This is all super cool.
Just to visualize that graph, here are the speculative prototoran compared to the final.
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I hadnât really noticed that myself; but youâre totally right when it comes to that!
Youâre probably right, when it comes to the idea of giving a tan-armed Matoran a tan tool, now that I think about it. The only reason I really gave the tan-bodied Stone Matoran a tan tool is because there does seem to be a little correlation between the tertiary-colored tools, and which Tohunga got them (proto-Kongu at the very least getting the same-colored tool as his mask, with proto-Kapura likely to have the same, if my hunch that the orange/yellow Tohunga was Kapura is correct), but they probably wouldnât want to have the colors blend like that.
To be honest, the two stone Tohunga are the ones that Iâm the least confident on, when it comes to both who gets which mask, which one gets the tool, and how the names/IDs line up. I think that the brown-bodied one probably gets the dark orange Mahiki, and the tan-bodied one the dark red Akaku, mostly because the dark red seems fairly close to the brown-colored feet (similar to how proto-Onepuâs dark grey feet and sand green Rau are fairly similar in color), and if the brown-bodied Tohunga got the dark red mask, itâs whole color scheme would be rather dark; but it could be the other way around. As for the tools/disk debacle, I already mentioned that above. Finally, with the names, itâs a similar situation to Onepu and Taipu; where we donât really know who is the right hand and who is the left have swapped by this point or not, so we donât know if a theoretical proto-Huki is supposed to have a tool (as the left hand, indicated in the early story bible) or a disk (as the right hand; as he appears in his final set form), which makes assigning either Tohunga a challenge. Iâm still fairly confident about my assumptions with the fire Tohunga (since those roles never swapped, and since we know they did at least probably go back to these early designs/ideas to some degree with the Krana-Va colors, the fact that proto-Jala would get a Komau (which he was said to have had originally in canon, before it was replaced by a Hau), and proto-Kapura would get a Ruru all lines up too well to feel like just a coincidence), but the two stone ones really seem like a toss-up for me, to be honest; although Iâm still fairly confident about the body-foot pairings.
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Not sure if itâs been mentioned here before, but the colors for Kapura, Onepu, and Huki/Hafu line up pretty well with those prototype Tohunga with the tool arms.
Perhaps the original intent was a glow-in-the-dark mask, but maybe that was shafted around the time Onuaâs glow-in-the-dark eyestalks were shafted (which was around the time of Huma and Whenuaâs creation), I canât exactly check at the moment given that Iâm not home right now (Iâve got the Element IDs laid out in a file on the Mac and it actually tells a bit more of a story). Mind you, the pieces in these prototypes were 3D Printed most likely and werenât officially molded by LEGO, explaining why they arenât in the Element ID sheet. I imagine that the color schemes and general looks of the sets and characters were at the very least sketched out before the pieces were ordered into production at LEGO, making âPohatuâs Blue Akakuâ seem to not mean too much in terms of general design (or itâs just me being too used to the Toaâs final masks, I donât know).
Wow, it is insane to see just how far these discoveries have come, from OwlKid getting those five masks and the trident to realizing that the Tohunga sets were originally meant to look quite different compared to what we got and we only got half of what was meant to be. From âtest piecesâ/misprints to full-on cancelled sets and ideas, this has come a long way. I think it says a lot about BIONICLE still having new things for us to learn even 23 years later (longer than Iâve even been alive), and that fans are just amazing. I am just so proud to be a part of this community, as late an arrival as I am.
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Yeah. I donât know whatâs up with the red feet, the Miru, or the differently colored tools, though. No IDs for them so farâŚ
That looks to be way before. To me, the Rau looks to be milky white (undyed).
Still not convinced that wasnât a typo, it seems more it was tried out on Gali, maybe going for a hook and eyepatch look? If they changed the mask names retroactively after naming the Toa â say the Akaku in general was âVOODOO MASK 6â and the Kakama âVOODOO MASK 5â, then writing a 5 instead of a 6 becomes an easy typo to make, which could then become Pohatu after a âfind all, replaceâ. But thatâs still just a theory.
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do you think Podu could have potentially been one of these sets?
I also notice thereâs enough parts here to potentially make âGeorgeâ and âthe wizardâ from Quest for the Toa.
EDIT:
Also, Taipu has a very strange set of colors in the GBA game. In my experience, these things are more intentional than coincidental.
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Taipuâs mask is also randomized in that game, so Iâm inclined to thing his appearance was up in the air at that point. I donât think any of these are Podu, rather the twelve Matoran (Turagaâs right & left hands) mentioned in the story bible, ordered alphabetically: 1388 Hafu, 1389 Huki, 1390 Jala, 1391 Kapura, 1392 Kongu, 1393 Kopeke, 1394 Kotu, 1395 Maku, 1396 Matoro, 1397 Onepu, 1398 Taipu, and 1399 Tamaru. This seems to line up with their color schemes, as well as their tools (left hands have a tool in their left hand, right hands have a disk in their right hand). (With Tamaru and Konguâs roles being swapped, per the story bible.)
After these were cut down to just the 6, Iâd imagine the appearance of the left hands were left up in the air for a bit, thus creating that Taipu, or the Tamaru seen in the Russian âThe Legend of Lewaâ comic. We also see from TLoMN that Kapuraâs appearance changed into what we know it as now (which is defined in a later story bible, per Peter Mack of Templar, who made MNOG). Of course, Kapura is a weird case where early MNOG seems to have used TLoMNâs earlier Kapura as reference (which is what I personally believe resulted in the mask switcheroo for Hafu, as the Kapura model they referenced had a Pakari but the story bible would have said he and Hafu have Ruru; the Po-Koro program was also released the same month as the PowerPack).
As for George, thatâs just an early name for Takua and not a distinct character. There really arenât parts here to build him as there are no red feet (aside from the even earlier prototype) and no yellow arms. Meanwhile, the âwizardâ I believe is a creation of Saffireâs, and the green used there is the same green they use to highlight item pickups. Podu and Nobua I also think are Saffireâs creations; there is no evidence to support that Taipu was ever called Nobua, and he should have already been called Taipu for a long time at that point. Peter Mack has also said Nobua is not mentioned in the story bible, plus itâs a simple mask-swap of Onepu, like all Onu-Matoran in that game. With that in mind itâs not difficult to imagine theyâd make up Podu on their own too. Podu really only exists for a single line of dialogue and is not a major part of the game by any means.
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thats a great response, thanks 
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I was looking over this thread again after a friend mentioned âthe original plan to have all 12 masks in all 12 colorsâ yesterday. Something about that rang false to me even though Iâd heard it numerous times over the years and I even see it quoted in the original post here.
So I switched on my pattern-seeking brain and got to work exploring the timeline of the element IDs to see if I could find something we may have missed before.
And after a couple of hours crosschecking this thread, âThe Original Role of the Ruru & Matatuâ and Skyeâs original sheet, I established the following facts:
- The limb colors for Onua and Kopaka appear to have been registered right before the first line-up of 6 Kanohi, suggesting the design team already had secondary colors for Earth and Ice in mind that they did not alter beyond this point.
- The bulk of the masks that were featured in first-batch 8530 polybags (8 masks in 6 colors) were registered in succession, suggesting they were conceptualized as a single, cohesive unit at the time of registering.
- The additional 4 Turaga colors for the 8 prior masks and then all 10 colors for the 4 new Turaga masks were not just also registered in succession; they were registered right after the initial 8x6 masks, suggesting they were conceptualized as the next segment of the same overall plan at the time of registering.
- The tools and body parts for the 4 Turaga at the time were registered right after the long, continuous list of 12 Kanohi in 10 colors.
- The tools and body parts for the 2 extra Turaga were all registered consecutively and after a gap of about 200 numbers from the last relevant items, suggesting a change in course that happened separately.
- The earliest known iteration of the 6x6 Toa masks and 6x6 Turaga masks layout that everyone recognizes today appears to be 4155478âor the back of the 8530 polybagâand it was registered before the remaining Turaga masks were registered in light gray and dark gray.
- The remaining Toa masks were never registered in light gray or dark gray.
All of this appears to suggest that the line-up of 8 masks in the 6 primary colors was never a single unit so much as the first large increment of an overall larger scheme. And that scheme was never 12 masks in 12 colors!
It was 12 masks in 10 colors: 6 Great Toa masks, 2 extra Great masks and 4 Noble Turaga masks, all in 10 colors eachâto go along with the 10 sets that were clearly planned and neatly registered.
It was only after the swift addition of Whenua and Nuju that the 12x10 plan was scrapped entirely in favor of the new double 6x6 plan.
My hypothesis is thus that production of the first increment of masks (8x6) had already completed and production of the next segment had possibly just begun (brown Komau, white Huna, medium blue Kakama, anyone?) when it was decided that there would be 6ânot 4âTuraga sets!
This immediately raised the question of what masks to use for the two new sets (not what colors; those would have already been settled). It would have been at this point that it must have been decided it wasnât feasible to design two completely new Kanohi, let alone produce them in 12 colors, let alone produce all of the 12 previous masks in 2 more colors each.
I suspect it may have also been decided at the same moment or soon thereafter that 12x12 is in itself unfeasible even if 2 of the earlier masks were reappropriated for Whenua and Nuju. Leading to the strategic shrink that we now recognize as the âcorrectâ 2001 line-up.
I donât have any direct evidence for this supposed unfeasibility but it is a fact that the 8x6 masks already produced in massive quantities were packaged in 8530 polybags showing the new line-up while no other masks were included (short of the hypothesized âbleedâ of Komaus, Hunas and Kakamas but thatâs a different subject). This fact alone suggests LEGO was both 1) unable to produce more colors in time for the first batches and 2) unwilling to discard the now defunct colors.
All in all, it was clearly a combination of factors that led up to the final line-up of 72 Kanohi and we may never know exactly what caused the change but we can definitively say there was never a 12x12 plan and the original line-up was 6 Toa, 4 Turaga and a nice, round total of 120 Kanohi masks!
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Yeah, there are three plans:
8 masks x 6 colors = 48 - No Turaga; error packs from February
12 masks x 10 colors = 120 - No Whenua or Nuju
6 masks x 6 colors (x2 for Toa/Turaga) = 72, 73 with the infected Hau - intended release
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I would argue 8x6 was never its own plan considering the extra colors and Turaga masks came right after. As in, right after.
But it is the case they were registered in an oddly disjointed fashion for something thatâs one whole plan, plus we got 8x6 in its entirety.
So I donât know.
Perhaps the only way to knowâor rather have knownâwas to have noted whether masks like the brown Komau came with early batches. That would suggest we just happened to see 8x6 in its entirety but the plan was to move forward with 12x10.
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What was in the leaked Duckbricks files? Anything that could be relevant? I never saw them.
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Nothing of any use to this discussion, almost everything in there was related to 2006 onwards
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