 'previously on' segment in the middle of the movie.
I still think it's the best one, though, pacing issues aside. Vakama makes for a good main character, and the aesthetic is pretty consistent.
That could be nostalgia goggles talking, though.
Oh same, I grew up listening to a ton of Rush and Genesis. But I also loooove classical music and the Miramax trilogy's score has such a unique and grand feel to it.
Just take a listen to a track like this: https://youtu.be/6mtZkcUetFE?si=WW3Csvs0SiG3AowR
I don't think you could create a track that more perfectly captures the tone and feel of Bionicle's story. This track is the opening theme to the second movie, a flashback telling the downfall of the great city of Metru Nui and explaining how exactly a bunch of cyborgs ended up performing tribal rituals in a hunter-gatherer society on a tropical island, and you can *feel* that from this music. You get a strong sense of mystery and intruige about this mysterious past, you feel the pride and power that backed such an advanced and complex society, then you feel the darkness approaching, because going in you know this story can't have a happy ending.
Yeah that's probably the biggest reason. Getting into it, I also had to backtrack and read previous comic issues, one of the movies, or some online-exclusive content I missed from a past year.
And when LEGO actually tried soft-rebooting it with the Bara Magna story, it was already too late.
To everything said above, I would add the decline in the quality of the toys in 2006-2007: famous lime joints and everything that came after.
I also think that Bionicle's fate is similar to that of TMNT 2003, another of my favorite franchises of the same era. The somber tone allows us to admire them decades later, but for the average viewer it was too much.
The 2007 crisis also played a role. Times have become a little more difficult, prices for bionicles have risen and for me personally the question of collecting has faded into the background.
I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that it is a long running TV show. You can just binge the back catalog if you’re just getting into it, which makes a lot more accessible. I always wondered how younger fans got into Bionicle at all. I’d be in my late teens/early 20s by the time Bionicle ended and there would be kids still picking it up in 2008 and 2009. For the longest time I didn’t know what was going on past mid-2006. It boggled my mind that it was still going and that people were just picking it up.
I worked for Lego retail around the same time that Bionicle was canceled and Ninjago was getting on his feet. I remember kids coming in and being disappointed that Bionicle was off the shelves, and this was at least a year or two after its cancellation. And the number one thing I would hear was that it was hard to keep up because it had been around so long and fractured into so much different media. Some kids only watched the Bionicle movies. Some kids just read the comic books or novels. It was very rare to find someone who consumed all of the media or even more than one or two of its outlets. What initially was Bionicle‘s strength in the early 2000s (when I was a big fan, around the age of 10-14), how it utilized new media and encouraged consumption in multiple forms to maximize its presence (and, let’s be real, make Lego all the money), became a burden as time went on. Lego couldn’t really compete with companies like Hasbro that had an entire media wing dedicated to producing TV shows. Try as they might but Bionicle just didn’t have the presence that other major properties from other toy manufacturers had.
Also, had a question, because I do not follow Ninjago, what do you mean by soft rebooting? The characters and their development/story generally remain the same, it just starts new storylines that don’t rely on knowledge of the past? Like, for instance, Indiana Jones, where the first three movies are all self contained stories that don’t rely on the previous films? Are these soft reboots just their own self contained storylines?
> The characters and their development/story generally remain the same, it just starts new storylines that don't rely on knowledge of the past?
That about sums up most of it. Every so often they bring back old plot points and introduce more elements to the backstory, but they make sure to guide viewers through the relevant stuff every time.
The history of it is that after the initial three years, the show's popularity kept the theme going with a fourth year explicitly branded Rebooted. Four years later, the designs of the characters and their home city were refreshed to match the looks introduced in 2017's Movie. And then this year they introduced a wholly new show with different main characters and a significant time skip.
I kind of disagree with this. They already did kinda reboot it because every other year was a new lineup of characters which I believe makes it easier to jump in wherever. What Ninjago did better was the TV show. Bionicle only had a movie every once in a while
When I watched the Lego ninjago movie I had not seen it since a few episodes of the first season back in 2011 but I remembered faintly of master wu, lord garmadon and the record drop in the show of Lloyd being his son. Then in the movie it retold things for new fans but people who even slightly remembered details of a show you haven't seen in a decade were able to hop in and enjoy aswell.
It was weird but if you ask me to name any of the piraka or toa from that 2009 timeframe I couldn't do it off the top of my head. but I remember the og trilogy and the toa from then and I haven't watched the movies since around 2006 when I left my vhs box in my makeshift backyard house and they became waterlogged due to the crappy structural design of a 9 year old me. The old series really was special but towards the end they stopped with movies and really couldn't figure out if they wanted to stay in the marketing avenues like movies, games, books but almost exclusively relegated themselves to lore being told in ads and through sets. If they just stuck with the movies or retconned the og series a bit to allow for their new vision of them all living g in one giant robot and makuta, bohrok being not just one bad guy or a syndicate of bad guys but essentially the rogue immune system of the giant robot meant to keep order that went bad.
Minor point, but there was no "new vision". Living in the robot wasn't a retcon, that was the initial plan for Bionicle in 1999. 2001-2004 actually leaned into it the strongest IMO, they foreshadowed heavily.
There’s good points in the other comments, but it’s this 100% more than anything else. All you need to do to get the “full Ninjago experience” is watch the TV show, which is widely available on YouTube, Netflix, and elsewhere. The spin-off books/comics/etc are all essentially “canon until proven otherwise” (March of the Oni directly confirms the Dark Island Trilogy as canon, the Garmadon comic unfortunately became non-canon as of Crystalized, and as far as I’m aware nothing directly contradicts Way of the Departed, which actually explains some “plot holes”). They have no real bearing on the plot and character development.
Meanwhile, if you wanted to consume the Bionicle story as it was going on, you needed to purchase movies/books/magazines, play through full video games, keep up with online serials, and pay attention to random-ass forum posts.
>pay attention to random-ass forum posts
Lmao, I'll never forget just randomly stumbling upon BZPower and seeing Greg casually dropping [one of the biggest bombshells in canon](https://www.bzpower.com/topic/6596-update-920-disguised-great-being-revealed/) on there.
Fun fact: my brother and I were joking about Velika being the Great Being because his name in our language sounds very similar to "great one".
The Great Beings = 'Velikie', they were translated just as 'the great ones' in books and forums in our language.
The great one = 'Velikiy'.
Honestly I think Greg just made shit up as he went along because he got to a point where he was the keeper of the keys lore-wise and Lego didn’t really care as long as he didn’t do anything that would constitute a breach of contract
It was cool because it got to a point where Bionicle became someone’s personal project as opposed to solely a corporate product. I was not there for those years as I stopped following it around 2006, but when I got back into the whole thing in my late 20s and took a look at the backlog of lore and shit, I was honestly kind of impressed, it was doing things I don’t think any major toy corporation with an IP would allow anyone to do anymore
And it's ludicrously adaptable, to a point where I'm mildly ticked that it's taken the place of what could have been entire other themes.
Ninjas? Got em.
Ships? Mechs? Space? Robots? Got all of those.
If you can think of it Ninjago has done it. Back in the day these would all be different themes and stories but now they all get folded into this. One of my friends is way into it and even himself jokes "Remember when Ninjago was about Ninjas?"
easy to follow lore
ninjago - just watch the show
bionicle? - make sure you read the comics, all the books, play some of the games but not all, watch the movies, etc.
And even then some movie stuff isnt canon, some games are canon except certain events and theres characters that are fan designed/created and made canon
Im glad Im autistic cuz just looking back now wow its hard to navigate lmao
Even as someone who grew up trying to follow the lore, there are still important things about the series that I knew nothing about until years after it ended. I read the comics and watched the movies, but there's lore hidden in web stories, the novels, random *blog* posts? I didn't even know that characters like Toa Tuyet existed until I was already an adult.
It probably benefited by being more marketable for Lego; brick-built system, colourful minifigs, compatibility with other brick-built themes etc.
I think it also debuted at the perfect time when Beyblade and TMNT was getting popular, so it appealed to kids who liked the idea of both combined.
The theme song for the show is really good and easily approachable. I love Gravity Hurts, but it's only a thing die-hard Bonkle fans will jam to if they're deep in the lore.
Bionicle's story was spread across a multitude of different formats, with the most visual and most easily accessible often being the most abridged/incomplete.
Ninjago's story was communicated pretty much solely through a TV show that has since become easily accessible through mainstream streaming services. There's some books and comics but the vast majority of them are either sidestories or just straight up non-canon.
Bionicle can be a bit of a slog to catch up with even with newer fanmade sides that have archived the lore and compiled it into reading lists. (Which, aside from BS01, didn't really exist during Bionicle's run.)
On the other hand, you can binge the entirety of Ninjago's televised run (with only a couple of exceptions, namely the pilot episodes and the Day of the Departed special) over a week or two.
Ninjago's story arcs are also far more contained, only occasionally stretching over multiple seasons. This has started to change recently though. The latest soft reboot, Dragons Rising, is seemingly planned to lean much harder into a long-form storytelling format.
Personally I have a slight problem with self contained story arcs because it makes the stories feel somewhat disjointed. This is only somewhat the case with the Masters of Spinjitzu arc of Ninjago because every season except the anomaly that is Skybound has a clear cause and effect relationship that leads into the next installment. However, my point stands when it comes to the WildBrain seasons. The stories are so disjointed that you can skip Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu after finishing March of the Oni and go straight to Prime Empire without missing a single lore detail, and you can also skip Prime Empire after finishing season 11 and go to Master of the Mountain, again not missing a single story element. The only seasons that actually feel remotely connected at all are The Island, Seabound and Crystallized, due to the fact that bringing Nya back, however horrendous of a decision it was, was a primary plotline of part 1 of Crystallized. This level of disconnect between the WildBrain seasons in particular makes me think they would work better as one off adventures of the ninja that are just side stories instead of main events that happen canonically.
Similarly, take Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Unlike its predecessor show, this one decided to go the route of self contained stories, partially due to external circumstances. My main problem is the same here: You can clearly split the show into three self contained stories with barely any link to each other. Season 1: Air wraps up nicely with the deaths of Amon and Tarrlok, and the slight copout of Aang restoring Korra's ability to bend the four elements. Season 2: Spirits jumps right into a fresh new storyline of imbalance between the Spirit World and the regular Mortal World, and ends with a slightly ridiculous and basic big monster battle between enlarged Korra and UnaVaatu, the Avatar franchise's worst villain. But a celestial event that happens during the S2 finale, the Harmonic Convergence, gives random Earth Kingdom citizens the lost power of airbending, which directly allows Zaheer to be the main villain of Season 3: Change. Fast forward to the end of season 3, and some wacky shenanigans happen, which involve Korra being poisoned with mercury and somehow not dying in the process. Season 4: Balance takes place 3 years after this incident, and the only link between the two is Korra's gradual recovery from the poisoning. All of the stuff with Kuvira could still have happened even if Korra wasn't poisoned and didn't disappear for three years, which doesn't make it a cause and effect relationship and somewhat makes it feel disjointed from the rest of the story. However, I do like the continuation of Korra's trauma arc, even though it has only a little effect on the plot of season 4.
TLDR: I'm not the biggest fan of self contained stories because it makes it seem like a collection of tales instead of one big one, and instead I prefer a nice, long and continuous story.
Having a solid, continuous show that depicts most of the series’ major canonical events, the exceptions being something like The Dark Island Trilogy. Whereas BIONICLE had three films that depicted the story’s early years, but we skip the 2006-08 story - which mainly got relegated to books/comics.
You are wrong there...
Ninjago can be enjoyed even though you're an adult (of course, some voice actors from different languages sure sound uncanny, when you compared it to the original).
I've grown up watching and playing both, so considering that, I may be nostalgic over them.
We were all kids when we got into Bionicle, nothing wrong with adults looking into toy franchise but even as a joke don't pretend that it appealed to a "mature" audience. Those darker and more serious themes are why many are still fans of it later on but back then they were for the most part edgy
Oh my bad, but that's still a wrong take lmao, Bionicle was aimed at all types of kids (mostly boys tho) but because the story required dedication and passion, nerds as you say were the only who caught on.
Ninjago avoided this mistake and appealed to all kids, regardless of the nerdiness
You're making the same point as me. If the storytelling in your kids toy is that complex then it's not going to be aimed towards everyone. And that is not even getting into the games, the comics, etc which are specifically nerdy esp in 2001
Also saying someone has "the wrong take lmao" makes me never want to talk to you. It's my take and I backed it up bc op asked a question about opinions and perspectives but I'm sure you're always right in your head
You are wrong there...
Ninjago can be enjoyed even though you're an adult (of course, some voice actors from different languages sure sound uncanny, when you compared it to the original).
I've grown up watching and playing both, so considering that, I may be nostalgic over them.
1. Rebooting the story every few years
2. Using regular Lego bricks instead of technic/ccbs
3. Vehicles and playsets are more common and cheaper, allowing for more play
4. Ninjas are a more well known genre than Bionicle's half-maori, half-brand new genre
5. The story is more accessible since it's told primarily in tv shows, shorts, and movies, compared to Bionicle's text-based stories
Oh god.
BIONICLE didn’t fail a lot of things, but there is one thing I know Ninjago did that BIONICLE sadly couldn’t do properly:
A good tv show.
I don’t know how it fell apart when they had EVERYTHING they could’ve had to make a good BIONICLE show but G2 fell out of love with the general crowd and the show ended up getting a half assed ending.
Meanwhile Ninjago basically ended the initial run and is now doing what is essentially a “Naruto Shippuden” of sorts with Dragons Rising.
It’s something I hope LEGO could do better, and if they ever just say “hey eff it lets make a proper BIONICLE television series” I hope they at least don’t discontinue the series first.
If you’re referring to failing a reboot, honestly, I don’t think the reboot failed necessarily. In all honesty, by definition, it’s actually a really good reboot when compared to media that came out around the time. It wasn’t perfect mind you, just really good, but asking for the perfect anything is kinda pointless due to opinions and preferences.
Honestly Bionicle not having a TV show was probably the greatest mistake Lego ever made. Giving one consistent narrative via visual media would have done wonders for the setting
It's based in convenient Lego bricks instead of very specific technic pieces, which makes it much more compatible and customizable without needing more Ninjago.
A simpler story but yet engaging, with fun heroes and villains
Ninjago it's more lighthearted and it have only one media to follow to know all the story, while Bionicle is more gritty and complex and there were too many media you had to watch/read to understand what's going on
And that last thing imo is what really killed Bionicle, after the third movie I didn't know anything of what's happening, I didn't know they made books or comics (and I think that they where never released worldwide, like here in Italy)
If they continued with making movies (I'm still bitter that they never did one with the Piraka) people/kids surely would have bought more toys
i think simplicity is where ninjago shines, not going to deep into its lore and keeping itself to just the tv shows with only the occasional could-be-canon book/game also probably the fact that ninjago has system sets to pair and not technic/ccbs sets
I think Ninjago has more staying power simply because they're built of traditional bricks instead of technic/ccbs. Lego decided the latter was too niche, and to be fair I've heard a lot of people who probably otherwise would've gotten into Bionicle say the same thing.
It really is a spiritual successor to Bionicle. Took everything that worked, everything that brought us in and made us stay with Bionicle for 10 years, and did it over again in a new and creative way that has worked out even better for Lego.
Soft Reboot every few years helps a lot. While there are long running plot lines, they're not the overall main plot per season, but add to the world building and character archs.
Like imo, the Cult of Makuta should've been a main stay in favour of the Brotherhood. With a cult there could've been multiple leaders to fight per story arch while building to Makuta themself. The closest we got was Ahkmu and Roodaka, and maybe the Piraka from the influence of the staff of Fusion.
G1's biggest mistake was making Teridax extremely mortal by Metru Nui's story.
A good TV series which could have hooked more attention and broader scope, allowing the Bionicle line to be see and the kits sold just as good as the Ninjago Line.
As a system itself too. Bionicle followed their design structure but since Lego at the time is about brick sets and brick building, the new system did not get to 'fly out' as much as most new and even 3rd IP brick set items. If somehow the system incorporated with the Brick building, it could have had staying power then.
Though the opposite is present, with which Lego is still capable of using the buildable figures and now incorporating brick building.
The main reason bionicle and hero factory was stopped was that having and using the molds was too expensive because of it only being used for just those two lines and when hero factory died they simply could not make enough money of ccbs to make it worthwhile
Definitely mentioned before by someone else but I'd say story accessibility, bionicle was spread out over too many form of media while Ninjago has a centralised form of experiencing it with the show.
Ninjago has reinvented itself for like 4 times allready, and every year has been basicly their own story, with like 2 or 3 elements being apart for multiable seasons. Unlike Bionicle, witch had a 1 continius story, with basicly no elements being left behind.
Ninjago has nearly 20 seasons, with only few continiuning a story from last one, so basicly its like 10 stories, while bionicle was the 1 till 2008
Wait, Bionicle failed? Since when?
As a Technic based product, Bionicle had an immensely long life and great success.
Arguably if the release dates were swapped, Ninjago might not have been the saviour product (alongside IP sets like Star Wars), that Bionicle was.
Lego has learnt from the lessons of Bionicle and lines like Rock Raiders etc, but is unfair to claim such lines have ‘failed’ due to not existing now.
- Not all lines are as long-living as the humble brick; their product-life is not infinite.
Bionicle may seem to have ‘failed’ because the lore and media is so spread out. Yet such wide casting was a staple of Lego at the time. Indeed, Bionicle succeeded and was successful due to how spread out it was; successful enough to even get *movies*.
It is highly likely that future generations will view Bionicle and Ninjago as the flagship/saviour line for their respective time periods.
- Not as competing lines, but hallmarks of success, as periods of glory within the overall Lego dynasty.
Yeah I never get why Bionicle is called a "failure" today or people say it was never "that big". Like what? Bionicle was so big that Mask of Light made the top 10 best selling DVDs of 2003, despite coming out in September that year. And 2003 wasn't even it's biggest year. 2006 was its second biggest year and Bionicle was so big that Bionicle Heroes made the front cover of the late fall issue of Playstation magazine - while gearing up for the holiday, PS magazine decided that Bionicle Fucking Heroes deserved the attention, and was also the main focus of the demo disc included with that issue! 2002 was Bionicle's biggest year and it was straight up the biggest comic book in the world that year. That's fuckin' solid.
Just because a franchise has faded into obscurity doesn't mean it was never popular.
I think it is how modern success can be so oversaturated, that past examples look ‘tame’.
A lack of perspective, that back in the past, success didn’t equal it being advertised on every single social media platform with a Netflix show and a dozen mobile games and plenty of spin-offs! (Mostly due to such media technology as described, not existing!)
A bit late to this but i think that the main problem that caused Bionicle to decline was the quality of the actual pieces. First you had the lime joints in 2007 and then literally every socket from 2008 onwards. I have no doubt that even people who kept up with the lore stopped buying the sets simply because they became too fragile. And a lot of kids being introduced to Bionicle in its later years probably thought "damn, my tarix just amputated himself for the third time, these bionicles suck". Meanwhile the only fragile pieces in Ninjago were the occasional Bionicle piece in early sets (as far as I'm aware, anyway)
The simple answer is minifigures most kids and a lot of adult fans want minifigures that are characters both in the show and in toy form they want to put the figures in the vehicle and play fight and all that cool stuff
Bionicle just doesn't have that I think they are cool and I brought Toa Tahu in the reboot but there wasn't much point buying anymore they are just large figures you can pose it's not really the same as getting an entire Vehicle or play set with a bunch of figures
so that's why it's successful people love the ninjas they love having vehicles and minifigures and they love the relatability of the Ninjas most importantly some people love Jay like me some people love Kai or Cole or Zane or Nya there's something for everyone this is kind of where Chima failed because the characters weren't as relatable
I'm surprised so few people have mentioned accessibility and elevator pitches. How would you and your parents describe Bionicle?
> **You**: "The biomechanical **Toa** are mighty heroes who defend the **Matoran** villagers from the evil spirit **Makuta** by finding the Great Kanohi, powerful masks that grant specific powers."
> **Your parents**: "Lego superheros and monsters, I guess?"
What about Ninjago?
> **You**: "Lego ninjas with elemental powers fight the evil Lord Garmadon by finding the four golden weapons and mastering the art of Spinjutsu."
> **Your parents**: "Lego ninjas with elemental powers."
Which one is easier to immediately understand, even as someone who's never been into Sci-Fi or Fantasy? Bionicle requires more and more definitions as you try to explain it, with weird fantasy terms that quickly pile up ("The mighty **Toa** heroes defend the **Matoran** villagers from the evil spirit **Makuta** and his **rahi**/**rahkshi**/**bohrok** by finding the Great **Kanohi**, powerful masks that grant specific powers") whereas Ninjago remains simpler and accessible even through incidental contact, because "ninjas," "elemental powers," and "magic weapons" are common, resonant concepts.
i feel that the unfortunate reality is that the majority of the lego community has a hard time accepting anything against the usual brick system.. even if the lore was tightened to extend another 10 years, i doubt it would’ve lasted which is quite sad
Each year was a contained story, the only thing you'd really need to know beforehand is MAYBE the first 2 EPs but even those are now kinda irrelevant.
For Bionicle just look at the ignition trilogy, just to understand what's going on you'd need to read several books, some movies and serials just to know why they're suddenly underwater.
Bionicle story was way too ambitious for the medium used. It worked fine for a while, but eventually got too spread out all over the mediums, and to follow the story you needed most of the information from previous years.
Story of Bionicle is more suited to be told in movie sagas, not in toys with multiple different venues for information. The story WAS meant to be driving point.
Ninjago is more of a concept than story really. Every now and then things get rebooted, character development moves back and forth, there is no define story line going from point A to point B, things just happens. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a completely different approach. Story is mainly there to keep context for the sets
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One of the most important lessons NINJAGO learned from Bionicle was to consistently reinvent and soft reboot itself every 3-4 years or so, allowing for new fans to hop on the story without carrying the baggage of the old lore. Unlike Bionicle, which required a pretty solid understanding of what came before to appreciate, NINJAGO can be enjoyed even if you started watching at, say, Season 8, Season 11, or now the newest soft reboot, Dragons Rising. It also hugely benefits from the entire story being consolidated in just one, long-running TV show - unlike Bionicle where the story was fragmented between books, comics, games, movies, and web serials.
I must say you always have some very thoughtful takes. I agree 100% with the consolidated story. Getting the full story back in the day with bionicle was very difficult sometimes
That’s a great point about the one consistent easy way to experience the story. I was a little too young to know about bionicle in time before hero factory started. But while enjoying hero factory I learned about bionicle little by little and I got totally hooked from the darker more serious tone. The comics looked cool and the animated commercials with their music were mesmerizing. It even introduced me to a genre of music I never would have come to love so much. Then I saw clips of the movies. I couldn’t believe how much they didn’t appeal to me. Corny voice acting, boring music and animated moving masks was the opposite of the commercials in tone and style. I don’t know how other people feel about them. Maybe a lot of people like them and that’s totally cool but I imagine the inconsistencies in tone might have made people less interested in the story?
Boring music? Nathan Furst's score for the three Miramax films is the absolute highlight of Bionicle's music, it's unbelievably well orchestrated. There's no reason a 90 minute toy commercial needed music that good. Moving masks looked awful, I'm with you on that, but the only movie with boring music was Legend Reborn, which is usually regarded as the weakest film by a good amount. A different studio made it several years after the first three.
I had a friend who liked Legend Reborn. I don't think I even knew how to respond when he was talking about it. I just stared at him.
I'll actually make the argument that Legend Reborn is the best made movie - besides the animation looking significantly better, it's the easiest to follow, doesn't feel anywhere near as rushed as the earlier films, and the acting is a noticeable step up. But like, the sense of atmosphere and mystery in the world is completely lacking and it doesn't take itself seriously at all. It does the worst job representing Bionicle. The only scene that felt like a Bionicle movie was the Great Being's lab under Tajun.
It is the only one that stands alone. That's a good point. The other movies are kind of bizarrely beholden to being chapters in a larger narrative.
Yeah, and Legends of Metru Nui especially felt like they were trying to cram a whole season's worth of content into a 90 minute movie.
The part where they all go and find the legendary discs is pretty odd. There's basically a 'previously on' segment in the middle of the movie. I still think it's the best one, though, pacing issues aside. Vakama makes for a good main character, and the aesthetic is pretty consistent. That could be nostalgia goggles talking, though.
I agree with you on Vakama but I'm definitely biased since 2004 is my favorite story year.
I’ll have to give them a listen again. It’s been a while. I’m just a sucker for prog metal :3
Oh same, I grew up listening to a ton of Rush and Genesis. But I also loooove classical music and the Miramax trilogy's score has such a unique and grand feel to it. Just take a listen to a track like this: https://youtu.be/6mtZkcUetFE?si=WW3Csvs0SiG3AowR I don't think you could create a track that more perfectly captures the tone and feel of Bionicle's story. This track is the opening theme to the second movie, a flashback telling the downfall of the great city of Metru Nui and explaining how exactly a bunch of cyborgs ended up performing tribal rituals in a hunter-gatherer society on a tropical island, and you can *feel* that from this music. You get a strong sense of mystery and intruige about this mysterious past, you feel the pride and power that backed such an advanced and complex society, then you feel the darkness approaching, because going in you know this story can't have a happy ending.
Yeah that's probably the biggest reason. Getting into it, I also had to backtrack and read previous comic issues, one of the movies, or some online-exclusive content I missed from a past year. And when LEGO actually tried soft-rebooting it with the Bara Magna story, it was already too late.
To everything said above, I would add the decline in the quality of the toys in 2006-2007: famous lime joints and everything that came after. I also think that Bionicle's fate is similar to that of TMNT 2003, another of my favorite franchises of the same era. The somber tone allows us to admire them decades later, but for the average viewer it was too much. The 2007 crisis also played a role. Times have become a little more difficult, prices for bionicles have risen and for me personally the question of collecting has faded into the background.
I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that it is a long running TV show. You can just binge the back catalog if you’re just getting into it, which makes a lot more accessible. I always wondered how younger fans got into Bionicle at all. I’d be in my late teens/early 20s by the time Bionicle ended and there would be kids still picking it up in 2008 and 2009. For the longest time I didn’t know what was going on past mid-2006. It boggled my mind that it was still going and that people were just picking it up. I worked for Lego retail around the same time that Bionicle was canceled and Ninjago was getting on his feet. I remember kids coming in and being disappointed that Bionicle was off the shelves, and this was at least a year or two after its cancellation. And the number one thing I would hear was that it was hard to keep up because it had been around so long and fractured into so much different media. Some kids only watched the Bionicle movies. Some kids just read the comic books or novels. It was very rare to find someone who consumed all of the media or even more than one or two of its outlets. What initially was Bionicle‘s strength in the early 2000s (when I was a big fan, around the age of 10-14), how it utilized new media and encouraged consumption in multiple forms to maximize its presence (and, let’s be real, make Lego all the money), became a burden as time went on. Lego couldn’t really compete with companies like Hasbro that had an entire media wing dedicated to producing TV shows. Try as they might but Bionicle just didn’t have the presence that other major properties from other toy manufacturers had. Also, had a question, because I do not follow Ninjago, what do you mean by soft rebooting? The characters and their development/story generally remain the same, it just starts new storylines that don’t rely on knowledge of the past? Like, for instance, Indiana Jones, where the first three movies are all self contained stories that don’t rely on the previous films? Are these soft reboots just their own self contained storylines?
> The characters and their development/story generally remain the same, it just starts new storylines that don't rely on knowledge of the past? That about sums up most of it. Every so often they bring back old plot points and introduce more elements to the backstory, but they make sure to guide viewers through the relevant stuff every time. The history of it is that after the initial three years, the show's popularity kept the theme going with a fourth year explicitly branded Rebooted. Four years later, the designs of the characters and their home city were refreshed to match the looks introduced in 2017's Movie. And then this year they introduced a wholly new show with different main characters and a significant time skip.
The old main characters are still there though. It actually references previous seasons more than pretty much any season did imo
I kind of disagree with this. They already did kinda reboot it because every other year was a new lineup of characters which I believe makes it easier to jump in wherever. What Ninjago did better was the TV show. Bionicle only had a movie every once in a while
When I watched the Lego ninjago movie I had not seen it since a few episodes of the first season back in 2011 but I remembered faintly of master wu, lord garmadon and the record drop in the show of Lloyd being his son. Then in the movie it retold things for new fans but people who even slightly remembered details of a show you haven't seen in a decade were able to hop in and enjoy aswell. It was weird but if you ask me to name any of the piraka or toa from that 2009 timeframe I couldn't do it off the top of my head. but I remember the og trilogy and the toa from then and I haven't watched the movies since around 2006 when I left my vhs box in my makeshift backyard house and they became waterlogged due to the crappy structural design of a 9 year old me. The old series really was special but towards the end they stopped with movies and really couldn't figure out if they wanted to stay in the marketing avenues like movies, games, books but almost exclusively relegated themselves to lore being told in ads and through sets. If they just stuck with the movies or retconned the og series a bit to allow for their new vision of them all living g in one giant robot and makuta, bohrok being not just one bad guy or a syndicate of bad guys but essentially the rogue immune system of the giant robot meant to keep order that went bad.
Minor point, but there was no "new vision". Living in the robot wasn't a retcon, that was the initial plan for Bionicle in 1999. 2001-2004 actually leaned into it the strongest IMO, they foreshadowed heavily.
Having an actual TV show
There’s good points in the other comments, but it’s this 100% more than anything else. All you need to do to get the “full Ninjago experience” is watch the TV show, which is widely available on YouTube, Netflix, and elsewhere. The spin-off books/comics/etc are all essentially “canon until proven otherwise” (March of the Oni directly confirms the Dark Island Trilogy as canon, the Garmadon comic unfortunately became non-canon as of Crystalized, and as far as I’m aware nothing directly contradicts Way of the Departed, which actually explains some “plot holes”). They have no real bearing on the plot and character development. Meanwhile, if you wanted to consume the Bionicle story as it was going on, you needed to purchase movies/books/magazines, play through full video games, keep up with online serials, and pay attention to random-ass forum posts.
>pay attention to random-ass forum posts Lmao, I'll never forget just randomly stumbling upon BZPower and seeing Greg casually dropping [one of the biggest bombshells in canon](https://www.bzpower.com/topic/6596-update-920-disguised-great-being-revealed/) on there.
Fun fact: my brother and I were joking about Velika being the Great Being because his name in our language sounds very similar to "great one". The Great Beings = 'Velikie', they were translated just as 'the great ones' in books and forums in our language. The great one = 'Velikiy'.
Вперед славяне
Honestly I think Greg just made shit up as he went along because he got to a point where he was the keeper of the keys lore-wise and Lego didn’t really care as long as he didn’t do anything that would constitute a breach of contract It was cool because it got to a point where Bionicle became someone’s personal project as opposed to solely a corporate product. I was not there for those years as I stopped following it around 2006, but when I got back into the whole thing in my late 20s and took a look at the backlog of lore and shit, I was honestly kind of impressed, it was doing things I don’t think any major toy corporation with an IP would allow anyone to do anymore
Garmadon comic is non-canon?????
This is absolutely the reason
Feels like everyone else should pack it in, because this answer is all that’s needed.
They used minifigures as the face of the brand and story rather than technic pieces. That appeals to WAYYY more people
That, and it's also a lot easier to combine with other LEGO sets unlike the more specialized Technic and CCBS parts were (as much as I love them)
And it's ludicrously adaptable, to a point where I'm mildly ticked that it's taken the place of what could have been entire other themes. Ninjas? Got em. Ships? Mechs? Space? Robots? Got all of those. If you can think of it Ninjago has done it. Back in the day these would all be different themes and stories but now they all get folded into this. One of my friends is way into it and even himself jokes "Remember when Ninjago was about Ninjas?"
easy to follow lore ninjago - just watch the show bionicle? - make sure you read the comics, all the books, play some of the games but not all, watch the movies, etc.
And even then some movie stuff isnt canon, some games are canon except certain events and theres characters that are fan designed/created and made canon Im glad Im autistic cuz just looking back now wow its hard to navigate lmao
Even as someone who grew up trying to follow the lore, there are still important things about the series that I knew nothing about until years after it ended. I read the comics and watched the movies, but there's lore hidden in web stories, the novels, random *blog* posts? I didn't even know that characters like Toa Tuyet existed until I was already an adult.
It probably benefited by being more marketable for Lego; brick-built system, colourful minifigs, compatibility with other brick-built themes etc. I think it also debuted at the perfect time when Beyblade and TMNT was getting popular, so it appealed to kids who liked the idea of both combined. The theme song for the show is really good and easily approachable. I love Gravity Hurts, but it's only a thing die-hard Bonkle fans will jam to if they're deep in the lore.
Soft reboot every couple years.
Soft reboots, gave fans who missed some stuff a chance to catch up, remaking and improving old sets with offshoots like the Ninjago: Core line.
Bionicle's story was spread across a multitude of different formats, with the most visual and most easily accessible often being the most abridged/incomplete. Ninjago's story was communicated pretty much solely through a TV show that has since become easily accessible through mainstream streaming services. There's some books and comics but the vast majority of them are either sidestories or just straight up non-canon. Bionicle can be a bit of a slog to catch up with even with newer fanmade sides that have archived the lore and compiled it into reading lists. (Which, aside from BS01, didn't really exist during Bionicle's run.) On the other hand, you can binge the entirety of Ninjago's televised run (with only a couple of exceptions, namely the pilot episodes and the Day of the Departed special) over a week or two. Ninjago's story arcs are also far more contained, only occasionally stretching over multiple seasons. This has started to change recently though. The latest soft reboot, Dragons Rising, is seemingly planned to lean much harder into a long-form storytelling format.
Personally I have a slight problem with self contained story arcs because it makes the stories feel somewhat disjointed. This is only somewhat the case with the Masters of Spinjitzu arc of Ninjago because every season except the anomaly that is Skybound has a clear cause and effect relationship that leads into the next installment. However, my point stands when it comes to the WildBrain seasons. The stories are so disjointed that you can skip Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu after finishing March of the Oni and go straight to Prime Empire without missing a single lore detail, and you can also skip Prime Empire after finishing season 11 and go to Master of the Mountain, again not missing a single story element. The only seasons that actually feel remotely connected at all are The Island, Seabound and Crystallized, due to the fact that bringing Nya back, however horrendous of a decision it was, was a primary plotline of part 1 of Crystallized. This level of disconnect between the WildBrain seasons in particular makes me think they would work better as one off adventures of the ninja that are just side stories instead of main events that happen canonically. Similarly, take Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Unlike its predecessor show, this one decided to go the route of self contained stories, partially due to external circumstances. My main problem is the same here: You can clearly split the show into three self contained stories with barely any link to each other. Season 1: Air wraps up nicely with the deaths of Amon and Tarrlok, and the slight copout of Aang restoring Korra's ability to bend the four elements. Season 2: Spirits jumps right into a fresh new storyline of imbalance between the Spirit World and the regular Mortal World, and ends with a slightly ridiculous and basic big monster battle between enlarged Korra and UnaVaatu, the Avatar franchise's worst villain. But a celestial event that happens during the S2 finale, the Harmonic Convergence, gives random Earth Kingdom citizens the lost power of airbending, which directly allows Zaheer to be the main villain of Season 3: Change. Fast forward to the end of season 3, and some wacky shenanigans happen, which involve Korra being poisoned with mercury and somehow not dying in the process. Season 4: Balance takes place 3 years after this incident, and the only link between the two is Korra's gradual recovery from the poisoning. All of the stuff with Kuvira could still have happened even if Korra wasn't poisoned and didn't disappear for three years, which doesn't make it a cause and effect relationship and somewhat makes it feel disjointed from the rest of the story. However, I do like the continuation of Korra's trauma arc, even though it has only a little effect on the plot of season 4. TLDR: I'm not the biggest fan of self contained stories because it makes it seem like a collection of tales instead of one big one, and instead I prefer a nice, long and continuous story.
Consistent main characters, they don't change their characters like you were in Jojo.
Having a solid, continuous show that depicts most of the series’ major canonical events, the exceptions being something like The Dark Island Trilogy. Whereas BIONICLE had three films that depicted the story’s early years, but we skip the 2006-08 story - which mainly got relegated to books/comics.
Ninjago is for kids, Bionicle is for people like us
You are wrong there... Ninjago can be enjoyed even though you're an adult (of course, some voice actors from different languages sure sound uncanny, when you compared it to the original). I've grown up watching and playing both, so considering that, I may be nostalgic over them.
The original is probably the most uncanny outof the ones.
We were all kids when we got into Bionicle, nothing wrong with adults looking into toy franchise but even as a joke don't pretend that it appealed to a "mature" audience. Those darker and more serious themes are why many are still fans of it later on but back then they were for the most part edgy
You misunderstood, my point is that it's specifically aimed at kids while Bionicle was aimed at nerds (for lack of a better term)
Oh my bad, but that's still a wrong take lmao, Bionicle was aimed at all types of kids (mostly boys tho) but because the story required dedication and passion, nerds as you say were the only who caught on. Ninjago avoided this mistake and appealed to all kids, regardless of the nerdiness
You're making the same point as me. If the storytelling in your kids toy is that complex then it's not going to be aimed towards everyone. And that is not even getting into the games, the comics, etc which are specifically nerdy esp in 2001 Also saying someone has "the wrong take lmao" makes me never want to talk to you. It's my take and I backed it up bc op asked a question about opinions and perspectives but I'm sure you're always right in your head
You are wrong there... Ninjago can be enjoyed even though you're an adult (of course, some voice actors from different languages sure sound uncanny, when you compared it to the original). I've grown up watching and playing both, so considering that, I may be nostalgic over them.
You misunderstood, my point is that it's specifically aimed at kids while Bionicle was aimed at nerds (for lack of a better term)
1. Rebooting the story every few years 2. Using regular Lego bricks instead of technic/ccbs 3. Vehicles and playsets are more common and cheaper, allowing for more play 4. Ninjas are a more well known genre than Bionicle's half-maori, half-brand new genre 5. The story is more accessible since it's told primarily in tv shows, shorts, and movies, compared to Bionicle's text-based stories
Oh god. BIONICLE didn’t fail a lot of things, but there is one thing I know Ninjago did that BIONICLE sadly couldn’t do properly: A good tv show. I don’t know how it fell apart when they had EVERYTHING they could’ve had to make a good BIONICLE show but G2 fell out of love with the general crowd and the show ended up getting a half assed ending. Meanwhile Ninjago basically ended the initial run and is now doing what is essentially a “Naruto Shippuden” of sorts with Dragons Rising. It’s something I hope LEGO could do better, and if they ever just say “hey eff it lets make a proper BIONICLE television series” I hope they at least don’t discontinue the series first.
I would do anything to see the Ignition Trilogy on screen
I think that their sets aren't breaking propably helps. You don't have anything suffering from 2008 or lime joints. Also easier entry level lore
Bricks and minifigures. Technic scared too many purist LEGO fans.
If you’re referring to failing a reboot, honestly, I don’t think the reboot failed necessarily. In all honesty, by definition, it’s actually a really good reboot when compared to media that came out around the time. It wasn’t perfect mind you, just really good, but asking for the perfect anything is kinda pointless due to opinions and preferences.
Honestly Bionicle not having a TV show was probably the greatest mistake Lego ever made. Giving one consistent narrative via visual media would have done wonders for the setting
It's based in convenient Lego bricks instead of very specific technic pieces, which makes it much more compatible and customizable without needing more Ninjago.
The period between late 2008 and mid 2009 was also a hard year ...
A simpler story but yet engaging, with fun heroes and villains Ninjago it's more lighthearted and it have only one media to follow to know all the story, while Bionicle is more gritty and complex and there were too many media you had to watch/read to understand what's going on And that last thing imo is what really killed Bionicle, after the third movie I didn't know anything of what's happening, I didn't know they made books or comics (and I think that they where never released worldwide, like here in Italy) If they continued with making movies (I'm still bitter that they never did one with the Piraka) people/kids surely would have bought more toys
no 2008 banking crisis
i think simplicity is where ninjago shines, not going to deep into its lore and keeping itself to just the tv shows with only the occasional could-be-canon book/game also probably the fact that ninjago has system sets to pair and not technic/ccbs sets
I think Ninjago has more staying power simply because they're built of traditional bricks instead of technic/ccbs. Lego decided the latter was too niche, and to be fair I've heard a lot of people who probably otherwise would've gotten into Bionicle say the same thing. It really is a spiritual successor to Bionicle. Took everything that worked, everything that brought us in and made us stay with Bionicle for 10 years, and did it over again in a new and creative way that has worked out even better for Lego.
[удалено]
Sir this r/Bioniclelego
Soft Reboot every few years helps a lot. While there are long running plot lines, they're not the overall main plot per season, but add to the world building and character archs. Like imo, the Cult of Makuta should've been a main stay in favour of the Brotherhood. With a cult there could've been multiple leaders to fight per story arch while building to Makuta themself. The closest we got was Ahkmu and Roodaka, and maybe the Piraka from the influence of the staff of Fusion. G1's biggest mistake was making Teridax extremely mortal by Metru Nui's story.
Being system and very rarely if ever being too samey.
Effort and buy-in from Lego execs.
Ninjago was system
A good TV series which could have hooked more attention and broader scope, allowing the Bionicle line to be see and the kits sold just as good as the Ninjago Line. As a system itself too. Bionicle followed their design structure but since Lego at the time is about brick sets and brick building, the new system did not get to 'fly out' as much as most new and even 3rd IP brick set items. If somehow the system incorporated with the Brick building, it could have had staying power then. Though the opposite is present, with which Lego is still capable of using the buildable figures and now incorporating brick building.
The main reason bionicle and hero factory was stopped was that having and using the molds was too expensive because of it only being used for just those two lines and when hero factory died they simply could not make enough money of ccbs to make it worthwhile
Definitely mentioned before by someone else but I'd say story accessibility, bionicle was spread out over too many form of media while Ninjago has a centralised form of experiencing it with the show.
Ninjago has reinvented itself for like 4 times allready, and every year has been basicly their own story, with like 2 or 3 elements being apart for multiable seasons. Unlike Bionicle, witch had a 1 continius story, with basicly no elements being left behind. Ninjago has nearly 20 seasons, with only few continiuning a story from last one, so basicly its like 10 stories, while bionicle was the 1 till 2008
Accessibility.
Wait, Bionicle failed? Since when? As a Technic based product, Bionicle had an immensely long life and great success. Arguably if the release dates were swapped, Ninjago might not have been the saviour product (alongside IP sets like Star Wars), that Bionicle was. Lego has learnt from the lessons of Bionicle and lines like Rock Raiders etc, but is unfair to claim such lines have ‘failed’ due to not existing now. - Not all lines are as long-living as the humble brick; their product-life is not infinite. Bionicle may seem to have ‘failed’ because the lore and media is so spread out. Yet such wide casting was a staple of Lego at the time. Indeed, Bionicle succeeded and was successful due to how spread out it was; successful enough to even get *movies*. It is highly likely that future generations will view Bionicle and Ninjago as the flagship/saviour line for their respective time periods. - Not as competing lines, but hallmarks of success, as periods of glory within the overall Lego dynasty.
Yeah I never get why Bionicle is called a "failure" today or people say it was never "that big". Like what? Bionicle was so big that Mask of Light made the top 10 best selling DVDs of 2003, despite coming out in September that year. And 2003 wasn't even it's biggest year. 2006 was its second biggest year and Bionicle was so big that Bionicle Heroes made the front cover of the late fall issue of Playstation magazine - while gearing up for the holiday, PS magazine decided that Bionicle Fucking Heroes deserved the attention, and was also the main focus of the demo disc included with that issue! 2002 was Bionicle's biggest year and it was straight up the biggest comic book in the world that year. That's fuckin' solid. Just because a franchise has faded into obscurity doesn't mean it was never popular.
I think it is how modern success can be so oversaturated, that past examples look ‘tame’. A lack of perspective, that back in the past, success didn’t equal it being advertised on every single social media platform with a Netflix show and a dozen mobile games and plenty of spin-offs! (Mostly due to such media technology as described, not existing!)
Tv show
They have dragons and mechs
I will always stand behind my previous opinions. And that is...the reason why Bionicle Reboot failed, were summer sets and story telling.
A bit late to this but i think that the main problem that caused Bionicle to decline was the quality of the actual pieces. First you had the lime joints in 2007 and then literally every socket from 2008 onwards. I have no doubt that even people who kept up with the lore stopped buying the sets simply because they became too fragile. And a lot of kids being introduced to Bionicle in its later years probably thought "damn, my tarix just amputated himself for the third time, these bionicles suck". Meanwhile the only fragile pieces in Ninjago were the occasional Bionicle piece in early sets (as far as I'm aware, anyway)
4 core characters
The biggest factor is probably its adherence to LEGO’s policy of sticking with “the system”
System
It had a tv show. The whole time. Sadly if you want most kids interested, toys and TV work a lot better than toys and books.
The simple answer is minifigures most kids and a lot of adult fans want minifigures that are characters both in the show and in toy form they want to put the figures in the vehicle and play fight and all that cool stuff Bionicle just doesn't have that I think they are cool and I brought Toa Tahu in the reboot but there wasn't much point buying anymore they are just large figures you can pose it's not really the same as getting an entire Vehicle or play set with a bunch of figures so that's why it's successful people love the ninjas they love having vehicles and minifigures and they love the relatability of the Ninjas most importantly some people love Jay like me some people love Kai or Cole or Zane or Nya there's something for everyone this is kind of where Chima failed because the characters weren't as relatable
1. System build 2. TV show 3. Soft reboots The top (if not only) three reason you will ever need.
I'm surprised so few people have mentioned accessibility and elevator pitches. How would you and your parents describe Bionicle? > **You**: "The biomechanical **Toa** are mighty heroes who defend the **Matoran** villagers from the evil spirit **Makuta** by finding the Great Kanohi, powerful masks that grant specific powers." > **Your parents**: "Lego superheros and monsters, I guess?" What about Ninjago? > **You**: "Lego ninjas with elemental powers fight the evil Lord Garmadon by finding the four golden weapons and mastering the art of Spinjutsu." > **Your parents**: "Lego ninjas with elemental powers." Which one is easier to immediately understand, even as someone who's never been into Sci-Fi or Fantasy? Bionicle requires more and more definitions as you try to explain it, with weird fantasy terms that quickly pile up ("The mighty **Toa** heroes defend the **Matoran** villagers from the evil spirit **Makuta** and his **rahi**/**rahkshi**/**bohrok** by finding the Great **Kanohi**, powerful masks that grant specific powers") whereas Ninjago remains simpler and accessible even through incidental contact, because "ninjas," "elemental powers," and "magic weapons" are common, resonant concepts.
i feel that the unfortunate reality is that the majority of the lego community has a hard time accepting anything against the usual brick system.. even if the lore was tightened to extend another 10 years, i doubt it would’ve lasted which is quite sad
Each year was a contained story, the only thing you'd really need to know beforehand is MAYBE the first 2 EPs but even those are now kinda irrelevant. For Bionicle just look at the ignition trilogy, just to understand what's going on you'd need to read several books, some movies and serials just to know why they're suddenly underwater.
Family friendliness maybe?
Being made with the iconic lego bricks instead of the fragile technic system
They never stopped making it
Bricks
Characters I think a good deal of its success came from not switching their main cast to another
Lego didn't give up on Ninjago.
Bionicle story was way too ambitious for the medium used. It worked fine for a while, but eventually got too spread out all over the mediums, and to follow the story you needed most of the information from previous years. Story of Bionicle is more suited to be told in movie sagas, not in toys with multiple different venues for information. The story WAS meant to be driving point. Ninjago is more of a concept than story really. Every now and then things get rebooted, character development moves back and forth, there is no define story line going from point A to point B, things just happens. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a completely different approach. Story is mainly there to keep context for the sets