I was looking through old stuff and generally reminiscing the other day. I thought of childhood, things that had defined it, and things that I kept to this day. One of those things was: LEGO.
The plastic bricks have timeless and universal appeal, and I'm well aware of that. As such I won't give another lecture on the merits of the old Leg Godt. I'm also well aware that I talk about Lego quite a lot anyway, so this will be more specifically focused.
My point being, I still play with Lego as a creative outlet, to relieve stress and build nice things - sort of like a more accessible version of Games Workshop, with a slightly better effort-to-satisfaction ratio. It's something that I associate with life, not a particular part of it. So if I'm not counting Lego as a whole as a child-only obsession, what kind of Lego defined my childhood?
One (albiet portmanteau) word: Bionicle.
And not rubbery bendy recent Bionicle. Proper, chunky, early noughties, biomechanical, stiff-jointed, mythical, cog-driven, pseudo-Polynesian, recognisably Lego-y, Maori-offending Bionicle.
Yes, so it got a bit silly in later years, but let us not forget it gave us these:
And because it was Lego, you could stick it together and make better (read: bigger) models. It even had it's own surprisingly good comic series, which some dutiful souls have generously posted on all over BIONICLESector01, the leading Bionicle wiki. So good news there, apart from for the original publishers.
Bohrok would follow, then the first ones again but with shiny bits, then Rahkshi, then it all started going a bit downhill from there. But by that point I was growing up anyway, so I might be biased on that point.
So yes, a minor mediation on happy memories. The only reason I bring this up now is because I recently heard (late to the party, I
know) that Lego Co. are dropping the line, to be replaced by the unimpressive, more generic sci-fi Hero Factory. To be honest, it was probably time for it to end anyway, a decade was quite long enough, but it's still a little sad. But hey, at least they managed to get a big end-of-the-world story arc out before they went.
So... yeah. One story ends, another begins. But all shall be Lego a hundred years hence.
