Thursday, April 24, 2014

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - An Exercise in Limitation




            One of the problems that a collector can run into, especially if he or she is an avid and occasionally indiscriminate collector, is to be spoilt for choice.  I run into this problem often with my comics, in trying to decide exactly what to read because there is so much to choose from.  While in some ways this is a ridiculous complaint from a stance of materialistic privilege, if we look at it from within the psyche/frame of reference of the collector, it can be a problem.  Is this the point at which one must ask if the collection has gotten out of hand?
            One of the uses to which I put the Bionicle collection is a sort of Zen practice.  I’ve become so accustomed to the ways the pieces fit together, the models that they are designed to make, that I can find some peaceful moments amidst the constant stress of graduate school.  I have my collection broken up into two subsets: the first is the models proper, each as complete as I can manage (after 14 years of them being moved around, built and rebuilt, and played with both by myself and an occasionally sticky-fingered son!), and separated into their own ziplock bags.  The other subset is all of the duplicate pieces, those I haven’t co-opted to try to make promotional models or models I don’t own yet.  The building subset.  However, when I sit down to build, I am often overwhelmed by the variety with which I’m beset.  Further to this, I also find I’m often limited in my building by thinking about how the pieces fit into the models proper.  These are two difficult restrictions from which to break.

            My topic today, then, is an exercise in limitation, though I had thought about calling it “(l)imitation,” actually.  Taking my cue from some Japanese Bionicle instructions I found online (http://www.bzpower.com/story.php?ID=2184), I built a number of mech-like models from a very specific subset of pieces.  These alternate Japanese models were included with bundled packs of the Rahkshi, and use pieces from four of the Rahkshi (green and white, red and brown) to build a couple of cool models.  


 Aside from their overall aesthetic being quite different from the combiner models one sees in the North American Lego magazine, the ways that the pieces are either utilized or joined together is somewhat different as well.  Hence, in my own buildings, the idea of imitation.  I decided that I would build ostensibly with the differing aesthetic in mind, and also with the differing ways of joining the pieces.  To add to this, I also limited myself to parts from two models, and two models only (with a bit of a cheat later on!).

            For my first experiment, I procured from my spare parts all the pieces of the two Rahkshi that were not included in the Japanese instruction, the black and blue models.  I started in with the idea of building something mech-like (I’ve been reading a lot of the old Robotech comics lately, so that may have had something to do with it too), and also attempted to break from my set notions of how pieces can go together.  The model is a bit shaky in places, allowing for the ways that the pieces are joined, but I think it turned out pretty good.



            My next attempt took some of the oldest pieces, and ones that I’ve traditionally had a fair bit of difficulty creating anything new from.  This model was made from the Nuva versions of Lewa and Pohatu (green and brown).  The parts are very specific to the models they are designed for, which has always been my trouble in making new models.  However, with the notion of a mech in mind once again, and also of thinking outside of my constructive comfort zone, I managed to put together something that I think looks pretty good.  I haven’t yet tried this experiment with one of the newer models, and I wonder how it would go.  One of the criticisms I had with the newer lines (after about 2006 or so) was that they were little more than action figures that needed to be put together, as opposed to construction toys.  It’s a subtle difference, but a vital one, I think.



            The next model came from the first of the Metru Nui storyline releases, circa 2004.  Taking the parts from Toas Nuju and Matau, I went in with the same mind set.  These pieces are quite different, as the model attests.  I’ve constructed the combiner models that are included in the instructions for these Toa, which may have had some influence on my creative process, but the model came out more like a creature than a mech, though really everything one builds with Bionicle has that mechanical feel.  I’m still happy with it, and it still fulfills my desire to break with traditional aesthetic and construction modes, but it’s not quite the same as the other models.


            Having done this, I went back to the Toa Nuva mech I had made and attempted the same build with the pieces from the other Toa Nuva.  I was short some pieces, so I had to substitute some bits.  These builds also break slightly from my experiment’s parameters in that rather than only using parts from the two sets involved, I used parts that were included instead in my original model.  I’m not sure if it was simply the lack of novelty, but I’m not as happy with these models as with the original.



            It has been a good process to put myself through.  The build-times for each model were quite a bit longer than I usually take, as I would attempt something and it would either not work or look too traditional.  I think this is maybe the lesson, as a collector, that I can take from my exercise.  The limitations, or the demarcations, of a collection are not necessarily the limitations or demarcations one must adhere to in interacting with a collection.  I’m not sure how this can translate to another format of collection.  How, for example, can I apply this sort of exercise to my comic collection?  Perhaps in deciding that, for the space of a few weeks, I will only read Westerns, or Heavy Metal magazines?  That doesn’t sound so back (though I’m really not a fan of the Western comics genre).

            My next project for Bionicle, I think, will be to build a menagerie of creatures and take photos of them in natural settings.  I’m interested in the effect of the juxtaposition of bio-technical animals in an organic setting.  What kinds of questions or confluences will this ask of the creature or the setting, and what kind of (potentially) artistic statement will it make?

            Hopefully that little experiment will be up in a much shorter stretch of time.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Picture #1: Ultimate Dume

I tend to go through and build my Bionicles when I am stressed and need a way of relaxing.  Reliving the story and following the instructions of the sets provides this kind of relaxation.  As I finish a year's worth of the series, I display them for a while, then dismantle them and move on to the next year.  Unfortunately, when I decided to start writing this series of articles, I had already dismantled the 2001 - 2004 series.  The following is the last of the 2004 models I dismantled.  From Brickipedia:

"10202 Ultimate Dume is a BIONICLE combiner model that was released in 2004. The set includes 555 pieces, 8621 Turaga Dume and Nivawk, 8622 Nidhiki and 8623 Krekka, which can be combined to create "Ultimate Dume"." ("Ultimate Dume")


Picture courtesy of author.

The Ultimate Dume model is based on the final villain of the second major Bionicle storyline, set in the city of Metru Nui.  As a combiner model, he incorporates elements of three previously-released sets, and this combination is based on the climax of the second Bionicle film, in which the Makuta absorbs the main antagonists of the story into his own body and creates a new one to battle the Toa Metru.

(All of this will be far more clear as the articles progress and I elucidate the story!)

 Works Cited

"10202 Ultimate Dume." Brickipedia. Wikia. n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.


Thursday, February 20, 2014

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



In the opening chapter of LEGO: A Love Story, Jonathan Bender tells us that “there are roughly sixty-two LEGO bricks for every person on the planet” (7).  I look at my own collection, here considering the elements of the Technic line called Bionicle as bricks, and I think I must skew that number significantly.  At last count, I have 216 individual sets, and according to the most comprehensive checklist I’ve been able to find, there are 50 more that I do not have.  Even the smallest sets contain about 10 pieces, so Bender's sixty-two per individual, in my household at least, rings untrue.

The Bionicle series of Technic figures was first released in 2001.  I recall very clearly the first one I bought, one of the heroic Toas named Kopaka.  I bought this set and one of the then-recent Star Wars LEGO sets at the same time, and for a little while tried to keep up collecting both.  As any other fan of LEGO will attest, this is a fool’s errand; LEGO is expensive.  I eventually gave up on the Star Wars sets, and concentrated my energies on Bionicle.

But why?


Picture courtesy of http://www.b-f-n.nl/d/506416fbb9

 
I could make the argument that Technic LEGO has long been aimed at an older audience, so the challenge of the Bionicle sets was more in keeping with my advanced age (twenty-seven) at the time.  I could cite a disappointment with the Star Wars franchise as a whole at the time, and thus a prejudice toward funnelling any more of my hard-earned wages into the Lucasfilm coffers.  I’m sure that both of these factors played into my decision, but more than that, Bionicle drew me into a world that, while robotic and mechanical, spoke to concerns of spirituality and myth that I hadn’t realized I was missing at the time.

In the beginning, the Bionicle myth involved the awakening of six Toa, great heroes with elemental powers, on the island of Mata Nui.  There they encountered the Tohunga1, small villagers of the island, and their spiritual leaders, the Turaga.  While on this island, the Toa encountered vicious wild animals of varying kinds, the Rahi, and eventually came to understand that the island was named for the god of the Matoran, and was being menaced by an evil entity called the Makuta.

After this, things became decidedly more complex.

What I propose for this series of articles is to explore not only the story, of which the preceding paragraph is merely the beginning, but to consider some concerns that are raised by the story, the collection, and the figures upon which they are all based.  I will look at gender issues that arise from the figures and story, I will consider more closely the appropriation of Polynesian and Māori culture in the service of a corporation, and I will look at the ramifications of such a mythic tale that intrinsically involves free play and creation.  As well I hope to consider the act of collecting of Bionicle, a process in which I am still engaged.  It has become decidedly less-expensive as the series has been discontinued and models begin to show up at thrift shops and garage sales.  But some sets continue to be elusive, and the lengths to which one can go to obtain such sets will be explored.

All this, along with pictures of my collection as I continue to collect and build through it.

Notes

1. After some controversy over the use of Polynesian and Māori terms in the stories (Tohunga means “priest”), the Tohunga were subsequently renamed Matoran.

Works Cited

Bender, Jonathan. LEGO: A Love Story. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.