Bionicle

BIONICLE is a line of toys made by the Lego Group that is marketed towards those in the 7–16-year-old range. The line was launched in January 2001 in Europe and June/July 2001 in the United States. more...

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The Bionicle idea originated from the earlier toy lines Slizers (also known as Throwbots) 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.

Franchise

The toys are poseable, 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. Most characters – primarily hero Toa, elder Turaga, and everyman Matoran – are matched to one of six elements, commonly identified by a certain color or prefix (although increasingly Lego has been introducing exceptions to this rule):

Red characters are identified with fire and use the prefix "Ta-"; Blue characters are identified with water and use the prefix "Ga-"; Green characters are identified with air and use the prefix "Le-"; Brown characters are identified with stone and use the prefix "Po-"; Black characters are identified with earth and use the prefix "Onu-"; White characters are identified with ice and use the prefix "Ko-";

Although almost every major group of six so far follows the color scheme, most individual "bad guy" sets have different elemental affiliations or none at all. Also, the current sets, the Toa Inika, have the "stone" character as yellow and grey instead of brown. The prefixes are mostly used to identify kinds of Matoran and where they live (such as fire villagers being referred to as Ta-Matoran or the ice region being called Ko-Wahi), though the Toa Nuva and several kinds of enemies include the prefixes or variations of them in their names (like Gahlok, Lerahk, or Roporak).

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 over two or three years - in fact, one of the original plans involved seven major multi-year story arcs (Lego has since decided not to limit themselves to seven; should the Bionicle franchise last that long). It was also the first Lego product to have its own direct-to-video movie: Bionicle: Mask of Light; since then there have been two prequels: Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui and Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows.

Read more at Wikipedia.org