Random set of the day: Tarakava
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8549 Tarakava, released during 2001. It's one of 30 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 411 pieces, and its retail price was US$50/£29.99.
It's owned by 1,056 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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22 comments on this article
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Lizards with no legs... Yeah!
Sort of a shame the Sand Tarakava never got released as an actual set...
@MCLegoboy: Except that in this case, you're trying to knock the noses down (presumably to make knocking off the infected masks easier), instead of the heads up.
Definitely one of the oddest rahi sets.
Definitely one of the most fun to play with. Plus that dark turquoise. Mmmmm... It ain't Blacktron, but dark turquoise is just lovely.
I absolutely love this set! Although I was definitely more excited to get Muaka and Kane Ra for Christmas in 2001, I took my Christmas money and splurged it first on the Tarakava during a trip to Toys R Us a few days later. The punching action is just too delightful, and the color schemes are great, too. I particularly like how the aquatic nature of these lizards made them look really good posed next to the Toa Gali or any of the Ga-Matoran. Parts-wise, I also loved getting the recolors of the Onua claw, Toa feet (in turquoise!), and other Technic parts. And of course, who couldn't treasure that turquoise Kanohi Kakama?!
For those that don't want a novel, in the 2001 BIONICLE story, the Tarakava were one of the many types of Rahi beasts that inhabited the island of Mata Nui. The most powerful of these Rahi were pressed into serving the will of the evil Makuta by the placement of infected Kanohi masks on their bodies. This made them enemies of the newly-arrived Toa, who had to find the other Kanohi masks of power in order to gain enough power to challenge Makuta head-on. Often, these Rahi guarded the locations or paths to the masks that the Toa needed. Of course, if the infected mask could be removed from the Rahi, the beast would be free of Makuta's influence and even be tamed.
The Tarakava inhabited various environments and were basically giant lizards. The ones in this set were aquatic and inhabited the sea and the depths of Lake Naho. Gali faced one early in her adventure on Mata Nui, besting it in combat and sparing the village of Ga-Koro from the monster's wrath. She faced them again after claiming her mask of Levitation (Miru), but the other Toa arrived to help her out.
After the Makuta's initial defeat by the Toa, no more Rahi were given new infected masks. The rest of the Rahi, including the Tarakava, were free and able to live more natural lives without threatening the Matoran or their villages.
I do believe I have this in one of my random bins of Bionicles along with dozens of others I have yet to take a serious look at to see what all they are. The kids like messing around with them, though.
* Looks at value. *
Uhhh. I should take a break from sorting System and Technic and focus on those bins one day!
I'll keep lore short and sweet tonight:
Tarakava were one of the most common species of Rahi used by Makuta to try and take over the island of Mata Nui. They were giant "lizards" with strong punching fists.
A larger and more powerful variant known as the Tarakava Nui could be built by combining the two models in this set. In universe it was a mutated Tarakava created by Makuta to serve as the King of the Lizards. It lives to this day.
A mutant Tarakava with two heads was once held in the Onu-Metru Archives, after attacking a fishing boat (forgot about that guy, had to look it up)
The Chimera-like Rahi Nui had Tarakava arms as it's front two limbs.
A more diminutive yellow breed known as the Sand Tarakava was known to exist. Several Sand Tarakava where produced by LEGO as prototypes, either for this set or a smaller alternative, but were never mass produced. A handful of copies got out into the public through ebay listings and contests, making the yellow mask on its nose one of the most valuable BIONICLE pieces in existence.
Are those creatures, or are those vehicles?
@Yooha said:
"Are those creatures, or are those vehicles?"
biomechanical creatures, babey!!!
The only Rahi we own, unfortunately. Some of the pins have snapped as well and given the age of the pieces, it's gonna take more than replacing just the pins to get it back together.
Probably the most fun of the Rahi. Yeah the Muaka/Kane-Ra were cool and all but once you got past the heads they were mostly gaps and empty space, like their whole bodies were an afterthought. These guys really do look like they could be biomechanical sea serpents and their punching feature is absolutely -fantastic-
I got these funky guys with my first communion, found them really fun to play with.
After years and years in pieces in my big parts bin, I rebuilt them a year or so ago. Some of the parts had been lost, and one of the dark turquoise spring pieces had broken.
Ordered some 'new' pieces, and now they're fully built up again after almost 20 years. And they're still as funky but fun years later.
I lost interest in Bonkles during the later years, but these first waves, that almost seemed like a Technic subtheme, are still dear to my heart.
Man do I regret missing out on these :( maybe one day I’ll be able to budget for them but like all older BIONICLE sets, they’ve shot up in price (especially lately).
One of the best Rahi sets from 2001, if not the best. You can see the clear technic Competition lineage in the design (just look at the upright stance of 8257 Cyber Strikers), for if there ever was any doubt these are lego.
But they're refined, now even featuring springs at the base so they can bend over slightly, and with the noses being able to droop down when punched, exposing the punchable mask. The back even uses curved pieces so that holding it is comfortable.
These might be exceedingly weird creatures, but they are great toys first and formost. And they fit the weird and mysterious world of Bionicle just as well.
Great set.
One of only 2 Teal Bionicle sets^^ (the other being McToran Kongu) Teal Kakama!
I like them because they're (supposed to be) lizards and one has a lot of unique teal parts in it.
Anyways out of all the 2001 Rahi sets, this reminds me the most of Competition/Cyber Slam, they even reused the arrow element! But they also managed to capture the play fun of 8257.
The combiner model (Tarakava Nui) looked somewhat awkward (and was even less likely to knock off a Toa's mask), despite the 1998 Technic style color scheme... I think I never assembled it back then.
As a side note, this must be one of the first sets to have 1x1 round plates in Bright Orange.
This was the only Rahi dual-pack I had at the time (now have a sealed Nui-Rama). They were very fun to play with thanks to the punching function and the masks pop off easily. I once decided to build the combination model because I saw it in the instructions. At some point I lost one of the blue shoulder pieces odf the blue Tarakava, so when I tried to reassemble the two beasts they looked incomplete to me. I was very young so did not know you could order replacement parts, so I disassembled the set.
A lot of the parts were used in various creations I made as a child. I should probably take a look at some of them so that maybe I can rebuild the set using all original pieces, depending on how many I still have left. It's a lot better than buying a new one today that's for sure.
@Atuin said:
"One of only 2 Teal Bionicle sets^^ (the other being McToran Kongu) Teal Kakama!
I like them because they're (supposed to be) lizards and one has a lot of unique teal parts in it.
Anyways out of all the 2001 Rahi sets, this reminds me the most of Competition/Cyber Slam, they even reused the arrow element! But they also managed to capture the play fun of 8257.
The combiner model (Tarakava Nui) looked somewhat awkward (and was even less likely to knock off a Toa's mask), despite the 1998 Technic style color scheme... I think I never assembled it back then.
As a side note, this must be one of the first sets to have 1x1 round plates in Bright Orange. "
Your comment confused me at first, as 1) I never realized the eyes are opaque colors instead of trans colors. And 2) The name 'bright orange' threw me off because I'm more used to the Bricklink color names, not the weird internal lego names. It sounded like a much younger colour because of it.
But yeah... This is not even one of the first sets to have it in orange (BL name). It IS the first one. There were no other sets before it or during 2001 beside this set that have it in that color! Well spotted!
I wish LEGO would still make sets based around functions like this... Most of the sets they make nowdays focus more on displayability rather than playability, which is a big shame IMO.
I built and reviewed the five Rahi sets in order from least to most expensive, so this was third in line. The last two reinforced my belief, but it was after building this that I realized the Toa and Rahi sets weren’t designed to fight each other. Toa were designed to fight other Toa, and Rahi were designed to fight other members of their own species. Pit a Toa against a Tarakava, and the latter punches over the Toa’s head, while the Toa can’t even reach the nose on a Tarakava. Muaka/Kane-Ra have pins that need to be pulled free, which fits their attack style, while Toa only strike as an attack. Manas can’t punch above the knee. So I looked back at the other two. Nui-Rama strike from the side, and Nui-Jaga strike straight down. In both cases, their masks are oriented to be most vulnerable to their own attacks, while Toa aren’t particularly vulnerable to them.
@Lego_mini_fan:
Daylight Saving Time kicked in over the weekend in the US, but the UK uses a different schedule. During the transitional period, postings either go up an hour early or an hour late by US clocks until the schedules synch up again.
I got most of this set (all but a handful of pieces and--importantly--both masks and most of the teal) in a used lot of LEGO for Christmas in 2007 or 2008. It was enough to build a complete model--I went blue, so that I had enough teal pieces to try making a teal Toa.
Then I sold it all to my younger brothers when I hit my dark age. Now that teal Kakama alone is worth $20!
I've never had any interest in Bionicle, it emerged during my dark age and it never appealed to me retrospectively. It's only through articles such as this, and other RSOTDs that I am beginning to appreciate what rich lore is associated with the theme and what a passionate subculture evolved around it. I understand that it revived TLGs fortunes and for that I am truly grateful, but what I find especially remarkable is that devotees of the theme the world over are still enamoured with it and threads, such as this, only seem to attract positive comments. Proof positive that sometimes, occassionally, Lego can get it right and come up with something original, innovative and clearly good fun. There is hope, after all ....
@Fillone:
After Throwbots showed up with no obvious storyline, and clunky designs (I really hate the throwing arm), then Roboriders did the same thing just with robotic motorcycles, Bionicle really blew the roof off. Early sets were packed with mini CD-ROMs that included a lot of story info, there was an incredibly rich online adventure game that got regular updates in pace with other story releases, and a free LEGO Club subscription got you free copies of the comic book. The setting was a tropical island, some of the masks had a clear Polynesian influence, and there was a collectible element to the whole thing that worked on a level beyond those of its predecessors.
Where Throwbot discs and Roborider wheels had different print to indicate their level of power, they were all essentially the same part in the same color (wheels did have different shapes to the hubs, but they were all still the same basic wheel around the edge). Kanohi came in twelve different shapes in just the first year, and the each shape came in a minimum of six colors. You could suddenly use these in MOCs where a particular shape and color really mattered. I made a Mouser droid from TMNT that uses three silver Kanohi to form the shape of the head, a black one to form the top of a Death Star Gunner’s odd helmet, and a brown one to form a Jawa’s hood, but I’ve seen them used as cockpits, engine housings, and various organic shapes, in addition to their more traditional use as faces on humanoid constructs.
They did have story elements for Throwbots and Roboriders, but it sounds like these were developed locally by Club Magazine staff, so different regions got different info, and they didn’t push the idea that there even was backstory to chase down. With Bionicle, they had one story team for the entire world, and they used all kinds of viral advertising to get word out, and even sponsored pro skateboarder Andy Mac for a bit. We wouldn’t see as much effort being put into the intangible aspects of a theme until Ninjago came along a decade later. They seem to have had a modest amount of success with that.
For all the grief Bionicle got from my fellow AFOLs, it was the only theme that mattered for a large contingent of kids. With the theme gone dormant, we don’t see much Bionicle news anymore, and many of those kids have grown up to form communities that are largely separate from mainstream AFOL communities, so RSotD is really the only reminder that many people get that Bionicle ever happened.