BIONICLE: The Gathering of the Toa
Monday, December 28, 2015
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - An Exercise in Limitation 2
My previous limitation exercise drew from Japanese combiner model aesthetics that differed quite substantially from the more familiar North American models. This time around, I'm going to play with one of the more novel builds that I've come across as I build through the series.
Wairuha is a combiner model, a Toa Kaita in the parlance of the series, constructed from Gali, Lewa, and Kopaka. The original version from 2001 is fairly rudimentary, and shares a build with Akamai, the Kaita of the other three Toa. In 2002, however, with the release of the Toa Nuva, Wairuha's build alters fundamentally, and adds a very cool body model to the MOCer lexicon. I noted in the previous limitation post that I'd always had trouble making MOCs from the very early Bionicle, but with this build, potential has opened up.
Here's Wairuha Nuva:
The body build is one upside down torso attached to two backward facing torsos. As far as I know, this is a unique build to this character, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. It offers so much more poseability (and possibility) than the previous build, or the Akamai Nuva build. The arms are the shortfall of the model, as they're attached to gear systems, and are thus very difficult to pose. The feet, too, are a bit problematic, as they're single axles attached to balls, and tend to fall off. This is not an insurmountable problem though, as my next few builds will attest.
Setting myself up with the instruction manuals, I proceeded to make this model:
I call it Swashbuckler. It's built fairly faithfully to the same design as Wairuha, even down to the foot design that keeps falling off! I adapted the arms somewhat, though, to improve its poseability, adding Glatorian neck pieces to allow for a later wave arm construction. Aside from that, though, he's pretty close to the original instructions. What's cool about these builds is that they've added the poseable head, something which I find adds a lot of character to a model, and which finds its way into the series as a regular feature in the 2004 wave of Toa.
My next build takes a step back in time. I isolated all of the pieces of the original three Toa that make up Wairuha, and decided to see if I could adapt those pieces into a Nuva-style build. Here's the result:
I actually really love this model. There's some real attitude coming from it. I did have to improvise a bit to make up for pieces from the Nuva that were not present in the Mata, but it all came out alright in the end. I should also note that the "official" versions of Wairuha wear Lewa's mask, both Mata and Nuva, but I'm a big fan of the Gali masks, and thought they suited the models more.
Having gotten the hang of this build, I decided to let my imagination run rampant, and see what happened:
This is the Desert Mech. It follows the same body and leg build as Wairuha, but uses the adapted arm build from Swashbuckler. I used axles with stoppers and the ball joints that accompany them for the legs, to stop the feet from falling off. The way that the torsos point backwards allows for a lot of potential for accessorizing, as evidenced here by the cooling unit fans behind the head. What's harder to see in the picture is two Karda Nui-era wings on the back that function as solar panels, fueling the mech as it crosses the desert.
After these builds, I started to wonder what a Wairuha made from another wave might look like. Breaking somewhat from the limitation I had set myself, I sorted out a green, white, and blue Glatorian, and fused them into Wairuha Glatorian. I'm not super-happy with the results, but it had to be done:
And that's my limitation exercise for this time. There's been a few cool builds for bodies that I've come across so far, but this one has certainly made my use of Mata and Nuva era torsos more likely.
Not sure what next time will be. But I can't wait to get there!
Wairuha is a combiner model, a Toa Kaita in the parlance of the series, constructed from Gali, Lewa, and Kopaka. The original version from 2001 is fairly rudimentary, and shares a build with Akamai, the Kaita of the other three Toa. In 2002, however, with the release of the Toa Nuva, Wairuha's build alters fundamentally, and adds a very cool body model to the MOCer lexicon. I noted in the previous limitation post that I'd always had trouble making MOCs from the very early Bionicle, but with this build, potential has opened up.
Here's Wairuha Nuva:
The body build is one upside down torso attached to two backward facing torsos. As far as I know, this is a unique build to this character, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. It offers so much more poseability (and possibility) than the previous build, or the Akamai Nuva build. The arms are the shortfall of the model, as they're attached to gear systems, and are thus very difficult to pose. The feet, too, are a bit problematic, as they're single axles attached to balls, and tend to fall off. This is not an insurmountable problem though, as my next few builds will attest.
Setting myself up with the instruction manuals, I proceeded to make this model:
I call it Swashbuckler. It's built fairly faithfully to the same design as Wairuha, even down to the foot design that keeps falling off! I adapted the arms somewhat, though, to improve its poseability, adding Glatorian neck pieces to allow for a later wave arm construction. Aside from that, though, he's pretty close to the original instructions. What's cool about these builds is that they've added the poseable head, something which I find adds a lot of character to a model, and which finds its way into the series as a regular feature in the 2004 wave of Toa.
My next build takes a step back in time. I isolated all of the pieces of the original three Toa that make up Wairuha, and decided to see if I could adapt those pieces into a Nuva-style build. Here's the result:
I actually really love this model. There's some real attitude coming from it. I did have to improvise a bit to make up for pieces from the Nuva that were not present in the Mata, but it all came out alright in the end. I should also note that the "official" versions of Wairuha wear Lewa's mask, both Mata and Nuva, but I'm a big fan of the Gali masks, and thought they suited the models more.
Having gotten the hang of this build, I decided to let my imagination run rampant, and see what happened:
This is the Desert Mech. It follows the same body and leg build as Wairuha, but uses the adapted arm build from Swashbuckler. I used axles with stoppers and the ball joints that accompany them for the legs, to stop the feet from falling off. The way that the torsos point backwards allows for a lot of potential for accessorizing, as evidenced here by the cooling unit fans behind the head. What's harder to see in the picture is two Karda Nui-era wings on the back that function as solar panels, fueling the mech as it crosses the desert.
After these builds, I started to wonder what a Wairuha made from another wave might look like. Breaking somewhat from the limitation I had set myself, I sorted out a green, white, and blue Glatorian, and fused them into Wairuha Glatorian. I'm not super-happy with the results, but it had to be done:
And that's my limitation exercise for this time. There's been a few cool builds for bodies that I've come across so far, but this one has certainly made my use of Mata and Nuva era torsos more likely.
Not sure what next time will be. But I can't wait to get there!
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Collection: Religious Ephemera Part 2
My first piece in today's post is something my son brought home for me from school, given to him by a friend for a laugh. I have a fair bit of respect for much of the ephemera that grows up around religions. I don't always necessarily agree with the tenets they proscribe, but I admire the dedication to one's faith that drives people to offer this kind of secondary writing. If more fundamentally religious people dedicated themselves to the pen, and not the sword, we'd have a far more interesting world.
That said, I think I fail (or pass, depending on your point of view) this test.
It's a well-recognized fact that many religious organizations find new converts amongst the lost and directionless of the university campus. I do truly believe that these groups, the ones that have a table in the student center, or who advertise on the bulletin boards, have altruistic origins, even if their practice is not quite the same as their praxis. I find numerous pieces of this ephemera tacked up to the boards I walk by on my way to and fro in the school. These three pamphlets were packaged together, and I've got a couple of other bundles too. Though of slightly higher quality than something like Bill Ashmore's exegesis from the previous post, they're still products of an independent press seeking to offer elucidation of Christian principles. What I think would be interesting about these sorts of works would be to compare their conclusions to the more rigorous and accepted interpretive texts.
My final piece for today is a bit of a joke, though one with some teeth. In my first year of the PhD program, I was given a research position (more a "catalogue this office" position, really) that involved going through a large collection of amateur science fiction fanzines from the mid-70s and "bibliographizing" them. A substantial portion of collection was a publication called Minneapa, and within one of the issues was this send-up of dogmatic religion. My own thinking on religion accords something like this just as much veracity as any other piece of ephemera, and it's kind of amusing in its own right. As you can see, it's credited to Al Kuhfeld, who was a regular contributor to the zine. Hopefully he doesn't mind my reproducing it here.
That's it for this installment. See you next time.
That said, I think I fail (or pass, depending on your point of view) this test.
It's a well-recognized fact that many religious organizations find new converts amongst the lost and directionless of the university campus. I do truly believe that these groups, the ones that have a table in the student center, or who advertise on the bulletin boards, have altruistic origins, even if their practice is not quite the same as their praxis. I find numerous pieces of this ephemera tacked up to the boards I walk by on my way to and fro in the school. These three pamphlets were packaged together, and I've got a couple of other bundles too. Though of slightly higher quality than something like Bill Ashmore's exegesis from the previous post, they're still products of an independent press seeking to offer elucidation of Christian principles. What I think would be interesting about these sorts of works would be to compare their conclusions to the more rigorous and accepted interpretive texts.
My final piece for today is a bit of a joke, though one with some teeth. In my first year of the PhD program, I was given a research position (more a "catalogue this office" position, really) that involved going through a large collection of amateur science fiction fanzines from the mid-70s and "bibliographizing" them. A substantial portion of collection was a publication called Minneapa, and within one of the issues was this send-up of dogmatic religion. My own thinking on religion accords something like this just as much veracity as any other piece of ephemera, and it's kind of amusing in its own right. As you can see, it's credited to Al Kuhfeld, who was a regular contributor to the zine. Hopefully he doesn't mind my reproducing it here.
That's it for this installment. See you next time.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Collection: Religious Ephemera Part 1
I make no secret of my fascination with the paratexts that grow up around religions, both factual and fictional (a distinction that I think needs troubling). I've just finished reading a piece by Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price about the various canonical, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphical pieces of sacred writing in the volumes of the Cthulhu Mythos, and it got me thinking of where such independently published, or small press published, texts fit into these distinctions.
I discovered these lovely little cards in various books that came into my used book shop in 2001. A large proportion of my initial donations for the store came from a priest who was retiring from very active service and wanted to downsize his library, and I get the suspicion that these were bookmarks he'd used. The top one is the oldest piece in this collection, dating from 1903, with the subsequent two from a decade later. I think these are beautiful little bits of religious art, and I keep my eyes open for more. Two of them have the name "Agnes" written across the top, perhaps indicating that, regardless of the subject matter of collectible cards, those who possess them are adamant about their ownership!
A couple of years ago I was riding the train to school, and I caught sight of this little pamphlet sitting on a seat next to someone across from me. Immediately I realized I was looking at one of the great oddities of the comic book world, a Chick Tract. These evangelical little comics are famed for being both deeply disturbing and, unintentionally, hilariously bad. While I was growing up in the 80s, the "Dark Dungeons" issue, a paranoid denunciation of Dungeons & Dragons, was a well-known and well-mocked example of these pieces. Just before I got off the train, I actually ventured to ask the young man sitting next to it if it belonged to him, to which he replied in the negative. And so I acquired my first Chick Tract in a very cool way, as if it had been left, either as addition to my collection, or warning against my sins. (I haven't scanned the whole thing, just bits that I thought were interesting.)
I'll just offer one more piece today, otherwise this post will run long. Where the Golden Text cards were in books, and the Chick Tract was on the train, I found this next piece sitting in an icy puddle while walking down Kensington Street in Calgary. I brought it home, dried it out, and gave it a read, and it immediately found a place in my heart. I don't want to imply that it converted me or anything, only that these sorts of independent writings, printed at home and posted or distributed with the fervent desire to spread helpful truth, are amongst the most earnest and valuable religious writings in some ways. Many creeds will propose that the truest way to salvation is to have a personal relationship with whatever deity presides over one's faith. Writing such as this are testaments to that personal relationship.
I'm afraid I can't comment on the strength of Ashmore's exegesis here, but that he was driven to produce such exegesis speaks volumes (and, should he ever see this, I hope he doesn't mind me posting it, and takes my thoughts on it in the spirit they're intended, as praise). This is the work of someone figuring for himself how to fit himself into the typological narrative of the Bible and the dogma that has grown up about it. There is something genuine about it, something lacking in much of the more polished and produced religious exegesis that is popularly available.
Going back to Price's look at the texts of the Lovecraft Mythos' fictional religion, he leaves out these kinds of works, though perhaps in the case of the first two examples, it's because the fictional religion is meant to be a secret. Ashmore's work on the Bible comes closer to the exegetic texts Price describes in another article on the various sorts of books that populate the Lovecraftian Mythos, a working out of meaning and connotation, and one's place within it.
As the title notes, this is part 1 of this collection. I'll come back with more in the near future.
I discovered these lovely little cards in various books that came into my used book shop in 2001. A large proportion of my initial donations for the store came from a priest who was retiring from very active service and wanted to downsize his library, and I get the suspicion that these were bookmarks he'd used. The top one is the oldest piece in this collection, dating from 1903, with the subsequent two from a decade later. I think these are beautiful little bits of religious art, and I keep my eyes open for more. Two of them have the name "Agnes" written across the top, perhaps indicating that, regardless of the subject matter of collectible cards, those who possess them are adamant about their ownership!
A couple of years ago I was riding the train to school, and I caught sight of this little pamphlet sitting on a seat next to someone across from me. Immediately I realized I was looking at one of the great oddities of the comic book world, a Chick Tract. These evangelical little comics are famed for being both deeply disturbing and, unintentionally, hilariously bad. While I was growing up in the 80s, the "Dark Dungeons" issue, a paranoid denunciation of Dungeons & Dragons, was a well-known and well-mocked example of these pieces. Just before I got off the train, I actually ventured to ask the young man sitting next to it if it belonged to him, to which he replied in the negative. And so I acquired my first Chick Tract in a very cool way, as if it had been left, either as addition to my collection, or warning against my sins. (I haven't scanned the whole thing, just bits that I thought were interesting.)
I'm afraid I can't comment on the strength of Ashmore's exegesis here, but that he was driven to produce such exegesis speaks volumes (and, should he ever see this, I hope he doesn't mind me posting it, and takes my thoughts on it in the spirit they're intended, as praise). This is the work of someone figuring for himself how to fit himself into the typological narrative of the Bible and the dogma that has grown up about it. There is something genuine about it, something lacking in much of the more polished and produced religious exegesis that is popularly available.
Going back to Price's look at the texts of the Lovecraft Mythos' fictional religion, he leaves out these kinds of works, though perhaps in the case of the first two examples, it's because the fictional religion is meant to be a secret. Ashmore's work on the Bible comes closer to the exegetic texts Price describes in another article on the various sorts of books that populate the Lovecraftian Mythos, a working out of meaning and connotation, and one's place within it.
As the title notes, this is part 1 of this collection. I'll come back with more in the near future.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
The 40 Years of Comics Project: Weird Metadata Post #3 (Crosspost from "Giant Box of Comics")
Apparently my database software can make graphs. This is endlessly amusing for me, and I'm going to share them with you.
Not all of my comics have all of the same data entered in the database. Some stories don't have titles, for instance. Or the writer and artist may not have been recorded in the comic. But most have Cover Years. It makes sense that 2001 and 2002 are the most represented, as that's when I had my store. But 1987 comes in after that, my X-Men, Avengers, Animal Man, didn't have to pay for my own food days.
Ha. Animal Man is the only character who makes enough appearances through the database to merit mention. What this actually says is that I was far more caring about keeping track of my Animal Man appearances than any other character in the collection. This'll be an interesting graph to run once all of the comics are properly indexed.
No surprise which genre wins out in my collection. That Adventure comes in second is interesting. I wouldn't necessarily characterize a lot of what I've got as Adventure, though I suppose that term can be applied quite widely.
As with the genre list, no surprises for the top place for writers. I suppose that Chris Claremont is the third-highest representation has something to do with the aforementioned 1987 collection. It would be interesting to find a year, and read only comics from that year for a year.
One last one for today. For publishers, the top two aren't much of a surprise. Actually, none of the top ones really are, simply for the fact that they can handle the kind of volume that produces far more representation than the smaller publishers.
Okay, that's it for now, but that's a fun little toy. I'll see if I can generate some other interesting visualizations another time.
Not all of my comics have all of the same data entered in the database. Some stories don't have titles, for instance. Or the writer and artist may not have been recorded in the comic. But most have Cover Years. It makes sense that 2001 and 2002 are the most represented, as that's when I had my store. But 1987 comes in after that, my X-Men, Avengers, Animal Man, didn't have to pay for my own food days.
Ha. Animal Man is the only character who makes enough appearances through the database to merit mention. What this actually says is that I was far more caring about keeping track of my Animal Man appearances than any other character in the collection. This'll be an interesting graph to run once all of the comics are properly indexed.
No surprise which genre wins out in my collection. That Adventure comes in second is interesting. I wouldn't necessarily characterize a lot of what I've got as Adventure, though I suppose that term can be applied quite widely.
As with the genre list, no surprises for the top place for writers. I suppose that Chris Claremont is the third-highest representation has something to do with the aforementioned 1987 collection. It would be interesting to find a year, and read only comics from that year for a year.
One last one for today. For publishers, the top two aren't much of a surprise. Actually, none of the top ones really are, simply for the fact that they can handle the kind of volume that produces far more representation than the smaller publishers.
Okay, that's it for now, but that's a fun little toy. I'll see if I can generate some other interesting visualizations another time.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 1.4 - 2001
I'd said last time that I would finish up with the Rahi this time through, but I think the only thing I have left to say about them is that I'm not a fan of dismantling them. As I noted before, they're amongst the most complex Bionicle sets, so they take a lot of time to take apart. That said, especially in the case of this build through, I'm excited to take them apart so I can get on to 2002. But before that...
I'll end off with a brief look at some of the ancillary merchandise that surrounded the Bionicle line at it's beginning. One of the fundamental things I'm going to be looking at with the case studies in my dissertation, of which Bionicle will be a minor one, is the transmedial nature of these stories. They span numerous different media, from traditional narrative sites (comics, books, etc.) to toys, costumes, video games, and music. Here in Canada, a lot of the ancillary items were not available. I don't recall seeing the Halloween costumes or running shoes with interchangeable masks at the time, though I imagine that their production runs were limited, as was their distribution. I'm not entirely certain where I found the checklist that I use to keep track of these items. I was pretty sure it was over at BZ Power, but I can't find it there anymore. My most recent find as far as this aspect of the series goes came just a few months ago when I found a Vakama Hordika voice changer mask on Kijiji for $25. It's pretty great, and I'll include it when we eventually get to 2005.
Not much really to say about this. It's the Happy Meal bag that the McToran were packaged in. I only ever got the one, as I'm a vegetarian and McDonald's offers very little (or did at the time) to accommodate me. I probably got this one for my son. Instead, I would hit all of the McDonald's in my local area (probably 6 or 7) once a week to see if the new Bionicle had come in. It took a while, but I eventually got there.
I was very excited for the "Quest for Makuta" game, and it really is a cool little portion of the series, if not actually a great game. The board (which I'll perhaps put together and post as an interregnum) is cool, depicting Mata Nui but broken up into pieces that allow for some random world generation. The central temple piece is the top from one of the old canisters, and the character pieces are great little stand-ups of each of the Toa Mata. As far as game play goes, however, I think I've only played this game twice in the 15 years I've owned it. I guess just because something can be transmedial doesn't mean it should poke it's nose into all media. My assessment of the 2003 "Mask of Light" board game is pretty similar. I've not got my hands on the later game (Inika-era, I think).
When Bionicle first dropped, Trading Card Games were huge. Bionicle's attempt at a TCG was relatively short-lived (main series, and I think two booster series), though there's a later attempt at the form that comes in 2003 (?). I was very much into TCGs at the time, so I picked this up, but it's definitely a game geared toward younger audiences. One has to travel around Mata Nui completing challenges and collecting pieces of armour, weapons, and masks in order to win the game. There were three starter packs, each featuring two Toa. As with the board game, I think I've played this game only a couple of times since I got it (which probably means it's time to give it, and the board game, another go), but the map, which was double-sided, makes a cool poster of Mata Nui for my building corner when two of them are put together.
(Anyone remember when the kids used to use pens?)
I kind of love these pens. What you don't see pictured here are the various little blocks and beads with which one could customize each pen. I think my affection for the pens is the same as my affection for the Lego watches - they embrace the customizability that is inherent in the whole line. Though I've got each of the little masks (each about the size of a thumb nail) at the top, one could easily move them down. There are lots of other blocks, and if I had to make one criticism of them, it would be that they're not compatible with the sets themselves, as the watches are. It would be great to use the little Pohatu mask as shoulder armour, or the blocks on a Turaga staff or something. I think of all the pieces in my collection, these one are the ones that feel most like collectibles, in that the ink has long since dried up, so they can't actually be used as pens anymore. They're decoration now. That's an intriguing thought, that something can shift identities within a collection based on the combination of time and physical make-up. I was about to say that this is the only example, but then there's this..
Along with Kopaka, this is the oldest piece in the collection, the reason being that it was packaged with Kopaka when I first bought him. I can't for the life of me remember what's on it, though I think the Po-Koro interactive tour, identical to the one on the Power Pack, is on there, with other stuff. However, it, too, is simply a collectible now, in that Windows 10 refuses to recognize the data contained herein. It's very likely that the information on this disc is preserved at the Biomedia Project, so it's still available, albeit in a mediated form.
And, aside from the comics and masks, that's it for 2001. As sophisticated and malleable as the series and its elements become over the years, I still have a soft spot for these original Toa and the variety of toys, books, games, and such that spring up around them. It's like looking at one of the original Superman comics, and realizing that a lot of them were pretty bad, but that without them, we wouldn't have what we have today.
So now I'm off to dismantle a year's worth of Bionicle, pack it all back into storage, and begin the lovely task of building 2002. The swarm is coming, the Matoran begin to fight back, and the Toa become something....new.
I'll end off with a brief look at some of the ancillary merchandise that surrounded the Bionicle line at it's beginning. One of the fundamental things I'm going to be looking at with the case studies in my dissertation, of which Bionicle will be a minor one, is the transmedial nature of these stories. They span numerous different media, from traditional narrative sites (comics, books, etc.) to toys, costumes, video games, and music. Here in Canada, a lot of the ancillary items were not available. I don't recall seeing the Halloween costumes or running shoes with interchangeable masks at the time, though I imagine that their production runs were limited, as was their distribution. I'm not entirely certain where I found the checklist that I use to keep track of these items. I was pretty sure it was over at BZ Power, but I can't find it there anymore. My most recent find as far as this aspect of the series goes came just a few months ago when I found a Vakama Hordika voice changer mask on Kijiji for $25. It's pretty great, and I'll include it when we eventually get to 2005.
Not much really to say about this. It's the Happy Meal bag that the McToran were packaged in. I only ever got the one, as I'm a vegetarian and McDonald's offers very little (or did at the time) to accommodate me. I probably got this one for my son. Instead, I would hit all of the McDonald's in my local area (probably 6 or 7) once a week to see if the new Bionicle had come in. It took a while, but I eventually got there.
I was very excited for the "Quest for Makuta" game, and it really is a cool little portion of the series, if not actually a great game. The board (which I'll perhaps put together and post as an interregnum) is cool, depicting Mata Nui but broken up into pieces that allow for some random world generation. The central temple piece is the top from one of the old canisters, and the character pieces are great little stand-ups of each of the Toa Mata. As far as game play goes, however, I think I've only played this game twice in the 15 years I've owned it. I guess just because something can be transmedial doesn't mean it should poke it's nose into all media. My assessment of the 2003 "Mask of Light" board game is pretty similar. I've not got my hands on the later game (Inika-era, I think).
When Bionicle first dropped, Trading Card Games were huge. Bionicle's attempt at a TCG was relatively short-lived (main series, and I think two booster series), though there's a later attempt at the form that comes in 2003 (?). I was very much into TCGs at the time, so I picked this up, but it's definitely a game geared toward younger audiences. One has to travel around Mata Nui completing challenges and collecting pieces of armour, weapons, and masks in order to win the game. There were three starter packs, each featuring two Toa. As with the board game, I think I've played this game only a couple of times since I got it (which probably means it's time to give it, and the board game, another go), but the map, which was double-sided, makes a cool poster of Mata Nui for my building corner when two of them are put together.
(Anyone remember when the kids used to use pens?)
I kind of love these pens. What you don't see pictured here are the various little blocks and beads with which one could customize each pen. I think my affection for the pens is the same as my affection for the Lego watches - they embrace the customizability that is inherent in the whole line. Though I've got each of the little masks (each about the size of a thumb nail) at the top, one could easily move them down. There are lots of other blocks, and if I had to make one criticism of them, it would be that they're not compatible with the sets themselves, as the watches are. It would be great to use the little Pohatu mask as shoulder armour, or the blocks on a Turaga staff or something. I think of all the pieces in my collection, these one are the ones that feel most like collectibles, in that the ink has long since dried up, so they can't actually be used as pens anymore. They're decoration now. That's an intriguing thought, that something can shift identities within a collection based on the combination of time and physical make-up. I was about to say that this is the only example, but then there's this..
Along with Kopaka, this is the oldest piece in the collection, the reason being that it was packaged with Kopaka when I first bought him. I can't for the life of me remember what's on it, though I think the Po-Koro interactive tour, identical to the one on the Power Pack, is on there, with other stuff. However, it, too, is simply a collectible now, in that Windows 10 refuses to recognize the data contained herein. It's very likely that the information on this disc is preserved at the Biomedia Project, so it's still available, albeit in a mediated form.
And, aside from the comics and masks, that's it for 2001. As sophisticated and malleable as the series and its elements become over the years, I still have a soft spot for these original Toa and the variety of toys, books, games, and such that spring up around them. It's like looking at one of the original Superman comics, and realizing that a lot of them were pretty bad, but that without them, we wouldn't have what we have today.
So now I'm off to dismantle a year's worth of Bionicle, pack it all back into storage, and begin the lovely task of building 2002. The swarm is coming, the Matoran begin to fight back, and the Toa become something....new.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 1.3 - 2001
Whenever I engage in a rebuild of the Bionicle series, I always find myself excited to build the Rahi. They're certainly the most diverse of the villains the Toa (any of the Toa) face over the course of the decade-long first wave and, to me at least, represent a moment early on in the series when the designers were not...well, lazy is the word that springs to mind, though I'll admit that I have no idea of what kinds of decisions lay behind the movement from diverse modelling to clones.
That said, when I actually get to building the Rahi, I get impatient for the model to be done. The Rahi (Nui-Rama, Nui-Jaga, Tarakava, Muaka, Kane-Ra, Manas) are the closest the Bionicle line comes to the Technic line of models from which Bionicle sprang, and their relative complexity is one of the facets that links them to Technic quite fundamentally. We could posit that the Rahi models were actually LEGO's attempt to bring older builders into the Bionicle line in much the same way that the Toa, with their action figure-esque style, would be better suited to bring in younger builders. If I'm anything to go by, it worked. But I still get impatient building them, and I'm not sure why. It could simply be that I've been building and dismantling these models for nearly 15 years, so the shine is off. Regardless, they represent a very interesting, innovative, and unique moment in Bionicle's history.
Early on in the line, the Rahi were relatively difficult to find, and were remarkably expensive, compared to the Toa and Turaga. The expense of these sets might be a reason that the very large sets disappeared for some time from later Bionicle iterations, or perhaps it was the success of the figure-based models that spurred the creation of the "titans" line of villains and heroes, models that still incorporated some Technic elements, but really were very much on the way to becoming Bionicle, as opposed to Technic. But before that happened, we had wild animals to build.
The main series of Rahi are well-known by this point. Giant mosquitoes, giant scorpions, water lizards, bulls, great cats, and giant crabs. All of these creatures were possessed by the Makuta and sent to stop the Toa from locating their Masks of Power. In the comics and books, the Rahi who had been taken over by Makuta were always identified by the corrupted masks they wore. Unfortunately, the only model to have such masks was Muaka. I would have loved to see the Manas or Tarakava with infected masks, though the variety of colours of the original masks that we do get as a result of the colour-schemes of the Rahi is quite wonderful. Of course, bearing in mind the expense of the sets, these masks fall into the realm of the most rare and collectible of the series.
(Note: I haven't yet dealt with the collectability of the generation 1 masks, which seems odd considering this is a collecting blog. I think the masks will require a post all their own, perhaps one that encompasses all of the masks of G1, from the early to the last.)
For this particular build through, the aspect of the Rahi sets that was most interesting for me were the combiner sets. The Nui-Kopen, combiner model of the two Nui Rama, is one of my favourite models of the whole line. While the Nui Rama themselves are individually interesting models, the Nui-Kopen really conveys the sense of malevolence one wants to see from a giant insect.
Missing from this particular build through are the Kuma Nui, combiner of Muaka and Kane-Ra, and the Mana Ko, combiner of the Manas. As both of these sets were very expensive, finding them on the secondary market is difficult. But if there's one thing a collector never wants to see, it's the end of his or her collection - having such difficult quarry to hunt down is part of the draw of collecting as a life. This said, what we do have in these pictures and in this build through are numerous official Rahi that were not sets, instructions for which came through either the LEGO website or the LEGO magazine.
The Mata Nui Cow, or Mukau, is easily the cutest model of the Bionicle series. Of real note here, however, are the Ranama and the Kirikori Nui, two models that not only combine Bionicle pieces, but also incorporate elements of the Bionicle forerunners, Throwbots (or Slizers) and Roboriders. As I noted in the previous post, the dearth of older sets makes building these ones difficult, and my own versions of these two Rahi incorporate most, but not all, of the pieces from the official instructions. When I'm tracking down bits for these combiner models, I'll hit a certain point where I feel that, with the pieces I do have that can be used as replacements, building the model minus some of the "official" pieces is worthwhile. For the Ranama, for example, I am missing two of the Throwbot "gearbox" body pieces in yellow. But that's all, so replacing them with the purple ones that you (might) see in the picture is not a big deal for me as a builder. A few of the combiner models I'll be looking at through this series share similar replacement parts, but that's only until I can track down the right pieces.
I think that's long enough for this post. I'll offer some final thoughts on the Rahi next time, as well as looking briefly at some of the ancillary merchandise that accompanied Bionicle at this early stage.
(Okay, two more. The Kahu (Nui-Jaga combiner) and the Dikapi, which basically is a Bionicle chicken.)
That said, when I actually get to building the Rahi, I get impatient for the model to be done. The Rahi (Nui-Rama, Nui-Jaga, Tarakava, Muaka, Kane-Ra, Manas) are the closest the Bionicle line comes to the Technic line of models from which Bionicle sprang, and their relative complexity is one of the facets that links them to Technic quite fundamentally. We could posit that the Rahi models were actually LEGO's attempt to bring older builders into the Bionicle line in much the same way that the Toa, with their action figure-esque style, would be better suited to bring in younger builders. If I'm anything to go by, it worked. But I still get impatient building them, and I'm not sure why. It could simply be that I've been building and dismantling these models for nearly 15 years, so the shine is off. Regardless, they represent a very interesting, innovative, and unique moment in Bionicle's history.
Early on in the line, the Rahi were relatively difficult to find, and were remarkably expensive, compared to the Toa and Turaga. The expense of these sets might be a reason that the very large sets disappeared for some time from later Bionicle iterations, or perhaps it was the success of the figure-based models that spurred the creation of the "titans" line of villains and heroes, models that still incorporated some Technic elements, but really were very much on the way to becoming Bionicle, as opposed to Technic. But before that happened, we had wild animals to build.
The main series of Rahi are well-known by this point. Giant mosquitoes, giant scorpions, water lizards, bulls, great cats, and giant crabs. All of these creatures were possessed by the Makuta and sent to stop the Toa from locating their Masks of Power. In the comics and books, the Rahi who had been taken over by Makuta were always identified by the corrupted masks they wore. Unfortunately, the only model to have such masks was Muaka. I would have loved to see the Manas or Tarakava with infected masks, though the variety of colours of the original masks that we do get as a result of the colour-schemes of the Rahi is quite wonderful. Of course, bearing in mind the expense of the sets, these masks fall into the realm of the most rare and collectible of the series.
(Note: I haven't yet dealt with the collectability of the generation 1 masks, which seems odd considering this is a collecting blog. I think the masks will require a post all their own, perhaps one that encompasses all of the masks of G1, from the early to the last.)
For this particular build through, the aspect of the Rahi sets that was most interesting for me were the combiner sets. The Nui-Kopen, combiner model of the two Nui Rama, is one of my favourite models of the whole line. While the Nui Rama themselves are individually interesting models, the Nui-Kopen really conveys the sense of malevolence one wants to see from a giant insect.
Missing from this particular build through are the Kuma Nui, combiner of Muaka and Kane-Ra, and the Mana Ko, combiner of the Manas. As both of these sets were very expensive, finding them on the secondary market is difficult. But if there's one thing a collector never wants to see, it's the end of his or her collection - having such difficult quarry to hunt down is part of the draw of collecting as a life. This said, what we do have in these pictures and in this build through are numerous official Rahi that were not sets, instructions for which came through either the LEGO website or the LEGO magazine.
The Mata Nui Cow, or Mukau, is easily the cutest model of the Bionicle series. Of real note here, however, are the Ranama and the Kirikori Nui, two models that not only combine Bionicle pieces, but also incorporate elements of the Bionicle forerunners, Throwbots (or Slizers) and Roboriders. As I noted in the previous post, the dearth of older sets makes building these ones difficult, and my own versions of these two Rahi incorporate most, but not all, of the pieces from the official instructions. When I'm tracking down bits for these combiner models, I'll hit a certain point where I feel that, with the pieces I do have that can be used as replacements, building the model minus some of the "official" pieces is worthwhile. For the Ranama, for example, I am missing two of the Throwbot "gearbox" body pieces in yellow. But that's all, so replacing them with the purple ones that you (might) see in the picture is not a big deal for me as a builder. A few of the combiner models I'll be looking at through this series share similar replacement parts, but that's only until I can track down the right pieces.
I think that's long enough for this post. I'll offer some final thoughts on the Rahi next time, as well as looking briefly at some of the ancillary merchandise that accompanied Bionicle at this early stage.
(Okay, two more. The Kahu (Nui-Jaga combiner) and the Dikapi, which basically is a Bionicle chicken.)
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
The Building Chronicle: A Critical Consideration of LEGO's "Bionicle" Series - Building Through part 1.2 - 2001
BIONICLE (I'm going to stop capitalizing it for the balance of these articles. I know that's the proper way of writing it, but it's a pain in the ass) offers a really interesting post-apocalyptic science fiction story that starts out as a fantasy parsed mechanically. By this, I mean, that the original six Toa who started the story (seen above, left, and below) are the most mechanical-looking off all of the Toa that we encounter through the first 10 years of the series. At this point in Bionicle's history, it is still considered an offshoot of the Technic line, and as such is compatible with pieces from that series. Before Bionicle's release in 2001, LEGO/Technic had experimented with action figure-style sets in the Throwbots and Roboriders series, and the elements that make up Bionicle are fully compatible with those forerunners. Indeed, two of the earliest official combiner models, the Ranama and the Kirikori Nui rely heavily on elements from these earlier series. In the "Prolegomena" to Lego Studies, Mark Wolf describes LEGO as a "mediating substance through which ideas can be expressed" (xxii) in reference to the creative potential that comes from a building material that is infinitely combinable and compatible with every other element in its range. The compatibility of Bionicle elements at this early stage argues for its inclusion in this notion of a mediating substance, or, more simply, a medium.
To return to the idea of fantasy parsed mechanically, the initial mythos of Bionicle is a mystical one. Six prophesied heroes wash ashore on a mysterious island, discover a connection to elemental powers, and to a sacred mission to protect and reawaken "the Great Spirit" Mata Nui. Yet these heroes, and the villagers they protect, and even the beasts that threaten them, are mechanical in nature, not just in the elements that make up the sets, but in the narrative itself. It was this juxtaposition that I found initially so enthralling; a line of technical Lego aligned around a story of spiritual fulfillment, around the three virtues of Unity, Duty, and Destiny. In this opening phase of the tale, there was really no inkling of the post-apocalyptic undercurrent that would eventually eclipse the more spiritual side of the story. This was simply a tale of the fulfillment of a prophecy, one told using machines.
I want to hang on this for a moment. The Bionicle figures are machines, as are all of the models in the Lego Technic line. They're not even simple machines, but semi-complex combinations of axles and gears and levers and wheels. They function through rational principles that have been described through the centuries by physicists. But, at least initially, they embody qualities that fly in the face of the rational: destiny, spirituality, faith and belief. It's a rather beautiful combination, a practical application of the principles of physics and the principles of faith, combined in a toy that is, at its most basic level, an infinitely iterative device. Is this telling us something important about a combination of the rational and the irrational? Can such a combination lead to infinite novelty? In the case of Bionicle, I think the answer is yes.
To conclude with my mechanical meditation, the irony of the line is that as it progresses further and further from fantasy into the science fictional realm, the figures become less and less mechanical. Poseability and articulation are far superior in the 2009 line of figures than in this inaugural one, but the story becomes almost wholly mechanistic and rational. What is fascinating, then, is the combination of the two that emerges in the 2015 reboot (which, actually, may or may not be a reboot proper.)
Let's spend a bit of time, now, on the actual models.
Most of what you see in the above pictures are the standard models to have been released in the initial wave of Bionicle. A trend that continues until at least 2006 is the inclusion in each instruction book of alternate model sets. For the Toa, these alternate models were two beings known as the Toa Kaita, combinations of three each that amalgamated the powers and personalities of the individual heroes. These are relatively well-known combiner models, and also make brief appearances in the canonical stories surrounding this era of the series.
These kaita are, however, the only sets in the 2001 figure wave (as opposed to the creature wave) that include such combination instructions. Both the Turaga (village leaders, the figures with small staffs in the upper pictures) and the early Matoran (the "McTorans" or Tohunga) have combiner models but not published, at least in pamphlet form, instructions.
The McToran combiner models (so named due to their inclusion in Happy Meals from McDonalds) are fairly simple to build, due mainly to the number and nature of parts involved. Each set is simply 7 pieces, and all are fairly large and fit together in only so many ways. Consideration of the pictures on the instructions included with each set is enough to build both versions of the Matoran Kaita and the Matoran Nui.
One last figure set deserves some attention before we finish.
The Bionicle Power Pack was an early experiment for Bionicle and LEGO in transmedial storytelling. Not only does the package include another Matoran and a mask that, ostensibly, is worn by one of the above Toa Kaita, but the CD included with the package has a map of the island on the liner notes, and includes both an interactive tour of the stone village on Mata Nui and three music tracks ostensibly composed by the Toa themselves. The interactive content, sadly, is not Windows 10 compatible, so I've been unable to install it on my system, but it can be found at the archive of the BioMedia Project here. Hafu, the Matoran who comes with this set receives an upgrade in 2003 as part of the Mask of Light tie-in Matoran, and is representative of a strange choice on LEGO's part to not release Matoran from each village in that year. But we'll look more to that when we get there.
Before we finish for today, then, here's one of the songs from that disc, the track called "The Bionicle Music." Whether this fits with the fantasy/jungle aesthetic of the early series is a good question. In some ways it enhances that strange mixture of the scientific and irrational by providing a soundtrack that one cannot imagine the inhabitants of the island of Mata Nui composing. Enjoy. Next time, we'll have a look at the Rahi of the island, the Toa's first challenge in reawakening the Great Spirit.
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