It's official: Bionicle to return in 2015

Oooooh, this is HUGE! This is BIG! This is...

A, what the heck. They had a well thought out marketing plan for this and didn't let a little thing like it already being widely known stand in the way of that.

Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for some proper Lego.

Okay, we all knew already. I was kinda hoping for more of a suprise, but it will be nice to see a return of bionicle.

it was kinda obvious that it was coming back, but at the same time not everyone is up to date with the rumors.

Well, that just smashed my Doctor Who Lego Set dreams. :P

I agree with JF, great job at not leaking this indeed. Besides, i still think Bionicle is boring. I wished for something like a Space return. More green CS minifigs NOW!

"Made from raw magic..."

Whaaaaat?

Anyone seeing what I'm seeing...? A Toa of Magic with a cape and wand????

:)

@ Yoris95: Hopefully a Fantastic-Four for Marvel or the HF-Bionicle co-exist! That would be great! :-) :-D :-) ;-)

People! TLG will still make an announcement at NYCC. and because they revealed this before that, the next announcement could be LEGO Doctor who. or A major highlight on the next Marvel line. or maybe a conformation that Bionicle will not replace Hero Factory but will co-exist. like Ninjago and Chima. it could be all thing not bionicle related. I personally love that bionicle 2015 is a 100% fact now.

^Still think the NYCC announcement is also BIONICLE, because BZPower was the first to give free tickets. Also this one wasn't planned I think, just because all the leaks, they just did this teaser.

Will any of the kids that are now spotty teenagers really care that this is being re-released?

Lame...
We knew this already. Well I did predicted this.

I'm not sure of Bionicle's popularity, more to the point, I'm not sure this warranted LEGO 'building up' the release (pun not intended)
I'm sure that Bionicle has its followers, but from an outside perspective how this different than the Hero Factory that appears to be floundering (its not like I'm hearing buzz about the next great hero factory set on websites).
I just do not see this pulling in large numbers, and seeing many of these having to be heavily discounted like in the last run of these.

Worst kept secret of the year.

Shouldn't they have tweeted Nelson from The Simpsons going, "The big 'secret' is Bionicle. Ha Ha!"

@jonboy2000: No need to be so rude. I was a kid when BIONICLE was released, I followed it through all the years, it was basically my childhood and I can't think of any other single thing (outside of school, family and friends of course) that has had such an impact on me. I'm an adult now, not a "spotty teenager" and yes, I do care that BIONICLE is returning, and I do care A LOT. Please accept that and don't be so rude to the people to who this actually means something. If BIONICLE means nothing to you or you simply don't like it that's perfectly fine, BIONICLE has always been a very controversial theme, but please do spare us fans your insolence and let us enjoy the return of a theme we love. Thank you very much. It's obvious LEGO is going to pull a big stunt with this and I really hope they pull it off the way LEGO, the theme and the fans deserve it. This seems to be LEGO's big story theme launch for 2015, just as Ninjago was for 2011 and Legends of Chima was for 2013.

@jonboy2000 Bionicle Comedy Central. Enough said. :)

^Hear hear!

@gatanui I think you need to chill out a bit. If Bionicle was 1 of the most defining moments of your childhood then I feel for you.

Worst kept secret ever. Omg, I´m so incredible disappointed...

@jonboy2000: Well, feel for me if you wish because I certainly don't regret anything. Everyone has something that was a very defining element of their childhood and in my case it was BIONICLE and I see nothing wrong with that (there were other things of course, like many other LEGO themes but BIONICLE has always been the biggest for me). If you haven't learned to respect other people's hobbies, especially when your hobby is something as nerdy as LEGO, then you've got a problem and I'm certainly not going to be the one to deal with it. With all due respect, I have the feeling if someone needs to chill out, it's you, as for some reason you seem to have a problem with BIONICLE returning but well, I guess you'll just have to deal with it while I and many others get to enjoy it. Guess who's going to get a better night of sleep today. ;)

Um... So, why doesn't Artakha still have his mask?

Worst kept secret of the year is an understatement. This could also be in the running for worst best announcement of the year, seems how we knew it was coming eventually and that they had no pictures to go with it! Come on, Lego. Give us something we can work with!

*brickset user voice* why couldn't this announcement have been about REAL LEGO

I completely blipped over the articles here and on the Brick Fan solely because I already have the prelims for all of these sets anyways. They're on a Google Snapshot of the LEGO 2015 Imgur gallery, taken before the pictures were removed. Not what I was expecting at all. I do like the purple Protector, though...

I knew it was Bionicle!!! Not That I'm all that excited, I knew it!

Remarcable to see that Bionicle always seems to be a subject of fierce debate. I wonder why?
I don't perticularly (correct spelling?) like it. But that is no reason to be rude to eachother. Play nicely please!

THE HYPE TRAIN HAS REACHED IT'S DESTINATION. YOU MAY NOW DISEMBARK AND PARTY. THANK YOU FOR TRAVELLING HYPE RAILWAYS.

(sorry for the allcaps)

YAY!

Well crap. I was hoping for something good. Bionicle has always been a numb theme.

I bet lego's gunna show pictures of either bionicles or a new exclusive set at Brickcon. They always do.

Lame. Uninterested. But there is no shortage of Lego out there for me!

such a bad move by Lego

ok lego this is really the BIG surprise.... all we know the returning of bionicle in 2015. for this countdown i was really waiting for a real BIG thing something related for the afol world like a ucs, cloud city or even a new re release of the imperial flagship. worst keep secret of the year congratulations.. im so disappointed

^It wasn't going to be anything people keeping up with leaks would be surprised by no matter what. If it's not Ideas, and it's not something that's leaked, it's either so unimportant nobody thought to leak it, or it doesn't exist.

Bionicle was a part of my childhood as kind of a favorite toy line, I still buy second-hand sets from old lines.
This new line (at least the images around) just seem like Hero factory, and I'm really disappointed with Lego using the Bionicle name on it, it seems that they're short on ideas for action figure themes (either robotic heroes vs villains theme or a generic unexplored fantasy world). This "bringing back" is pure marketing. Bionicle has never been like this.
Without to mention that the generic "mask of power" calling felt like the theme will be somewhat juniorized (not that the original theme wasn't already).

@interceptor: when are we going to get a good cloud city redo? I hope next year and I hope it is as big and well thought out as the Ewok Village.

Gatanui said

"especially when your hobby is something as nerdy as LEGO"

..................................................... LEGO's not nerdy!

On the topic though I have to admit that i'm not very excited for Bionicle coming back, they were at the stores when I was a kid and they never really interested me ( the lack of Minifiguers didn't help it's case)

But i'm happy for you who enjoyed the theme ( I'm gonna have to stop putting Bionicle in past tense now that's it's coming back) and brings new hope that some older themes will be rebooted in the future.

how comes lego nerdy?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I'M SO HAPPY!!!
:DDDD

Oh my days ...
Is Lego nerdy? Being a Bionicle fan something to be ashamed of? What am I doing on this site? I should grow up because other people are judging me.
Nah, I have some bricks to play with ...

@mkrey i dnt know when are we going to get a cloud city. all i know is that in the forum of eurobricks is the rumor that the next year lego are going to bring a very large set and it wont the slave 1. the is the image in the new book the dark side of a cloud city that could be a new model but I insist ALL THIS are nothing more than rumors, so so hopefully will know something soon

noooooo! I WANT MORE Star Wars!

So dissapointing. Lame.. I don't even know why they're doing this. I think Lego should stick to SYSTEM bricks and sets, all the rest look like action figures and just ruin the wholeness of Lego brand. I do understand that they want to make profit, but still..

Bionicle Schmionicle.

Where is LEGO Space?

@ASonic87: What's unwholesome about action figures? Particularly ones like Hero Factory or BIONICLE that are designed for creative building?

From what I can see, it looks like they go beyond the standard Hero Factory build in order to incorporate some sort of mechanism in the torso. That would explain the higher piece-count. This is made evident by the side of Tahu and by the back/neck area of Onua.

@Teddy: Yup, those are confidential pics that Meso found. As to the mechanism, I think it's something like what ToaLeewan created (linked below). I think it's the best-case scenario- looks good, and the shoulders can both be driven by a gear function and function as shoulders.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126493865 @N07/sets/72157647828054585

Thanks for the link! That looks about right.

Way to Go @Gatanui. I called out the same kind of whiners on the official facebook announcement. Its pretty sad that Bionicle is something "controversial" here in the greater lego community. Like it or not people, bionicle was a big deal to an entire generation of kids, now those kids like myself, Gatanui and Aanchir are all adults and we still love it as much as ever. This wasn't just a fad to die out, and whether you wanna acknowledge it or not, Bionicle saved Lego's bacon when they were in hot water. You owe bionicle a little more credit and respect than you people have been giving it. I'm sick and tired of all the flack Bionicle gets.

Furthermore, Constraction fans don't sit around here calling other themes boring or lame or berate classic space(just for example) for some childish reason. I know we all are fans of a children's toy, but grow up people. This is ridiculous.

"Bionicle saved Lego's bacon when they were in hot water"

I thought Star Wars was the big thing that rejuvenated the LEGO industry

@1UPminifig: It was really a combination of factors, and no one theme can be given ALL the credit for saving LEGO. But BIONICLE really, legitimately saved the LEGO Group's bacon in 2003, because that was a year with no new movie releases for any of the LEGO Group's big licenses (Star Wars, Spider-Man, and Harry Potter), and as a result the sales for those themes plummeted.

Here's some quotes from the book "Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry" (http://books.google.com/books?id=4YgAjv9bdT0C):

"By late 2003, the LEGO Group's leaders finally began to concede that the glowing success of LEGO Star Wars, as one executive put it, was ultimately a "thick, fat layer of cosmetics" hiding the raw blemishes of a sickly core business. By November of that year, it was apparent that all the rouge and mascara had melted away. Without a Star Wars movie, LEGO couldn't reprise the line's explosive growth, and sales rapidly lost altitude." (p90)

"By the end of 2003, the LEGO Group's sales had plunged by 30 percent compared to the previous year and it had lost its leadership position atop all its core markets. LEGO was running a negative cash flow of DKK 1 billion ($160 million) and had racked up debt of DKK 5 billion ($800 million). Although 2003 brought the biggest deficit in the LEGO Group's history, 2004 was forecast to be even worse, as the company's net loss was expected to double to DKK 1.9 billion (about $300 million)." (p98)

BIONICLE was the one theme that remained exceptionally successful during the year 2003. If it hadn't been for BIONICLE's success, it's entirely possible that the LEGO Group would not exist today. "In 2003—the year the rest of LEGO came crashing down—BIONICLE's soaring sales accounted for approximately 25 percent of the company's total revenue and more than 100 percent of its profit (as the rest of the company was tumbling to a net loss), making it a financial anchor in turbulent times." (p155)