Random set of the day: Kohrak-Kal
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8575 Kohrak-Kal, released in 2003. It's one of 39 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 41 pieces, and its retail price was US$8/£4.99.
It's owned by 1844 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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Can't say no to snow-flake style shields.
Yes, they're snowflake-shaped! Kohrak Kal was the second Bohrok Kal I got in 2003. It was a sunny day, and after leaving the set in the backseat of the car when we went to lunch, I returned to find the canister had deformed somewhat under the heat. I quickly hid the set under the seat for the ride home.
Kohrak Kal and his ilk were really unremarkable sets. They were "reskins" of the Bohrok. New colors and designs adorned the pieces, but the only truly new parts were the handshields. In retrospect, I don't fault the designers for this. They needed some quick filler before unleashing the pure awesomeness that is the Rahkshi on the world!
Story-wise, Kohrak Kal here was, like his brothers, an elite Bohrok modified by the Bahrag and protodermis to be more powerful, independent, and intelligent unit. Their mission was to find the Bahrag, free the Bahrag, and unleash the Bohrok swarms once more. They were a failsafe activated in case the Bahrag were ever incapacitated in the line of duty (restoring Mata Nui's "face" to a bare, exposed state).
Kohrak Kal here had the power of sonic blasts. He could weaponize sound into devasting explosions that could even shatter objects. In the end, his power was turned against him as the Toa Nuva reached out to their Nuva symbols and concentrated their energies into the Kal. Kohrak Kal disappeared in a deafening blast of sound, never to menace the world again.
One reason I now sort of regret not collecting all the Bohrok Kal is because with Kohrak Kal, Gahlok Kal, and Lehvak Kal, you could make the combiner model that the Toa Nuva Kaita encounter in issue 11 of the Bionicle comic. It was a rare appearance of a combiner model in the main storyline, and I wish I could recreate it. Sadly, I'm missing Gahlok Kal.
Guess Bionicle is a normal setup again, only the 3rd set to appear this year after the rash of them in November/December.
Yo yo Bohrok-Kal!
@Bhahouighf said:
"I always liked his little gecko fingers"
@xccj said:
"Can't say no to snow-flake style shields."
LEGO actually reused that piece on the hyperdrive of 4504 Millennium Falcon in 2004: https://www.fbtb.net/guide/sets/star-wars/4504/4504_04.jpg
I don't know how accurate it is, but I always thought it was a really cool (no pun intended) part usage. It also looks lovely in dark orange.
Kid me in 2002: The Bohrok storyline was so cool! Kid me in 2003: More Bohrok only this time they've got silver hands? Lame, can't the story group think of anything else besides rehashing the very last storyline we just got?
The coolest Bohrok-Kal I ever owned!!
My first Bionicle set that I bought myself, and the set that kept me from going into a dark age. Wish I still had that CD-rom...
Possibly my favourite of the Bohrok-Kal, as the white and silver colour scheme is very sleek, and his shields looking like snowflakes made of amps both reflects his own sonic powers and harkens back to the ice powers of his less promoted Kohrak cousins
Despite being just re-hashes of the 2002 Bohrok, I still quite like the Bohrok-Kal. Those Snowflake-shaped shields are such an awesome piece.
Personally, I still think the Bohrok-Kal looked better than the original Bohrok. Maybe it helped that I only had one of the previous Bohrok and hadn't followed the 2002 storyline very closely - we didn't get the full comics that year, in the UK, only two or three pages printed in each bi-monthly Lego Magazine issue - so the 'samey' nature of the Kal didn't bother me.
Plus, the main-colour-and-silver colour schemes were definitely sleeker than their original Bohrok cousins, especially since it was before silver weapons became the norm for Bionicle; and, until I became more of a completionist for my Bionicle set collection in 2006, I would quite honestly have happily picked up all six Kal and not bothered with the Bohrok at all.
Plus, I thought the fact that they stole the Toa Nuva's powers was a really neat twist to force the Toa to come to terms with. In hindsight, it was kind of a silly place to put an arc like that; the Toa had JUST got all these new super-powerful abilities... which apparently now made them TOO powerful for the plot so said powers had to be stolen immediately. Still, as a kid, the Bohrok-Kal arc was one of my favourites, nonetheless ^^
I eventually picked up this guy. Lehvak-Kal and Nuhvok-Kal were the only Kal I got the year they were released; but several of them and the original Bohrok still hung around the big Entertainer toy shop in a nearby town for several years after the fact. When I decided to complete my collection, I was able to pick up Kohrak, Nuhvok, Pahrak-Kal and Kohrak-Kal there, over the span of a few separate visits. Sure, they were all *essentially* the same, but it was nice to have an almost-complete collection xD
The soundshape, the soundshape...
I think I mentioned this the last time a Kal was on RSotD, but I always found the Bohrok-Kal to be some of the worst sets yet some of the coolest story elements from BIONICLE. The ending sequence where their own powers were used against them was pretty epic, especially given it was pretty much the first time LEGO killed off a named/one-of-a-kind character. Kohrak-Kal's sonic vibrations became so intense they literally disintegrated their self.
Their power set was also pretty cool. Kohrok-Kal was capable of creating concentrated fields and blasts of devastating sound. There's one haunting bit in the books where they create a box of solid sound around Lewa Nuva which blasted sound inward, completely trapping Lewa in a cage that pounded his eardrums. When the other Toa found him, he was reduced to a huddled mess on the floor clasping his ears and muttering "the soundshape" over and over again and they had to find some way to break him out his trauma. Easily one of my top three of the Kal