BIONICLE

After suffering a decade-long downturn in the 1990s, the Lego Group went forward with the idea that a theme with a storyline behind it would appeal to consumers. Their first attempt was the space opera franchise Star Wars, which became an instant success; however, the royalty payments to Lucasfilm marginalized Lego's profits, prompting them to conceive their own story-driven themes, one of which would eventually become Bionicle. The concept for Bionicle originated from an idea by co-creator Christian Faber named "Cybots", a line of humanoid action figures with attachable limbs and ball-and-socket joints. Faber recalled: "I was sitting with Lego Technic and thought I would love to build a character instead of a car. I thought of this biological thing: The human body is built from small parts into a functional body just like a model. What if you got a box full of spare parts and built a living thing?". He pitched the idea to Lego, but was initially implemented as the themes Slizer/Throwbots in 1999 and RoboRiders in 2000. A new project called "BoneHeads of Voodoo Island" was later conceived by Faber and Lego employees Bob Thompson and Martin Riber Andersen from a brief by Erik Kramer that was sent to outside writers.