This is a smaller “project” I’ve been working on over the summer. It is mainly a a compilation of several different pieces of research on the 2001 sets, and discoveries and theories that have come alongside with them. As the title of this post says, a lot of it pertains particularly to the Kanohi Ruru and Kanohi Matatu, the masks worn by Turaga Whenua and Nuju.
Some this stuff you have already heard of, some of it you may not. A lot of this has come together through discussion with several community members on different fronts and I do want to say, those discussions and the sharing of knowledge are always incredibly fun.
I’d also like to bring attention to the Peter Mack interview, which can be found here. I found it a highly interesting read, and just a tid bit from it is what lead me to creating this document.
Without further ado, enjoy (or don’t, if you prefer):
This makes me curious what the Kaita look like wearing those misprints, with what I assume would be the red Ruru on Akamai and the green Matatu on Wairuha.
My big takeaway here is that the Pakari used to be a chameleon/shapeshifting mask. I can see how the other four listed powers eventually morphed into their final versions, but “Chameleon” to “Strength” is a bigger difference.
The unknown mask in the (2,4) position is also interesting; could it have been an even earlier version of the MNOG-style Pakari?
Duckbricks is becoming the Bionicle community’s greatest gigachad
I remember reading that the Kaukau was designed on a computer software while the other five mata masks were based on physical carvings. Could these be those original carvings? It would make sense then for the Kaukau to not present since it was probably designed later.
Looks like it. I guess they finalized the others in CAD, and started over with the Kaukau…
Curious when in the process the Huna, Mahiki, Rau, and Komau came into play.
Thank you for this amazing write up @Wolk, I see a lot of thought and work went into this. As @kaikue has mentioned, the 2000 story bible contains proofs of much of your/community’s findings, particularly about Ruru and Matatu being developed earlier along great masks (probably due to originally being great masks themselves) and remaining nobles later.
In this spreadsheet included in the 2000 story bible the masks are clearly divided into groups - the early group of 8 masks, later group of 4 masks and Vahi:
Also I wonder how the earlier names of some characters like Nuju being Huma and Nokama being Kakama affect your hypotheses regarding the naming of elements and chronology of that.
I would aso point your attention to this issue of LEGO World Club magaizine (exists in english too), where Ruru and Matatu are advertised as rare masks "Keep an eye out for the rare ones in particular!". Note that no other noble masks are shown in the magazine.
This I think could imply that Lego co-opted the semi-erroneous release of the early mask packs as a marketing tool. There are other sources that incentivise you to look for “rare masks”, but that doesn’t really make sense, does it? All the masks should have equal chance of appearing in the packs. But if a certain subset of those packs, let’s say the ones released early, contained masks that no other lter release could contain, then this would suddenly become plausible.
Of course I realize that at the time of the first release of the mask packs, this did not hold true and in fact other masks were “rare” by virtue of being unobtainable even, but this may have been some sort of precaution by Lego to incorporate these “misprints” into their product line.
Addendum
Here are some other sources advertizing rare masks, but all of them assume 72 normal masks already, weird. Also one could say that the infected Hau and at one time Vahi could have been what was meant by this, but the ads imply more than just that.
As far as the names go, it’s very hard to say. I suppose the exact character and mask names may have shuffled around? Gali, Tahu, Lewa, and Onua might be the most consistent, but even then, it’s hard to say.
I just joined TTV to say say THANK YOU for all the hard work you’ve put into this; it was truly a superb read and puts things very much into perspective.
I am especially amused by how the designers were consistently unsure of how to handle the Kaukau. For a while I had this hypothesis that the colors were originally meant to match the eye stalks of the Toa and if that one unreleased mask on the list was pink instead of violet, I might’ve believed it. But I think the Turaga matching hypothesis holds up better.
To provide an update on this, Duckbricks has released a 2000’s draft of the storybible:
This at several points states there are twelve masks, with twelve underlined, but at the same time makes contradicting reference to there being only eight masks. Additionally, there is this line: “Please see game notes on 12 masks, not 8 or 9”. This combined makes me believe the first draft did say eight masks, but that at the point of this draft, it is supposed to be amended to twelve though there were clearly some misses in adjusting the text.
It also contains a photo of the Turaga, though the staffs of Nuju and Onewa are absent (with the drill having already been reassigned to Whenua).
