By the way, how did you do with the rest of the quiz?
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I got 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 right. I had to look up the others.
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I feel like there’s something else going on here than a last-second colour change.
If these were originally intended to be the release colours, why are the Ruru and Matatu also in the “wrong” colours? Wouldn’t the Turaga masks have always been the same colours as each other, even if those colours changed at some point during production?
And why are the Kaukau arranged in a different colour pattern than the other Great masks, while the Great-coloured Noble masks are in the same pattern as the Great masks (ignoring the fact that the brown Matatu was replaced with the standard light gray one)?
What this looks like to me is that those masks were accidentally made in the wrong colours, and the people putting together the display had to make do with mismatched masks.
Even if you’re right about these “misprints” actually being intentional, this still counts as a misprint, does it not? Regardless of the background, the parts were released in colours that they weren’t supposed to be released in.
Or is “misprint” a more specific term, and this is just a “release error”?
I got all of them except #2, and apparently maybe #10.
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The arrangement is probably the result of whoever was in charge of assembling the display being a little confused about three groups of masks having different colors (or they did not care about the order that much as long as the shape was correct).
Either way, there is no way these were produced by accident. There are too many things telling us these were early versions of those masks: 1) too many of them exist, 2) they were used as a part of this promotional legoland display (you wouldn’t use misprints trying to sell your new product), 3) all of these were included in regular retail mask packs (again you wouldn’t intentionally release misprints into retail circulation - the few genuine cases are mismolds that escaped quality control, not something of this magnitude), 4) the color change decisions are somewhat obvious in case of Kaukau as I described, 5) some of t the turaga masks were used in other sets such as Power pack and Bionicle clock, 6) we also know color changes within already existing products do occur in Bionicle - 2005 gold Kraahkan and visorak carapace.
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Score: 4/10 very hard quiz.
I did not know the answer to second question and never realsied to look it up… Also if you combine first letters of every word one can find something interesting. T O A O D, Toa!, od?
is the answer to third question mistaken? I thought Norik and Iruini found the other rahaga.
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TOAOD? Huh… I never tried combining first letters, maybe it means something.
I recommend going through all the films and reading all of the random matoran writings that pop up - they contain some funny or interesting stuff.
I think you misunderstood the Hagah question. It was not about who found the rest of the team, but who encouraged them to not loose hope after their transformation.
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Where exactly did you find the picture of the mask display?
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The same place I originally learned of this fact. The collectibles thread on BZP.
I was always suspicious of the “misprint” status of those masks and after I learned this information I realized my eye stalk parity model fit right into this. It seems this was common knowledge for some time in the uber collectors circle. Together it becomes quite apparent that this was a deliberate production change.
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And that not what I was meaning to say. I realize I should have phrased that better. I agree with you that the masks were made on purpose, I was just suggesting that they were released accidentally.
Ultimately, though, everything you’re saying makes sense… if we only consider the Kaukau.
It’s totally reasonable that light blue and yellow were the original Kaukau colours, and Lego made a last-second change, but then some mask packs and promotional material were sent out in Europe with the original colours before the change could be implemented.
However, that doesn’t fully explain the wrong-coloured Noble Kanohi. If the mask packs were intentionally released with the original “misprint” colours before the new “official” colours could be implemented, then why aren’t there Toa-coloured versions of the other four Noble Kanohi?
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Ah, I see.
I believe the release itslef was not an accident either and the reason has to do with the noble masks.
The fact that only 2 out of 6 noble kanohi in that display have different colors tells me that the event took place right in the middle of the production change, meaning the new Matatu and Ruru were not available yet.
It is possible that originally all noble kanohi (intended for the mask packs) had mata colors but lego changed them to match the turaga. The process may have been gradual and the line could have launched with turaga colored Matatu and Ruru still unproduced, meaning the early european mask packs, as well as the Windsor display still drew from the pool of masks containing some of the original colors. Eventually all subsequent releases including those beyond Europe had the updated coloration.
Another clue supporting this is that not all of the clocks with red Ruru had that color, some were light grey, so those were probably released after lego ran out of the original red.
We must also remember that other noble masks in mata colors do exist, but they are much rarer and were not available via mask packs (white Huna, brown Komau etc.), so these might have originated in the era when all were meant to have that color.
Just to be clear, what I suspect took place is that the original plan was:
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Great masks - Toa colors with light blue for Kopaka and yellow for Pohatu in case of Kaukau (for mask packs), Toa colors (for sets)
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Noble masks - Toa colors (for mask packs), Turaga colors (for sets)
…but was changed to what we ended up with early on during production.
If this is correct then it is reasonable to assume there are even more Toa colored Noble masks somewhere. Community gets their hands on new things often so it might only be a matter of time before someone stumbles upon “Lewa green Mahiki”. But who knows, perhaps the rest was detroyed.
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Hmmm, this is all quite interesting.
Weird, the Noble masks is exactly why I think it was an accident. Or, at the very least, Lego knew that the change was happening before releasing any of the packs. The reason I say this is because, if the change was made mid-production, we wouldn’t have gotten any Turaga-coloured Noble masks at first.
I wouldn’t necessarily assume that. Now that I’ve put more thought into this, I’m starting to think that the Kaukau (and other Great Kanohi, probably), Ruru, and Matatu were made before the other Noble masks, and then the change was implemented. From then on out, they only made the correctly-coloured masks, but released the wrong-coloured ones anyways, since they already had them made.
If Lego made full production runs of the other four Noble masks in Toa colours, I’m sure they would have been released as well. Why single out the Ruru and Matatu?
(I’m sure there could still be other Toa-coloured Noble masks out there, but those would more more along the lines of a one-off test run, rather than an actual production run)
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Of course we cannot know for sure what the exact chronology was and I can see how the unequal production of Noble masks in mata colors muddies the waters.
What I propose as a possible explanation is that the rest of the old nobles (not Matatu or Ruru) were only produced as a part of the prototype/testing stage (like you suggest at the end of your post), while Matatu/Ruru were started being produced on a larger scale, but then the change occured.
I agree that Lego did indeed know of the change before releasing anything, but were perhaps late to change the process in time for initial release and/or Legoland promotion. The updated materials were likely not ready yet.
That is also possible. In any case there must have been some shortage or delay of products of a certain type due to the order in which they were made and the color change.
I do not think they made full production runs of the others, just a few copies like the brown Komau or white Huna. They were either destroyed or are still out there somewhere. What I meant was it is reasonable to assume that there are few surviving mata-colored noble masks, but not entire populations like Matatu or Ruru.
EDIT: Hmm… the plot thickens, I did some more digging and it seems that at least 3 of the brown Komau came from Sweden, potentially from mask packs (that last part is unconfirmed though).
EDIT 2: More info incomming soon. This might be a big one…
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