As we all know by now, LEGO just loves outsourcing well-established properties from other big companies to do brick versions of their own making while having acquired the licensing rights. But every once in a while, they'll come out with an original creation all of their very own that wasn't based upon an already preexisting franchise. Their most famous exclusive toy-line was Bionicles (of course, what else could it have been), which is still beloved to this day by the many people who grew up with it. But why doesn't anyone remember their Hero Factory one, anymore? Nowadays, it seems this lesser-know toy-line entry has faded into obscurity as no one talks a whole lot about it (for better or worse, you be the judge of that).
Growing up as a Transformers and Power Rangers kid (heck, I was even into Cubix: Robots for Everyone), I was exhilarated by the thought of there being another action-oriented series of fighting robot toys with vibrant colour-schemes (and a cool superhero-motif), which would then lead into there being a serialised animated miniseries in order to help promote LEGO's all-new line of construction action-figures (no surprise there then, as they've been doing this sort of marketing tactic since the '80s). When I got a bit older, you could say Hero Factory filled that certain void in my later childhood after I got out of Power Rangers and was just starting to get tired of Transformers. It scratched the "robots fighting" itch I had and with that said, Hero Factory then became my new favourite obsession through the very early stages of the 2010s decade (sure gave my preteen self a good fix of it, for a while at least).
For its time, Hero Factory was kind of a pretty big deal as there were some talks floating around Hollywood that a live-action film was rumoured to be in the works (but of course, nothing came of it). What I can say upon reflection is that it's average at best, but still an enjoyable watch for young children. Seeing it today is like a guilty-pleasure; by which I mean it's something you know that isn't really all that great, but it still manages to get the job done of being entertaining enough for you to pass the time away while watching it. It doesn't deviate too far from its familiar tropes and is basically the same old, standard formulaic plot we've seen be done time and time again (and for the most part, those specific story-beats have been pulled-off a lot better in other things).
The writing is a particular point of contention for most people, with a very safe and somewhat predicable story-arc for the main batch of hero characters and has the archetypal young inexperienced rookie who tries to live up to the absurdly high standards set by the seasoned veterans and exceed their expectations, with him also wanting to impress the big league pro he idolises and be seen as his equal to the point of earning his comrade's respect after having proved himself worthy to join the top squad and fight alongside them on dangerous missions. I know a lot of people will find this overused "reluctant brothers-in-arms" narrative-thread to be tiresome but for me personally, I never minded this so much because it was my first time seeing a storyline like it (it introduced me to this classic cliche, which has since now become worn-out and been done to death countless times over and over again in other storytelling mediums).
I get that it's just a little kiddie's cartoon show that's based around a buildable line of action-figures (I understand that), but there're some right cringeworthy lines of silly dialogue here and there that'd make even this kind of children's show's most ardent defenders think twice. It's not the best script ever written, let's put it that way (though saying that, at least it's not pretentious like how the DCEU's Snyderverse was). However, it does have a healthy amount of properly-paced action scenes to make up for this fact, all of which are spread-out nicely and don't border on pure excess. It can start to get slightly more engaging whenever the different robot factions are discussing strategies of attack and coming up with their battle tactics, and a varying barrage of sinister villains sporting cool designs makes it all the more fun. Every individual heroic and villainous character wields a generous assortment of nifty melee-weaponry which is built to uniquely-suite each one's preferred method of fighting style, whether that be heavy-artillery or for close-combat.
What followed soon afterwards was a string of mediocre-yet-decent episodic sequels, with each standalone special getting it's own distinct theme. Until LEGO's discontinuation of it happened, they took full advantage of Hero Factory's fairly short-lived branding potential. At the end of the day when all's said and done, every one of these LEGO-based TV series are just a big advertisement opportunity for merchandising toy sales to children (and there were hours of fun playtime I had with this particular product of theirs). Why didn't this series ever receive the same level of fanfare as the direct-to-DVD Bionicles films did? Well, perhaps it's for the best. Guess I'd rather not have it turn into some bombastically mind-numbing piece of whatever, produced by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes company. No, it's obscurity only makes it that much more appealing to all those like me who grew up with it and are now looking back with some pretty fond memories (but just to stress again, you really have to view this sort of thing through the perspective of a very young child in order to actually enjoy it).
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