Random set of the day: Visorak Keelerak
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8746 Visorak Keelerak, released during 2005. It's one of 46 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 48 pieces, and its retail price was US$9/£5.99.
It's owned by 2,707 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $39.00, or eBay.
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26 comments on this article
Bionicle is full of creepy creatures, isn't it.
Gonna make you keel over.
Many Keelerak were sacrificed during the great lime green plague of 2007. May the Red Star have mercy upon them.
Something about this set bugs me...
I always loved these guys. Got this and Roporak for my best friend on his 9th birthday. Good times.
I've got something else going on tonight and we've covered Visorak before so I'm gonna kinda rush through this one.
The Brotherhood of Makuta was not always a force of evil, they used to be responsible for creating the Rahi beasts that roamed the land. When they fell to the dark and planned to take over the universe they developed a new breed of Rahi to aid their conquest. The result were the Visorak, giant spiders that could kill or mutate entire island populations. The Visorak attacked many lands in small swarms, but no one ever realized how large the Horde really was or that it worked for the Brotherhood.
1,000 years ago during the whole Mata-Nui-fell-in-a-coma-Great-Cataclysm thing the Visorak Horde was sent to Metru Nui to secure it for the Makuta's rule. While there they captured the six Toa Metru and mutated them into the monstrous Toa Hordika. These Hordika sought out the legendary healer Keetongu to undo the mutation, and he also agreed to help fight the swarms. During this adventure Vakama betrayed the other Toa, became Commander of the Horde, realized the error of his ways, and betrayed the other Horde's leaders by telling the Visorak to go free, and they scattered to far off lands. During this battle the King of the Horde was killed and it's Viceroy was heavily injured, so the Maktua spent the next 1,000 years trying to reassemble the army.
A part of how they reassembled it was an artifact known as the Heart of the Visorak, that could summon the entire Horde to whoever used it. Leading up to and during the Destiny War, the Toa stole this Heart and planted it on the volcanic island of Artidax. The volcanoes erupted, killing the entire Horde.
During the Reign of Shadows when Makuta Teridax took over the Universe he recreated the Visorak, but their numbers never quite reached their prime before he was killed.
Keelerak were the acid-Visorak, capable of launching spinners off their backs that could melt through almost any substance. They were much more wild and temperamental than other breeds. This sporadic behavior made them "like buzzsaws" on the battlefield, but also filled them with a desire to kill the heads of the Horde and take over it for themselves.
One story of note is that of Kollorak. During the third BIONICLE Movie, there's a scene where King Sidorak greats a messenger Keelerak by calling him "kohl-or-ak" rather than "kay-le-rack" like the official pronunciation or "keel-er-ack" like the common fan pronunciation. This was initially assumed to be the voice actor reading the script wrong (and let's be honest, it probably was) but Greg eventually ratified it in cannon. Turns out the messenger's name was Kollorak. And so Kollorak, captor of the Toa and aid of Sidorak, has become the only Visorak of the Horde to gain a true identity. He's also, like, 1000% dead now, so RIP.
Still rolling my eyes at the fact that Sidorak's actor pronounced the name of one of these wrong in the movie and the subtitler misspelled the name based on the pronunciation, so they retconned it so that stock Keelerak was actually a one-off named individual one "Kollorak." You're not slick, Greg, if it was supposed to be a named one all along, it would have been called that in your novelization, not being called even more generically as just "a Visorak" in that chapter.
(EDIT: Man, how does GSR keep posting his stuff exactly when I'm typing?)
@WemWem said:
"Something about this set bugs me..."
Ordinarily, I'd say, "It's not a bug, it's an arachnid," but arachnids have eight legs, so I'll let it stand.
Not really a fan of the big single piece heads, but the Visorak were cool.
They also came with quite many nice re-colors of older pieces.
@SJPlego said:
"Many Keelerak were sacrificed during the great lime green plague of 2007. May the Red Star have mercy upon them."
The regular sockets and Throwbot arms were both available back in 2001, when this wasn't a problem. I'm not familiar with this issue to know if the dogbone socket returning in 2007 makes them a viable source of spares, or if it'll just mean more broken sets.
Definitely a set I’d only ever buy sealed purely put of fear of receiving a used one that has the brittle 2007 lime joints swapped in
I maintain that Keelerak have the best pincers/mandibles of the six visorak breeds
Keelerak are known to leap into the air and spin wildly as an attack, using their razor-sharp legs as buzzsaw, which is kinda crazy. also, did the visorak really need six different pincer designs? felt a little overkill tbh.
My first Visorak. I had gotten rid of it at one point but have since re-acquired it and Suukorak again.
Keelerak has a nice color scheme with the dark green and lime green, which especially worked as a representative of the line. After all, their webs are always shown as green and a green fog is always seen in the background of art of Metru Nui for that year. This is probably why it was used as the main representative of them in promo artwork.
These were great. Beside four quite posable legs the pincers close when you push the head (they move back by rubber band). The same head assembly also has the Rhotuka Spinner, which is a small rotor that flies out by pulling a ripcord.
Oh, a fun detail is that the fin on the head matches the mandibles for all visorak.
At one point I had all six, and although the parts used for their legs were quite varied and the heads and mandibles were unique to each... they were still very clearly nearly the same. It didn't help that the 'collectible' rhotuka was identical for all canister sets that year. And they weren't as space-efficient because they stand flat on the ground compared to humanoid sets. You especially notice this when there are six!
This contributed to me selling them in the first place.
That said... a great thing about the Visorak was that you needed two for a combiner. There were three 2-set combiners like that, about two regular 3-set combiners and even a 6-set combiner in the massive scorpion Zivon. It was an epic combiner model!
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/bionicle/images/d/d0/Set_Zivon.png/revision/latest?cb=20170730063421&path-prefix=es
One final thing: the Visorak and Toa Hordika released in different parts of the world in either winter or summer 2005. The Visorak were first here in Europe, but in the US the Hordika were first. That was quite a strange way to release sets, huh?
Pretty sure I got all of this one in the used LEGO haul I got in August... but it's taking me so long to sort through it (children, job... children...) that I'm not sure it's complete.
Not sure it's the sort of set I'll need to TO complete, though I did miss out on the Visorak in 2005, which was not a Bionicle time for me.
Keelerak was my first set of the Visorak line and I love everything these creepy crawlies were going for. A surprisingly evocative yet simple and effective line of sets.
@GSR_MataNui said:
"I've got something else going on tonight and we've covered Visorak before so I'm gonna kinda rush through this one."
Yep, that was totally rushed. A whole six-paragraph essay. I get can’t even do that in a month for school!
@CaptainRogerRedbeard said:
"Definitely a set I’d only ever buy sealed purely put of fear of receiving a used one that has the brittle 2007 lime joints swapped in"
I'd argue that either 8742 or 8744 takes that particular title.
And speaking of pincers, @illbuilds said:"also, did the visorak really need six different pincer designs? felt a little overkill tbh."
So you're saying you want them to be *more* samey?
"Kollorak. It's nothing important, I hope. Seeing as you're LATE."
I don't really have strong feelings towards the Visorak; although they were notable for being a return to Bionicle sets having more colourful secondary palettes instead of the ever-present dark-bluish-grey from the previous year and the other half of this same year. Keelerak shared the spot of being my first alongside Oohnorak, both of whom I got as my present for Easter - something of a tradition in my family - since I think it was Argos that first launched them in two-packs. They were cool enough, and I did collect all of them eventually (although Boggarak was one of the very last gaps in my collection to get filled before I gave up in 2008), but just... weren't quite exciting to me.
@PurpleDave said:
"The regular sockets and Throwbot arms were both available back in 2001, when this wasn't a problem. I'm not familiar with this issue to know if the dogbone socket returning in 2007 makes them a viable source of spares, or if it'll just mean more broken sets."
The other way around; Keelerak here was the only set to have the long sockets in lime that *weren't* painfully brittle, since it was released before the problem arose; the issue infamously affected the 2007 sets 8920 Ehlek, 8914 Hahli Mahri and 8939 Lesovikk. As the only source of strong sockets in that colour, it's likely that many Keelerak would have been raided for parts to replace the exceedingly fragile ones from those three sets.
@Binnekamp:
The first year, Europe got the Turaga and mask packs early, maybe January? The US got the entire 2001 wave in the middle of summer, and Europe got the Toa and Rahi a month or two later. We still see lots of sets hit Europe in early summer, but get delayed in NA until around the time school starts back up.
@PurpleDave said:
"The first year, Europe got the Turaga and mask packs early, maybe January? The US got the entire 2001 wave in the middle of summer, and Europe got the Toa and Rahi a month or two later."
I may be remembering wrong, but in the UK I feel like we got the Toa at the beginning of the year too? The UK edition of the January/February World Club Magazine had them all over the cover (seen on Bricklink: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?B=wc01UKjan) and on a double-page spread inside, and I feel like I recall my mum to taking me out to buy my first one of them within days of receiving that magazine.
Of course, that was a while ago now, so my memory might have got mixed up.
@ThatBionicleGuy:
Brickipedia seems to support your memory, listing both the Toa and Turaga (and EU mask pack) as January 2001 releases over there, but the split date on the Rahi is not noted. I distinctly remember rushing to get reviews of those posted before another news site based out of the UK, but then he ended up having to wait at least one or two more months.
@TheOtherMike said:
" @CaptainRogerRedbeard said:
"Definitely a set I’d only ever buy sealed purely put of fear of receiving a used one that has the brittle 2007 lime joints swapped in"
I'd argue that either 8742 or 8744 takes that particular title.
And speaking of pincers, @illbuilds said:"also, did the visorak really need six different pincer designs? felt a little overkill tbh."
So you're saying you want them to be *more* samey?"
not really, would rather they have different builds over different molds
@Billbuilds said:
" also, did the visorak really need six different pincer designs? felt a little overkill tbh."
It was kind of tradition that point that most BIONICLE canister sets had a unique mask mold and unique weapon mold to set them apart. For the Visorak they had a carapace for their "mask" and mandibles for their "weapon." ... didn't actually do much good in differentiating them though.
Saying that... I actually can tell Keelerak's mandibles from the rest 'cause they're the best. That's embarrassing.
@Username28 said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"I've got something else going on tonight and we've covered Visorak before so I'm gonna kinda rush through this one."
Yep, that was totally rushed. A whole six-paragraph essay. I get can’t even do that in a month for school!"
You know it's funny you say that. I have a 5 page essay due for school in like half a month that I begrudgingly got about 3 and 1/2 pages through as a rough draft today. I also, completely of my own volition and with great joy, wrote a 10 page breakdown of the recent Minecraft Movie Trailer. This lore segment I actually managed to finish before the "Your session will time out" counter ran down which almost never happens! ... I have a problem.
I liked that on the box art this Visorak was the only one using this type of joint piece on the front legs to have its elbows pointed down instead of up. Next to the use of different limb pieces on most Visorak legs it gives this guy yet another subtle distinction from the rest.
@GSR_MataNui said:
" @Billbuilds said:
" also, did the visorak really need six different pincer designs? felt a little overkill tbh."
It was kind of tradition that point that most BIONICLE canister sets had a unique mask mold and unique weapon mold to set them apart. For the Visorak they had a carapace for their "mask" and mandibles for their "weapon." ... didn't actually do much good in differentiating them though.
Saying that... I actually can tell Keelerak's mandibles from the rest 'cause they're the best. That's embarrassing.
@Username28 said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"I've got something else going on tonight and we've covered Visorak before so I'm gonna kinda rush through this one."
Yep, that was totally rushed. A whole six-paragraph essay. I get can’t even do that in a month for school!"
You know it's funny you say that. I have a 5 page essay due for school in like half a month that I begrudgingly got about 3 and 1/2 pages through as a rough draft today. I also, completely of my own volition and with great joy, wrote a 10 page breakdown of the recent Minecraft Movie Trailer. This lore segment I actually managed to finish before the "Your session will time out" counter ran down which almost never happens! ... I have a problem. "
My friend, you have a gift. Also, “As a child, I yearned for the mines.”