Man, this shit hard. First off, i was the guy who made the vid of Armstrong yelling about the dream, honestly I was unaware of how big "The Dream" was until after the meme was made. Before, I've had vivid dreams of BIONICLE returning, crystal clear, but it was fictitious sets, new sets continuing the story or even (as I joked in the meme) remade sets of older ones. But man, discovering so many folks had that similar dream was... I dunno, unifying. BIONICLE was something special, and you really hit it on the head with "Zillennial". A weird generation caught between a generational shift, not exactly Millennial and not exactly Zoomer. There was nothing really for us to 100% grasp onto that the generations before and after us had, it's been a weird mix of taking from each. Yet, BIONICLE, for a fraction of us, WAS a huge part of our culture. Like you said it wasn't a big phenomenon, but the fact folks actually have "The Dream" is testament to how much an impact it had on us. I was obsessed with BIONICLE, the sets, the comics, the books, games, everything. THIS was my LOTR, this was my mythos. The phrase, "You had to be there", is all too accurate for this era. It really is just an odd but, big crux to a good portion of Zillennials really. With how many of us felt caught in the sweep of change, BIONICLE was ours, and now its gone. Nothing can really bring it back the same way. Much like us it got swept away into the annals of time. I think what also contributes to this phenomenon with BIONICLE, was it was there WITH us at the beginning, right as we were kids. And, right as many of us were growing out of childhood or shifting into maturity in someway, it ended. It began as we were kids and left as we entered teenage years or adult year in some cases. Most franchises don't have this odd state BIONICLE was, it was never a flash in the pan but it never burned for as long as Transformers and Pokemon did. It came right in time for a childhood for a specific age group. Really weird to have this connection with BIONICLE and Zillennials but, it really does make sense.
Well said! In hindsight it's kind of crazy how Bionicle was only resurrected once, given how immortal every other franchise seems to be, but it's probably because Lego owns so many other profitable IPs. Whether or not people would be happy with a new incarnation of Bionicle, its definitive end has allowed it to remain as the "you had to be there" series, which is part of what makes it so special to our age group. And man, thank you for your contribution with the Armstrong video. I found it when I was researching for this video and it really highlighted for me how widespread this phenomenon was. I know it was just a meme but you made me feel encouraged that I wasn't just making things up. 👏👏
Was born in 95, but I feel like I became cognitive around 2000. Unfortunately, as a child, I couldn't afford them then. And now as a 27 year old man, I still cant afford them now. Ironic isn't it?
Same. My first bionicle set was Acker but I was aware of some of the lore and stories behind bionicle even before that thanks to the books an movies. I still get the dream every now and then and it's almost always about the earlier sets that I wasn't able to get as a child
I'm 03 and... it's a very interesting position to be in, people from 02 feel much older, and people from just like, one or two after me feel really, really young and different, it's the difference of being born pre smart device i think
The term "Zillennial" explains so much to me. I can remember VHS, but not NES. I'm not on TikTok, but I was on Facebook. I feel too young in the Millennial crowd and too old in the Zoomer crowd. You have perfectly described a generational identity that I couldn't define myself. P.S. I have never regretted keeping all my Hot Wheels cars. Never once. They haven't been played with for a long time but the nostalgia of just looking at them is worth it.
I was born in 2006 but most every one of those descriptors fits me. Perhaps I was affected by having a brother more than a decade older than me who was really into bionicle.
Had a ridiculous large collection of Hot Wheels but sold 90% of them in a car boot sale, kept my favourites of course. Still have to resist the urge to buy more when I see them charity shops or hanging up in Tesco, even a decade later.
@@danielmarsden4573 They're cheap as hell, make good collectibles, and you can always justify them to the cashier with "oh they're for my little one." Don't resist, my man.
There's something to be said about a franchise where you could quite literally quite literally control every aspect of your character's life from the actual moment of conception all the way up to the Bittersweet end.
@@blairbrown4812 To me that's the key to Bionicle's longevity, over its initial success: over the years, we were never supposed to just be passive customers, instead we were active worldbuilders, making our own characters and stories, both figuratively and tangibly. Bionicle was a sandbox for our imagination to run wild, basically.
Greg Farshtey is a genuinely great author and I personally sent him a email as a child and was very active on the Lego bionicle forums back in the day as a kid online. Farshtey was very active and kind to the community of mostly children and answered tons of people's questions. I remember the q&a at the end of bionicle he did where he recommended the fans watch star trek next generation and to not give up hope that our favorite story could see light again someday.
As a Bionicle fan born in 1997, who followed the series from beginning to end, I have to say that you're spot on. It's uncanny how well you can characterize the experiences of people born at this cusp. I feel as if Zillennial is almost younger sibling generation to Millennial; we remember what was handed down from the 90's, but we still had to process a very dynamic world since the early 00's as we grew up. I'm glad there's at least a few ways we can come together to validate our shared experiences.
Believe it, Ive had the dream so many times and even bought new sets in my dreams. Interesting how similar all our of dreams are. Could be something deep or not at all
@@cjbradt2658 I usually have the traditional dream in the store but once I had a dream where I went off the road in a car and landed in a swamp and there was a 40ft tall Pohatu Nuva just wandering around. It was terrifying. But I knew Pohatu's a chill guy.
This shit hit me like a freight train right to the feels. Never actually knew that a lot of people feel actually stuck between generations like I do. The fact that you used Bionicle as a metaphor made it that much clearer, I own everything from G1 and most of G2 and G3 bionicles. Funny thing is that I never was that invested in the lore but this feels like I should make an effort to get more invested. Great video! Hope to hear more from you in the future!
the lore is out there! you can find every comic and novel in PDF format if not physically on ebay. The novels hold up, even as an adult. Would definitely recommend. But be warned, there's a lot of them.
I wonder if Bionicle's deep lore and long lifespan is part of the reason the nostalgia is so strong? Unlike alot of other nostalgic toys Bionicle wasn't a flash in the pan, a fleeting trend. But at the same time unlike longer lasting toylines (star wars, transformers, Hot Wheels etc.) it's no longer around so it's gotten nostalgic for those who grew up with it.
oh 100%. Kids who "grew out" of Legos or transformers could later feel nostalgic and walk into any store and pick up a set, but not so for bonks. But the lore is what ensured that it can still be discussed on an adult level, all toys aside.
@@ricotalks This train of thought seems the most accurate to me. Bionicle was never popular enough to be taken over by the 'nerd media acceptance wave' of the 2010s, when it was suddenly okay to say you liked super heroes and star trek. It sounds gatekeepy to say 'You just don't get it', sure, but a lot of those same people would still accuse you of being a 'weird manchild' for liking Bionicle. It's not accepted. It has no massive company-backed push trying to make it socially acceptable, in the same way we see adult disney clothes everywhere now. It's sad, but maybe it's for the best. Memories of the early internet and that fantastic online game can never be corrupted.
It's completely manufactured. Anywhre around the world you can recognize GROWING UP as the process where you move TOWARDS these semi-mature stories where they may exist. But in this American, Huxleyan landscape, the only thing that seems to matter is to have some kind of exclusivity, that Bionicle is "our thing" on which we can reject all the Transformers fans, and Inhumanoids fans, and My Hero Academia fans, as "just not getting it". And it's entirely because of the American standard, that every new generation since the busheads of the 1950's conforms to, that we MUST constantly look up for the great leaders in the media landscape to force feed us mainstream content. ACTUAL growing up, of going out there adn FINDING the stories of other kinds of people and not execs regurgitating your own values back to you, just doesn't happen in any of these dystopian federations. It happens in Indonesia, but certainly not China or USA. Maybe a BIT in Russia. And don't you just HATE buying gas from Russian enterprises for it. Much mroe than buying iPhones from Chinese enterprises, where the population is successfully kept subservient to global capitalism, just like in USA. The onslaught of media propaganda hits characters like PewDiePie HARD, for lifting the veil a teeny tiny bit. I guess Lego being a Danish company was able to inch towards that with Bionicle.
@@Ungantor exactly, I tried to steer away from the whole "you wouldn't get it" attitude but a few comments I've gotten on here prove that some people really don't get it
I’m literally crying. I was born in 98, my first figure was Kohrak, white Bohrok. I was swallowed by this theme, I had a huge collection and witnessed the rise and fall of Bionicle. I took it hard. Boinicle was also a community for me. I was a part of a local online forum, sometimes coming to little gatherings, like sitting in a mall and showing each other our mocs, or even coming to another city to meet the admins and other people you met online. I knew almost everything about Bionicle, it was truly a part of me. But then… Everyone had grown up. Bionicle no longer exists. And sometimes I find myself lying for 3 hours in bed not capable of doing anything, just remembering all of that stuff. I’m so grateful that this happened, but… Sometimes I think it disappeared too fast.
What do you mean "disappear" 😂 we have multiple Bionicle fan games in the making. You can always buy more Bionicle, people sell them all the time, start a collection or create new combos with new technic parts. Tons of knock-off brands exist, parts that Lego never dared to make. Play doesn't grow old, even when the plastic needs a bit of care after all this time : )
Born in 95, and Bionicle remains one of the most special parts of my childhood. It really was something magical, calling it a dream really is the perfect description. Just seeing the artworks on the instructions covers makes me feel extremely melancholic. If I was offered to experience it again like I did, I might refuse. Something about that dreamlike retrospective makes it more special/personal to me. It's one of those things you just don't want to let go. I re-bought up to the Rakshi a few years back, it's nice to have them again. If I ever have kids one day I'd love to show them and tell them all about early gen Bionicles.
I was also born in 95 taking a bionicle to school with me to play with at recess was pivotal for me, for many reasons. It was pre-Beyblades, but pokemon cards and gameboys were banned at my schools since the time i was in kindergarten. It was that first “thing” i took with me to school to play with. It was also one of the first things i managed to lose on the playground. I had one of those bionicles that could turn into a ball, and we were all having a good time, Until I accidentally popped the top open and the little rubber mask went flying out, and I wasn’t able to find it :( That shit hurt…. I had to buy a little pack of replacement masks, which came randomized. None of them were the one i needed to replace the one i lost, which was red. Few things hurt like that as a kid, Losing something you care about while you’re having fun, and suddenly realizing you’ve lost it. Man…. Then we started playing with beyblades, and i have a whole other story about a kid getting salty over beyblades, and he broke mine so we fought.
@@nicks4802 not to ruin it for you my man, but if you had written the company a letter explaining which mask you needed they would have sent you one. They kept track tho so if you lost more then one mask they would offer to let you buy a replacement pack of just the one you needed. it was the normal multipack, except that all the masks inside were just the same one
Awesome to see there is somewhat of a 'Bionicle community' of people who realized how cool they were. The concept of releasing a set, then the next set being the same characters horribly mutated from alien spider venom is so dark and brilliant and I love it so much. No other toy could ever get me to take it so seriously
right? I love the fact that even though they had to release six new Toa or Makuta every year they didn't just create new characters and forget the old ones. I never thought during the Metru/Hordika arc that the Toa Nuva would end up being the main characters of the entire story
Whoa, dude, I clicked the video because I thought it was just a strong title about how formative Bionicle was to us growing up, but then you described a literal dream of buying new Bionicle figures and then waking up; my god! I’ve had that exact dream many times, I’ve never heard another human describe it! What an incredible connection!
I had the Bionicle dream multiple times. Last year a 3rd party Lego store opened in my city, and they actively sell used bionicles in mint condition, and often times in the canister. When I went there for the first time I felt like an 8 year old kid all over again. It felt exactly like getting my first Bionicle. Long story short: I'm one of the few lucky ones where the dream came true
@@JacopoSkydwellerBricks & Minifigs is the name of a store that matches their description. IIRC there’s one in Idaho and maybe one in Oregon or Washington, maybe there are others I don’t know about. But it’s a third party Lego store that sells everything from new sets to old sets and assorted used Lego in bulk. I’ve been there before and bought a nearly-complete Ideas Caterham 7 set for half its original price minus the box. Can confirm they had sealed Bionicle sets, but they weren’t cheap for sure. The staff has a pretty good idea of how much things are worth.
I was born in 03 but I got into Bionicle when I was probably around 4 or 5. I loved the movies because they were some of the few kids movies that my parents seemed to genuinely enjoy. My dad telling me "You're like Vakama, the only one who doesn't believe in you is you" feels super cheesy now, but that hit hard when I was a little kid.
One key aspect to the concept of the dream (tm) is the fact that Bionicle no longer exists. Every other major franchise like star wars, transformers, pokemon, and others that you used as examples are all still running and maintained.
I've has dreams not about Bionicle, but about Crazy Bones. It's a dream where I find a bucket of them and I'm sorting through them, picking out the ones I wanted to keep. Crazy Bones also no longer exist.
I have experienced the Bionicle Dream in REAL LIFE back in 2015. As a 16 years old teenager I was becoming more and more interested in electric motors, as I wanted to build small gadgets. I heard of this specialised toy shop in my city and I decided to pay it a visit since I had very specific needs for my little inventions. When I entered the shop near the entrance was a brand new Bionicle stand of the 2003 Kholi matorans ! I could not believe it ! Not a single one sold, all of the six matorans available in large quantity. I bought one of all element and I proudly brought them home. I was first introduced to Bionicle in 2004, so living the 2003 experience in freaking 2015 was priceless to me. I have no idea how did the sets ended up being on sale after 12 years being discoutinued. I will always cherish this moment !!! ❤
Being born in 1996 Bionicle was a huge part me and my brothers childhood, watching this video rekindled so many wholesome memories. Thank you for an incredible video
Wonderfully told. The Bionicle fandom hive-mind is real and I'm here for it. And great video! I think you have a bright future on TH-cam doing video documentaries, it was well written and hit all the right emotions for me. Hope to see more from your channel in the future
Extremely happy I found this video. I was born in 2001 and (as much as I hate the word itself) the term Zillenial is a word that completely describes me and my friends. The Dream resonated with me so hard and my attachment to bionicle always made me feel separate from older people who thought I was obsessed and younger people who don’t get it. Zillenial really help me understand who I am, someone from/nostalgic for a time older generations remember as a strange and scary phase in history where what felt like the course of the future could go in any direction: culture was in a weird fluid state, the war on terror was beginning, and the world was trying to stabilize and find direction after the Cold War and a national goal suddenly disappeared. While that world is completely foreign to people born in late-2003 and beyond. Where as for me, that world meant Bionicle, Xbox, GameCube,Halo, Mortal Kombat, Metroid Prime, the Star Wars Prequels and EU, Cartoon Network, Green Day, Cryoshell, Breaking Benjamin, cool flip phones with keyboards, VHS players, IPods, Zunes, and so much that I define my tastes with now. Even as a little kid still watching Teletubbies, Blues Clues, and Barney, these things still resonated with me, and still resonate with me to this day. I’ve always felt I had been in an unknown demographic drifting with a small group of like minded people, but now I know who the others could be. Thank you.
same, im glad im not the only person born in 2001 who identifies with the label of zillenial. i was worried that i’m too young to be considered a zillenial, but the label really fits since i feel completely disconnected from the culture of gen z. it’s just difficult to relate to people who grew up using social media and smartphones when i still remember renting vhs tapes from blockbuster! strangely i never have had the dream yet, even though i definitely have that painful nostalgic longing for bionicle. i never got to have any as a kid even though i always thought they looked so cool. whenever i would ask for anything lego related my moms response was “we have legos at home you don’t need more of them” lol.
I was born I early 2002 and you've described how I feel perfectly. I have VHS tapes from when I was a young child as well as dvds from when I was older. I even have my old bionicle sets. I didn't relate much to the common gen z tropes of the present and seeing that people similiar in age to me feel the same is really reassuring
Born in 96, grew up with the very first bionicles and now at 26 I'm collecting again and trying to get some of things i always wanted as a kid but could never afford. I don't know what it is about bionicles but I have an incredible feeling just thinking about em and the good old days. It was amazing!
i was by no means a bionicle kid. i only got into it last year at age 19 when i discovered my brother’s stash of sets in our garage and began a project to reassemble them. and even at that age, i became utterly captivated and fascinated with the entire franchise in mere days, and it now lies among my favorite pieces of media ever. if it can amaze me, an adult, so easily, it’s really no wonder it was so successful and beloved by its generation
Wow, typically I feel like in the genre of “one off bionicle retrospective vid” you usually get a regurgitative surface level lore dump but I love that you sink your teeth into context and culture and cause and effect. I also like how the tone strikes a perfect balance of accessibility between low affinity fans/curious not bionicle fans and terminal bionicle brain-worm victims and avoids talking above or down to either group. Honestly was so deliciously satisfied watching this, feels like it scratched an itch that’s rarely attended to. Def going in my favorites playlist. Thank you for this genuine bionicle gem.
Man, seeing those Glatorian sets almost gave me shivers. 03 was probably close to the last year to be born in and still catch some of the Bionicle vibe. Glad I got to engage with it at least at the end of its lifespan. Even without having access to most of the lore, or even speaking english for that matter, you could always feel that there was more to it than other toys.
Same here. Born in 02 and my first set was Mahri Nuparu in 2007. I also relate to not speaking english back then. But now I have all that lore to explore!
Yup, born in 03, i absolutley loved bionicles as a kid and still do, even though i mostly grew up playing with hero factory i remember even back then thinking bionicles was cooler and wanted it back
I think the reason "the Dream" is so interlocked with Bionicle is that there really hasn't been anything quite like the theming and display design of the original toys themselves. When you were a kid, it was so easy to get lost at what toys were what; generic action figures would get lost in the sea of similar looking packaging. Bionicle did something different and, along with a vast multimedia experience that coupled with the allure of early 2000's web and flash, it was memorable.
So much this. Just look at any old photos of the bonkle aisles. They are so distinct and unique from any other toy line, even other Lego sets, that there is no wonder they were burned deeply into our subconscious to the point of becoming a re-occurring theme in our dreams.
As someone who was reading the Bionicle novels and the school classic literature program at roughly the same time, I have no doubt that the latter was far darker, far more emotionally traumatizing, and far less releatable.
This really spoke to me. Born in '95 I really did feel the generational divide. While I definitely self-identify more as Millennial, this also lead to me always feeling awkwardly like the youngest person in any given group so much of the time (something that has thankfully faded with age). But Bionicle always also felt distinctly like it was "mine." I was the perfect age to get into it when it was new (I still have all 6 Toa Mata packed away somewhere), and follow it to its conclusion. It was special to me for reasons I could never articulate as a kid, but now really appreciate it for how unique its world was and how much deeper it was than most things I was exposed to as a child.
You don't know (or perhaps you do) how lucky you are to still have them. Please, cherish those heroes, for those of us who don't have them anymore as well.
I was born in 2004, and have loved Bionicle since I was 3, I turned 20 a few days ago, and my family recently drove 2 and a half hours to a Lego store that sold Bionicle for their original prices. I bought several sets and it made me feel just like a kid again. The happiness of buying Bionicle again is very much still possible, and buying them is like seeing the dream come to life. UNITY DUTY DESTINY
Gen Z here, 02. I was introduced to Bionicle during the Glatorian era, but through watching youtube “tribute” vids I became fascinated with the earlier waves of Bionicle instead. I would save up allowance money and get my parents to buy the older ones on eBay. Even without experiencing Bionicle normally, I still have The Dream. But it’s always finding many of them loose in a cardboard box, since that’s how they came to me.
I was born the same year and had a really similar experience. I had Bionicles from 07 to the end, but secondhand Mata Nui sets and Metru Nui library books were what really got me invested
I was also born in 2002 my first taste of bionicle was with the phantokas sets in 2008 which made me fascinated with the whole universe of bionicle I had alot of older cousins who where interested in bionicle and I got alot of there older sets handed down to me it’s interesting that people born in 2002 seem to have a similar experience
I was born in ‘06, but I got into Bionicle as early as I had memories, and before. I read all the Bionicle books I could find and watched all the movies that they had at our local library, but then forgot about it for a while. Then g2 happened, and I had my interest rekindled. I watched Ash Vampires lore lecture a few times, and got very interested in it. I had my first experience of “the dream” and learned that it was a widespread thing. I actually have 2 old Bionicles on my desk ( Onua Nuva and a black bohrok). I may not be in the proper age range for zillenials, but I do relate to many of the characteristics described.
02 here too, my first Bionicle sets were from 2006, which was probably only possible since I had an older brother from '99, otherwise I wouldn't have been cognizant to even want them that early on. So to me Bionicle wasn't a cool new thing, it was something that had always been there and I was lucky to get interested in the middle of it. Maybe in 2014 I was gifted the toa metru and three of the toa nuva from a friend who had probably gotten them online, and when I turned 18 I was able to order replacement parts for the missing or broken pieces of my collection from Bricklink.
I started with the visorak line in terms of memory but I had a rashkshi before that I found going through my stuff I don't have any memory off. Got really into it with the movies and the mahri & barraki lines and continued on. Never got into the novels but when I saw Mata Nui's eyes glow red learning for the first time what we've been fighting on this whole time, I went digging a bit. I did enjoy the Bara Magna lines too and was quite sad when the story ended and was disappointed in the bionicle stars sets. Them and hero factory's simplicity of builds didn't strike it off with me and when the reboot followed that trend I just didn't engage. I have like 1 reboot set and that's it. All I can really say going forward is man I hate how the joint pieces crack. I'd still play the heck out of them if they didn't.
I just had "the dream". Granted it was probably because of this video that I watched a few days ago, but still. In the dream someone knocked on my door and I let them in. They placed a giant backpack on the floor. Or maybe it was a cooling bag. Either way it was some giant bag with a zipper going all across the top horizontally. And when the bag was opened, it was filled with Bionicle containers, all laying on their back and stacked. The dream ended there, briefly after. So yeah... Good job for implanting the idea of the dream into this millennial here haha
I like how you gave an example of someone born in 1997 because that's when I was born and my history and experience with Bionicle is exactly the same as how you described it. Grateful I never got rid of any though as I never really "grew out" of them. I've always felt disconnected from any particular generation, and my only consistent companion throughout the ever-changing world of my childhood was Bionicle. Amazing video.
The three movies were always my window into Bionicle. Vakama's characterization in the third movie was quite a formative experience for me, looking back on it. He was exhausted by the burden of leadership and being blamed for everything that went wrong (which did a huge number on his fragile and hard-fought self-confidence), and when presented with the opportunity to be respected and feared as a tyrant, he welcomed the change. Also, he and Roodaka totally would've boned had it not been a kid's movie. She quite literally _seduced_ him to the side of evil. It's a shame there was never a movie for the Inika/Mahri, hell, any of the Mask of Life story arc, because those are the storylines I missed out on while my child brain moved on to different obsessions. It wasn't until I saw a Mata-Nui figure for sale at Toys R Us that I realized how much story had passed. I mean, God was a toa now? Holy hell, what did I miss??
Vakama is such a well written character. He's like Jon Snow but less perfect and honestly more human. What still blows me away is that there's three major toa teams, plus the glatorian, piraka, barraki, Makuta, etc etc and every one of them manages to have a distinct but not cartoonishly unique personality. Well maybe the toas of water, but you can't win em all. Must've been a shock for you to see mata nui as a toy. Y'know no one will believe me on this but back during the Mahri arc when I was like nine or ten I wrote a comic about mata nui showing up as a toa wearing the mask of life. Never thought it'd really happen, especially after Toa Ignika.
19:35 "That's the thing about growing up. we feel the pressure of being a Toa, but deep down, we're just older and sadder Matoran.." Why did that line sting so much? I came here to laugh about a shared dream plastic robot fans like me had! Not reflect on my rushed coming of age... Well done.
As someone from 1996 I can heavily relate. I'm literally in the middle and younger people say I'm a millenial while older people call me GenZ..... I loved Bionicle so much and guys my age know about it. But go a bit younger or older and they seem to have no clue.
Yeah I was born in ‘92 and I remember seeing Bionicle and thinking I was starting to get too old for legos. Tbh it was one of the first times I thought “I would’ve loved this if it came out earlier”.
What my math breaks it down to is: the bionicle dream is a result of the toys being an emotional crux for people to escape into. For some of us, it was our one toy to collect for nearly a complete decade. I was collecting them ever since 2001 all the way until the end. Couple this with the internet and people learning about all the masks and sets they missed out on? FOMO is a powerful thing. It's a real test of character to see who's still doing bionicle content to this day vs who has been able to let go and move on.
I was also hooked since the start, and I'm still trying to get the few sets I'm missing (titans/vehicles from the later years, not to mention the books and comics). Though I'll be honest I can't seem to recall having "The Dream".
Personally, as someone who started with the very first series and never really continued past the third or fourth generation, it seems more that instead of being an escape it's the lack of the experience to find something in out lives that is really able to capture our attention and our imagination in such an overwhelming, yet within-our-grasp sort of way that Bionicle could. It wasn't just toys, it was the idea and the setting that we were able ti recognise and get a grasp of the basics (6 colours) yet felt like there was always more to discover, deeper meaning and new experience waiting just around the corner. There simply aren't many phenomenons today or, perhaps we, humans, have to be of a certain age to percieve a setting that way.
That makes a lot of sense. I've been experiencing it since the 1st time i found out about Lewa mata, that singular mask deisgn never used after 01, that unique axe, the hand piece. I started in 03, so everytime it was me finding that particular set in a flea market, usually incomplete and/or with other parts on it. When i grew up and found my first job I finally bought one from bricklink and from then on i just stopped having this dream (tm)
That’s a really good summary. I personally haven’t been able to find and stay with a Bionicle community online, and even though I don’t build now, I still haven’t been able to move on. If I ever get the money and display space, I still really want to collect the ones I never got and repurchase the one I can’t rebuild any more.
Dude i was born in 1999 and this is one of the best videos ive watched in recent times. Then when you ended with what was my favourite song back in the day, Move along that was an instant like and sub. Well done man, I kinda feel like I have closure now.
The more i revisit my past the more i realize how much stories like Bionicle or something like ATLA have shaped the values that i still hold today. I wish more people could look past the fact that this is "just kids stuff", whenever i talk about it i feel like i need to justify that this is actually not just a dumb toy line. People poured their heart and soul into this project, it's so abundantly clear the more you learn about the process of making the franchise. It's so important that toy companies realize how much of an impact the morals they portray can have to prepare people for the very real struggles of life. That's why the thinking of "oh it's just a kids movie" is so dangerous, and luckily many people realize this. Some kids stories i swear are more valuable than grown up stuff when they actually treat kids with the dignity they deserve. Your point about the Toa being relatable and human instead of just goody-two-shoes is so eye opening. It's telling us that good people don't always do good and will struggle, but to keep going and keep trying to be the best you can every day is what truly makes you a "hero". Thanks for making this vid!
absolutely! people sometimes forget that it's professional adults writing kids media, and they have just as much opportunity to put in real thought and effort as if they were writing for adults. Sadly, a lot of them don't bother, and the ones who do are written off as "just for kids." ATLA is definitely a great example of kids' media that went above and beyond.
this made me look up the head writer behind Bionicle, Greg Farshtey. According to his wiki article he planned on continuing to write the story after the toy line ended but wasn't able to.
Just watched Puss in Boots 2 and wanted to say… just yes. All of it. Children’s movies and tv are some of the most accessible media for all, which is why they’re so important. ATLA and Shrek left a big mark on me as a kid. Wishing you the best, stranger.
I always thought our generation as the forgotten ones. I was born in 1999, I grew up with the 2000s and I always felt....... alone but bionicle gave me a sense of purpose as weird as that sounds It made me take up responsibility as a core component of my life.
probably does sound weird to people who never had bionicles but not to us. It's one of if not the most emotionally stirring toy line out there, but people on the outside don't get it.
EDIT: ok, now that I've watched it all, man, this was the best video about Bionicle I've seen in a decade. What's scary is how well you managed to put together a bunch of feelings that have been going through my mind for years. Bionicle and being a zillennial, being born in '98, I got into Bionicle with the blue Rahkshi for my 5th birthday. We're the GBA, stuck between the old Game Boy and the cooler Nintendo DS. Bionicle was made for a wide pool of children but we're the few it struck more than a chord or two. You're absolutely right, it's our mythology, it follows our imagination and even our ways of thinking. Being a Bionicle fan is something I've always been proud of, ever since showing my love to my classmates in elementary school, making videos in the early youtube. Even in my final year in college, some people know me as "that Lego guy". No jokes, Bionicle is part of my identity, it always has been and there will always be a moment for that me, the kid me, to have some fun. The Dream, imho, cements this feeling. Even when G2 was around, and I was one of its biggest fan (at least for the toys, those sets were great, way better than the averege over-utilised Inika build), I regularly had the Dream. And, on a monthly basis, The Dream is still happening: I'm always going through the toy isle in an unidentified store and I find either old or never before seen Bionicle sets and I spend a ton of time just admiring that view. Usually, I get a bunch of those, other times I'm so humble I just buy a single new Bohrok but, unfortunately, each and every single time I wake up before I get home, I never manage to actually build those sets. Waking up is soul crushing, indeed, but then, again, knowing how spread out this phenomenon is, I'm even more proud to be a part of this community. Maybe we were exposed to some sort of marketing social experimentations and some day the Lego higher-ups will turn on a switch and we'll be all their slaves... anyhow, even in my childhood I knew Bionicle was different. Then Christian Faber's tale and battle with cancer was revealed and that was the first real world sign, to me, that proved my point. Ultimately, the Dream gives a sense of fullfilment, of both longing for the older days and belonging to a precise community, maybe not well-known as others, but a strong one indeed. We're the weirdos that experienced Cartoon Network in its prime, that played Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Even I, born in the Centre of Italy, even I can relate so much with this sentiment. ***FIRST IMPRESSION COMMENT after just 7 minutes*** Man, I'll finish this video later, but I gotta admire how perfectly you encapsulated the key to Bionicle's original success in the brief start of the video. It had everything: something from Pokémon, from Power Rangers, Transformers etc., but, most importantly, it had the spirit of Lego and, as you said, you could interact with its characters and lore in an exclusive and personal way: creating your own characters and stories to tell. That to me is Bionicle, it anticipated a mix of interactive and cross media in such a groundbraking way that it got us all hooked. Bionicle was a canvas for our imagination to run wild, so that's maybe why we yearn for those memories. It isn't just the usual nostalgia for simpler times, we miss the time we were in full control of our own worlds yet there was always something new and surprising to experience and we could do that on the front row.
I was thinking very similarly! and coincidentally, my first bionicle was also the blue rahkshi, but I bought it at a garage sale for 25 cents and it was missing several parts. it was another year before I figured out it was legos, and probably another 2 before I bought my own new bionicle out of a store
The fact that this dream seems to occur for so many people is mind boggling. I remember my equivalent of this dream wasn’t in Target or Tesco or anywhere else, but was in my local toy shop that’s sadly closed down (I think it’s a Betfred now). I always used to go in every week and buy a Bionicle set, to the point where they recognised me and even gave me some of the promotional stuff when the next batch of sets was due out. They closed down just as Bionicle was about to end. Once every blue moon I’ll have a dream where I’m 11 years old again and I’ll walk into that toy shop with my mum and my nanna (who sadly passed away) about to buy the newest Toa. I can never remember what they looked like or what their name was, I only remember that I was excited to build them when I got home and nanna asking all these questions about them, about what powers they had what I think their personality is like. I guess mine is a little different since I associate the dream more with people that aren’t around anymore as opposed to just Bionicle in general, but I felt I should say my experience with dream anyways since I think it was Bionicle that gave me these moments with my mum and my nanna in the first place. Great video friend, thank you
I was born in 1992 and I was introduced in 2001 when it began. I felt the the 2003 movie-forward it took a huge dip in quality - my perception of Bionicle as a mature, captivating universe of the CGI promo videos, online game, and comics was shattered by the movie; from the shoddy voice acting and childish animation and strange choices to diverge away from the tone of the first two years. All that to say, I've had reoccurring Bionicle dreams that are so vivid. I have almost every set from 2001-2003, missing just 3.
As someone born in 2001, I think we have it the worst of all. We got into Bionicle a bit late, with hordika wave for me and grew to love it just when it ended. We got to discover old sets only through family visits of older cousins and looking through the mata and nuva instructions since internet wasn't so accessible to a kid. And then we suddenly lost a thing we just got very invested into. However, we were still young enough to enjoy Hero Factory but old enough to want Bionicle back and then we speculated until 2015, when we got them back. And again, just at the last time to enjoy them as a "kid".
Yup. I was born in 02 and I remember getting my first bionicle in 07/08. Bionicle was definitely part of my childhood, but not like it was for older kids. My cousin was born in 97 and he had all the og sets, it was so cool to play with them at his house. He still has them all and we talk about bionicles once in a while. Good times..
another 01 here, sorta similar experience. My first bionicle was Toa Iruini when I was 4 or 5, but I only got properly into them around the Toa Mahri. I feel like I’m old enough to have experienced later G1 but also young enough to have experienced the earlier years of Hero Factory too. That being said, I never really liked Bionicle G2. I was there for the hype train, I was there for the speculation but I ultimately didn’t like what we got. I hated the tone of it because ultimately, the ignition trilogy grittier era was what Bionicle was to me
As someone born in 98 this was peak childhood for me, I never knew that this bionicle dream was a huge thing but I can definitely say that I had one that repeated throughout my late childhood into my early teens. Back when I was really young I had three of these Bohrok ones that I loved to death, the ones that would roll up in a ball. The dream would always be me in the backyard of my childhood home at the time on the play set in our backyard. Every time I would be playing happily with the three of them but it would always end with me and the green one going down the slide together. At the bottom there would be a hole that the green one would fall into and no matter how hard I tried I could never get it back from that hole. I can still remember the dream perfectly, it would never change and now at 25 I can definitely put it together as something ridiculously symbolic. Those events did happen but as a kid I was able to retrieve my little bionicle from that hole and go about my day, but when that dream started happening was after I had moved on from them. Almost like “hey you had this but you can never get this back now”. It doesn’t make me sad, it’s now just a really nostalgic memory of a sunny summer weekend when I was 6.
In many ways, it's easy to see why people get this dream. Adults often dream of still being in school because school was a longstanding part of their lives. Buying Bionicle sets was also a standard part of the lives of fans for years due to the franchise's longevity (for a toy line) with a relatively orderly release schedule. The store displays were eye catching, old sets were featured in evocative promo images, in the story and fan discussions even after they had been discontinued. The marketing prompted you to want to get all of them, and unlike with some more expensive and expansive franchises, being a Bionicle completionist was an attainable goal to many fans. So if you missed out on some, that left an emotional mark. The cancellation was also a shock to fans because a long-lasting pillar of their life was suddenly gone, so it's natural that it would affect their subconscious. I haven't had this type of dreams ever since I gave up on collecting years ago, though general shopping dreams are common since I do most of the grocery shopping in my family. I do get frequent dreams of browsing bookstores or online listings for other vintage toys. This isn't surprising either, since those are also activities I did a lot in real life. It's a common type of dream but to me it was never exclusive to Bionicle.
that's fair. we all have nostalgic dreams with a variety of subjects. What I think makes Bionicle special in that regard is that it's easily the most common pop culture IP associated with nostalgic dreams, even more so than other toys of the period.
Bionicle is such an important factor in my life. Born in 98, I remember going to my best friends house and seeing some of the sets and instantly getting hooked. I remember for years only asking for bionicles as christmas/brithday gifts and even getting into stop motion shorts in TH-cam. Truly an incredible franchise, not solely moved by greed and profits.
@@bigcoffinhunter5500 Bionicle also was influential in my music taste until this day. Move along, Hero and Caught up ina dream as well as gravity hurts and bye bye babylon are amazing
@@bigcoffinhunter5500 cool i just listened to them for the first time. I remember listening a lot of Rob zombie and Three days grace on bionicle youtube videos
I have not personally had "the dream" to my memory, yet never have I felt so seen by a video. Our childhoods may be over, but the memories will never leave. (And yes I do still play with my bionicles here in my late 20's)
In depth and thought provoking. As someone born in 1997, your points really struck a chord Bionicle had always been the rock I clung to throughout childhood. I can remember the exact day I unpackaged those original Toa Mata canisters at my grandparents house Sadly I also lost my entire collection. During an urgent move, we were low on space. Dad made me toss them all into the dumpster. Outside of deaths in the family obviously, I have never felt such a profound loss and regret. I have also had "The Dream". Often with profound lucidity not experienced in other dreams. It's although The Dream is some metaphysical space conjured by the cumulative desire and nostalgia of all those who yearn for Bionicle. Said dream only became more frequent after the loss of my collection. I do try to track down the odd set at yard sales here and there to rebuild my collection. However, the knowledge that all my original sets from the beginning of the series to the end are gone for good, and for no good reason, leaves quite a void. The one thing I can take solace in is that I'm not alone in these feelings and experiences. The sense of unity in the Bionicle community is like few others. I suppose the toa tenants left an impression on us die hards
This video perfectly captured what it was and is like to be a Bionicle fan. You explained so many things I've experienced and so many things I've thought but could never properly express through words. Thank you for making this video. It deserves more views!
watching this video and reliving my favorite toy line from my childhood is the most okay I've felt in years. It seems that in losing Bionicle, and all it stood for, I lost a large part of myself as well. While I don't wish to sound melodramatic, for someone born "in between" generations, who feels like he could never truly belong, it is extremely comforting to see others look back fondly on the same thing that brought me life as a youngin. I won't even start on the childlike joy and excitement that filled my eyes when I read "Gen 3 proposition" on the iceberg. But, let it be known that I would pay good money to have them all if Lego ever did decide to bring Bionicle back for a third time.
Oh man I wasn't expecting to get such an emotional reaction watching this. I've definitely had "the dream" but never thought to analyze it on an emotional level but you did a great job making me think about the implications of it. I think you really hit the nail on the head of what it feels like to be a Zillennial and struggle to find a piece of culture that you can define as your own. Especially since a lot of the stuff that came out in our era (Star Wars, Pokémon, Power Rangers, Transformers) were just continuations of what had come before. I think something that really makes Bionicle stand out and cause the dream is that it was a series designed to advertise very specific toys, and it's almost complete absence since those toys ceased production. To show what I mean, if you grew up with the Star Wars prequels (which came out around the same time) you never really stopped seeing them represented in toy aisles, in book stores or in movie sections. But nowadays if I want to buy a copy of the Bionicle books which were such a huge part of my childhood I can't find them anywhere except used copies on Amazon because Lego and Scholastic see no value in reprinting them since the toys they were designed to advertise do not exist anymore. I think this is what makes the dream so resonant, it is an experience you simply can't recreate by going to your local toy store, you literally had to be there. I think a big reason for the series longevity in the years since (and something that makes Bionicle really special compared to most series set in sprawling universes) was how willing Lego were to interact with the fan community to help influence the story. So many characters were adapted from fan models, (The Dark Hunter and Rahi books acted as great ways to show off what you could do with the sets you owned) and they even held writing contests allowing fans to help influence parts of the story (Norik's whole backstory was written by a fan). In a lot of fandoms OCs, self-inserts, and AU fanfics are seen as distasteful since it's inserting something into a story that's not "supposed" to exist, but in the Bionicle community it's a lot more accepted because Lego actively encouraged it. I think that's part of what makes this community so special and devoted. Bionicle wasn't just a toy we bought or movies we watched but a world we could be a part of and I do think that's part of what has kept it alive so long after it's dead. People encouraging each other's creativity to continue the series even in the absence of actual releases. It's no wonder the TTV Canon Contests were such a huge deal in the community when they happened as they finally brought back that old sense of being able to tangibly effect the universe. Currently I am in the middle of a hardcore binge for the era of Bionicle I have the most nostalgia for, the Metru Nui era. I reassembled my old sets, bought the ones I never got second-hand (thanks Bricklink) and even wrote a whole fanfic script retelling of the events of Legends of Metru Nui and making changes I think would enhance the story. While a part of me is sad that Bionicle is not around anymore in any official capacity (outside of an admittedly cool promo set) it does make me so happy to see that for so many people it made such a big impact because as long as we keep discussing it and creating new stories in its universe, Bionicle will never truly be dead.
hard agree with all of that. OCs and fanfic were such an important part of Bionicle as a whole that some of them even became canon. I had both the Rahi and the Dark Hunter books as a kid and it was so encouraging just to see that fans had been made a part of the lore. And even though there were preconceived concepts of what species existed in the MU and Bara Magna, there was always this idea that any being of any shape could totally be just around the corner, letting every OC be just as valid as the canon characters
@@ricotalks yeh and theze franchises from thev2000s are k now old enough for people to bd notsatlgic zbut thdn like with me mine was star wars and that Ben going on for almost 50 years but bionicle was big for decade then died out and vsme back jn mid 2010s and then now Lego is looking tonpotiny bring this property back like in the 20pps you had big frsnchise like hsryy potter lord if the rings binoicle transfomers prequl era star wars th erky 2000s marvel movies like x mdn spider mdn fntastic four blade etc and ven picxzr films but ithink I another reson thse ftsnchisevstsy on is becuse they like something tht mdkes then stsnd party fro. Evryonelnd else like lik love starvwars becuse thst skmthj g diffrent thsn just bring jntrsstrd in ti. tkm and socis, media like Twitter and Facebook
Born in 93, the bionicle lore and depth of its characters is what I credit a lot of my imagination, love of deep intricate story telling and lore and my general creativity all around to. It was like the video maker says, such a dark and complex story that tugged at your spirit as a kid. I haven't had "the dream" but I am not surprised that bionicle kids are being called by the mask of creation and light once again!
I lived the dream for a brief moment two years ago when visiting my WHSmith to post some cards I sold on eBay when I came across some 2015 sets that they dug out of storage and put on shelves for discounted sale. Needless to say, I took my chance and boy was it worth it.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I clicked on this video… but I’m glad that I did. I felt a whirlwind of emotions that I didn’t know were connected to this franchise and a strong sense of identity as well. This video has inspired me to look back at the franchise and re-discover a piece of my childlike innocence. Thank you for making this video.
I was born in 2000, but was thankfully introduced to Bionicle through the 3 Mirimax movies. After those I remember reading every single book published by scholastic. I’ll never forget the Inika and Mahri years. Those were truly Legendary. Thank you for making this video, it was awesome. I really appreciated your discussion about the generational divide. “Endings don’t invalidate experiences.”
Inika were fun. I vividly remember lining up Crazy Bones and firing the little marbles at them. The spiders with the spinners on top were fun too, but can't remember the name.
Being almost 28, this hit. This was something I've discussed with friends and others who have had similar experiences. This was pieced together amazingly well!
As someone born in 1998 and got to see Bionicle in it's second renaissance (2004-2008), I can say I've had variants of the dream from time to time, which oddly enough involves me going to my childhood Toys R Us that is long gone now but for some reason it's open and it often had Bionicle sets lined up, seemingly old stock they uncovered at the back and wanted to clear out inventory, and the catch for these dreams that usually makes me wake up is either me realizing that this isn't possible, as you mentioned, or for some reason realizing these were Chinese bootleg's from Lepin or similar bootleg companies. A lot of why I think the dream is mostly limited to Bionicle's fandom is due to the multimedia marketing campaigns for Bionicle sticking out to us into adulthood , since the toyline didn't have a tv show so they used commercials, movies and novels and other forms of promotion to get kids invested and much of the stuff in that marketing stuck out for how out there it was and how immersive it was for the time it came out in, and I don't think anything like it will be made again. While I always wish Bionicle had a tv show to help expand it's reach, I also know that if it did have that I don't think the series would have nearly the same identity it did without a tv tie in oddly enough. I think you're video captures the sentiment among us zillennials regarding this phenomena and why we have these dreams for a toyline from 22 years ago and counting.
absolutely. the multimedia format was something special, especially before the 2010s. Plus, I think if there was a TV show it would've been harder for Greg to keep the story moving in the right direction, what with studio interference.
@@ricotalks Agreed. I think that's a big factor why I can't get into Lego Ninjago. Lego definitely plays original themes too safe now given how often Ninjago's story reverts back to the status quo after each season which doesn't leave any room for actually wanting to invest in a story especially since we know everything it did will be undone by the season finale. Bionicle at the very least tied its semi reboots back to previous years. It's why the 3 major Toa Teams the line Marketed (Mata/Nuva, Metru/Hordika and Inika/Mahri) were all characters we got go know over time and when it was the audiences time to see those characters in their prime there was something so rewarding about it.
This hit home man. As I find more franchises I grew up with change or end, I just wish I knew how good I had it. OG Pokémon Gen 2-3, Yugioh, Bionicle, the GBA, even weirder stuff like Megablox Dragons. You said what I needed-just because the dream ended does not invalidate the experience. PS the Bionicle AAR commercial is seared in the back of my head as one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
This video brought me to tears, I'm not sure why. I never wanted to grow up, I never threw my bionicles away, but many other points are so relatable, and nostalgic.
Old school '91 Millennial here: while I cant say I've had the 'Bionicle Dream', they were _definitely a part of my childhood._ I grew up with the Throwbots/Roboriders (aka the precursors of Bionicle before it spun off from LEGO Technic to be its own thing. Yes, I have all of the Throwbots except Millennium), so I was already primed to buy into Bionicle when the toys first released. But Bionicle... man that was something special. I actually have the sets of Toa Takanuva and Makuta sitting on my bookshelf right now, and all six of the Toa Mata/Toa Nuva, Bohrok, Rahkshi, and a few of the Rahi as well as some of the later sets stashed away under my bed/in storage. Lost track of the universe around the Piraka-era (got sucked into other hobbies as got older), but Bionicle will always have a special place in my heart. Zillennials who loved the franchise should cherish it, because Bionicle is a phenomenon I don't think we'll ever see again.
Holy shit. I ended up here after having a Bionicle history video recommended to me, and wound up going down this rabbit hole of nostalgia. I was born in 92, and Bionicle dropped when I was 9 and immediately hooked me. I dropped off around 2005, right when I started getting "too old" to "play with toys", so the much later generations of Bionicle toys don't really appeal to me as much. Now I'm 30 and looking back into my childhood, trying to relive some of the few good moments when growing up, and the defining "good" thing from my childhood was Bionicle. I collected all the comics, as many sets as I could get, and any time I could get on a computer, I was online looking up lore. Granted, I grew up very poor and we didn't have internet in the house until I was in my teens, so the mystery with the lore was even more compelling to me as a child. I also have had "The Dream" and brushed it off as regular nostalgia. Now to hop on Bricklink and buy some 20+ year old sets...
I'm currently 17 almost 18. I got into bionicle late when i was younger after the theme had already ended. I remember in 2011 in a Toys R Us I saw 1 last Bionicle Stars Canister. It was Skrall, and that 1 bionicle is how and why i fell in love with the Toy Theme now. Without bionicle I have no child hood. I later Got into Hero Factory, Though i enjoyed it, it wasn't as Good as Bionicle. My dream Happened inside of a Walmart Christmas, I saw Sets I never had Before, I rarely get those dreams only 3 have ever happened. Made me cry
This video hits so close to hard. I had no idea this whole "Dream" topic was appearently only so prominet in the Bionicle sphere. As an 2000 kid, bionicle influecend and shaped my imagination, creativity, so many things I do can be tracked down to my experience and love for Bionicle. And for that reason I never ever had this pahse were I felt to old for toys and never dared selling my Bionicle. Still up to this day I have all of my childhood bioncile sets which were already plenty and am now slowly expaning my collection as a fun little side hussle :) Bionicle is a part of me and selling it, as you stated, would have been such a betrayal to my own childhood. Like selling your own childhood. Selling something you likely never get back. Great video man!
Hey... I'm just going to say, thank you. I am a Bionicle fan, 1998, and just recently began to remember the importance I had for these cool toys when I was a kid out of my own silly reasons. I have a godson, 5 year old, and he comes to us to play with my old box of mixed lego quite gingerly. But being a kid and all, his playing is still a little reckless obviously, and as part of my hopes of making him value his toys better I was reminded of how much I valued my Bionicle when I was small. Do over the evenings I dumped my mixed boxes of parts and managed to rebuild a majority of the sets I had... Not everything was salvageable, but enough was for me to be realise an unusual joy out of doing it. And after I even had the dream. I guess sitting with your video just made the whole experience seem less silly. These were the toys and DVDs my family lovingly got me, and the lessons they taught were more than just simple black and white rhetoric. I won't hold out hope that he'll ever see them like I do, but it's nice to see him swoosh them around and find them just as cool. And hopefully I'll manage to tell him the story too. The world can always use a little unity, duty and destiny
HOLY FUCK. Even as someone who was born in the late 90s and was Bionicle obsessed, this was legitimately something I never thought once about. Now that you mentioned it, I slowly remembered having this dream many times, even after I no longer was interested in Bionicles as I grew up.
Born 93. Always felt weird. I understand that weird nostalgia with them. My childhood wasn't the beat at all, I lost alot. I do remember the feelings simple things gave me that I don't get anymore.
Bionicles are one of the first toys I remember having, and to this day the franchise holds a unique place in my heart and soul. As for "The Dream", I was actually trying to salvage them from a sewer(?) or landfill(?). Definitely not a store, but I still grabbed as many parts and figures I could carry.
I used to have SO MANY dreams or moments within dreams about salvaging or saving lost lego and bionicle. That desperate feeling of trying to grab as much as you possibly can
Born in '92 here (just turned 31 two weeks ago as of the time of me posting this) and was with Bionicle from start to finish. I still have my old sets in a bag back at my mom's house. My input here is this; nostalgia bites. All it does it hurt and remind you of what you've lost. That said, there is an obvious way out of this, and something we didn't always have access to when we were kids, especially today when it comes to technology: we have the ability to learn skills and get equipment that could allow us to make our own parts, pieces, and so on that could be used in conjunction with currently existing sets (3D printers, for instance). 3D animation, design, and modelling programs (like Blender) exist as well, as well as game engines (Godot 3.0 and up, for instance) that would allow us to create our own games and even animated films. And since a lot of us have learned things about creativity, either from playing with Lego bricks growing up, or through other artistic means, it's possible to make our own stories, fictional mythologies, characters (hero and villain alike), and spin tales of our own. We could continue this in a way that people didn't see coming. The Lego Group may not be producing Bionicle anymore, but that's no reason why we have to let every last trace of it go. Like another song that I've heard people in my family sing periodicalaly goes, "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact. _Maybe everything that dies some day comes back."_ Life may have told us that this part of our existences, our childhoods are over, but we do we really have to listen? Do we have to let it be buried and have no means of ever returning? We could pull something out of left field and have it come back in a new way that is totally unexpected, and then share this way around with others in order to promote and create the same kind of environment that we knew growing up, only with our own spin on it that reflects the world as it currently is, with current issues and current beliefs and real-world inspirations. On that note, here's another quote that we all probably know that fits the situation a bit better; "I learned that our destinies are not written in stone; we must discover them for ourselves. _Now it is time for you to make new legends, for that is the way of the Bionicle."_
I had this dream, it wasn't an aisle, it was a whole store. Lego was doing a big relaunch of the whole series and re-released all the originals alongside the new sets, and converted some lego stores to celebrate.
This video perfectly encapsulates my experience with Bionicle. I was born in 1997 and I distinctly remember first getting into Bionicle with the McDonald’s tie in toys and the 1st gen toys. Even when I stopped playing with the Bionicle toys by 2009, I was still invested in the Bionicle comics. I still remember Matoro’s sacrifice in the Mahri Nui arc. Bionicle still holds a special place in my heart even after I moved on. In my opinion, it was the Lord of the Rings of Lego and there is no way that the company would ever do this again.
I can't specifically remember ever having the dream, but I feel like I have some wisps of memories about Bionicles that I know aren't from real life so I have to assume I've had some form of the dream before. I've been getting incredibly nostalgic for Bionicles lately, so this video came at a great time! You did some fantastic work with this, really brought back some great memories of all the fun I had building those things and watching the movies.
It feels like this video was written about me specifically lmao. I feel like part of what makes the Bionicle dream and nostalgia so prevalent in zillenials is the fact that, growing up, Bionicle felt like a given part of the world. It seemd like it was there from the beginning, and there were always new sets coming out and on the shelves until we were entering prepubescence. Looking around as a teenager and realizing that a significant piece of your personal world has seemingly just vanished without a trace, and nobody else is that upset about it, definitely did some weird things to the brain chemicals. I wonder how long we'll be having these dreams for. Any thoughts on the new Tahu GWP? Buying that was a surreal experience.
I was never a huge fan of brickbuilt bonks but hey, GWP Tahu is better than no GWP Tahu. I actually loved googly eye Tahu, he's just cute. I'm not much of a Lego buyer so I don't think I'll get my hands on Tahu but maybe in the future when they're being sold on eBay.
I'm 30, almost 31, and I've been a fan since day one. Bionicle has always been a good part of my life. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad or anything, but life was hectic growing up, but Bionicle was a constant that really helped me as I went from a 9 year old kid to an 18 year old young adult. I enjoy it to this day, and one day, I hope I can share it with my children.
As a first generation Bionicle enjoyer born in 94 and received my first set in 2000, thank you for sharing this. At the time I had recently moved to the USA and my English was not not good enough to understand or make sense of the stories but I really loved the aesthetics and pieced together a narrative based on the pictures of the comics. Now when I see that Red Mask or it inspires a kind of reverence, an awe, an experience of the mysterious culture of the inhabitants of an curious ancient island from a half forgotten dream all those years ago, from a time and place our lives that no longer exists.
I was born in the early 90's and I occasionally have The Dream. Bionicle was my childhood and a big part of my life from its beginning to end and still influences me to this day with the world-building, character design, music and more! It's always there with me, no matter where I go or what I do. Glad I still have most of my sets!
I was a tad too old to be in this bracket, but I vividly remember being really enamoured by Bionicle's constructed language - I remember having a booklet teaching the cypher and used to write messages with it. I'd like to think this played no small part in my later passion for worldbuilding and creating my own cultures and fictional languages down the line.
Another reason the dream keeps happening is that while some fandoms do experience it Their franchises be it Pokemon, TMNT, transformers, mlp or what have you are still there Sure they look different sometimes but its spirit and name is still there while Bionicle has ended. theres no continuation anymore
I was a huge fan, and got in on the original first wave of Bionicles. I was in Kindergarten and my friend at the time brought a Toa Tahu for show and tell. I was instantly hooked and went home asking my parents for that exact same one. We went to walmart, bought it, but what i saw amazed me. 10-15$ toys all with unique characteristics and require building. Not long after my first, i ended up with near complete full sets (much thanks to my parents for this, and also thanks to Lego for making them largely affordable). I had shelves in my room with each era separated, read the novels, subscribed to Lego magazines, etc. Sadly it all came to an end when I was made fun of in like 5th grade for bringing one to school. I guess i was just holding onto that little piece of childhood that shaped 8-10 years of my childhood. I didnt play many video games but part of my mind always stays in the world of Bionicle. Now i only have Tahu displayed on my shelf, the rest are in a very large bin in my parents basement just waiting for me to rebuild them when im old
I think the reason Transformers/Pokemon other toy fandoms don't experience the "dream" is because both of those IP's are still being made and carried on. Bionicle isn't.
I really thought I was the only one, because yeah, other friends might have liked Bionicle, but they haven't had "the dream". It's a great explanation, and this essay makes it clearer. I know that we will never go back to those years, but it's nice to remember those years, and have hope that maybe one day, we may find our Dream Bionicle toy aisle
The Dream is so real. I’ve had it with Lego, Bionicle, Halo, and Star Wars. Every time you wake up, it’s miserable. But I’m so glad I grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s and got to experience the Metru-the end of the Bionicle Era!
I personally have no investment in Bionicles (besides my own nostalgia of years spent watching my little brothers play with them), but this video was still very entertaining and enjoyable to watch. I especially enjoyed the commentary about the difference in generations. I am the oldest child of four, born in 1994, with my youngest sibling born in 2006. Rico hit the nail on the head with the comparisons.
I was born in 2001, so I was at least old enough to grow up with the second half of Bionicle. I had my Bionicle dream a year or two ago, in which I found Makuta Antroz and other 2000s LEGO sets in a small store. I never got any of the sets from the first wave of 2008 other than Kopaka despite always finding them cool, so that's probably why.
I've never had The Dream, but I can say the nostalgia of Bionicle and the inclusion of Move Along at the end hit a very strong note in my soul. Thank you.
What a beautiful video. I was born in '96 so I was in pretty much the perfect cohort for experiencing Bionicle. Got my first set in 2002 and was hooked ever since. The amount of joy it brought to my childhood is too great to put into words.
The reason it's relevant to zillenial people is because we were kids when capitalism was still supposedly doing well and the end of history but shortly after 2008 that illusion began to break and now as adults it's hard to remember before that and so bionical being a symbol of childhood and and become a part of the subconscious Not to mention the mysterious and slightly edgy and dark storyline makes it more mysterious feeling and imprinting differently
yeah I didn't even touch on how the period was relevant to 2008 and the general collapse of capitalism but that's definitely another video to be made inb4 Francis Fukayama's "The End of History and the Last Matoran"
This made me feel so melancholy. There are definitely a handful of touchstones for our little time period and I always connect best with those people who understand what it was like when I grew up. I have a wonderful memory of watching the Mucha Lucha farewell marathon while beating Sonic Heros for the first time. This is something I feel a solid handful of people get.
I was born in 2002, so I was too young to really get into bionicle until the tail end, the only set I had was the Glatorian version of Mata Nui, but I was still really sad when bionicle ended, I had just started getting into it when it went away, so I still get the bionicle dream, I remember when bionicles filled store shelves and I wish I had been able to get more when I still had the chance
I was that 97 kid that at 13 started highschool and suddenly felt too old for bionicle or toys in general. I held onto them for a while before eventually letting my mom donate them all. I regret that now but i do have some bionicle sets and a few mocs that i look at and enjoy.
I’m on the older end of gen z but relate more with millennials, and while Bionicle is older than I am, they were a big part of my childhood and the lore felt like a rabbit hole. I read the comic books so many times that they became tattered taped-together wrecks but I still loved them. Old bionicles were treasured because buying them online wasn’t an option as kids, you had to hope to find them at a garage sale or thrift store, or in my case ask a friend nicely for one of their duplicates :) That’s how I got my multicolored bohrok, which I still have and will never replace the miscolored parts of. I think zillenials like me also frequently have the unique experience of inheriting Lego from the 80s and 90s from our parents and finding more of it at garage sales, so we share a lot of Lego nostalgia with gen X and millennials thanks to acquiring and playing with old sets before they were collectors items. My best friend in particular had a ton of Lego from that era because his rich grandparents frequented garage sales and always bought the Lego they found. There was an air of mystery about all the old Lego sets and themes that ignited imagination like nothing else…
Thanks for this incredible trip down memory lane. I’ve only had a Bionicle dream once or twice, but I also wasn’t a huge fan for very long. I got into Bionicle with the first generation because I had some friends who were into it. I remember going to one friend’s house and playing the Bionicle board game, and trading cards from the TCG and getting them mixed up with the cards from the board game and just making up our own rules. Another time I went to a different friend’s house for a birthday party and we watched the brand new movie, Mask of Light.” I didn’t have many figures, just Pohatu, Nuhvok-Kal,Tahu Nuva, and Toa Vakama, but I got all the comics from the Lego magazine. I eventually fell out of it, after the Metru Nui arc, mostly because I stopped getting the comics in the mail. Based on the comics I think I stopped around 2007, when I was 15, so I probably thought I was too cool for kid stuff and started buying guitar gear instead lol. But since growing out of that mentality in high school or college, I still miss the old days. My Bionicles are in a box in my closet, I’m pretty sure some pieces got lost but at least I never got rid of them entirely. Man, this video hit me in all the feels. Even there at the end quoting Move Along lol. The only song I’ve ever sung at a karaoke bar.
Man, this shit hard.
First off, i was the guy who made the vid of Armstrong yelling about the dream, honestly I was unaware of how big "The Dream" was until after the meme was made. Before, I've had vivid dreams of BIONICLE returning, crystal clear, but it was fictitious sets, new sets continuing the story or even (as I joked in the meme) remade sets of older ones. But man, discovering so many folks had that similar dream was... I dunno, unifying.
BIONICLE was something special, and you really hit it on the head with "Zillennial". A weird generation caught between a generational shift, not exactly Millennial and not exactly Zoomer. There was nothing really for us to 100% grasp onto that the generations before and after us had, it's been a weird mix of taking from each. Yet, BIONICLE, for a fraction of us, WAS a huge part of our culture. Like you said it wasn't a big phenomenon, but the fact folks actually have "The Dream" is testament to how much an impact it had on us.
I was obsessed with BIONICLE, the sets, the comics, the books, games, everything. THIS was my LOTR, this was my mythos. The phrase, "You had to be there", is all too accurate for this era. It really is just an odd but, big crux to a good portion of Zillennials really. With how many of us felt caught in the sweep of change, BIONICLE was ours, and now its gone. Nothing can really bring it back the same way. Much like us it got swept away into the annals of time.
I think what also contributes to this phenomenon with BIONICLE, was it was there WITH us at the beginning, right as we were kids. And, right as many of us were growing out of childhood or shifting into maturity in someway, it ended. It began as we were kids and left as we entered teenage years or adult year in some cases. Most franchises don't have this odd state BIONICLE was, it was never a flash in the pan but it never burned for as long as Transformers and Pokemon did. It came right in time for a childhood for a specific age group.
Really weird to have this connection with BIONICLE and Zillennials but, it really does make sense.
Well said! In hindsight it's kind of crazy how Bionicle was only resurrected once, given how immortal every other franchise seems to be, but it's probably because Lego owns so many other profitable IPs. Whether or not people would be happy with a new incarnation of Bionicle, its definitive end has allowed it to remain as the "you had to be there" series, which is part of what makes it so special to our age group.
And man, thank you for your contribution with the Armstrong video. I found it when I was researching for this video and it really highlighted for me how widespread this phenomenon was. I know it was just a meme but you made me feel encouraged that I wasn't just making things up.
👏👏
Wasnt expecting you here
But not surprised ♡
as someone who was born in 2000 I wasn't young enough to experience Bionicle's beginning but was old enough to witness its downfall
As was I, born in 01
Was born in 95, but I feel like I became cognitive around 2000. Unfortunately, as a child, I couldn't afford them then. And now as a 27 year old man, I still cant afford them now.
Ironic isn't it?
Same. My first bionicle set was Acker but I was aware of some of the lore and stories behind bionicle even before that thanks to the books an movies. I still get the dream every now and then and it's almost always about the earlier sets that I wasn't able to get as a child
Right there with ya.
I'm 03 and... it's a very interesting position to be in, people from 02 feel much older, and people from just like, one or two after me feel really, really young and different, it's the difference of being born pre smart device i think
The term "Zillennial" explains so much to me. I can remember VHS, but not NES. I'm not on TikTok, but I was on Facebook. I feel too young in the Millennial crowd and too old in the Zoomer crowd. You have perfectly described a generational identity that I couldn't define myself.
P.S. I have never regretted keeping all my Hot Wheels cars. Never once. They haven't been played with for a long time but the nostalgia of just looking at them is worth it.
I started recollecting Hot Wheels as an adult, and have been using them as minis for tabletop games like Gaslands and a homebrew post-apocalypse D&D.
a lot of Hot Wheels comments here, I guess I never realized how many kids were really into them. I only had a couple but man they were cool
I was born in 2006 but most every one of those descriptors fits me. Perhaps I was affected by having a brother more than a decade older than me who was really into bionicle.
Had a ridiculous large collection of Hot Wheels but sold 90% of them in a car boot sale, kept my favourites of course. Still have to resist the urge to buy more when I see them charity shops or hanging up in Tesco, even a decade later.
@@danielmarsden4573 They're cheap as hell, make good collectibles, and you can always justify them to the cashier with "oh they're for my little one."
Don't resist, my man.
why the fuck did I go into this video expecting a shitpost when I instead recieved a cleverly depicted take on generational divides
There's something to be said about a franchise where you could quite literally quite literally control every aspect of your character's life from the actual moment of conception all the way up to the Bittersweet end.
@@blairbrown4812 especially since we so often receive so little control over our own lives
Reverse clickbait, basically.
@@blairbrown4812 To me that's the key to Bionicle's longevity, over its initial success: over the years, we were never supposed to just be passive customers, instead we were active worldbuilders, making our own characters and stories, both figuratively and tangibly.
Bionicle was a sandbox for our imagination to run wild, basically.
This is what a gen Z would do.
Zillenials only.
Greg Farshtey is a genuinely great author and I personally sent him a email as a child and was very active on the Lego bionicle forums back in the day as a kid online. Farshtey was very active and kind to the community of mostly children and answered tons of people's questions. I remember the q&a at the end of bionicle he did where he recommended the fans watch star trek next generation and to not give up hope that our favorite story could see light again someday.
Where do I know your pfp from? The motifs seem so familiar
@@ThePandaAgenda it's a upside down version of one of Jon baizleys artworks for bongripper I had to censor it a bit tho
What you didn't know is that Greg is basically cancelled.
for me as a lonely kid, the weren't buildable action figures, they were buildable friends. and i got lost in Matanui for years.
Tears
Greg Farshtey is massively underrated as a writer and world-builder. Hopefully one day he’ll get the credit he deserves 😢
i felt legit guilty when i lost kopakas mask
@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 I know how it feels...
Thanks for putting words on a feeling I couldn't explain, this hit really hard.
As a Bionicle fan born in 1997, who followed the series from beginning to end, I have to say that you're spot on. It's uncanny how well you can characterize the experiences of people born at this cusp.
I feel as if Zillennial is almost younger sibling generation to Millennial; we remember what was handed down from the 90's, but we still had to process a very dynamic world since the early 00's as we grew up. I'm glad there's at least a few ways we can come together to validate our shared experiences.
Being born in 98 I feel this. However I feel we're also the most adapted to technology as most of us got it well into adolescence and evolved with it
We're history's second set of middle children
Yep, I was born in '99, and I can agree with everything you've just said.
Born in the early 2000s, and as someone who grew up on the cusp, I agree.
I was born in 01, but I feel like a "Zillenial".
There's no way, theres absolutely no way everyone is having this same reoccurring dream as me....that's crazy.
isn't it?
sometimes you get to meet the characters life sized. I was more into the movies than the toys due to $
Believe it, Ive had the dream so many times and even bought new sets in my dreams. Interesting how similar all our of dreams are. Could be something deep or not at all
It's been blowing my mind - my brother and I used to talk about The Bionicle Dream for years - now everyone online is talking about it too?!
@@cjbradt2658 I usually have the traditional dream in the store but once I had a dream where I went off the road in a car and landed in a swamp and there was a 40ft tall Pohatu Nuva just wandering around. It was terrifying. But I knew Pohatu's a chill guy.
This shit hit me like a freight train right to the feels. Never actually knew that a lot of people feel actually stuck between generations like I do. The fact that you used Bionicle as a metaphor made it that much clearer, I own everything from G1 and most of G2 and G3 bionicles. Funny thing is that I never was that invested in the lore but this feels like I should make an effort to get more invested.
Great video! Hope to hear more from you in the future!
the lore is out there! you can find every comic and novel in PDF format if not physically on ebay. The novels hold up, even as an adult. Would definitely recommend. But be warned, there's a lot of them.
wait, G3?
G3 ,you mean the Blocks ones ? ,that one set of Tahu ?
G3? you from the future?
I wonder if Bionicle's deep lore and long lifespan is part of the reason the nostalgia is so strong? Unlike alot of other nostalgic toys Bionicle wasn't a flash in the pan, a fleeting trend. But at the same time unlike longer lasting toylines (star wars, transformers, Hot Wheels etc.) it's no longer around so it's gotten nostalgic for those who grew up with it.
oh 100%. Kids who "grew out" of Legos or transformers could later feel nostalgic and walk into any store and pick up a set, but not so for bonks. But the lore is what ensured that it can still be discussed on an adult level, all toys aside.
@@ricotalks This train of thought seems the most accurate to me. Bionicle was never popular enough to be taken over by the 'nerd media acceptance wave' of the 2010s, when it was suddenly okay to say you liked super heroes and star trek.
It sounds gatekeepy to say 'You just don't get it', sure, but a lot of those same people would still accuse you of being a 'weird manchild' for liking Bionicle. It's not accepted. It has no massive company-backed push trying to make it socially acceptable, in the same way we see adult disney clothes everywhere now.
It's sad, but maybe it's for the best.
Memories of the early internet and that fantastic online game can never be corrupted.
it had the lore to go with it just like transformers and star wars.
It's completely manufactured. Anywhre around the world you can recognize GROWING UP as the process where you move TOWARDS these semi-mature stories where they may exist. But in this American, Huxleyan landscape, the only thing that seems to matter is to have some kind of exclusivity, that Bionicle is "our thing" on which we can reject all the Transformers fans, and Inhumanoids fans, and My Hero Academia fans, as "just not getting it".
And it's entirely because of the American standard, that every new generation since the busheads of the 1950's conforms to, that we MUST constantly look up for the great leaders in the media landscape to force feed us mainstream content. ACTUAL growing up, of going out there adn FINDING the stories of other kinds of people and not execs regurgitating your own values back to you, just doesn't happen in any of these dystopian federations. It happens in Indonesia, but certainly not China or USA. Maybe a BIT in Russia.
And don't you just HATE buying gas from Russian enterprises for it. Much mroe than buying iPhones from Chinese enterprises, where the population is successfully kept subservient to global capitalism, just like in USA. The onslaught of media propaganda hits characters like PewDiePie HARD, for lifting the veil a teeny tiny bit. I guess Lego being a Danish company was able to inch towards that with Bionicle.
@@Ungantor exactly, I tried to steer away from the whole "you wouldn't get it" attitude but a few comments I've gotten on here prove that some people really don't get it
I’m literally crying. I was born in 98, my first figure was Kohrak, white Bohrok. I was swallowed by this theme, I had a huge collection and witnessed the rise and fall of Bionicle. I took it hard. Boinicle was also a community for me. I was a part of a local online forum, sometimes coming to little gatherings, like sitting in a mall and showing each other our mocs, or even coming to another city to meet the admins and other people you met online. I knew almost everything about Bionicle, it was truly a part of me. But then… Everyone had grown up. Bionicle no longer exists. And sometimes I find myself lying for 3 hours in bed not capable of doing anything, just remembering all of that stuff. I’m so grateful that this happened, but… Sometimes I think it disappeared too fast.
What do you mean "disappear" 😂 we have multiple Bionicle fan games in the making. You can always buy more Bionicle, people sell them all the time, start a collection or create new combos with new technic parts. Tons of knock-off brands exist, parts that Lego never dared to make. Play doesn't grow old, even when the plastic needs a bit of care after all this time : )
true@@KangMinseok
Kohrahk the ice bohrak🗣🔥🔥🔥
Mine was the Toa Mahri version of Nuparu back in '07.
Born in 95, and Bionicle remains one of the most special parts of my childhood. It really was something magical, calling it a dream really is the perfect description. Just seeing the artworks on the instructions covers makes me feel extremely melancholic.
If I was offered to experience it again like I did, I might refuse. Something about that dreamlike retrospective makes it more special/personal to me. It's one of those things you just don't want to let go.
I re-bought up to the Rakshi a few years back, it's nice to have them again. If I ever have kids one day I'd love to show them and tell them all about early gen Bionicles.
I was also born in 95
taking a bionicle to school with me to play with at recess was pivotal for me, for many reasons.
It was pre-Beyblades, but pokemon cards and gameboys were banned at my schools since the time i was in kindergarten.
It was that first “thing” i took with me to school to play with.
It was also one of the first things i managed to lose on the playground.
I had one of those bionicles that could turn into a ball, and we were all having a good time,
Until I accidentally popped the top open and the little rubber mask went flying out, and I wasn’t able to find it :(
That shit hurt….
I had to buy a little pack of replacement masks, which came randomized.
None of them were the one i needed to replace the one i lost, which was red.
Few things hurt like that as a kid,
Losing something you care about while you’re having fun, and suddenly realizing you’ve lost it.
Man….
Then we started playing with beyblades, and i have a whole other story about a kid getting salty over beyblades, and he broke mine so we fought.
@@nicks4802 not to ruin it for you my man, but if you had written the company a letter explaining which mask you needed they would have sent you one. They kept track tho so if you lost more then one mask they would offer to let you buy a replacement pack of just the one you needed. it was the normal multipack, except that all the masks inside were just the same one
Awesome to see there is somewhat of a 'Bionicle community' of people who realized how cool they were.
The concept of releasing a set, then the next set being the same characters horribly mutated from alien spider venom is so dark and brilliant and I love it so much. No other toy could ever get me to take it so seriously
right? I love the fact that even though they had to release six new Toa or Makuta every year they didn't just create new characters and forget the old ones. I never thought during the Metru/Hordika arc that the Toa Nuva would end up being the main characters of the entire story
Whoa, dude, I clicked the video because I thought it was just a strong title about how formative Bionicle was to us growing up, but then you described a literal dream of buying new Bionicle figures and then waking up; my god! I’ve had that exact dream many times, I’ve never heard another human describe it! What an incredible connection!
I had the Bionicle dream multiple times. Last year a 3rd party Lego store opened in my city, and they actively sell used bionicles in mint condition, and often times in the canister. When I went there for the first time I felt like an 8 year old kid all over again. It felt exactly like getting my first Bionicle.
Long story short: I'm one of the few lucky ones where the dream came true
that is so lucky, I hope you take full advantage of the situation
Out of curiosity... Where is this lovely Lego store that sells used Bionicles? Asking for myself, Some to sell, some to buy....
@@JacopoSkydwellerBricks & Minifigs is the name of a store that matches their description. IIRC there’s one in Idaho and maybe one in Oregon or Washington, maybe there are others I don’t know about. But it’s a third party Lego store that sells everything from new sets to old sets and assorted used Lego in bulk. I’ve been there before and bought a nearly-complete Ideas Caterham 7 set for half its original price minus the box. Can confirm they had sealed Bionicle sets, but they weren’t cheap for sure. The staff has a pretty good idea of how much things are worth.
I had it last year and just over a week of having it I saw I short video talking about it
It was weird that a lot of other people had it
@@JacopoSkydweller Moorhead Minnesota
I was born in 03 but I got into Bionicle when I was probably around 4 or 5. I loved the movies because they were some of the few kids movies that my parents seemed to genuinely enjoy. My dad telling me "You're like Vakama, the only one who doesn't believe in you is you" feels super cheesy now, but that hit hard when I was a little kid.
That's such a raw fucking line to come from your dad, what a legend. Hope he's doing well.
One key aspect to the concept of the dream (tm) is the fact that Bionicle no longer exists. Every other major franchise like star wars, transformers, pokemon, and others that you used as examples are all still running and maintained.
absolutely.
As long as I hold the keys to the gate of my sets bionicle will never cease to be.
I've has dreams not about Bionicle, but about Crazy Bones. It's a dream where I find a bucket of them and I'm sorting through them, picking out the ones I wanted to keep. Crazy Bones also no longer exist.
"Maintained" probably isn't the right word for most of them, actively being ruined is more accurate these days. I miss pre-Disney Star Wars.
@@karenwang313 sometimes maintained...sometimes forced onto life support...
I have experienced the Bionicle Dream in REAL LIFE back in 2015. As a 16 years old teenager I was becoming more and more interested in electric motors, as I wanted to build small gadgets. I heard of this specialised toy shop in my city and I decided to pay it a visit since I had very specific needs for my little inventions. When I entered the shop near the entrance was a brand new Bionicle stand of the 2003 Kholi matorans ! I could not believe it ! Not a single one sold, all of the six matorans available in large quantity. I bought one of all element and I proudly brought them home. I was first introduced to Bionicle in 2004, so living the 2003 experience in freaking 2015 was priceless to me. I have no idea how did the sets ended up being on sale after 12 years being discoutinued. I will always cherish this moment !!! ❤
this video is so good wtf
this was a wonderful comment to wake up to
@@ricotalks dude i thought you had like, at least 170k, from the pure vibe of the video, lol
@@Amphibian42 that's very encouraging!
Being born in 1996 Bionicle was a huge part me and my brothers childhood, watching this video rekindled so many wholesome memories. Thank you for an incredible video
Wonderfully told. The Bionicle fandom hive-mind is real and I'm here for it. And great video! I think you have a bright future on TH-cam doing video documentaries, it was well written and hit all the right emotions for me. Hope to see more from your channel in the future
thank you!! that means a lot coming from a channel as big as yours
Ironic that we all share a hive mind XD The island must be cleansed
Extremely happy I found this video. I was born in 2001 and (as much as I hate the word itself) the term Zillenial is a word that completely describes me and my friends. The Dream resonated with me so hard and my attachment to bionicle always made me feel separate from older people who thought I was obsessed and younger people who don’t get it. Zillenial really help me understand who I am, someone from/nostalgic for a time older generations remember as a strange and scary phase in history where what felt like the course of the future could go in any direction: culture was in a weird fluid state, the war on terror was beginning, and the world was trying to stabilize and find direction after the Cold War and a national goal suddenly disappeared. While that world is completely foreign to people born in late-2003 and beyond. Where as for me, that world meant Bionicle, Xbox, GameCube,Halo, Mortal Kombat, Metroid Prime, the Star Wars Prequels and EU, Cartoon Network, Green Day, Cryoshell, Breaking Benjamin, cool flip phones with keyboards, VHS players, IPods, Zunes, and so much that I define my tastes with now. Even as a little kid still watching Teletubbies, Blues Clues, and Barney, these things still resonated with me, and still resonate with me to this day. I’ve always felt I had been in an unknown demographic drifting with a small group of like minded people, but now I know who the others could be. Thank you.
same, im glad im not the only person born in 2001 who identifies with the label of zillenial. i was worried that i’m too young to be considered a zillenial, but the label really fits since i feel completely disconnected from the culture of gen z. it’s just difficult to relate to people who grew up using social media and smartphones when i still remember renting vhs tapes from blockbuster!
strangely i never have had the dream yet, even though i definitely have that painful nostalgic longing for bionicle. i never got to have any as a kid even though i always thought they looked so cool. whenever i would ask for anything lego related my moms response was “we have legos at home you don’t need more of them” lol.
I was born I early 2002 and you've described how I feel perfectly. I have VHS tapes from when I was a young child as well as dvds from when I was older. I even have my old bionicle sets. I didn't relate much to the common gen z tropes of the present and seeing that people similiar in age to me feel the same is really reassuring
Same here.
Born in 96, grew up with the very first bionicles and now at 26 I'm collecting again and trying to get some of things i always wanted as a kid but could never afford. I don't know what it is about bionicles but I have an incredible feeling just thinking about em and the good old days. It was amazing!
i was by no means a bionicle kid. i only got into it last year at age 19 when i discovered my brother’s stash of sets in our garage and began a project to reassemble them. and even at that age, i became utterly captivated and fascinated with the entire franchise in mere days, and it now lies among my favorite pieces of media ever.
if it can amaze me, an adult, so easily, it’s really no wonder it was so successful and beloved by its generation
Wow, typically I feel like in the genre of “one off bionicle retrospective vid” you usually get a regurgitative surface level lore dump but I love that you sink your teeth into context and culture and cause and effect. I also like how the tone strikes a perfect balance of accessibility between low affinity fans/curious not bionicle fans and terminal bionicle brain-worm victims and avoids talking above or down to either group. Honestly was so deliciously satisfied watching this, feels like it scratched an itch that’s rarely attended to. Def going in my favorites playlist. Thank you for this genuine bionicle gem.
thank you!!
Man, seeing those Glatorian sets almost gave me shivers. 03 was probably close to the last year to be born in and still catch some of the Bionicle vibe. Glad I got to engage with it at least at the end of its lifespan. Even without having access to most of the lore, or even speaking english for that matter, you could always feel that there was more to it than other toys.
Same here. Born in 02 and my first set was Mahri Nuparu in 2007. I also relate to not speaking english back then. But now I have all that lore to explore!
Yup, born in 03, i absolutley loved bionicles as a kid and still do, even though i mostly grew up playing with hero factory i remember even back then thinking bionicles was cooler and wanted it back
I think the reason "the Dream" is so interlocked with Bionicle is that there really hasn't been anything quite like the theming and display design of the original toys themselves. When you were a kid, it was so easy to get lost at what toys were what; generic action figures would get lost in the sea of similar looking packaging.
Bionicle did something different and, along with a vast multimedia experience that coupled with the allure of early 2000's web and flash, it was memorable.
So much this. Just look at any old photos of the bonkle aisles. They are so distinct and unique from any other toy line, even other Lego sets, that there is no wonder they were burned deeply into our subconscious to the point of becoming a re-occurring theme in our dreams.
God I wish the flash videos were better preserved
As someone who was reading the Bionicle novels and the school classic literature program at roughly the same time, I have no doubt that the latter was far darker, far more emotionally traumatizing, and far less releatable.
This really spoke to me. Born in '95 I really did feel the generational divide. While I definitely self-identify more as Millennial, this also lead to me always feeling awkwardly like the youngest person in any given group so much of the time (something that has thankfully faded with age). But Bionicle always also felt distinctly like it was "mine." I was the perfect age to get into it when it was new (I still have all 6 Toa Mata packed away somewhere), and follow it to its conclusion. It was special to me for reasons I could never articulate as a kid, but now really appreciate it for how unique its world was and how much deeper it was than most things I was exposed to as a child.
Bionicle is the definition of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone."
You don't know (or perhaps you do) how lucky you are to still have them. Please, cherish those heroes, for those of us who don't have them anymore as well.
@@hatncloak45 facts.
95- same here
I was born in 2004, and have loved Bionicle since I was 3, I turned 20 a few days ago, and my family recently drove 2 and a half hours to a Lego store that sold Bionicle for their original prices. I bought several sets and it made me feel just like a kid again. The happiness of buying Bionicle again is very much still possible, and buying them is like seeing the dream come to life. UNITY DUTY DESTINY
Hell yeah man, that's great. Truly living the dream
Gen Z here, 02. I was introduced to Bionicle during the Glatorian era, but through watching youtube “tribute” vids I became fascinated with the earlier waves of Bionicle instead. I would save up allowance money and get my parents to buy the older ones on eBay. Even without experiencing Bionicle normally, I still have The Dream. But it’s always finding many of them loose in a cardboard box, since that’s how they came to me.
I was born the same year and had a really similar experience. I had Bionicles from 07 to the end, but secondhand Mata Nui sets and Metru Nui library books were what really got me invested
I was also born in 2002 my first taste of bionicle was with the phantokas sets in 2008 which made me fascinated with the whole universe of bionicle I had alot of older cousins who where interested in bionicle and I got alot of there older sets handed down to me it’s interesting that people born in 2002 seem to have a similar experience
I was born in ‘06, but I got into Bionicle as early as I had memories, and before. I read all the Bionicle books I could find and watched all the movies that they had at our local library, but then forgot about it for a while. Then g2 happened, and I had my interest rekindled. I watched Ash Vampires lore lecture a few times, and got very interested in it. I had my first experience of “the dream” and learned that it was a widespread thing. I actually have 2 old Bionicles on my desk ( Onua Nuva and a black bohrok). I may not be in the proper age range for zillenials, but I do relate to many of the characteristics described.
02 here too, my first Bionicle sets were from 2006, which was probably only possible since I had an older brother from '99, otherwise I wouldn't have been cognizant to even want them that early on. So to me Bionicle wasn't a cool new thing, it was something that had always been there and I was lucky to get interested in the middle of it. Maybe in 2014 I was gifted the toa metru and three of the toa nuva from a friend who had probably gotten them online, and when I turned 18 I was able to order replacement parts for the missing or broken pieces of my collection from Bricklink.
I started with the visorak line in terms of memory but I had a rashkshi before that I found going through my stuff I don't have any memory off. Got really into it with the movies and the mahri & barraki lines and continued on. Never got into the novels but when I saw Mata Nui's eyes glow red learning for the first time what we've been fighting on this whole time, I went digging a bit. I did enjoy the Bara Magna lines too and was quite sad when the story ended and was disappointed in the bionicle stars sets. Them and hero factory's simplicity of builds didn't strike it off with me and when the reboot followed that trend I just didn't engage. I have like 1 reboot set and that's it. All I can really say going forward is man I hate how the joint pieces crack. I'd still play the heck out of them if they didn't.
I just had "the dream". Granted it was probably because of this video that I watched a few days ago, but still.
In the dream someone knocked on my door and I let them in. They placed a giant backpack on the floor. Or maybe it was a cooling bag. Either way it was some giant bag with a zipper going all across the top horizontally. And when the bag was opened, it was filled with Bionicle containers, all laying on their back and stacked. The dream ended there, briefly after.
So yeah... Good job for implanting the idea of the dream into this millennial here haha
oh man...if only...
I like how you gave an example of someone born in 1997 because that's when I was born and my history and experience with Bionicle is exactly the same as how you described it. Grateful I never got rid of any though as I never really "grew out" of them. I've always felt disconnected from any particular generation, and my only consistent companion throughout the ever-changing world of my childhood was Bionicle. Amazing video.
W for keeping your toys. I've been slowly building a new collection from eBay but lord knows I'll never find all the ones I gave away
'97 here too!
97 also 🥲 I still have a hand full of em and my first ever bionicle Lerahk
The three movies were always my window into Bionicle.
Vakama's characterization in the third movie was quite a formative experience for me, looking back on it. He was exhausted by the burden of leadership and being blamed for everything that went wrong (which did a huge number on his fragile and hard-fought self-confidence), and when presented with the opportunity to be respected and feared as a tyrant, he welcomed the change. Also, he and Roodaka totally would've boned had it not been a kid's movie. She quite literally _seduced_ him to the side of evil.
It's a shame there was never a movie for the Inika/Mahri, hell, any of the Mask of Life story arc, because those are the storylines I missed out on while my child brain moved on to different obsessions. It wasn't until I saw a Mata-Nui figure for sale at Toys R Us that I realized how much story had passed. I mean, God was a toa now? Holy hell, what did I miss??
Vakama is such a well written character. He's like Jon Snow but less perfect and honestly more human. What still blows me away is that there's three major toa teams, plus the glatorian, piraka, barraki, Makuta, etc etc and every one of them manages to have a distinct but not cartoonishly unique personality. Well maybe the toas of water, but you can't win em all.
Must've been a shock for you to see mata nui as a toy. Y'know no one will believe me on this but back during the Mahri arc when I was like nine or ten I wrote a comic about mata nui showing up as a toa wearing the mask of life. Never thought it'd really happen, especially after Toa Ignika.
@@ricotalks LEGO should give you royalties tbh
19:35
"That's the thing about growing up. we feel the pressure of being a Toa, but deep down, we're just older and sadder Matoran.."
Why did that line sting so much? I came here to laugh about a shared dream plastic robot fans like me had! Not reflect on my rushed coming of age... Well done.
As someone from 1996 I can heavily relate. I'm literally in the middle and younger people say I'm a millenial while older people call me GenZ.....
I loved Bionicle so much and guys my age know about it. But go a bit younger or older and they seem to have no clue.
Yeah I was born in ‘92 and I remember seeing Bionicle and thinking I was starting to get too old for legos. Tbh it was one of the first times I thought “I would’ve loved this if it came out earlier”.
What my math breaks it down to is: the bionicle dream is a result of the toys being an emotional crux for people to escape into. For some of us, it was our one toy to collect for nearly a complete decade.
I was collecting them ever since 2001 all the way until the end. Couple this with the internet and people learning about all the masks and sets they missed out on? FOMO is a powerful thing.
It's a real test of character to see who's still doing bionicle content to this day vs who has been able to let go and move on.
I was also hooked since the start, and I'm still trying to get the few sets I'm missing (titans/vehicles from the later years, not to mention the books and comics). Though I'll be honest I can't seem to recall having "The Dream".
Personally, as someone who started with the very first series and never really continued past the third or fourth generation, it seems more that instead of being an escape it's the lack of the experience to find something in out lives that is really able to capture our attention and our imagination in such an overwhelming, yet within-our-grasp sort of way that Bionicle could. It wasn't just toys, it was the idea and the setting that we were able ti recognise and get a grasp of the basics (6 colours) yet felt like there was always more to discover, deeper meaning and new experience waiting just around the corner. There simply aren't many phenomenons today or, perhaps we, humans, have to be of a certain age to percieve a setting that way.
That makes a lot of sense. I've been experiencing it since the 1st time i found out about Lewa mata, that singular mask deisgn never used after 01, that unique axe, the hand piece. I started in 03, so everytime it was me finding that particular set in a flea market, usually incomplete and/or with other parts on it. When i grew up and found my first job I finally bought one from bricklink and from then on i just stopped having this dream (tm)
That’s a really good summary. I personally haven’t been able to find and stay with a Bionicle community online, and even though I don’t build now, I still haven’t been able to move on. If I ever get the money and display space, I still really want to collect the ones I never got and repurchase the one I can’t rebuild any more.
Dude i was born in 1999 and this is one of the best videos ive watched in recent times. Then when you ended with what was my favourite song back in the day, Move along that was an instant like and sub. Well done man, I kinda feel like I have closure now.
The more i revisit my past the more i realize how much stories like Bionicle or something like ATLA have shaped the values that i still hold today. I wish more people could look past the fact that this is "just kids stuff", whenever i talk about it i feel like i need to justify that this is actually not just a dumb toy line. People poured their heart and soul into this project, it's so abundantly clear the more you learn about the process of making the franchise. It's so important that toy companies realize how much of an impact the morals they portray can have to prepare people for the very real struggles of life. That's why the thinking of "oh it's just a kids movie" is so dangerous, and luckily many people realize this. Some kids stories i swear are more valuable than grown up stuff when they actually treat kids with the dignity they deserve. Your point about the Toa being relatable and human instead of just goody-two-shoes is so eye opening. It's telling us that good people don't always do good and will struggle, but to keep going and keep trying to be the best you can every day is what truly makes you a "hero".
Thanks for making this vid!
absolutely! people sometimes forget that it's professional adults writing kids media, and they have just as much opportunity to put in real thought and effort as if they were writing for adults. Sadly, a lot of them don't bother, and the ones who do are written off as "just for kids." ATLA is definitely a great example of kids' media that went above and beyond.
this made me look up the head writer behind Bionicle, Greg Farshtey. According to his wiki article he planned on continuing to write the story after the toy line ended but wasn't able to.
@@xXx_Regulus_xXx he did a few online prose serials but they ended on cliffhangers, not sure why they let him do it then cut him off
Just watched Puss in Boots 2 and wanted to say… just yes. All of it. Children’s movies and tv are some of the most accessible media for all, which is why they’re so important. ATLA and Shrek left a big mark on me as a kid. Wishing you the best, stranger.
I always thought our generation as the forgotten ones.
I was born in 1999, I grew up with the 2000s and I always felt....... alone but bionicle gave me a sense of purpose as weird as that sounds It made me take up responsibility as a core component of my life.
probably does sound weird to people who never had bionicles but not to us. It's one of if not the most emotionally stirring toy line out there, but people on the outside don't get it.
EDIT: ok, now that I've watched it all, man, this was the best video about Bionicle I've seen in a decade. What's scary is how well you managed to put together a bunch of feelings that have been going through my mind for years.
Bionicle and being a zillennial, being born in '98, I got into Bionicle with the blue Rahkshi for my 5th birthday. We're the GBA, stuck between the old Game Boy and the cooler Nintendo DS. Bionicle was made for a wide pool of children but we're the few it struck more than a chord or two. You're absolutely right, it's our mythology, it follows our imagination and even our ways of thinking.
Being a Bionicle fan is something I've always been proud of, ever since showing my love to my classmates in elementary school, making videos in the early youtube. Even in my final year in college, some people know me as "that Lego guy".
No jokes, Bionicle is part of my identity, it always has been and there will always be a moment for that me, the kid me, to have some fun.
The Dream, imho, cements this feeling. Even when G2 was around, and I was one of its biggest fan (at least for the toys, those sets were great, way better than the averege over-utilised Inika build), I regularly had the Dream. And, on a monthly basis, The Dream is still happening: I'm always going through the toy isle in an unidentified store and I find either old or never before seen Bionicle sets and I spend a ton of time just admiring that view. Usually, I get a bunch of those, other times I'm so humble I just buy a single new Bohrok but, unfortunately, each and every single time I wake up before I get home, I never manage to actually build those sets.
Waking up is soul crushing, indeed, but then, again, knowing how spread out this phenomenon is, I'm even more proud to be a part of this community.
Maybe we were exposed to some sort of marketing social experimentations and some day the Lego higher-ups will turn on a switch and we'll be all their slaves... anyhow, even in my childhood I knew Bionicle was different. Then Christian Faber's tale and battle with cancer was revealed and that was the first real world sign, to me, that proved my point.
Ultimately, the Dream gives a sense of fullfilment, of both longing for the older days and belonging to a precise community, maybe not well-known as others, but a strong one indeed.
We're the weirdos that experienced Cartoon Network in its prime, that played Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Even I, born in the Centre of Italy, even I can relate so much with this sentiment.
***FIRST IMPRESSION COMMENT after just 7 minutes***
Man, I'll finish this video later, but I gotta admire how perfectly you encapsulated the key to Bionicle's original success in the brief start of the video. It had everything: something from Pokémon, from Power Rangers, Transformers etc., but, most importantly, it had the spirit of Lego and, as you said, you could interact with its characters and lore in an exclusive and personal way: creating your own characters and stories to tell. That to me is Bionicle, it anticipated a mix of interactive and cross media in such a groundbraking way that it got us all hooked.
Bionicle was a canvas for our imagination to run wild, so that's maybe why we yearn for those memories. It isn't just the usual nostalgia for simpler times, we miss the time we were in full control of our own worlds yet there was always something new and surprising to experience and we could do that on the front row.
very well said! Bionicle was a sandbox platform for creative kids, but it also had complex mythology to support it all. Best of all worlds.
@@ricotalks I immediately spread your video to my other Bionicle friends. Well done, one of the best around!
@@Nailfut thank you!!
I was thinking very similarly! and coincidentally, my first bionicle was also the blue rahkshi, but I bought it at a garage sale for 25 cents and it was missing several parts. it was another year before I figured out it was legos, and probably another 2 before I bought my own new bionicle out of a store
The fact that this dream seems to occur for so many people is mind boggling. I remember my equivalent of this dream wasn’t in Target or Tesco or anywhere else, but was in my local toy shop that’s sadly closed down (I think it’s a Betfred now). I always used to go in every week and buy a Bionicle set, to the point where they recognised me and even gave me some of the promotional stuff when the next batch of sets was due out. They closed down just as Bionicle was about to end.
Once every blue moon I’ll have a dream where I’m 11 years old again and I’ll walk into that toy shop with my mum and my nanna (who sadly passed away) about to buy the newest Toa. I can never remember what they looked like or what their name was, I only remember that I was excited to build them when I got home and nanna asking all these questions about them, about what powers they had what I think their personality is like.
I guess mine is a little different since I associate the dream more with people that aren’t around anymore as opposed to just Bionicle in general, but I felt I should say my experience with dream anyways since I think it was Bionicle that gave me these moments with my mum and my nanna in the first place.
Great video friend, thank you
"It is said that all endings are merely beginnings waiting to be born. My beginning was much the same." - Mata Nui... but perhaps it is us too.
I was born in 1992 and I was introduced in 2001 when it began. I felt the the 2003 movie-forward it took a huge dip in quality - my perception of Bionicle as a mature, captivating universe of the CGI promo videos, online game, and comics was shattered by the movie; from the shoddy voice acting and childish animation and strange choices to diverge away from the tone of the first two years.
All that to say, I've had reoccurring Bionicle dreams that are so vivid. I have almost every set from 2001-2003, missing just 3.
As someone born in 2001, I think we have it the worst of all. We got into Bionicle a bit late, with hordika wave for me and grew to love it just when it ended. We got to discover old sets only through family visits of older cousins and looking through the mata and nuva instructions since internet wasn't so accessible to a kid. And then we suddenly lost a thing we just got very invested into. However, we were still young enough to enjoy Hero Factory but old enough to want Bionicle back and then we speculated until 2015, when we got them back. And again, just at the last time to enjoy them as a "kid".
Definitely. You must've been eight or nine when it ended. But at least you weren't old enough to think you were too cool for toys like I did lmao
Yup. I was born in 02 and I remember getting my first bionicle in 07/08. Bionicle was definitely part of my childhood, but not like it was for older kids. My cousin was born in 97 and he had all the og sets, it was so cool to play with them at his house. He still has them all and we talk about bionicles once in a while. Good times..
03 reporting and I can say this is a true statement
another 01 here, sorta similar experience. My first bionicle was Toa Iruini when I was 4 or 5, but I only got properly into them around the Toa Mahri. I feel like I’m old enough to have experienced later G1 but also young enough to have experienced the earlier years of Hero Factory too. That being said, I never really liked Bionicle G2. I was there for the hype train, I was there for the speculation but I ultimately didn’t like what we got. I hated the tone of it because ultimately, the ignition trilogy grittier era was what Bionicle was to me
Born in 2001 same experience.
As someone born in 98 this was peak childhood for me, I never knew that this bionicle dream was a huge thing but I can definitely say that I had one that repeated throughout my late childhood into my early teens. Back when I was really young I had three of these Bohrok ones that I loved to death, the ones that would roll up in a ball. The dream would always be me in the backyard of my childhood home at the time on the play set in our backyard. Every time I would be playing happily with the three of them but it would always end with me and the green one going down the slide together. At the bottom there would be a hole that the green one would fall into and no matter how hard I tried I could never get it back from that hole. I can still remember the dream perfectly, it would never change and now at 25 I can definitely put it together as something ridiculously symbolic. Those events did happen but as a kid I was able to retrieve my little bionicle from that hole and go about my day, but when that dream started happening was after I had moved on from them. Almost like “hey you had this but you can never get this back now”. It doesn’t make me sad, it’s now just a really nostalgic memory of a sunny summer weekend when I was 6.
In many ways, it's easy to see why people get this dream. Adults often dream of still being in school because school was a longstanding part of their lives. Buying Bionicle sets was also a standard part of the lives of fans for years due to the franchise's longevity (for a toy line) with a relatively orderly release schedule. The store displays were eye catching, old sets were featured in evocative promo images, in the story and fan discussions even after they had been discontinued. The marketing prompted you to want to get all of them, and unlike with some more expensive and expansive franchises, being a Bionicle completionist was an attainable goal to many fans. So if you missed out on some, that left an emotional mark. The cancellation was also a shock to fans because a long-lasting pillar of their life was suddenly gone, so it's natural that it would affect their subconscious.
I haven't had this type of dreams ever since I gave up on collecting years ago, though general shopping dreams are common since I do most of the grocery shopping in my family. I do get frequent dreams of browsing bookstores or online listings for other vintage toys. This isn't surprising either, since those are also activities I did a lot in real life. It's a common type of dream but to me it was never exclusive to Bionicle.
that's fair. we all have nostalgic dreams with a variety of subjects. What I think makes Bionicle special in that regard is that it's easily the most common pop culture IP associated with nostalgic dreams, even more so than other toys of the period.
Bionicle is such an important factor in my life. Born in 98, I remember going to my best friends house and seeing some of the sets and instantly getting hooked. I remember for years only asking for bionicles as christmas/brithday gifts and even getting into stop motion shorts in TH-cam. Truly an incredible franchise, not solely moved by greed and profits.
Dude you just described my childhood word for word lol. Biotube lives on in our hearts.
@@bigcoffinhunter5500 Bionicle also was influential in my music taste until this day. Move along, Hero and Caught up ina dream as well as gravity hurts and bye bye babylon are amazing
@@UptheAssna The Bionicle community put me on to some serious good music. Celldweller and Blue Stahli are good examples.
@@bigcoffinhunter5500 cool i just listened to them for the first time. I remember listening a lot of Rob zombie and Three days grace on bionicle youtube videos
I have not personally had "the dream" to my memory, yet never have I felt so seen by a video. Our childhoods may be over, but the memories will never leave. (And yes I do still play with my bionicles here in my late 20's)
as well you should!
In depth and thought provoking. As someone born in 1997, your points really struck a chord
Bionicle had always been the rock I clung to throughout childhood. I can remember the exact day I unpackaged those original Toa Mata canisters at my grandparents house
Sadly I also lost my entire collection. During an urgent move, we were low on space. Dad made me toss them all into the dumpster. Outside of deaths in the family obviously, I have never felt such a profound loss and regret.
I have also had "The Dream". Often with profound lucidity not experienced in other dreams. It's although The Dream is some metaphysical space conjured by the cumulative desire and nostalgia of all those who yearn for Bionicle. Said dream only became more frequent after the loss of my collection.
I do try to track down the odd set at yard sales here and there to rebuild my collection. However, the knowledge that all my original sets from the beginning of the series to the end are gone for good, and for no good reason, leaves quite a void. The one thing I can take solace in is that I'm not alone in these feelings and experiences. The sense of unity in the Bionicle community is like few others. I suppose the toa tenants left an impression on us die hards
This video perfectly captured what it was and is like to be a Bionicle fan. You explained so many things I've experienced and so many things I've thought but could never properly express through words. Thank you for making this video. It deserves more views!
so glad you liked it! tell your friends!
watching this video and reliving my favorite toy line from my childhood is the most okay I've felt in years. It seems that in losing Bionicle, and all it stood for, I lost a large part of myself as well. While I don't wish to sound melodramatic, for someone born "in between" generations, who feels like he could never truly belong, it is extremely comforting to see others look back fondly on the same thing that brought me life as a youngin. I won't even start on the childlike joy and excitement that filled my eyes when I read "Gen 3 proposition" on the iceberg. But, let it be known that I would pay good money to have them all if Lego ever did decide to bring Bionicle back for a third time.
Oh man I wasn't expecting to get such an emotional reaction watching this. I've definitely had "the dream" but never thought to analyze it on an emotional level but you did a great job making me think about the implications of it. I think you really hit the nail on the head of what it feels like to be a Zillennial and struggle to find a piece of culture that you can define as your own. Especially since a lot of the stuff that came out in our era (Star Wars, Pokémon, Power Rangers, Transformers) were just continuations of what had come before.
I think something that really makes Bionicle stand out and cause the dream is that it was a series designed to advertise very specific toys, and it's almost complete absence since those toys ceased production. To show what I mean, if you grew up with the Star Wars prequels (which came out around the same time) you never really stopped seeing them represented in toy aisles, in book stores or in movie sections. But nowadays if I want to buy a copy of the Bionicle books which were such a huge part of my childhood I can't find them anywhere except used copies on Amazon because Lego and Scholastic see no value in reprinting them since the toys they were designed to advertise do not exist anymore. I think this is what makes the dream so resonant, it is an experience you simply can't recreate by going to your local toy store, you literally had to be there.
I think a big reason for the series longevity in the years since (and something that makes Bionicle really special compared to most series set in sprawling universes) was how willing Lego were to interact with the fan community to help influence the story. So many characters were adapted from fan models, (The Dark Hunter and Rahi books acted as great ways to show off what you could do with the sets you owned) and they even held writing contests allowing fans to help influence parts of the story (Norik's whole backstory was written by a fan). In a lot of fandoms OCs, self-inserts, and AU fanfics are seen as distasteful since it's inserting something into a story that's not "supposed" to exist, but in the Bionicle community it's a lot more accepted because Lego actively encouraged it. I think that's part of what makes this community so special and devoted. Bionicle wasn't just a toy we bought or movies we watched but a world we could be a part of and I do think that's part of what has kept it alive so long after it's dead. People encouraging each other's creativity to continue the series even in the absence of actual releases. It's no wonder the TTV Canon Contests were such a huge deal in the community when they happened as they finally brought back that old sense of being able to tangibly effect the universe.
Currently I am in the middle of a hardcore binge for the era of Bionicle I have the most nostalgia for, the Metru Nui era. I reassembled my old sets, bought the ones I never got second-hand (thanks Bricklink) and even wrote a whole fanfic script retelling of the events of Legends of Metru Nui and making changes I think would enhance the story. While a part of me is sad that Bionicle is not around anymore in any official capacity (outside of an admittedly cool promo set) it does make me so happy to see that for so many people it made such a big impact because as long as we keep discussing it and creating new stories in its universe, Bionicle will never truly be dead.
hard agree with all of that. OCs and fanfic were such an important part of Bionicle as a whole that some of them even became canon. I had both the Rahi and the Dark Hunter books as a kid and it was so encouraging just to see that fans had been made a part of the lore. And even though there were preconceived concepts of what species existed in the MU and Bara Magna, there was always this idea that any being of any shape could totally be just around the corner, letting every OC be just as valid as the canon characters
@@ricotalks yeh and theze franchises from thev2000s are k now old enough for people to bd notsatlgic zbut thdn like with me mine was star wars and that Ben going on for almost 50 years but bionicle was big for decade then died out and vsme back jn mid 2010s and then now Lego is looking tonpotiny bring this property back like in the 20pps you had big frsnchise like hsryy potter lord if the rings binoicle transfomers prequl era star wars th erky 2000s marvel movies like x mdn spider mdn fntastic four blade etc and ven picxzr films but ithink I another reson thse ftsnchisevstsy on is becuse they like something tht mdkes then stsnd party fro. Evryonelnd else like lik love starvwars becuse thst skmthj g diffrent thsn just bring jntrsstrd in ti. tkm and socis, media like Twitter and Facebook
Born in 93, the bionicle lore and depth of its characters is what I credit a lot of my imagination, love of deep intricate story telling and lore and my general creativity all around to. It was like the video maker says, such a dark and complex story that tugged at your spirit as a kid. I haven't had "the dream" but I am not surprised that bionicle kids are being called by the mask of creation and light once again!
I lived the dream for a brief moment two years ago when visiting my WHSmith to post some cards I sold on eBay when I came across some 2015 sets that they dug out of storage and put on shelves for discounted sale. Needless to say, I took my chance and boy was it worth it.
ha. definitely more likely with 2015 sets but hey living the dream to any extent sounds like a (dare I say it) dream come true
You sure it wasn't the dream? You are so lucky. My last bioncle set that I saw was a pen in an airport duty free shop back in 2014
@purefunguy I know so because it was the middle of the pandemic and WHSmith was one of the few stores open because of its Post Office section.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I clicked on this video… but I’m glad that I did. I felt a whirlwind of emotions that I didn’t know were connected to this franchise and a strong sense of identity as well. This video has inspired me to look back at the franchise and re-discover a piece of my childlike innocence. Thank you for making this video.
thank you! tell your friends!
I was born in 2000, but was thankfully introduced to Bionicle through the 3 Mirimax movies. After those I remember reading every single book published by scholastic.
I’ll never forget the Inika and Mahri years. Those were truly Legendary.
Thank you for making this video, it was awesome. I really appreciated your discussion about the generational divide.
“Endings don’t invalidate experiences.”
Inika were fun. I vividly remember lining up Crazy Bones and firing the little marbles at them. The spiders with the spinners on top were fun too, but can't remember the name.
@@Ephemeral08 the Spiders were the Visorak I think.
@@Ephemeral08 that was the year I first got into Bionicle. Toa Matoro was the first set I ever bought
Being almost 28, this hit. This was something I've discussed with friends and others who have had similar experiences. This was pieced together amazingly well!
As someone born in 1998 and got to see Bionicle in it's second renaissance (2004-2008), I can say I've had variants of the dream from time to time, which oddly enough involves me going to my childhood Toys R Us that is long gone now but for some reason it's open and it often had Bionicle sets lined up, seemingly old stock they uncovered at the back and wanted to clear out inventory, and the catch for these dreams that usually makes me wake up is either me realizing that this isn't possible, as you mentioned, or for some reason realizing these were Chinese bootleg's from Lepin or similar bootleg companies.
A lot of why I think the dream is mostly limited to Bionicle's fandom is due to the multimedia marketing campaigns for Bionicle sticking out to us into adulthood , since the toyline didn't have a tv show so they used commercials, movies and novels and other forms of promotion to get kids invested and much of the stuff in that marketing stuck out for how out there it was and how immersive it was for the time it came out in, and I don't think anything like it will be made again.
While I always wish Bionicle had a tv show to help expand it's reach, I also know that if it did have that I don't think the series would have nearly the same identity it did without a tv tie in oddly enough.
I think you're video captures the sentiment among us zillennials regarding this phenomena and why we have these dreams for a toyline from 22 years ago and counting.
absolutely. the multimedia format was something special, especially before the 2010s. Plus, I think if there was a TV show it would've been harder for Greg to keep the story moving in the right direction, what with studio interference.
@@ricotalks Agreed. I think that's a big factor why I can't get into Lego Ninjago. Lego definitely plays original themes too safe now given how often Ninjago's story reverts back to the status quo after each season which doesn't leave any room for actually wanting to invest in a story especially since we know everything it did will be undone by the season finale.
Bionicle at the very least tied its semi reboots back to previous years. It's why the 3 major Toa Teams the line Marketed (Mata/Nuva, Metru/Hordika and Inika/Mahri) were all characters we got go know over time and when it was the audiences time to see those characters in their prime there was something so rewarding about it.
1998 gang lmao
Exactly the same with me, all of it, except being born on sep 15 2000, but it was toyworld for me, the place with the purple bear mascot.
@@localgrassfieldboneshandler Neat
This hit home man. As I find more franchises I grew up with change or end, I just wish I knew how good I had it. OG Pokémon Gen 2-3, Yugioh, Bionicle, the GBA, even weirder stuff like Megablox Dragons. You said what I needed-just because the dream ended does not invalidate the experience.
PS the Bionicle AAR commercial is seared in the back of my head as one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
This video brought me to tears, I'm not sure why. I never wanted to grow up, I never threw my bionicles away, but many other points are so relatable, and nostalgic.
Same
Old school '91 Millennial here: while I cant say I've had the 'Bionicle Dream', they were _definitely a part of my childhood._ I grew up with the Throwbots/Roboriders (aka the precursors of Bionicle before it spun off from LEGO Technic to be its own thing. Yes, I have all of the Throwbots except Millennium), so I was already primed to buy into Bionicle when the toys first released.
But Bionicle... man that was something special. I actually have the sets of Toa Takanuva and Makuta sitting on my bookshelf right now, and all six of the Toa Mata/Toa Nuva, Bohrok, Rahkshi, and a few of the Rahi as well as some of the later sets stashed away under my bed/in storage. Lost track of the universe around the Piraka-era (got sucked into other hobbies as got older), but Bionicle will always have a special place in my heart.
Zillennials who loved the franchise should cherish it, because Bionicle is a phenomenon I don't think we'll ever see again.
Holy shit.
I ended up here after having a Bionicle history video recommended to me, and wound up going down this rabbit hole of nostalgia.
I was born in 92, and Bionicle dropped when I was 9 and immediately hooked me. I dropped off around 2005, right when I started getting "too old" to "play with toys", so the much later generations of Bionicle toys don't really appeal to me as much.
Now I'm 30 and looking back into my childhood, trying to relive some of the few good moments when growing up, and the defining "good" thing from my childhood was Bionicle. I collected all the comics, as many sets as I could get, and any time I could get on a computer, I was online looking up lore. Granted, I grew up very poor and we didn't have internet in the house until I was in my teens, so the mystery with the lore was even more compelling to me as a child.
I also have had "The Dream" and brushed it off as regular nostalgia.
Now to hop on Bricklink and buy some 20+ year old sets...
thank Mata Nui for Bricklink, huh? helps to keep the Dream alive. Plus Biomedia Project of course
@@ricotalks I'm going to end up fixated on Bionicle stuff for the next month thanks to you!
I'm currently 17 almost 18. I got into bionicle late when i was younger after the theme had already ended. I remember in 2011 in a Toys R Us I saw 1 last Bionicle Stars Canister. It was Skrall, and that 1 bionicle is how and why i fell in love with the Toy Theme now. Without bionicle I have no child hood.
I later Got into Hero Factory, Though i enjoyed it, it wasn't as Good as Bionicle.
My dream Happened inside of a Walmart Christmas, I saw Sets I never had Before, I rarely get those dreams only 3 have ever happened. Made me cry
This video hits so close to hard. I had no idea this whole "Dream" topic was appearently only so prominet in the Bionicle sphere. As an 2000 kid, bionicle influecend and shaped my imagination, creativity, so many things I do can be tracked down to my experience and love for Bionicle. And for that reason I never ever had this pahse were I felt to old for toys and never dared selling my Bionicle. Still up to this day I have all of my childhood bioncile sets which were already plenty and am now slowly expaning my collection as a fun little side hussle :)
Bionicle is a part of me and selling it, as you stated, would have been such a betrayal to my own childhood. Like selling your own childhood. Selling something you likely never get back. Great video man!
Hey... I'm just going to say, thank you.
I am a Bionicle fan, 1998, and just recently began to remember the importance I had for these cool toys when I was a kid out of my own silly reasons.
I have a godson, 5 year old, and he comes to us to play with my old box of mixed lego quite gingerly. But being a kid and all, his playing is still a little reckless obviously, and as part of my hopes of making him value his toys better I was reminded of how much I valued my Bionicle when I was small.
Do over the evenings I dumped my mixed boxes of parts and managed to rebuild a majority of the sets I had... Not everything was salvageable, but enough was for me to be realise an unusual joy out of doing it. And after I even had the dream.
I guess sitting with your video just made the whole experience seem less silly. These were the toys and DVDs my family lovingly got me, and the lessons they taught were more than just simple black and white rhetoric. I won't hold out hope that he'll ever see them like I do, but it's nice to see him swoosh them around and find them just as cool.
And hopefully I'll manage to tell him the story too. The world can always use a little unity, duty and destiny
HOLY FUCK. Even as someone who was born in the late 90s and was Bionicle obsessed, this was legitimately something I never thought once about. Now that you mentioned it, I slowly remembered having this dream many times, even after I no longer was interested in Bionicles as I grew up.
Born 93. Always felt weird. I understand that weird nostalgia with them.
My childhood wasn't the beat at all, I lost alot. I do remember the feelings simple things gave me that I don't get anymore.
Bionicles are one of the first toys I remember having, and to this day the franchise holds a unique place in my heart and soul.
As for "The Dream", I was actually trying to salvage them from a sewer(?) or landfill(?). Definitely not a store, but I still grabbed as many parts and figures I could carry.
I used to have SO MANY dreams or moments within dreams about salvaging or saving lost lego and bionicle. That desperate feeling of trying to grab as much as you possibly can
Born in '92 here (just turned 31 two weeks ago as of the time of me posting this) and was with Bionicle from start to finish. I still have my old sets in a bag back at my mom's house. My input here is this; nostalgia bites. All it does it hurt and remind you of what you've lost. That said, there is an obvious way out of this, and something we didn't always have access to when we were kids, especially today when it comes to technology: we have the ability to learn skills and get equipment that could allow us to make our own parts, pieces, and so on that could be used in conjunction with currently existing sets (3D printers, for instance). 3D animation, design, and modelling programs (like Blender) exist as well, as well as game engines (Godot 3.0 and up, for instance) that would allow us to create our own games and even animated films.
And since a lot of us have learned things about creativity, either from playing with Lego bricks growing up, or through other artistic means, it's possible to make our own stories, fictional mythologies, characters (hero and villain alike), and spin tales of our own.
We could continue this in a way that people didn't see coming.
The Lego Group may not be producing Bionicle anymore, but that's no reason why we have to let every last trace of it go. Like another song that I've heard people in my family sing periodicalaly goes, "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact. _Maybe everything that dies some day comes back."_
Life may have told us that this part of our existences, our childhoods are over, but we do we really have to listen? Do we have to let it be buried and have no means of ever returning? We could pull something out of left field and have it come back in a new way that is totally unexpected, and then share this way around with others in order to promote and create the same kind of environment that we knew growing up, only with our own spin on it that reflects the world as it currently is, with current issues and current beliefs and real-world inspirations.
On that note, here's another quote that we all probably know that fits the situation a bit better; "I learned that our destinies are not written in stone; we must discover them for ourselves. _Now it is time for you to make new legends, for that is the way of the Bionicle."_
I had this dream, it wasn't an aisle, it was a whole store. Lego was doing a big relaunch of the whole series and re-released all the originals alongside the new sets, and converted some lego stores to celebrate.
Good job dude. Really brought me back. You deserve way more subscribers.
I definitely kept up with the lore as a kid and man I still re-read/experience the story to this day as a 23 year old.
I miss it so much
Oh my god I was born in 1999, did you make this video for me specifically? Never heard zillenial before but it feels spot on.
I did! I'm actually you from the future.
@@ricotalks Help! I'm 7 and just found all the old Rahkshi sets in my attic!
This video perfectly encapsulates my experience with Bionicle. I was born in 1997 and I distinctly remember first getting into Bionicle with the McDonald’s tie in toys and the 1st gen toys. Even when I stopped playing with the Bionicle toys by 2009, I was still invested in the Bionicle comics. I still remember Matoro’s sacrifice in the Mahri Nui arc. Bionicle still holds a special place in my heart even after I moved on. In my opinion, it was the Lord of the Rings of Lego and there is no way that the company would ever do this again.
I can't specifically remember ever having the dream, but I feel like I have some wisps of memories about Bionicles that I know aren't from real life so I have to assume I've had some form of the dream before. I've been getting incredibly nostalgic for Bionicles lately, so this video came at a great time! You did some fantastic work with this, really brought back some great memories of all the fun I had building those things and watching the movies.
It feels like this video was written about me specifically lmao.
I feel like part of what makes the Bionicle dream and nostalgia so prevalent in zillenials is the fact that, growing up, Bionicle felt like a given part of the world. It seemd like it was there from the beginning, and there were always new sets coming out and on the shelves until we were entering prepubescence. Looking around as a teenager and realizing that a significant piece of your personal world has seemingly just vanished without a trace, and nobody else is that upset about it, definitely did some weird things to the brain chemicals. I wonder how long we'll be having these dreams for.
Any thoughts on the new Tahu GWP? Buying that was a surreal experience.
I was never a huge fan of brickbuilt bonks but hey, GWP Tahu is better than no GWP Tahu. I actually loved googly eye Tahu, he's just cute. I'm not much of a Lego buyer so I don't think I'll get my hands on Tahu but maybe in the future when they're being sold on eBay.
It was beautiful. I still hold out hope that Bionicle will return, produced by a lego team who grew up with the original line.
I'm 30, almost 31, and I've been a fan since day one. Bionicle has always been a good part of my life. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad or anything, but life was hectic growing up, but Bionicle was a constant that really helped me as I went from a 9 year old kid to an 18 year old young adult. I enjoy it to this day, and one day, I hope I can share it with my children.
As a first generation Bionicle enjoyer born in 94 and received my first set in 2000, thank you for sharing this.
At the time I had recently moved to the USA and my English was not not good enough to understand or make sense of the stories but I really loved the aesthetics and pieced together a narrative based on the pictures of the comics.
Now when I see that Red Mask or it inspires a kind of reverence, an awe, an experience of the mysterious culture of the inhabitants of an curious ancient island from a half forgotten dream all those years ago, from a time and place our lives that no longer exists.
I was born in the early 90's and I occasionally have The Dream. Bionicle was my childhood and a big part of my life from its beginning to end and still influences me to this day with the world-building, character design, music and more! It's always there with me, no matter where I go or what I do. Glad I still have most of my sets!
I'm glad you still have most of your sets! wish I could say the same :(
😭 I'm so sorry I sold my sons' sets at our garage sale!
The fact you gave a pdf of the video means alot to me, and I just want to sincerely thank you for that
I was a tad too old to be in this bracket, but I vividly remember being really enamoured by Bionicle's constructed language - I remember having a booklet teaching the cypher and used to write messages with it. I'd like to think this played no small part in my later passion for worldbuilding and creating my own cultures and fictional languages down the line.
it was really inspiring to young writers wasn't it
95' foundly remember bionicles. I've had these dreams fckn weird, man. . . . All the dream scinerios I've had. I always feel the loss after 😢
Another reason the dream keeps happening is that while some fandoms do experience it
Their franchises be it Pokemon, TMNT, transformers, mlp or what have you are still there
Sure they look different sometimes but its spirit and name is still there while Bionicle has ended. theres no continuation anymore
I was a huge fan, and got in on the original first wave of Bionicles. I was in Kindergarten and my friend at the time brought a Toa Tahu for show and tell. I was instantly hooked and went home asking my parents for that exact same one. We went to walmart, bought it, but what i saw amazed me. 10-15$ toys all with unique characteristics and require building. Not long after my first, i ended up with near complete full sets (much thanks to my parents for this, and also thanks to Lego for making them largely affordable). I had shelves in my room with each era separated, read the novels, subscribed to Lego magazines, etc. Sadly it all came to an end when I was made fun of in like 5th grade for bringing one to school. I guess i was just holding onto that little piece of childhood that shaped 8-10 years of my childhood. I didnt play many video games but part of my mind always stays in the world of Bionicle. Now i only have Tahu displayed on my shelf, the rest are in a very large bin in my parents basement just waiting for me to rebuild them when im old
I think the reason Transformers/Pokemon other toy fandoms don't experience the "dream" is because both of those IP's are still being made and carried on. Bionicle isn't.
Yeah that's why it's a major theme of the video
I really thought I was the only one, because yeah, other friends might have liked Bionicle, but they haven't had "the dream". It's a great explanation, and this essay makes it clearer. I know that we will never go back to those years, but it's nice to remember those years, and have hope that maybe one day, we may find our Dream Bionicle toy aisle
The Dream is so real. I’ve had it with Lego, Bionicle, Halo, and Star Wars. Every time you wake up, it’s miserable.
But I’m so glad I grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s and got to experience the Metru-the end of the Bionicle Era!
2:31 that sharp knife hit me right into my jugular at 300mph
I personally have no investment in Bionicles (besides my own nostalgia of years spent watching my little brothers play with them), but this video was still very entertaining and enjoyable to watch. I especially enjoyed the commentary about the difference in generations. I am the oldest child of four, born in 1994, with my youngest sibling born in 2006. Rico hit the nail on the head with the comparisons.
glad you liked it!
I was born in 2001, so I was at least old enough to grow up with the second half of Bionicle. I had my Bionicle dream a year or two ago, in which I found Makuta Antroz and other 2000s LEGO sets in a small store. I never got any of the sets from the first wave of 2008 other than Kopaka despite always finding them cool, so that's probably why.
I've never had The Dream, but I can say the nostalgia of Bionicle and the inclusion of Move Along at the end hit a very strong note in my soul.
Thank you.
What a beautiful video. I was born in '96 so I was in pretty much the perfect cohort for experiencing Bionicle. Got my first set in 2002 and was hooked ever since. The amount of joy it brought to my childhood is too great to put into words.
The reason it's relevant to zillenial people is because we were kids when capitalism was still supposedly doing well and the end of history but shortly after 2008 that illusion began to break and now as adults it's hard to remember before that and so bionical being a symbol of childhood and and become a part of the subconscious
Not to mention the mysterious and slightly edgy and dark storyline makes it more mysterious feeling and imprinting differently
yeah I didn't even touch on how the period was relevant to 2008 and the general collapse of capitalism but that's definitely another video to be made
inb4 Francis Fukayama's "The End of History and the Last Matoran"
This made me feel so melancholy. There are definitely a handful of touchstones for our little time period and I always connect best with those people who understand what it was like when I grew up. I have a wonderful memory of watching the Mucha Lucha farewell marathon while beating Sonic Heros for the first time. This is something I feel a solid handful of people get.
I was born in 2002, so I was too young to really get into bionicle until the tail end, the only set I had was the Glatorian version of Mata Nui, but I was still really sad when bionicle ended, I had just started getting into it when it went away, so I still get the bionicle dream, I remember when bionicles filled store shelves and I wish I had been able to get more when I still had the chance
I was that 97 kid that at 13 started highschool and suddenly felt too old for bionicle or toys in general. I held onto them for a while before eventually letting my mom donate them all. I regret that now but i do have some bionicle sets and a few mocs that i look at and enjoy.
hurts doesn't it 😥
I’m on the older end of gen z but relate more with millennials, and while Bionicle is older than I am, they were a big part of my childhood and the lore felt like a rabbit hole. I read the comic books so many times that they became tattered taped-together wrecks but I still loved them. Old bionicles were treasured because buying them online wasn’t an option as kids, you had to hope to find them at a garage sale or thrift store, or in my case ask a friend nicely for one of their duplicates :) That’s how I got my multicolored bohrok, which I still have and will never replace the miscolored parts of.
I think zillenials like me also frequently have the unique experience of inheriting Lego from the 80s and 90s from our parents and finding more of it at garage sales, so we share a lot of Lego nostalgia with gen X and millennials thanks to acquiring and playing with old sets before they were collectors items. My best friend in particular had a ton of Lego from that era because his rich grandparents frequented garage sales and always bought the Lego they found. There was an air of mystery about all the old Lego sets and themes that ignited imagination like nothing else…
Thanks for this incredible trip down memory lane. I’ve only had a Bionicle dream once or twice, but I also wasn’t a huge fan for very long. I got into Bionicle with the first generation because I had some friends who were into it. I remember going to one friend’s house and playing the Bionicle board game, and trading cards from the TCG and getting them mixed up with the cards from the board game and just making up our own rules. Another time I went to a different friend’s house for a birthday party and we watched the brand new movie, Mask of Light.” I didn’t have many figures, just Pohatu, Nuhvok-Kal,Tahu Nuva, and Toa Vakama, but I got all the comics from the Lego magazine. I eventually fell out of it, after the Metru Nui arc, mostly because I stopped getting the comics in the mail. Based on the comics I think I stopped around 2007, when I was 15, so I probably thought I was too cool for kid stuff and started buying guitar gear instead lol. But since growing out of that mentality in high school or college, I still miss the old days. My Bionicles are in a box in my closet, I’m pretty sure some pieces got lost but at least I never got rid of them entirely. Man, this video hit me in all the feels. Even there at the end quoting Move Along lol. The only song I’ve ever sung at a karaoke bar.
glad you liked the video!! and I'm glad to hear you still have your bionicles, that must be a great feeling.