Random set of the day: Lewa Nuva
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8567 Lewa Nuva, released during 2002. It's one of 27 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 37 pieces, and its retail price was US$8/£4.99.
It's owned by 3965 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
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30 comments on this article
haha makes glass
Bionicle is one of my favorite themes. I got Tahu
Nuva and onua Nuva from a bulk lot. The builds were really great!
Well, it's not exactly El Dorado Fortress, but I can gather some nostalgia for Lewa Nuva here.
I didn't like him at the time. I disliked the homogenising of the Toa with matching armour and all have dual-wielding weapons in armour. I really didn't like Lewa losing his axe (such a cool weapon) for being the third Toa with dual swords. And I didn't really like any of the Nuva masks, but at least Tahu and Kopaka's looked like they were modified from their original forms. The Miru, though? I don't see any resemblance.
Today, I'm a bit more forgiving. The air katanas make sense for a Toa of Air and at least the Miru Nuva isn't ugly.
So who else called him LOO-ah until a hardcore Bionicle fan said his name was LEE-wa?
How many of you still call him LOO-ah out of spite? >:D
@MCLegoboy said:
"So who else called him LOO-ah until a hardcore Bionicle fan said his name was LEE-wa?
How many of you still call him LOO-ah out of spite? >:D"
I thought it was pronounced LAY-wa
What I really love about Bionicle is how many kids from that time it pulled into LEGO. Being already an adult and married by the height of their popularity, I was way outside the target demo.
I also thought they were all extremely ugly. I gave a few of them a try, but just couldn’t get into it. Still, the formula clearly works. And there have been some absolutely incredible Bionicle builds I’ve seen at various shows.
Angry slasher with a chest thicker front to back than side to side.
Lore:
This is the green one. The green one can fly. In the Mask of Light movie the green one has a vague accent that simultaneously sounds like Alabama and Scotland
@legoman_John said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"So who else called him LOO-ah until a hardcore Bionicle fan said his name was LEE-wa?
How many of you still call him LOO-ah out of spite? >:D"
I thought it was pronounced LAY-wa"
I think LAY-wa is correct for gen 1. In the animations for gen 2, he was called LOO-ah. But I personally like LEE-wa!
This image makes his shoulder pads look more like armpit guards.
One of the worst masks of all of Bionicle
@Mr__Thrawn said:
"...has a vague accent that simultaneously sounds like Alabama and Scotland"
Oh, wow. This has me intrigued. I gotta watch that. This alone might be enough to make me a bonkle fan.
@Monopoly said:
"haha makes glass"
You beat me to it!
@MrGurt said:
"One of the worst masks of all of Bionicle"
I never understood what people dislike so much about the Nuva Masks. Sure, they look nothing like the original masks, but still look like clear upgrades to the original sets. Some of the later masks, such as the Toa Inika ones, looked way worse than the Nuva ones in my opinion.
Ah, those were the days...
I must admit, from someone who has never had any contact with Bionicle, this one to me looks quite cool.
Windfly!
The Nuva designs for most of thr part pale in comparison to their Mata counterparts, they're not bad of course but not as good.
@Kamiccolo said:
"The Nuva designs for most of thr part pale in comparison to their Mata counterparts, they're not bad of course but not as good. "
I mean, they are basically the exact same builds but with different masks and weapons and some extra armor parts, so I don't see how you can claim those ones "pale in comparison with the Mata designs" unless you are specifically referring to the mask designs in particular.
"Walk? Hah! Not-never! If you ride with me, there'll be no footwalking: just airflying!"
@legoman_John said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"So who else called him LOO-ah until a hardcore Bionicle fan said his name was LEE-wa?
How many of you still call him LOO-ah out of spite? >:D"
I thought it was pronounced LAY-wa"
Depends on what source you go by. The Bionicle Encyclopedia said LAY-wa; the Mask of Light movie said LEE-wa; the video game said LOO-ah. The encyclopedia is the 'MOST CANON' pronunciation, but it's hard to adjust to that if you've got accustomed to one of the pronunciations you've heard in other media.
((Also, MCLegoboy, that reminds me of a friend of mine, circa late 2003. Only, *I* was the hardcore Bionicle fan in that conversation xD))
@LegoDavid said:
"I never understood what people dislike so much about the Nuva Masks. Sure, they look nothing like the original masks, but still look like clear upgrades to the original sets. Some of the later masks, such as the Toa Inika ones, looked way worse than the Nuva ones in my opinion.
"
I've gotten better, but trust me: I was quite capable once of disliking every mask that wasn't a 2001 release!
My second Bionicle set ever (right after Tahu Nuva, both were a gift). I was weirded out by Lewa's face, but I still really liked him.
@Formendacil:
Kopaku’s definitely looks like an easy callback to the original version, thanks to the giant lens on the side. Tahu’s looks like a blend of his original mask and Darth Vader’s Kabuto-style helmet, with some organic veins added in. Gali’s looks like a more armored underwater mask, even if it doesn’t much resemble the original.
Then there are the other three. Onua’s original mask was my second favorite of the original batch, because (like Tahu’s Hau) it looked like it was a carved wooden mask. The new version just looked kinda melty. Pohatu’s originally looked like a mouse’ face, but the new version I guess was supposed to look like dimetrodon sails? Lewa’s new mask, however, is clearly based on a leaf.
Man I forgot to check in last night, I'll keep the lore relatively short today.
The Toa Mata were an emergency protocol team designed to reawaken the Great Spirit Mata Nui if any problems arose in the Matoran Universe. When Makuta Teridax cast the spell to make Mata Nui comatose 1,000 years ago the Toa Mata launched in their Toa Canisters to repair the robot. However, there was a complication, and the canisters remained dormant in the ocean of Aqua Magna for 1,000 years.
Eventually the Toa were called to the Island of Mata Nui (a fake landmass used to cover the real Mata Nui's face) and went on a series of quests. They collected six masks of power, traded those masks in for multipowered golden masks, fought Makuta Teridax, fought off the Bohrok Swarm and collected every breed of Krana, fought the Bahrag, were submerged in Energized Protodermis and transformed into the Toa Nuva, collected Nuva Masks to fight off the Bohrok Kal, and then protected the Chronicler Takua as he searched for the Toa of Light.
Later on the Mata/Nuva would travel to Voya Nui in search of the Mask of Life, were captured by the Piraka, were freed by the Toa Inika, did a few other quests to prepare the MU in the side stories, and then traveled to Karda Nui to finally awaken the Great Spirit.
Lewa was originally considered the youngest of the group in the story bible, but this was changed in the final story to all being built the same day. Despite this, he is still the most immature member of the group. He loves to party and have fun with others, but when the time comes to be a hero he wants to take all the glory and pushes his friends to the side. Over the course of the story Lewa found himself in a few interesting situations. He was fitted with an Infected Mask and mind controlled by Makuta, only to be freed by Onua. He was later fitted with a Krana and mind controled by the Bohrok, and was once again freed by Onua, though he still shares a psychic link with the swarm. He was very nearly bitted by a Shadow Leech and turned into a Toa of Shadow mind controlled by Makuta, but was rescued last minute by Pohatu. In the reboot he was used to advertise the mind control aspect of the Skull Spiders in promo material. Guy gets mind controlled a lot.
At the end of the BIONICLE story, we were left with a cliffhanger. Lewa was trapped inside a facility rigged to explode alongside some of the most powerful warriors in the BIONICLE story. Greg confirmed that Lewa would eventually get out, but the actual story of how has been unreleased since 2013.
Honestly, the 2001 and 2004 masks were the best. They were pretty hit and miss outside of that. One thing that disappointed me about gen 2 bionicle was the laziness in mask design. The 6 toa looked great but they made the cardinal sin of repeating the protectors masks in different colours. That's pretty shaky ground for what's already pretty much a clone set.
@LegoDavid yes for most of the part that's what I meant, though I prefer some of the weapons for the mata as well. I think the mask designs pretty much make or break a Toa design, imo Onua and Gali are the worst of the Nuva masks.
@GSR_MataNui said:
"In the reboot he was used to advertise the mind control aspect of the Skull Spiders in promo material. Guy gets mind controlled a lot."
Although in G2 canon Lewa is never... mind controlled per-se, he actually does lose his mask on one occasion to Skull Slicer in the animated YouTube shorts. Appropriately... it is again Onua who rescues Lewa by fighting the skull villain and returning Lewa's proper mask to him. So needless to say, across 14 years of different stories and two continuities, if Lewa loses a mask; Onua is not far behind to retrieve it.
@legoman_John said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"So who else called him LOO-ah until a hardcore Bionicle fan said his name was LEE-wa?
How many of you still call him LOO-ah out of spite? >:D"
I thought it was pronounced LAY-wa"
When I first read the names I thought it was pronounced LOO-wah. The promo mini cds that came with the original Toa had a narrator. He pronounced the Toa of Air as LAY-wah. So that's what I have called him ever since. But I'm fine with the other pronunciations.
Like others above, I also wasn't too crazy about the nuva masks. I held the original Kanohi in such high regard. The new designs were just too alien and organic, and less tribal. The biggest problem for me was the nuva masks were just too big. I suppose they were like this to match the bulk of the armor, or to showcase more detail, but it prevented Matoran and Turaga from wearing them without looking like they had the biggest head ever. However, I still prefer the Nuva masks over the rubber inika masks, bleh
It took a while for me to get my hands on the Toa Nuva, but my collection began in earnest on my birthday in late October 2002. On a trip to a Wal-Mart in another town, I found Lewa Nuva and Onua Nuva, as well as a ton of 2001 Kanohi mask packs on deep clearance. I got all of them instead of the Bahrag twins (as my uncle offered), which had repercussions for my collections years down the line. But in that moment, I was excited. Plus, when I got home, I found out I had Gali Nuva waiting for me, too!
Lewa and I have an interesting history. While I would never admit he was my favorite Toa, there were definitely elements of his character and description that I really liked. Green is my favorite color, so that a plus. And yet, in spite of his many missteps (getting an infected mask, being Krana'd by Lehvak), he manage to survive thanks to help from a wiser friend (Onua) and learn from his mistakes, so that by the end of the BIONICLE story, Lewa Nuva was one of the most well-developed characters in the mythos. And as a teenager, who obviously thought the likes of leader Tahu and cool-headed Kopaka were admirable, even imitable, I realized that it was Lewa who, out of all the original Toa, best resonated with the attitudes and actions of the children that were BIONICLE's target audience. And I couldn't help by admit a good part of me also appreciated the character of Lewa because of this.
When the Toa Nuva were given adaptive armor by the being Arthaka, who then sent them to the realm of Karda Nui, it altered the look of Lewa Nuva I was so used to. After all that time, I had warmed up to the Nuva mask and armor designed and really hated to see it go in 2008. So perhaps that leaves me as one of the few that appreciated both Lewa's original design and his 2002 variation in equal measure. Even the 2008 version has its merits, but the Inika build is forever linked with that Toa team, and always seemed like a clumsy fit for the original, most powerful, heroes of the saga.
I would say this is one of the best Nuva masks. Not as a representation of the original Miru, but overall, I like this mask a lot more than some of the other Nuva masks.
And those trans neon green eyes. Lewa certainly had the other toa beat in eye colour. but all that green should be black. And add a dash of white. The lime limes could stay, I guess. That's pretty close to trans neon green.