It’s a fly, it’s a plane. No it’s, NUI-RAMA!

lol get rahi'd

I always loved that the first wave of Rahi included two specimens per set, so they weren't so lonely and could either fight (possibly to the death), or mate, when there aren't any Toa around to torment them. I especially liked the colors that were included with all the sets.

My cousin owned Nui-Rama and Muaka & Kane-ra, while we had Tarakava. The Technic pins and connectors on ours have unfortunately broken from stress, they're replaceable but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I wonder how my cousin's Rahi are doing.

@Brickwright:
That’s...not entirely correct. Yes, you’re probably right about the two sources of inspiration, but the Nui-Jaga scorpions are the only true color-swap of the batch. I think the only physical difference between these two is that the green one has a proboscis while the orange one has fangs, but the three larger Rahi sets involve different mask shapes that have the potential to impact play (you can’t knock the mask off if there’s no mask where you strike). Like the Nui-Rama, the three larger sets also feature cosmetic differences that are unlikely to have much of an impact.

These guys are notable for one thing, though. They’re the only Rahi that only nets you _one_ style of mask. I remember when these first came out, people were buying single copies of that mask on eBay for $15, which means you could quadruple your investment by selling off all the masks and keep all the other parts for free.

For myself, these masks inspired a MOC that ended up not using them in the end. I’d done a series of Star Wars characters using the original Toa frames, and I wanted to use a pair of these to make the giant bug eyes on 4-LOM. Turns out they’re way too huge, and way too not-green to work, so while the MOC did get built, I ended up switching to a pair of metallic-green Krana (Xa, I believe?). They made perfect bug eyes.

To 585 people who wants this set: Why?

Glad I managed to pick this set up. I started collecting BIONICLE in 2002, when these had left shelves. It wasn't until over a decade later that I started having the disposal income to go back and get some of the sets I missed. I also managed to get some Nui Jaga (the scorpions) but most of the other Rahi elude me (out of price).

When I finally have space to display some of my BIONICLEs, I plan to hang these with fishing wire or something. Make it look like they're buzzing around. Would be nice to get a second copy of the set so I can build the combiner model too.

@LegoSonicBoy said:
"^ As one of the 585... because we like Bionicle?"
Again, why?
:-)

Nui-Rama, Pano-Rama, Dio-Rama...
Those names.

I'm off to play with my Galidor collection
;-)

All the Rahi had action mechanisms that would allow them to knock off the masks of the good guy Toa; the Nui Jaga had striking tails, the Tarakava punching fists, the Muaka and Kane-Ra lunging jaws. Our boys up there the Nui-Rama could lash at things with their wings. And it was easily the most feeble of them all. Even with a technic connector on the end those wings were too flexible to really pack much of a punch so ended up doing a lot of flailing about to achieve very little

The early Bionicle sets had a lot of recolors for the Toa/Turaga masks, most of them being packaged in CMF-type blind bags of random masks. Because of that, a lot of those masks tend to be very pricey on the secondary market. However, the Nui-Rama included four of those tras-blue Miru masks, thus reducing their rarity a lot. Which is a very good thing, because the trans-blue Miru is probably one of my favorite recolors of the 2001 Bionicle masks.

Oh man... I got that set back then from my now late grandfather.
The weird thing: Mine had two of the orange Nui-Ramas. There was no bag for the green one. Of course we returned it and got a correct box, but that's a fun story from way back when.
Man, brings tears to my eyes.

Oh, these guys!

I honestly don't remember seeing any of the Rahi on store shelves, back in 2001; that may be because they weren't there, or may have been just because I only had eyes for the Toa and Turaga and not their larger opponents. I did, however, manage a surprise score of these guys, something like three years later, when I visited the bigger Entertainer toy shop in one of the next towns over, and found that they'd unearthed Nui-Rama, Nui-Jaga and Muaka & Kane-Ra from presumably the depths of their stockroom.

Finding Rahi sets on shelves in 2004? Particularly when they hadn't been there on previous visits to that shop? It was so improbable, so unexpected, that there was no way I wasn't going to buy those guys. I didn't have money, at the time, for all of them; so I went for the Nui-Rama and Nui-Jaga due to them being more distinctive in my mind.

(Possibly a silly decision. The Muaka & Kane-Ra, despite being a much bigger set, was being sold *for the same price* as the Nui-Jaga. But I didn't consider that fact at the time, because giant scorpions were cooler to kid!me.)

These two use the same mechanism as some of the 1999 Slizer sets, most notably Energy and Judge, where pulling or pressing a lever made their wings beat; only here, that central mechanism was built on a bit further to give the models a bit more substance. Never my overall favourite of the Rahi, but I still found them pretty cool ever since I'd seen them in MNOG ^^

@PurpleDave said:
"For myself, these masks inspired a MOC that ended up not using them in the end. I’d done a series of Star Wars characters using the original Toa frames, and I wanted to use a pair of these to make the giant bug eyes on 4-LOM. Turns out they’re way too huge, and way too not-green to work, so while the MOC did get built, I ended up switching to a pair of metallic-green Krana (Xa, I believe?). They made perfect bug eyes."

Oh wow, that was you? :o I remember seeing those, back in the day; I thought they were the coolest thing ever! :D

After initially excluding Bionicle from RSotD, Huwbot seems to be compensating with a heavy, regular dose of the theme lately.

l had this as a kid. This was one of the "two player" bionicle sets. Where you get two of the same thing and were supposed to face off against each other. This one the wings moved and l think you were supposed to knock off the other one's masks.

@LegoDavid said:
"The early Bionicle sets had a lot of recolors for the Toa/Turaga masks, most of them being packaged in CMF-type blind bags of random masks. Because of that, a lot of those masks tend to be very pricey on the secondary market. However, the Nui-Rama included four of those tras-blue Miru masks, thus reducing their rarity a lot. Which is a very good thing, because the trans-blue Miru is probably one of my favorite recolors of the 2001 Bionicle masks."

Aren’t those Ruru’s though? The Miru’s Lewa’s mask.

@Monopoly said:
" @LegoDavid said:
"The early Bionicle sets had a lot of recolors for the Toa/Turaga masks, most of them being packaged in CMF-type blind bags of random masks. Because of that, a lot of those masks tend to be very pricey on the secondary market. However, the Nui-Rama included four of those tras-blue Miru masks, thus reducing their rarity a lot. Which is a very good thing, because the trans-blue Miru is probably one of my favorite recolors of the 2001 Bionicle masks."

Aren’t those Ruru’s though? The Miru’s Lewa’s mask.
"

Yes they are technically Ruru's.

@Monopoly said:
" @LegoDavid said:
"The early Bionicle sets had a lot of recolors for the Toa/Turaga masks, most of them being packaged in CMF-type blind bags of random masks. Because of that, a lot of those masks tend to be very pricey on the secondary market. However, the Nui-Rama included four of those tras-blue Miru masks, thus reducing their rarity a lot. Which is a very good thing, because the trans-blue Miru is probably one of my favorite recolors of the 2001 Bionicle masks."

Aren’t those Ruru’s though? The Miru’s Lewa’s mask.
"

Oops, yeah, it sure is Ruru. My mistake.

@AustinPowers:
Because they’re not some tediously boring representation of what hobbies are supposed to take you away from, like Town. I thought _everyone_ knew that...

@Brickalili:
Lending further credence to the dual evolution theory, I vaguely remember noting that they were terrible at knocking Toa masks off, but did pretty good against each other. Their masks are mounted sideways, and the wing tips sweep in from the sides. To a masks face forward, and attack to the front.

@BionicleJedi:
UK got Toa and Kanohi in January, then US got Toa, Turaga, and Kanohi in June/July, followed by Rahi a few weeks later. I think UK got Turaga and Rahi at the same time, or slightly after US, so it would have been about half a year before you ever saw them.

And yes, that was me. I think so made two characters later on that never got photographed (Greivous for sure, and possibly Greedo), and I can’t remember if I ever posted TCW Yoda. I also finished up all of the dragons I’d had planned. They’re all very popular when I show them at Brickworld expos, but I don’t post many photos these days.

@PurpleDave: sarcasm. :-)
I understand the fascination. Even though I don't share it when it comes to Bionicle. Doesn't evoke a LEGO feel in me.

Easily my favorite of the classic Rahi. Despite being giant killer flies that attempted to enslave the entire Le-Koran race, they're oddly adorable. The transparent masks for eyes always seemed so clever to me, but made the "knocking off masks" game a tad more violent

@PurpleDave I want to take your comments and frame them up on my wall or something. That is pure gold. It very eloquently put what the whole Bionicle fandom has been trying to say for years into words.

Also I think it is worth mentioning as a whole most of the original Bionicle fandom is well... in adulthood now. Bionicle definitely is not the new kid on the block anymore, especially when most of its original fans are in their mid-20's to maybe even early 30's. I don't know why I need to say it... but sometimes I get the gist that a lot of people are still operating on their image of Bionicle from 15 years ago when it was still very much a theme for kids. I honestly can't wait for the next 10-15 years or so when all the Legends of Chima, Friends, Nexo-Knights etc. generation has come of age and they can tell us all off for some of our AFOL crap takes of their favorite Lego themes. But for me personally, Bionicle has always had a much bigger appeal to it than the "Classic Space-Castle-Pirates" trifecta the AFOL's a generation ahead of me had, and in part its because I grew up with Bionicle and not the classic themes that much of the AFOL fandom still venerates. That is not a knock on those old themes by any means, but more clarification that for every 50-something year old AFOL who yearns to have a massive Classic Space display, there is likely now a mid-20's something AFOL who really just wants to recreate the Island of Mata-Nui in their spare room.

Which is why the Nui-Rama is actually on my sets wanted list and I am one of the 500+ people who have put it down as such. I never got the set as a kid, and I intend to eventually pick one up to help complete my collection of early 2001 sets. I am just missing four Tohunga/Matoran figures and two Rahi and a few masks (darn you European Misprints!) before I can claim a 100% complete 2001 Bionicle collection.

The funny thing about BIONICLE fandom is, those fan websites, such as BZPower, were founded and led by adults! Not kids in the target audience, though in due time, some of those kids became moderators and part of that whole self-destructive hierarchy that eventually took over the staff at the website. I mean, I could be very, very wrong about this, but weren't Kelly (Binkmeister), Bionicle Rex, and Jon (Dimensioneer) all adults who founded Kanohi-Power and BZCommunity? Kelly won the adult side of the Build Your Own BIONCLE Website contest in 2001. Anyway, my point is, even upon release, BIONICLE wasn't just beloved by kids. It took in some adults, too, and I give them some credit for legitimizing the theme during its early years in the wider LEGO fandom.

Kind of makes me wonder where all those guys are now. Kelly ended up working for LEGO near the end of BIONICLE's run. That Bionicle Rex dude quit BZPower and handed off the reins many years before BIONICLE ended. And Jon...man, I liked his reviews the best in the early years of BZPower. His reviews of Onua Nuva and Rahkshi Vorahk really hyped me up for the release of the sets.

@xboxtravis7992 :
Yeah, anyone who saw the launch of Bionicle has racked up another 19 years. The first complaints about the theme are old enough to vote. Three of the kids who used to read my site have since joined the LUG I'm in (and at least one of them is in college now), and at least one more has joined the LUG that split off of ours a decade ago to cover the other side of the state.

Now, I happen to share the same fondness with that trifecta you mention. I loved the Robin Hood Guys (aka Forestmen and Dark Forest), and the original Blacktron most of all (I even have a Blacktron I MOC sitting upstairs that's older than most Bionicle fans, having been built in either '91 or '92), and I bought one of the final original-run Pirates ships to build underwater as an aquarium decoration. I've also mostly moved beyond Bionicle, being one of the few members of my LUG who has produced a significant number of layout-compatible cars, and the theme I have arguably focused on the most is Batman/DC.

But I still see stuff pop up, so I know the "kids" who used to submit pics of their MOCs are still making them. The focus seems to have shifted from mostly-mecha to mostly-Toa, so it's hard to tell there was a shift at all without reading the descriptions, but the designs have gotten way more complex than I remember seeing 20 years ago. And that's in spite of how difficult it is to amass a collection these days. Part of why I don't really build with Bionicle parts anymore is just the fact that the supply of new parts has basically dried up. Someone who still builds Blacktron I stuff, for instance, still has a huge influx of new parts coming every year. Black is one of the most common colors for basic System elements, and even the latest windscreens and windows regularly get produced in trans-yellow. The CMF theme (and Space Police III) have flooded the market with brand-new, Blacktron I and Blacktron II minifigs. But the original Bionicle parts used to last a year or two at most before being retired in favor of completely new parts, and when the original run ended the whole system got largely abandoned in favor of the CCBS elements (which I never really liked, and which I suspect played a significant role in the mayfly-like life of the G2 Bionicle theme).

The irony, though, is that while Bionicle was a critical component in the survival of the company back when it was a new theme, these days it probably has very little direct impact. Since the element range is almost completely retired, continued investment in collecting parts and sets from that theme is pretty much exclusively limited to the secondary market. CCBS seems to have largely been abandoned as a format for new sets, and there's not much that's currently available that really caters to this crowd. Perhaps that will change again someday. I kinda hope so, because I noted something several years ago at Brickworld Chicago. One of the award-winning MOCs was a massive HALO ship that was built by a teenager who didn't think anyone would vote for it because it was a HALO MOC, but the way it was clad in tiles that formed compound curves was mind-boggling (and I never did find out how it was done). I made a comment at the time (to whom, I can't even remember) that my generation was pretty much all grown up when the internet kicked off, and the online AFOL community started to coalesce. MOC-building in the early days largely consisted of what people were able to come up with in complete isolation, or perhaps with one or two friends/relatives contributing ideas. But kids were also joining the online community, and they had access to the growing mass of online resources, and they basically grew up along with the online fan community, learning all these tips and techniques from an early age, so before they were even old enough to vote many of them were already building at what the fan community would consider an "adult level".

See below for the rest.

Now, fast forward a few years. The next wave of kids has been growing up _after_ the online fan community is firmly established, and techniques that one person came up with entirely on their own have been tinkered with by hundreds or thousands of people around the world, who may have improved on the original idea. The jaw-dropping MOCs of yesteryear are now an everyday part of the hobby. Given maybe a few more years, and a more adult-sized budget, what are those kids going to start making? I've been waiting nearly a decade to get that answer, and I think we've been seeing hints of it for a few years now. It's just a pity that about a decade of potential got sandbagged by the nearly complete abandonment of a system of parts that basically saved the company.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca:
Yes, all three of those guys were legally adults when Bionicle launched, though I believe Kelly only joined the site _after_ he won the gold Hau, as BZP was a complex merger of two sites. One was the message board that Jon started and ran by himself, and the other started out with a Brit named Michael who ran his own solo site (BI), then "cofounded" a new site (KP) with Rich, and then seems to have gone his separate way when Rich merged the second site with Jon's message board to form BZP. I vaguely remember Kelly being announced as a third co-owner of the site and immediately afterwards they had an article about the gold Hau (which he then auctioned for $2000 to the guy who hosted my own site, who then mailed the thing to me to photograph). However, the seeds of any "self-destructive heirarchy" were already germinating before BZP was even founded. There was a lot of ugliness going on behind the scenes that you kids were partially shielded from. It's not the reason I walked away, but I can't honestly say it didn't play a major role in the fact that I never came back. I still, on rare occasion, get grief from people who appear to have bought too deeply into some of the propaganda that was being spread around two decades ago, and see evidence that many untrue stories have continued to grow and become exaggerated even in my absence. It saddens me that so many of you kids grew up in that poisonous mess, and knowing that it apparently got even worse later on...well, I really wish I could say I was surprised to learn that.

I don't know much about the early BZPower mods other than Binkmeister. You are right though in that he did end up going to work for Lego, I think he ran the official Bionicle website while Leah (I think that was her name?) was on pregnancy leave. I love visiting the old "Expedition Mata-Nui" site he created for that contest, as a little kid it fooled me into thinking Mata Nui was real.

You are right that there were adult fans at the start, but to clarify I meant that most of the original fandom who was kids are also now adults themselves.

@xboxtravis7992:
I actually met Leah a couple times before she relocated to Billund. In 2002, when I was in NYC for my first trip to NYTF, I did a pop-in to LEGO Direct (met the guy who founded FBTB, and handed off the reins maybe a year or two later as he was on his way out). There wasn't much to the place, but it was cool to put a face to the name. I think I met her again at (of all places) the Galidor premiere party, which I think was also the only time I was ever in the same room as Rich (never met Jon or Kelly). This was a few months after he banned me from the BZP boards for announcing that I was leaving (only after which we added message boards to MoD, which may have gotten Mark banned as well), and before he revived my account without me asking him to, and apparently banned me a second time for not coming back.