Revelations in the Element IDs of early BIONICLE

LEGO BIONICLE
20

Good observation about the Master Builder set.

For the Turaga staves, it may be a holdover from an earlier design of the left arm.
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I particularily do think they’re related due to the use of medium lime.

I guess I should bring up that there is more evidence to this:
http://bzpower.info/story.php?ID=277

https://news.lugnet.com/technic/bionicle/?n=75
https://news.lugnet.com/dear-lego/?n=2911
https://news.lugnet.com/technic/bionicle/?n=153
Per the contemporary Lugnet reports, the original international release of 8525 did not simply include the neon yellow/blue Kaukau & Toa-colored Ruru/Matatu in addition - it did not include the neon orange or clear Kaukau at all, NONE of the six Turaga-colored masks, and not the Infected Mask either. As per the BZPower post, this mistake occured due to miscommunication (probably, there were alterations in the plans that caused confusion?). Of course, this was corrected in later releases. The reason this did not affect 8530 released in America is because the American launch was later.

It does seem that the Kaukau of Pohatu and Kopaka were originally going to be different, and like KDNX noted, purple, neon orange, neon green and clear were made alongside the Turaga colors, but they probably had issue trying to find a set of 12 solid-transparent matches. I would guess this is why they took so long on Nuju and Whenua’s colors.
The other transparent colors they’d have to work with at the time were:

  • 42 Tr. Light Blue, but it’s not great having two light blues on the table.
  • 44 Tr. Yellow, but probably they did not want two yellows either.
  • 50 Phos. White (Glow in the Dark), like 04 Kanoka; it’s not ideal because the translucency is very vague, you kinda gotta shine light through it.
  • 109 Black IR, of course they wouldn’t use that because it’s exclusively for IR lenses (like in Power Functions).
  • 113 Tr. Med. Red-Violet (Dark Pink), same as in modern sets.
  • 156 Tr. Deep Blue, used for a watch link; pretty much identical to regular blue so it would never work.
  • 157 Tr. Fluor. Red (Neon Red), like Tahu’s eyes. 157 or 113 would probably be mutually exclusive due to how similar they are.
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