Bionicle

Bionicle is a line of toys created by the Lego Group that is marketed towards those in the 5-16 year old range. The line was launched in January 2001 in Europe and June/July 2001 in the United States.
The Bionicle idea originated from Lego Group's earlier themes Slizers and Roboriders. Both of these lines had similar throwing disks and characters based on classical elements.
"Bionicle" is a portmanteau constructed from the English words "biological" and "chronicle" (not "biomechanical" as in the common belief).

Franchise

The toys are posable, articulated characters and share some pieces with the Lego Technic line. Characters in the toy line are based on a set of classical elements and Polynesian mythology. The line usually focuses on groups of six, with each member of a group being one of six recurring colors. In addition, members of heroic groups – primarily Toa warriors, Turaga elders, and Matoran commoners – are also matched to one of six elements (most villainous groups have different elements or none at all):

- Red characters are usually identified with fire but in some cases electricity
- Blue characters are usually identified with water or in some cases magnetism
- Green characters are usually identified with air or in some cases poison
- Brown characters (or other earth colors, like yellow or orange) are usually identified with stone but in some cases plasma
- Black characters are usually identified with earth or in some cases gravity
- White characters are usually identified with ice or in some cases sonic wave.


Though the Lego Group had previously created building sets based on Lucasfilm's Star Wars films, the Bionicle line was the first Lego project to get a story developed in-house, being officially credited to Bob Thompson and Martin Andersen of Lego (although Thompson has since left to form his own company, Good Story Productions), freelance UK writer Alastair Swinnerton and Christian Faber of Danish advertising company Advance. Bionicle was also the first in the company's history intended to last for multiple years - in fact, Lego is currently following a plan involving seven multi-year story arcs, providing a framework for roughly twenty years of storyline. It was also the first Lego product to have its own direct-to-video movies: Bionicle: Mask of Light, Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui, and Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows.

The Bionicle storyline is told mainly in the book series and comics, which are written primarily by Greg Farshtey. Greg is also a member of the BZPower fan community and often answers questions from forum members about Bionicle. Through his responses (which are posted in the Official Greg Discussion thread) and other posts, he often gives advance details of upcoming storyline points; as well as clarification about current or past storylines, and the occasional quote from an upcoming book.

In 2007 a secondary website, BionicleStory.com, was established. The site provides a number of side story serials which intersect with the year's main storyline as well as with each other. The precedent established in 2007 and continued in 2008 is thus: One narrative serial, one serial in the form of a character's journal entries, and one serial produced as webcast audio files.

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