So I’ve been mildly curious about this for a while and I can’t find a topic on this specifically. What are people’s feelings on the Vahki? I don’t see them discussed a lot by the fans and wondered if people dislike or like them?
Personally (for my two cents) I think the Vahki are really neat. Hot take I guess but I’d probably consider them my joint second favourite baddies. I feel that they’re under appreciated perhaps and that there’s an insidiousness to their powers that deserves some credit. They have some really cool gimmicks too.
Also for the record I’m not out here to start an argument on whether the Vahki or good or not, just curious to hear what people think about them since they seem to get overshadowed by the other bad guys.
Well let’s talk about this from two different ways: Sets vs Story.
Setwise I think they’re pretty good. They feature a custom-built torso with unique shaping in its design, reusing the Rahkshi base piece and the Matoran chest both from '03. They feature a ‘function’ which mostly serves as a distraction from this just being a step down from the Rahkshi, but hey, it looked cool.
Storywise, they don’t serve much purpose aside from being Dume’s fightbots and mostly make up for the lack of Toa in the public eye. Their potential seemed wasted and after 2004 they never really returned.
I personally enjoyed the whole Orwellian vibe that their animations went for, and tapping into that whole side of things was kind of neat, but I can understand from a character perspective why people would find them a bit boring and one-note. They’re just kinda robots. They don’t have the dynamic that the Bohrok have where their purpose is just misunderstood, or the sinister undertones of being the direct instruments of a Makuta’s will like the Rahkshi (though I feel like their status as grunts rather than the elite warriors we see challenging the Toa Nuva in their initial appearance kind of cheapens them a little, but whatever).
A year ago I didn’t have feelings one way or another about them. Today though they’ve grown on me quite a bit. Their powers are pretty cool and I like the sets as well. I just wish we could have seen more of them.
I think the concept of a corrupted robotic law enforcement is pretty interesting, but the Vahki lacked in personality. They had no inspired motive and the Bohrok already brought the concept of mindless drones to the table (in a more iconic way). In my opinion Ninjago’s spiritual successor of the Vahki- the Nindroids- were handled better, because of their similarities to the protagonists.
And the sets were cool, just a little too close to the Rahkshi.
Short: Their main problem is that they did nothing new. However they were perfect starter villains. Dangerous but not overpowered. They were in the main story the first bad guys, so the threat had to become worse after that.
I personally really like them! I think they fulfill the role of secret police really well, they made Metru Nui have a sinister side even before we knew about Makuta.
They’re a sick concept, but they weren’t nearly scary enough in media to really sell the “dystopian robot police” thing. If G3 happens and takes place in Metru Nui, I really wanna see them treated almost like monsters, emerging from the shadows, watching your every move, judging your every thought and descending on you with sudden brutality for the slightest hint of wrongthink.
I think the Vahki are really neat sets, and a really neat concept. I like the way they add to the peaceful, yet not-so-peaceful atmosphere of Metru Nui. But the LOMN movie’s portrayal of them was…weird. For one, they looked nothing like the toys. For another, I didn’t understand why every Vahki was either a Zadakh or a Rorzakh. And weirdest of all, they all carried a Vorzakh’s staff-and they held it BACKWARDS!
The Vahki are probably my favorite of the horde-style enemies we’ve got. Not necessarily for what we got, but the potential. The problem is that potential got wasted on how they were implemented: they worked using swarm-charge tactics, when they probably should have been more like Terminators. Each model had its own pseudo-personality to fit their assigned Metru, each deadly in their own right, but that all goes out the window the moment they become another faceless mob. It’s contradictory and doesn’t work.
The only time they got this portrayal done right was the Templar Studios Vahki Animations, in my opinion.
I thought the Vahki were a thematically cool but under-used idea - and a very rare example (in Bionicle, at least) of the marketing campaign doing an outright better job than the main story in regards to thematic implementation.
Only thing that I think has inherent issues with the Vahki is that their staff powers; for one thing they are hopelessly unbalanced with one another - becoming “suggestible” is just a low-tier version of obeying command, and yet those are two distinct powers for the Vahki.
Also the somewhat vague idea of how they actually trigger these - I believe Greg said it was an energy blast, but looking only at story material it’s never really suggested how they actually activate these powers - do they just bonk the offending Matoran over the head???
Add to that the Kralhi dilemma - prototypes that were meant to be too terrifying and destructive for Matoran because… energy bubble, when meanwhile a Le-Metru Vahki can almost literally make its victims mindless for a few days.
Not only that, but they also did nothing to advance the plot. The action scenes made them look useless and almost everytime they showed up a bigger threat appeared: a tornado, Krekka and Nidhiki, the dark vortex… And often fight scenes were ended with one single move of the good guys: a jump, a scream, one shot. And they did not even get close to injure or capture one of the Toa.
The only scene where they built tension was the pursuit through the underground tunnels.
They felt less like villains and more like a part of an obstacle course.
Firstly, blimey this got some attention while I was gone! I’m definitely seeing a theme of ‘good idea implemented poorly’ in the replies here. I think I’m inclined to agree honestly.
Secondly, dude; yes. Terminator Vahki is such an awesome idea. Just the idea of them being this nigh-unstoppable and merciless mechanised foe with a capacity for tactics and strategy, and to evolve and adapt, would be absolutely amazing. You’ve also now put the visual of an abandoned mask getting stomped to dust by a Vahki foot and that alone is amazing.
The Vahki were a means to an end for the storyline. I think Lego tried too much story into one year and the fact that we needed a whole new Toa Team to be established got in the way of any Vahki development. I was super stoked for the Vahki as sets back in 04 but once I got them I felt they just didn’t measure up to the Rahkshi which came out the year before. They probably would have been cooler if the different ‘species’ had storyline significance. I barely remembered they had powers until someone mentioned it above
It is never stated how long the Vahki’s staff effects last, but it seems they last at most a few hours. Anyone affected by a Vahki staff has been fine the next time we see them. Kralhi affect people for a few days.
It is an energy blast, you can see this in the comics.
I like the Vahki, the sets are cool and menacing looking enough but could’ve done with some extra pieces like metru thigh covers on the legs. I would like them more if the vibe they had in the flash animations was pushed more. I agree with Pahrakstudio, Lego was cramming in to much to develop the Vahki.
I like that they exist, I just wish they weren’t sold as more than 1 set. Also their general shoulder and arm connections were the most annoying thing to me as a kid.
Vahki had good playability, disc launchers, gear-function to sway the arms left-and-right, but I can imagine after buying one of these guys, you’d probably would not buy another one due to their designs being too close to each other, with the biggest differences being their staff and color scheme, being the clone sets they are. One thing that I think was cool about them is that they reused the Shadow Kraata gimmick, but this time to include the Flat-Gold Vahi (Great mask for collections) and the limited edition disks. On the topic of disks, I also think the glow-in-the-dark plastic was a nice addition, something that would catch the eyes of kids at the time. Lore-Wise, they were the perfect dystopian police army for a futuristic setting like Metru Nui. The Templar Studios animation really immersed that feeling, they are unique characters to the story, being one of the few fully-mechanical species in Bionicle with good potential but were not utilized enough.
Can’t really add too much that wasn’t said above- good idea, poor/weak execution (really that could apply to the whole pre-movie 2004 era). They fulfilled a few of those early promotional promises in the '05 books when they went berserk, but the two problems I have with that are: 1, the city’s ruined and (effectively) abandoned, so who really cares what the Vahki are up to; and 2, the Visorak wipe them out easy-peasy, so there’s no real threat from them after a certain point. Also weirdly, Web of the Visorak mentions how Vakama found Vahki parts in Makuta’s lair, and he speculates that Makuta was planning on making the Vahki more aggressive or something- but this goes absolutely nowhere. Not sure if that was just Greg alluding to Makuta’s grander schemes, or if that was supposed to be foreshadowing something that never happened.
I do also have a related question about the Vahki that I was wondering if someone could help me out with:
I remember reading (probably on BS01 though I might be mistaken) that the Dark Hunters had taken a few Vahki (or at least their blueprints) and used them for a few missions. This tidbit was supposedly given by Greg as the reason why Vahki were featured on the back cover the DH Guide, similar to him explaining why Keetongu was on the front of it. My problem is that I can’t find this information anywhere on BS01 or any of the lesser wikis. So was this ever actually a thing? Can anyone find the Greg Answer addressing this (or at the least remembers it)? Or was this an edit that someone made to the wiki that had no verified source and so was removed?
i like them and they had a fun design. i like that they were great in their arc, served their purpose and weren’t overused or kept around when they weren’t needed.
