Random set of the day: Matau
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8541 Matau, released in 2001. It's one of 30 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 26 pieces, and its retail price was US$3.
It's owned by 1631 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
35 likes
24 comments on this article
This guy is freaky looking. He’ll haunt my nightmares tonight.
Mini Bionicle arc is underway let's go.
Lol no way, we just had a very similarly-styled Bionicle set yesterday.
Guess the Bionicle reign is starting again...... but will Huwbot go to Ninjago in the first few days of 2021?
Stay tuned!
Everybody do the Le-Koro dance!
I don't believe the wrist of the arm holding the staff can actually twist the way it is shown. (Just look at the other arm's part usage.)
I really liked these little guys. This set up my personal trend, going forward, of generally passing on the larger Bionicle figures, but buying lots of the little helper dudes (and dudettes).
So expressive yet without expression at the same time...
Bionicle was the first line where the box art was all computer-generated, and it was notorious for showing the action figures in poses they couldn't actually achieve: cocked heads, rotated wrists, bent knees and elbows and hips.
He looks very happy, like he’s celebrating something, but disturbingly sinister at the same time.
Here's the lore, in case anybody learned in the Bionicle arts cares to interpret it for the rest of us:
https://bionicle.fandom.com/wiki/Matau
Another day, another run-of-the-mill Bionicle set...
@iwybs said:
"Here's the lore, in case anybody learned in the Bionicle arts cares to interpret it for the rest of us:
https://bionicle.fandom.com/wiki/Matau "
You didn't use Biosector01... so already you are a step behind the lore. :P
https://biosector01.com/wiki/Matau
The Turaga are really nice little sets... They have great masks, nice weapon pieces, and some good part recolors. And for 3$, they are definitely worth it.
But of course, probably the most of their appeal to Bionicle fans comes from their very important role in the Bionicle story as the Village Elders who help the Toa in their quest.
@LegoDavid said:
"But of course, probably the most of their appeal to Bionicle fans comes from their very important role in the Bionicle story as the Village Elders who help the Toa in their quest."
I just liked them because they were small. I always find the small sets much more lively and expressive than the bigger ones. Lewa’s just some humanoid guy with an axe. On the other hand, Matau’s a little stubby, wide-hipped dude with a permanently raised eyebrow and a circular saw on a stick. Not to mention that he uses the heads of his enemies for footwear.
Oooo... more Bionicle. Yay?
@Murdoch17 said:
"I don't believe the wrist of the arm holding the staff can actually twist the way it is shown. (Just look at the other arm's part usage.)"
I’m not even sure which way it’s twisting, the perspective is very odd
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved the Turaga sets; but somehow, I missed out on all of them except Vakama at the time. My excuse being because:
a) I was mostly focused on collecting the Toa;
b) I had only just discovered the wonderful world of Star Wars and was, with that tentative eagerness of a kid entering a new fandom when not 100% sure whether they'll like it or not but want to try anyway, and was busy snatching up the Hasbro action figures whenever I could find them;
and c) I was a nine-year-old kid with limited spending money xD
Aesthetic-wise, Matau was far and away my favourite - though story-wise, I liked Nuju and Onewa more - but I had trouble finding the rest of the Turaga again after their initial run until I was introduced to the joys of eBay in 2006. Naturally, a job-lot of several small sets, including Matau and Nuju, was one of my earliest eBay purchases.
I can't quite decided if I regret eventually selling most of them on, when I was severely slimming down my Lego collection, or not.
One of the things I especially liked about the Turaga - in addition to the fact that they, like the Toa, had unique mask moulds: the only wave of Bionicle small sets to do so until 2008 - was the fact that they were deliberately varied in height. Even if they were otherwise built identically, those little differences made a group of them look a lot more varied and quirky than, say, their later Toa selves:
Onewa was tallest in the leg, thanks to a 5-length axel, compared to the standard 3-length, while Nuju was second with a 4-length axel. Nokama was the 'average, unaltered' height (though she had distinctively long arms!); Vakama was ever so slightly taller than her, with a neck made from a 32039 and a 3-axel, instead of the part 6553 used by the others. Matau here was shorter, a little hunched because his neck piece pointed forward, attaching into the back of his face instead of into the brain stalk like the others; and Whenua was the shortest, with his neck *literally protruding out of his stomach* (and no, I'm not making that up!). It's, like, such a tiny detail; but it did wonders for making them all subtly unique.
Alternate tl;dr version: It's a 2001 Bionicle set. I still love and get very nostalgic over 2001 Bionicle. End of story xD
This set will always have a special place in my heart, because it was the very first Bionicle set I owned! My mom sent it to me in the mail while I was at a Boy Scout summer camp, and thus my collection began. I have such fond memories of this line, especially during the early years (when I could still afford to get most of the smaller sets)
I always liked his mask. One of few that possessed a nose, and the little wire details were cool too.
Interestingly, iirc, the only other mask that had those details was Turaga Onewa's Komau. Makes me wonder if it was the same designer, or what the design process was like for those masks to get such similar details.
I gotta thank my sister for getting Matau back in the day. Because of her, I ended up wanting one, and I got Onewa. After that, I was sucked into Bionicle, and it became a major part of my life.
(Side note: as a kid, I always thought these guys were more skilled fighters and not old guys. Kinda like Prequel Trilogy Yoda. I clearly wasn't into the story at that point in time lol)
The Turaga of Mata Nui were the first full collection of six figures I ever got in BIONICLE. By June 2001, I had all of them (and a spare Vakama) due to a promotional offer in the LEGO MANIA club magazine back in May. They were really trying to hook North Americans on the theme, and after my wonderful experience with Tahu and Vakama back in March, I was ready to commit to having all six village elders.
From my BIONICLE mini-CD-ROM, I learned that Matau was the Turaga of Le-Koro, a village high amongst the trees of southern Mata Nui. There appeared to be a bit of a character dichotomy with Matau. Some sources emphasized his trickster, joking nature. Others stressed how he was incredibly wise. I guess you can be both, but that wasn't how the other Turaga were presented. His mask, the noble version of the Mask of Illusion, seemed perfectly suited to playing tricks on people. Plus, it looked really cool, too.
In 2002, Matau and many other villagers of Le-Koro were attacked by the Bohrok swarms and in their resistance, their minds were taken over by Krana. Matau remained villager leader by virtue of wearing the "Squad Leader" krana that gave him command over many of the Krana'd Tohunga. Like Lewa, he and the villagers were saved by the timely arrival of Toa Onua and the Boxor squads from Onu-Koro. Unlike Lewa, however, we never got to see how the Krana removal withdrawals affected Matau and the others. In fact, Matau kind of disappears from the story for while, as in 2003, Vakama, Nokama, and (to a lesser extent) Onewa take the main Turaga roles in "BIONICLE: Mask of Light".
Of course, at the end of 2003, we learn that Matau (and the other Turaga) was once a Toa himself, but that story can wait for another RSotD entry.
@BionicleJedi said:
"One of the things I especially liked about the Turaga - in addition to the fact that they, like the Toa, had unique mask moulds: the only wave of Bionicle small sets to do so until 2008 - was the fact that they were deliberately varied in height. Even if they were otherwise built identically, those little differences made a group of them look a lot more varied and quirky than, say, their later Toa selves:"
Yes that was something I loved about 2001 Bionicle. There were not many true "clone sets." Yes the Toa and Turaga had all the same pieces, but they were often creatively arranged in different ways. Considering how Pohatu was so short compared to the rest of the Toa it felt fittingly ironic that Onewa was the tallest Turaga. Both Onua and Whenua shared that distinct hunch, while Nokama's long arms seemed to suggest her swimming skill. Meanwhile Tahu, Gali, Kopaka and Lewa all while sharing the same basic build had very nice variations from the different shoulder arrangements, to Gali's black pin hips and socket joint chest as a robotic take on the hourglass figure to try and give her some feminine look to differentiate her from the rest of the Toa.
I think Bionicle lost sight of that quickly though, and after the Toa Nuva left shelves almost every canister wave was spitting clone images of each other (the Bohrok, Toa Hordika, and Toa Inika probably the biggest offenders in that regard). It was smart of the Bionicle team to start diversifying set design again in 2007 with the Barraki and Toa Mahri, and one of my favorite things of the 2015 G2 reboot was how the Toa once again re-gained many of their original attributes and then some. 2015 Tahu cut a traditionally heroic pose, while some unique CCBS shell placement gave Gali strong hips and an hourglass figure (that unlike 2001's couldn't be mistaken as anything other than deliberately feminine in design). 2015 Lewa was lean and tall, while Kopaka wore heavy shoulder armor suggesting a sort of "winter coat." While 2015 Onua had a much bulkier and wide appearance, his neck still had its distinct hunch, and best of all Pohatu was still one of the shortest members of the group... coming in nearly a head or two shorter than the rest of the team. That is part of why I fell in love so much with the short lived 2015 reboot... it was clear they understood one of the best parts of 2001 was the Toa's unique characters.
@LegoDavid:
I mostly liked the fact that they had colored Toa heads. I bought quite a few of them (not nearly has many as the Bohrok Va, mind you) just to get those heads, many of which ended up being used in my Star Wars and TMNT characters (only a couple characters ended up using light-grey heads).
@xboxtravis7992 said:
"Yes the Toa and Turaga had all the same pieces, but they were often creatively arranged in different ways. Considering how Pohatu was so short compared to the rest of the Toa it felt fittingly ironic that Onewa was the tallest Turaga. Both Onua and Whenua shared that distinct hunch, while Nokama's long arms seemed to suggest her swimming skill. Meanwhile Tahu, Gali, Kopaka and Lewa all while sharing the same basic build had very nice variations from the different shoulder arrangements, to Gali's black pin hips and socket joint chest as a robotic take on the hourglass figure to try and give her some feminine look to differentiate her from the rest of the Toa.”
I’d argue that the Turaga’s arrangements mimic their respective Toa. Onewa’s got the long legs to mirror the importance of Pohatu’s legs. Being the only Toa to have his legs geared instead of his arms, it makes sense for his Turaga to have a similar focus on the legs.
Nokama’s giant arms are linked to Gali’s hooks. In the original story material, Gali’s hooks were just part of her arms, so Nokama shares focus on her arms too.
Whenua’s hunch is the most obvious; Onua has the same body type.
Matau has the weird neck, but this isn’t what really links him to Lewa. Because of the way his neck is arranged, it means his rubber band is given extra tension, making his function quicker than the other Turaga. This mimics Lewa’s supposed agility in the story.
Then we have Nuju, the most balanced Turaga, arms extended by one and legs extended by one. This was a great representation of Kopaka, who was equally balanced but more personality-wise.
And then there’s Vakama with his freaky giraffe neck,