The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 4.2 - 2004

Okay, catch up time again. I feel a bit bad rushing through 2004, but I really want to get on with thinking through this series, and the 2004 line have been built and on my shelf for a long while now. Plus, 2005 has some really very cool combiners I'm eager to get to. Once again, I'll apologize for the cellphone picture quality, though this is a panorama, so that's kind of neat, right?

One of the earliest posts in this series was of Ultimate Dume, the large figure next to the lava lamp in this picture. He's one of my favourite builds in the series and provides a remarkable amount of poseability and articulation. He incorporates the three Titan sets from this wave, the first true titan sets, with the possible exception of 2003's Makuta. It was recently pointed out in fan circles that Makuta, considering his fundamental role in the series, only really receives proper sets in these early years. Ultimate Dume is his manifestation at the end of the first Metru Nui storyline.

A closer look, and we can see the Vahki, a robotic police force that kept the Matoran of Metru Nui working. It's a bit strange to me, this need for enforcement drones, but when one realizes that the Matoran exist within a vast robotic body (more on this in later years), perhaps the Vahki can be seen more as control programs, making sure that the smaller parts of the body accomplish their assigned tasks. To the far right of the picture is Turaga Dume and Nivawk, one of the titan sets that comprise Ultimate Dume. This version is meant to be yet another manifestation of Makuta, who took over Dume's form in the last years of Metru Nui. This ephemeral nature of Makuta is perhaps a clue as to why we don't see any other actual physical manifestations, though he does end up possessing numerous characters throughout the rest of the series. As Bionicle exists in a far simpler world, similar to that of superheroes, Makuta's actual possession of other entities, and his evil nature, make him easy to read as a metaphor for the evil that seems to be inseparable from sentient creatures.

Also of note in this picture are the Kranua and the Kraawa, combiner models using, respectively, the Vahki and the Toa Metru. As the parts comprising each figure type become less and less specialized over the course of the series 10-year run, the combiners we're given are more like sets themselves, rather than models cobbled together from other sets - the 2004 combiners suffer from this. 2005's combiners take a quantum leap forward in dealing with this, but the 2004 combiners definitely point toward a more nuanced idea about combiners from the Lego designers responsible for them.

The final bit of this year shows us the titan sets Nidhiki and Krekka, the combiner models Kralhi and Kraahu, and one of the first really complex models the instructions for which appeared in Lego Magazine, the Lohrak. The combiners are yet more robotic policing drones, and there's something really horrendously totalitarian about the idea of these massive robots keeping watch over the Matoran, who fill the roll in the series of the innocents that we're meant to sympathize with. Krekka and Nidhiki are servants of the possessed Turaga Dume during this story, Krekka being one of the most reviled sets because his build is so chaotic. I'd agree with that assessment, but I also recognize that it comes from a place of morphological symmetry which we human beings struggle with. Nidhiki is one of the most interesting characters in this series, and does much to add to the lore of Bionicle, as it is revealed that he was once a Toa who defected to a league of assassins known as The Dark Hunters (who we'll see a little bit next time), and was mutated into his current insectoid form.

And we'll finish 2004 there. A good year, full of innovations in both builds and story, and a real darkening of the plot, which only continues in the next story with the animalistic Hordika, and the almost-betrayal by one of the Toa Metru of his team.

Microcollections 2: Horror Role-Playing Games

One of my main collections is my archive of Lovecraft and Lovecraft-related stuff. I've been a fan of his writing almost as long as I've been a comics fan, which is to say most of my life. Part of that collection is my shelf of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game books. As I've picked up, bit by bit, CoC stuff over the years, I've also branched out, slightly, into other horror-related gaming titles. Mostly this is in an effort to find things I can apply to Cthulhu, but every now and again, I discover something really cool in and of itself.

I'll start with Chill, the books that are arranged at the bottom of the picture. These are from two different versions of the game, from two different gaming companies (and, if I'm not mistaken, another version is being released imminently). Chill, both versions, has a really cool aesthetic to the volumes, and plays more into the traditional horror genre, featuring werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and cryptids of various kinds. Also, this is from well before the White Wolf-inspired games of playing horror monsters as sympathetic characters, a boundary that defines this little collection, actually. I generally don't go in for the Anne Rice/Stephanie Meyer-style of horror game. I'm more interested in the interaction of "normal" people with the abnormal than with the abnormal as metaphor for the normal. The book at the back, Beyond the Supernatural, is of a similar ilk, and investigatory adventure into the weird.

De Profundis really ought to be a part of the Lovecraft collection, but it's got enough potential on its own to merit being thought about separately. It's a letter-writing RPG, intended to mimic the epistolary-style of some old pulp horror stories. One is meant to take on a persona, write letters on a typewriter, and engage in something called "psychodrama," that is, venturing out into the world but allowing yourself to see it through the lens of the character and narrative that you've taken on. I haven't managed a proper game of it yet, but I live in hope. In front of that is a game I'm relatively unfamiliar with. It's amongst the latest additions to this collection. Little Fears is a RPG that asks you to take on the role of small children and to fight the kinds of nightmares that such people have. I feel like it could be a really disturbing game, which may explain why I haven't given it a go yet.

Finally, Kult, arranged at the top right, is a game for which I actively seek out books. It plays with Gnostic Christian thinking, and is set in a city that is the archetype of all cities, inhabited by creatures who have been imprisoned by God, or gods. The system itself is a bit clunky, but I enjoy the background material so much that I don't mind. Kult is one of those games that I'd love to run, but that you would need a really serious group of gamers to pay. One day.

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 4.1 - 2004

Since I've dropped the ball a bit on this series, I'm going to play some quick catch up and do a two-parter on the beginning of the Metru Nui saga in 2004. As I write this, the Bionicle fan community is reeling from the news that Generation 2 is being cancelled. There's a lot of vitriol and criticism aimed toward Lego's handling of this new iteration of Bionicle, which I've come to understand is what fans do when they feel they've been wronged by a company or property. I get it, but I also think that the attitude that comes across of a company somehow owing something to the fans is a bit misguided. Yes, we buy and support their products, but these companies put the products out to make money, not to contribute somehow to culture, be it big or small. I'm happy to have had a bit more Bionicle, to have been given some new elements with which to build, and to have seen new interpretations of some of my favourite fictional characters.

One major criticism has been over the simplicity of the storyline, a criticism with which I fully agree. That said, at the end of the Netflix series Journey to One, we're introduced to a shadow realm within which Makuta is trapped, along with a number of Otokans, so I think that had the series continued, we would have seen some interesting cross-dimensional battle. And intimations of a coming Toa of Light were also pointing toward a more fleshed out storyline.

In Generation 1, 2004 is where the story really started to complexify. The revelation that the Turaga of Mata Nui had been Toa thousands upon thousands of years ago, in a city of great technological accomplishment to boot, began the movement of the series through its pseudo-fantasy beginnings and into a cool amalgam of fantasy and science fiction - an amalgam that I think I might equate, as I do with so much, with myth.

(Let me just apologize for the picture quality. I used my cell phone, and the lighting was a bit low.)

So what do we do with the fact that the Matoran and their protectors lived in an island city ten thousand years ago, a city located deep beneath the island of Mata Nui, and that they somehow were forced to migrate from that city to their far-less-technological island home? Coupled with that is the fact that not only were the village elders of Mata Nui Toa, but they were shepherded through their transition into Toa by an even older Toa, last surviving member of his own team. Four years into the story we begin to realize that there's so much more going on than simply a battle between Makuta and the Toa. These new/old Toa are far more unsure of themselves, and the shift of colour from the bright primary colours of the Toa Mata to the darker colours of the Toa Metru signals a shift in tone that resonates through the rest of the Generation 1 story. Even more interesting is that these Toa were originally Matoran, so we begin to question where exactly, or rather who exactly, the Toa Mata came from. The answer is not so simple. Further, these Toa are aware of the history of these heroes through a vast and proud history, and of the various factions around their world that oppose both the Toa and the Great Spirit, and who support the machinations of Makuta. Clearly by this point in the series' production, Lego had decided to let their creative team loose, and the team had jumped at the chance.

But what of the builds?

As I noted earlier, the Toa Metru are the first figures to allow for articulation of the head piece, giving us the ability to use that articulation to communicate emotion and attitude. It's a quantum leap forward for the toys. Not only this, but the arms now have elbow and knee joints, so action poses become a possibility - the toys are beginning their move from mechanical/Technic building to the portmanteau "craction" figures. We still have a gear system inside the Toa's bodies, which does make posing from the shoulders difficult, and it's a difficulty that was only ever solved by removing the gear systems altogether. Whether or not this was a good idea is something best left to individual opinion. The Matoran builds of this wave are only slightly better than those of the previous wave. They're not particularly wobbly like the 2003 Matoran, but they're also not particularly poseable, given the limited range of movement of their arms, legs, and heads. They are also only really nice to look at from the front. From behind, they are completely unfinished, which makes posing the characters in conversation with others a problem.

Off to the far right in that picture you see Toa Lhikan, last survivor of an older Toa team. His build is identical to the Toa Metru, and it's really his steed that is the interesting part of that set. The Kikanalo is a herd beast that roams the stone realm of Metru Nui, and represents one of the first non-Toa creatures to be given the same articulated treatment as the Toa themselves. This is the wave that introduces the Titan sets, which is where we'll pick things up next time.

Microcollections 1: Superhero Ephemera

As I consider my collections, the ways I go about organizing them, adding to them, and appreciating them, I also realize that the large collections (primarily my comics, Bionicle, and Lovecraft) are accompanied by smaller collections, some intentional and some completely arbitrary. I thought it would be fun to have a few brief looks at some of the smaller collections in my collection of collections.

(*sigh*)

First up, superhero stuff.

 While clearing up our storage room the other day, I opened up a box I had labeled "Superhero Ephemera." Inside were these little treasures. I used to have some of them in the spaces between my comic boxes, but having rearranged those shelves to optimize space, the ephemera was relegated to a box. However, a few weeks back we visited the very strange and awesome Miracle of America Museum in Montana, a place where knick knacks and stuff were just spread over a warehouse-sized space to celebrate the innovation of the American nation. I have a few more thoughts about that, but I'll save it for another post. Inspired by this, I made a little bit of space to display some of my knick knacks, superhero style. The accumulation of this little collection is a random process. Many of the little figures, mostly fast-food toys, are things that came in bags of Bionicle that I get from thrift shops. There's toys that come from Kinder Egg-style candies, inserts from Wizard magazine, lantern rings that were given away during the "Blackest Night" event. The black Spider-Man toy in the bottom left corner has been the subject of one of my Horror from the Dollar Bin posts, a naughty little toy if ever I've seen one. There's a couple in there, the Wolverine at the front and the similar Captain America at the back, that are actually pens. And then there's the Fleischer Superman cartoons, on video cassette. There's a belt buckle, little tiny reproductions of comics, bracelets, zipper pulls, little figurines. The day after I took this picture, I got a Super Grover figure in a bag of Bionicle parts. He graces the shelf now too.

A fairly important part of my dissertation is going to be looking at exactly this sort of intrusion into the material realm of these kinds of fictional characters. Toys and knick knacks like these make up a sort of mythic background radiation. We see them at flea markets, garage sales, McDonald's, and pay them little attention. But they are important manifestations of fiction into reality, and I think that's something that's worth thinking about.

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Toas of Light

Before we move on to the 2004 wave, and travel back tens of thousands of years into Mata Nui's history, I'd like to offer this consideration of Takanuva, the messianic Toa of Light. Takanuva shows up at a particular juncture of the story's history because it's necessary for him to do so. There is a prophecy about him, and the prophecy is fulfilled.

But this got me wondering what would happen if he'd had to show up in different eras of the story. Or even earlier iterations of the kind of building lines that eventually led to Bionicle, and those that led from Bionicle. Here's what I came up with.

Slightly before Bionicle debuted in 2001, Lego tried the buildable figure /epic storyline tack with both Throwbots and Roboriders. Both featured robotic characters in conflict, sometimes with one another, but the set-up of both stories didn't seem to have an extended storyline in mind. So these are my suppositions of what would have happened had a Toa of Light-like figure showed up in these two stories.

As there's already a first-wave Toa of Light, I moved on to the Toa Metru era of Bionicle for the next models. Above is the Toa Metru of Light, accompanied below by his Horkida version, had he come into contact with the Hordika venom in same way that the Toa Metru do in the canonical storyline. I'm pretty happy with the Metru version of the character. There's a nice range of gold armour designed to use with this body build, so I was able to put together a consistent-looking figure.

I'm not as happy with the Hordika version. The body is pretty good, but I had to go with silver pieces, as the Horkida builds were never made compatible, really, with gold armour. I used the sparkly Kanohi Avhokii for this figure, too, to give him a definite personality distinct from all of the other models. The way I see it, once the Hordika venom begins swirling through his system, he ceases to reign in the light he can emanate.

 The Toa Inika have never been my favourite build for the Toa, but their articulation, coupled with their pseudo-firearms, makes them excellent for Tarantino-esque poses. As I was building these variations on the character, I wasn't thinking of how I could make the builds better, however, but how I could adapt Takanuva into the aesthetic of each Toa variation. I think this one captures the Inika nicely.

Of all of the builds I did for this little experiment, the Toa Mahri of Light is by far my favourite, and the only one who wasn't dismantled after I'd finished. I love his trident, his armour, everything, really. The Mahri were the wave of Bionicle in which all kinds of different body builds were being incorporated into the line, a trend continued in the Mistika, Phantoka, and Glatorian waves that followed. Though they eschew the more mechanical construction of the earlier waves and, as I've noted elsewhere, proceed from the mechanical to more biological (robot to android, perhaps), this is the wave in which poseability reached its apotheosis, at least for G1 Bionicle.

The Mistika/Phantoka wave of Bionicle actually includes an official Takanuva set, though it's a titan, and I prefer him as a Toa. I was able to go back to the dark gold armour, though if I'd been able to make his wings the same colour, that would have been great. Much of this is based on the Tahu build from this wave.

The Glatorian version of the Toa of Light is a little more sparse than his predecessors. Glatorian, and the whole Bara Magna storyline, smacked of post-apocalyptic society, so I wanted to make sure that the Toa of Light we had here was one that fit the setting. He's a dingy, banged-up Toa of Light, struggling through a barren wasteland to assist his fellow Glatorians.

These are two different versions of Takanuva as a Generation 2 Bionicle. I built the first at the same time I made all of the others. There's still much hope in the fan community that we might see a Toa of Light, but I suppose that will depend on where the G2 Bionicle story goes. The second model, made a few months later, was build after I received some paints for my birthday. The mask and the chest armour on the lower picture are custom paints. The paint I used matches remarkably well with the Pearl Gold colour of G2 Bionicle, so I spent some time with the hybrid Technic/CCBS system of G2 to try to put together a Toa of Light worthy of the new construction methods. I'm pretty happy with both versions.

To finish off, here's my take on Tara Knuva, a light-based hero from the Hero Factory line. These are versions of the character from the first four years of the line. I don't know much about the Hero Factory story, so I can't really give any details like that, but I stuck as close as I could to the build styles of each wave. Of all of them, I think the wave 1 figure turned out best.

 So those are my Toa(s) of Light. Hope you enjoyed them. Next week we'll move forward to 2004, though backward through history, and begin experiencing the stories of Vakama, Onewa, Nokama, Whenua, Matau, and Nuju. The revelation that the Turaga were once Toa, tens of thousands of years ago, solidifies the mythic nature of the story, and the building innovations offer us some of the more memorable models of the series.

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 3.4 - 2003

As we come in for our finish of the 2003 sets, I'll apologize for the decline in quality of my pictures. 2004 will be better, I promise. One of the things the 2004 wave introduced to the series was the idea of the Titan figure - larger-scale figures that combined the action figure style builds of the Toa with more complex Technic pieces. The large sets from 2003 prefigure these Titans, but don't quite qualify.

The Mask of Light follows the exploits of two Matoran, Jaller and Takua. They are sent on a quest to find the Seventh Toa, the Toa of Light, which takes them through the varied landscapes of Mata Nui, and in and out of conflict with the Rahkshi. As with most children's movies not intended for theatrical release, Mask of Light is kind of a drab piece of storytelling, more an advertisement than a story, really. It stands in stark contrast with the series of books that comes out in its wake, those dealing with the tales of the Toa Metru, which are routinely dark and explore some interesting aspects of morality and duty. Two of the large sets of this year depict these two main characters. Takua and Pewku is a pretty neat set. The giant crab that Takua rides around the island is a neat mix of Technic elements, and its movement mechanism, small wheels concealed beneath moving, but cosmetic, legs is really great. As with the other Matoran from this wave, Takua (and Jaller) is a bit wobbly. The builds for the various Matoran throughout Generation 1 are amongst the weakest. The balance between simplicity and poseability never seems to have quite worked out, though I'd have to say that the Mahri Matoran from 2007 are probably, in my opinion, the best. The Jaller and Gukko Bird set is an odd choice, reflecting a scene from the film that lasts only moments, and the bird has no feet and/or stand on which to display it, hence, in the picture below, my choice to hang it from the bottom of the shelf.

In the picture at the top, it looks like we have three different versions of Makuta, which is sort of correct. The one in the middle is the Makuta set, and is actually quite fascinating for its identity as the only official model of the storyline's main villain that was ever released. We have combiners (such as next year's Ultimate Dume set) that portray versions of the villain, but never another specific set called "Makuta." This is odd, considering his intrinsic place in the tale. Makuta, the set, attempts to offer some more poseability, though combines it with the odd wobbly build of the Matoran from this year, making him a good model, but not a great one. The same goes for the two combiners that flank him. One is a beastial version of Makuta, a combination of the Makuta, Takua, and Jaller sets. Again, it's good, but not great. The other is Takutanuva, the end result of the battle between Makuta and the Toa of Light.

The last large set from this year is the Seventh Toa himself, Takanuva, who, you may be able to guess from the similarity of names, is actually MoL protagonist Takua reborn as a Toa. It's hard to see in the picture, but Takanuva comes with a really great vehicle that he can ride, though his actual build is still using Toa Nuva pieces from the previous year, and so is a little underwhelming. But the character himself stands as a messianic figure in the prophesies of the Matoran, so our interest in him can stem from the fact that this kind of a prophesied figure is not only brought into what really amounts to a kids story, but also incarnates, so to speak, in the material realm as a toy. Which, I suppose, if one considers the fact that I own a Jesus Christ action figure, is not so odd.

The next post will be a bit larger a consideration of the Toa of Light from a building stance, and then we'll move on to the saga of the Toa Metru, and of the City of Metru Nui, where things get a little more murky, narratively speaking.

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 3.3 - 2003

Our second-last foray into the Mask of Light-era of G1 brings us the Rahkshi. Created from strange, slug-like creatures called Kraata, the Rahkshi, at least the ones that the Toa Nuva encounter in this particular stage of their quest, are foes unlike any they've faced before. The six Rahkshi lay waste to Ta-Koro and Onu-Koro, and hand up defeat after defeat to the Toa Nuva until a new ally reveals itself. More of that next time.

Though, as with many of the villain waves, the Rahkshi are basically clones, their construction raises them up from the level of the Bohrok clones of the previous year. I noted in a prior post that the movement of the head on later waves of Toa give them far more potential for poseability and character, but that this innovation doesn't reach the Toa until the introduction of the Toa Metru in 2004. However, the Rahkshi demonstrate a rudimentary form of this articulation, and, though their bodies are, like the Matoran of this year, a bit wobbly, their ability to gaze at you, snake-like, is unnerving and cool. Of all of the models up to this point, including the large ones from previous and the current years, the Rahkshi are the ones who begin to transcend simply being representations of living creatures in a fiction, and instead start to embody those creatures.

The Rahkshi also provide some very, very cool combiner models, although the ones included in the back of the instruction manuals are not the greatest pieces.

The three combiners you see here are culled from the Japanese version of LEGO Magazine, as far as I can tell. The first two have instructions here, and are definitely a couple of my favourite combiners. The top one, made from pieces of the red and brown sets, has a very cool martial artist aesthetic, which is reflected in it's possibilities of poseablity. The second, the green and white, takes a good deal of inspiration from the mechs popularized in Manga and Anime. It's not quite as poseable, but it makes up for that in the intimidating presence that the build exudes. And, as you can see, the ability of these builds to move their heads allows much more characterization, and much more expressiveness, than their predecessors. The bottom picture, a blue/red/black combiner, appears only as a picture in the North American LEGO Magazine, one highlighting the kinds of cool creations that appear internationally in LEGO communities. No official instructions were ever released, I think, but there's a fan-made video on YouTube that demonstrates how to build this figure. As with the Matoran combiners from this year, such models can be extrapolated from pictures based on the available parts in given sets.

Next time, we'll have a look at the proto-titan sets that round out this year, and finish off this part of the story.