Dave's Bionicle Rant:

     Toas:
          Tahu (Fire)
          Kopaka (Ice)
          Gali (Water)
          Onua (Earth/Underground)
          Lewa (Air)
          Pohatu (Stone)
     Turagas:
          Vakama (Fire)
          Nuju (Ice)
          Nokama (Water)
          Whenua (Earth)
          Matau (Air)
          Onewa (Stone)

     Bionicle is Lego's first serious attempt at breaking out of its niche in
the North American market.  Specifically, getting into the action figure game
full force, and extending their market to slightly older children (yes, I've
long known I'm not part of their target demographic).  The theme is
polynesian and the package is really well thought-out.  Although they SHOULD
have made the CDROM cross-platform.
     The setting is an island called Mata Nui (by comparison, the proper name
of Easter Island is Rapa Nui), where Lego lifeforms have lived in peace for
generations until the appearance of the monstrous Rahi.  Special masks of
power could let the Mata Nui islanders fight off the Rahi, but only a select
few have the ability to use these masks correctly.  Meanwhile, the Rahi are
stealing and corrupting the masks.  The Toa are the heroes of Mata Nui,
arriving from space to fight the Rahi.  The Turaga are the spiritual leaders
of the islanders, who have the power of the lesser masks, but lack fighting
prowess.  The warriors of the island (i.e. everyone else) are the Tohunga.
     The Turaga have hit stores a little more widely than the Toa, due to
their lower price point.  The Rahi have only hit one or two places at the
time of this review (June 2, 2001), but should hit stores more widely within
a month.  The Tohunga will be part of McDonalds Happy Meals in September.

CAPSULES

     Toa: Nifty action figure action, good poseability if a bit simplistic
in the building.  Packaging is great, a lot of thought went into it.  There's
also a multimedia mini-CDROM enclosed, but it's PC-only so I can only look at
the raw .MOV files.  All six are Recommended, but if you need a preference
list because of a tight budget, here it is.  With best listed first: Pohatu,
Gali, Kopaka, Onua, Tahu, Lewa.  But it's really close.  $6.99 most places.
     Turaga: Spudly little guys in a standard box, with a little rubber-band
action feature.  Still, given the price point, it's not too bad.  Annnnnd...
all six of the Turaga guys combine to form a single big guy.  However, I have
yet to be able to find any instructions for combining them.  Some work with a
magnifying glass should let me figure it out, tho.  All recommended, no real
ranking order.  Onewa and Whenua provide the most interesting variations,
IMO, though.  $2.99 most places ($3.99Cn).

RANTS

     I'm going to address the packaging first.  Why?  Because it's worth
addressing.
     The Turagas come in a small Technic box (5" x 3.5" x 1.5" or 12cm x 8cm
x 4cm) with a mini-catalog and a fold up set of instructions that has a
mini-poster on the other side of the relevant Turaga and his or her Toa
buddy.  Nothing too special.
     Toa, on the other hand, come in a tube, like the Robo Riders.  But this
is a bigger tube, 7" (18cm) tall and 3" (8cm) in diameter.  The top acts as a
display stand for spare heads, holding up to six.  Plus, molded into the
center of it is the shape of the new head style, so you can mount a mask
directly onto the lid.  Pretty nifty so far, yes?  It gets better.  The
outside of the can has a plastic label around it with clear windows in it.
You can turn the outer label to reveal various art and codes on the can
underneath.  Kinda like those perpetual calendar pencil holders.  Along the
top you see pictures (from the catalog) of all the Toas (the hero figures).
Along the bottom are scenes from the arrival of the Toas (as seen in the
animated adventure on www.bionicle.com).  In the middle are the masks and the
secret web codes.  All the cans have the same codes, which are used to unlock
movie files on the CDROM.  
     While the lid has a head piece inscribed on it, the Technic bar
connector hole doesn't pass all the way through.  Oddly, it only connects
from the back...which lets some Toa use it as a shield.
     Finally, if you're careful, you can fit both Toa and Turaga in the can
at once, although you may need to remove the masks, and in one case you'll
need to partly disassemble the Turaga.
     As for the CDROMs, they're the same for each toy, little minidiscs that
need a tray-type CDROM.  I'm told that the PC-only program is just a framing
sequence that lets you more easily look at the .MOV files when you enter the
right codes.  If you have a Mac, you can directly go into the MOV folder and
look at the movies with Quicktime.  However, you have to manually open each,
and it's a bit of a pain when many of them are only ten seconds long.  The
files LG01A.MOV through LG01F.MOV repeat the symbolic story you can see at
the high altar by the observatory in the online game at www.lego.com/matanui,
you're better off seeing it there if you have the right plug-ins.  However,
the TA01.MOV through TA10.MOV files are very nifty computer animations of the
three Toas (7-9 are skipped, 10 is a group shot) ranging from 30-50 seconds.
There's also an ad for the coming CDROM game.

     For the rest of this Rant, I'm going to do the pairs by element,
starting with Fire.  I'll go into the most detail with Fire, then just the
notable differences on the rest.  SuperToa combiners will be covered in a
separate review.  Each Toa includes one third of the instructions for
combining it with two other Toa to make the SuperToa.

FIRE

     Storage: Once you remove the masks, it's pretty easy to fit both Tahu
and Vakama into the copper-colored can along with both of their instruction
sets.  

     Vakama: 4" (10cm) tall in orange, red and black, this is the fire
Turaga, or shaman/priest/etc.  If you want to know what he looks like more
exactly, hit www.bionicle.com and go to the Mata Nui link, he's one of the
characters you can interact with.  He has a lever on his back hooked up to a
rubber band so that you can move his right arm up and down.  I used the
"leftover" connector and rubber band to link in the left arm too.  All Turaga
have the same motion gimmick, and have the spare pieces to let you do the
secondary link trick.
     Despite his small size, he has a full-size head and mask.  In fact, he
has three head pieces...he uses two of them as feet.  The head pieces are
robotic-looking and have a single Technic rod hole through the mouth (which
also has a peg hole for the mask to attach).  The head connects to the neck
via another new piece, a bit of clear red plastic that snaps in behind the
eyes and gives the toy a "light pipe" glowing eyes effect.  The mask snaps on
in front, but has a hole to let light in for the glowing eyes.

     Tahu: Stands 6" (15cm) tall, also red, orange and black, but with a
little grey for gears.  They've greately simplified the construction process
compared to Throwbots, with a single chunk for the torso.  You do add gears
into this to run the motion gimmick, though.  The shoulders, hips and three
of the limbs are "standard" throwbot pieces, but the weapon arm is new and so
are the feet (which are more angled and allow for more stable poses).  Ball
joints at shoulders, hips, ankles and the left wrist.  The left hand is a
Throwbot shoulder piece, with two rods stuck in it as "fingers" or guns or
whatever.  If you remove the upper rod, you can connect the lid to the left
hand as a shield.  On the right hand is the weapon (called a tool in the
official literature), a sword made of flame.  Tahu has the new style head,
described above.
     Gears through Tahu's torso connect a dial on his back (actually a bigger
gear used as a dial) to his right shoulder, so you can turn it and swing his
sword up and down.  Pretty nifty.
     There are gear teeth on the bottom of the torso piece, but they do not
appear to be used in the SuperToa figure.  However, they would make it
possible to merge it with the Throwbot and RoboRider pieces for some
interesting creations.  It's also possible that the torso pieces are used
with gears in the Rahi.
     Overall: It doesn't shoot anything, but I think it's a worthy successor
to Torch and Lava.

ICE

     Storage: It's a bit of a tight fit to get both figures and their
instructions into the silver can.

     Nuju: 4" tall, mostly grey and black with white feet and undermask.  His
grey mask is one of the bigger ones.  His tool is a white ice axe, and his
lightpipe eyes are frost blue.

     Kopaka: A bit over 6" tall, mainly white and grey with some black.  He
has the same gimmick as Tahu, but his left arm has a shield instead of a
claw/gun thing.  The shield itself is a white radar dish piece, attached to a
white hip piece so that it can spin freely.  He can't use the lid as a
shield, but doesn't really need to.  His lightpipe eyes are frost blue.

WATER:

     Storage: Nokama's long arms mean she has to be partly taken apart to fit
into the light metallic blue can.  Additionally, you have to reset Gali's
arms so they both stay at her sides (remove one shoulder and reposition it,
basically). 

     Nokama: Yes, she.  The Lego webpage makes a point that Nokama is the
only female Turaga (and Gali is the only female Toa).  With overly long arms
and fairly short legs, she's only 3.5" (8cm) tall.  Her tool is a blue
trident, and her mask is light blue.  Her colors are light blue, medium blue
and black, with yellow light pipe eyes.

     Gali: A longer neck helps this blue/lightblue/black Toa rise to nearly
7" (17cm) tall.  Unlike most of the figures, she does not have a black ball
piece on her chest, instead having a "hip" piece attached there.
Additionally, she has four connector rods stuck into her hips as decoration.
They may be necessary for the SuperToa combiner.  Both of her arms are of the
new weapon arm type, and each terminates in a single blue hook.  Her torso
has all the gear locations filled, and her arms windmill in opposite
directions when you turn the dial on her back.
     Her mask is transparent blue, so it doesn't have any eyeholes, her
yellow lightpipe eyes just shine through the mask directly.

EARTH

     Specifically, this element is underground, the dark places inside the
earth rather than the ground up top.

     Storage: I had to remove Onua's entire head to get these two into the
gunmetal grey can.  Not because Onua is too tall, but because of his
hunchback stature.

     Whenua: The shortest of the Turaga, this hunchbacked little black and
grey guy is only 3" (7cm) tall.  His head is mounted on pieces sticking out
of the front of his body, unlike any of the other Turaga.  As a result, he
has a separate "hunch" piece where the others have their necks, to act as the
anchor point for his rubberband gimmick.  He has glowing green eyes and a
black spiked club tool.

     Onua: This hunchback is just a bit under 6" (14cm) tall, with his head
sticking out from his chest at the connector point where most of the figures
have little black balls (well, half the figures).  This makes him too thick
front to back to fit in the can if you want to still have the instructions in
the can.  He's black and grey with green eyes.  Onua's mask looks kinda like
a hockey mask in black.
     His gimmick is a double slasher like Gali's, with weapon arms
terminating in triple claws.  However, his shoulders are set differently, so
he has more range of motion for slashing (and you don't need to reset his
shoulders to get him in the can).  He's a burrower, basically.

AIR

     In this case, I think they mean acrobatics and living up in the trees.
Not flight per se (although Lewa's mask allows gliding, IIRC), but being
above it all.

     Storage: Lewa is on the tall side, so I had to remove his head.  His axe
should probably also be removed to fit Toa and Turaga into the metallic light
green can.

     Matau: A bit short at 3.5" (8cm) tall, due both to stubby legs and the
fact that his head sticks out from his neck rather than up (the lightpipe
piece has rod holes for both up and down and straight out).  Green, light
green and black, with yellow lightpipe eyes and a green buzzsaw sort of
tool.  Garden weasel on steroids or something.

     Lewa: A tallish 6.5" (17cm) in green, light green and black, with grey
gears and undermask face.  His right arm is a weapon arm, holding a big green
axe.  For some reason, his left shoulder is loose and floppy, probably to
provide a particular connector for the SuperToa.  Between this and how the
right arm doesn't quite pose as well as I'd like, Lewa is in my opinion the
weakest of the Toa toys.  The left arm has a double cannon, but it can only
be "fired from the hip" because of the looseness of his shoulder joint.
     Lewa's yellow eyes shine through slits in the big green mask.

STONE

     Storage: With a little coaxing, and folding the feet up between the
legs, you can get both Pohatu and Onewa into the can without removing any
pieces, and the boulder fits with room to spare.  The can is a light golden
color. 

     Onewa: One of the tallest Turaga at a bit over 4" (11cm), Onewa is
brown, black and light tan, with red glowing eyes.  His tool is a brown
hammer, and he has grey "leggings" on his long legs.

     Pohatu: Notable for being the only Toa built "upside down", with the
torso piece reversed so that the gears work for the legs rather than the
arms.  This makes the 6.5" (17cm) tall Pohatu very leggy, and rather
hunchbacked because his head sticks out of the torso's...bottom region.  He
has standard Throwbot arms, with Throwbot shoulder pieces for hands and hip
pieces for shoulders.  This makes him one of the few Toa who can easily use
the can lid as a shield.  He's got the same basic colors as Onewa, but with
less grey.
     His tools are foot extentions that make his feet 2.5" (6cm) long, and
his gears make his right leg kick back and forth.  Like Gali, he has some
connectors attached decoratively.  In this case, on his calves.  He comes
with a boulder piece to kick around, although you have to lean him over to
the left a bit so his right foor has enough clearance to swing.
     A nice side effect of his big feet is that you can pose him standing on
just his left leg, with his right leg out to the side ready to kick.

     Dave Van Domelen, now to put together the SuperToa and puzzle out the
SuperTuraga....