Subject:
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Re: Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego, lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 17 Jan 2004 04:38:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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12982 times
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In lugnet.lego, Jake McKee wrote:
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It’s only a couple of weeks in the new year, and it looks like it’s going to
be an interesting 2004!
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Is that anything like the ancient Chinese blessing/curse “May you live in
interesting times”?
The only product change in history that I can think of that begins to equate to
this is New Coke, which has since been revealed as an attempt to draw
Pepsi-drinkers over to a more Pepsi-like product in certain Pepsi-favoring
markets, while fully intended all along to switch back to Classic Coke in
markets that originally favored Coke over Pepsi. The big difference here is
that once you’re done drinking a Coke, it’s gone forever. Switching from one
recipe to another poses no compatibility problems with previous batches because
it’s a consumable. Noone is going to complain that they can’t use the new
version because it won’t mix properly with the old product.
I have no real opinion between the two light-greys, other than that whichever
came first should have stayed, just for consistency between old and new pieces.
I can see a difference, but honestly, it’s not enough to judge one as superior
over the other.
I’m not particularly fond of the new gunmetal grey, and I’ve only had one person
state within my hearing that he actually liked it (and that was based on the
idea of making streetlamps look metallic while leaving the sidewalks in a more
natural shade...which still requires the production of old dark-grey). While
judicial mixing of dark-grey with gunmetal grey could lead to some interesting
designs, anything less will look haphazard at best. Add to this the fact that
this shade has rapidly become associated with guns, tanks, Nazis, and
Megablocks, and I wonder what possible PR catastrophes might be coming down the
pipe. The only group of MOC-builders that I can see being wholehearedly behind
this specific change are those who build 20th-century military vehicles. That’d
be fine and well if TLC produced lots of 20th-century military sets. I can only
think of two that have actually seen production, and neither is predominantly
grey.
And as for the new brown, I have no positive thoughts about this change at all.
It doesn’t look brown. It doesn’t look like any wood that I’ve ever worked
with, and I spent three years working for a boat-builder whose staple lumber was
marine-grade 100% mahogany plywood. Frankly, it does look like something
specific to me, but decorum prohibits me from saying exactly what, beyond that
it doesn’t look particularly healthy.
As someone who builds predominently with BIONICLE sets, and lots of them, I
can’t help but feel that regardless of what happens (other than an immediate
recall of all NewColor(tm) parts), my piece palette has been permanently harmed.
Each new wave of sets introduces a wide variety of new parts, and very few
repeats of the main parts. The BIONICLE line has seen the production of close
to 150 new parts. I can think of 32 of them that have been produced in the
classic dark-grey (5 have never been produced in any other colors), 4 that have
been produced in gunmetal grey (3 have never been produced in any other color),
and only one that has been produced in both. Many of those parts would never be
produced in gunmetal grey (particularly the Kanohi and Krana, as new masks are
always being introduced to replace the old ones), and currently it looks as if
none of the new parts will ever be produced in classic dark-grey either. As the
Rahkshi, Toa Metru, and Metru Matoran seem to indicate, a lot of the newer parts
will only ever be produced in gunmetal grey, which seriously hurts the
compatibility of pre-2004 BIONICLE sets with anything going forward from here.
I’d say that the only theme that has been as significantly impacted by this
decision is the Trains line, specifically when looking at such core pieces as
train track. However, this has even more impact on the BIONICLE fan when you
consider that this comes at a time when the entire color pallete has shifted
from bright colors to the much more muted dark colors, so that the only three
main “colors” that remain unchanged between 2003 and 2004 are black, white, and
silver. Part of the whole appeal of the BIONICLE line was the the combination
of highly creative new shapes with the classic bright vibrant colors, and now
half of that equation has been thrown out the window. The one odd benefit of
this is that now the black pieces appear much brighter, crisper, and more
colorful when compared to the rest of the 2004 line. And when you think about
it, that doesn’t even make sense.
Looking at this entire situation, it appears that TLC has used very slow-drying
paint to paint themselves into a tiny corner of a very large room. Not changing
anything back will hurt their image. Changing everything back right now will
hurt their image. Waiting a while and changing everything back will hurt their
image. Recalling all NewColor(tm) pieces right now will help salvage their
image, but at staggeringly monumental cost to a company that just announced
their largest annual loss.
In light of the claim that this was all an attempt to help unify the color
scheme, I’m just wondering how long it will be before we see the introduction of
the new red ( ), the new blue (), the
new yellow (), the new green (), the
new black (), and the new white ().
And for those of you who like windows, let’s not forget the new clear
().
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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| It's only a couple of weeks in the new year, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting 2004! I have a request, but before I go any further, let me say that personally, I understand the concerns surrounding the color changes. I know many of (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX) !!
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