Review: 8998 Toa Mata Nui

[Refia]

Hi Eurobricks, today I bring you my first set review ever: a review of the much debated Toa Mata Nui, the titan version of the canister Glatorian Legend. When the pics first showed up, I remember many being horrified or disappointed. But is he really that bad? Is the colour scheme as terrible as it seems? I don't know, but I'll give you my opinion. I apologize in advance if the picture quality is not up snuff, I never did this before. Also, sorry for the size of the photos.

The Box

The front:

We've seen this boxart before: Toa Mata Nui stands with his glorious golden 2008 Ignika in the desert, a big vahki leg behind him and himself, his canister brother and the rest of the Glatorian Legends in the background. It doesn't make sense, that last part, does it? But nevermind, the boxart is crisp, nice and catchy. The scarabax logo is great, in my opinion. Also there is a small add for the new movie. Now let's turn the box around.

The back:

The back shows Mata nui again, in a different pose, one that looks less good than the one on the front. It shows of Mata Nui's functions, if they can be called that: his hands, thornax and shield pincers. The Glatorian Legends are there too, together with nice pictures of The Legend Reborn. We've all seen them before, but it's still nice. Better than the promo pictures of Legends of Metru Nui on the titan boxes of 2004, in my opinion.

Inside the Box

What do you find when you open it? Well, this:

It's ridiculous, isn't it? Such a huge box, and then only three bags of pieces and two instruction booklets. Speaking of those, why two? It's not as if they would be very thick if they were one book instead of two. I don't get it, but nevermind that. I still think the box is oversized for what's inside it, but ah, who am I?

Once you pull it all out of the box, your desk migt look like this:

The instruction booklets tell us what each bag is for. Bag one is the torso, bag two the legs and bag three the arms.

A random page from the instruction book:

The instruction books have the same coverart as the box did, and the images inside are nicely drawn, so no complaint there. It's all standard stuff. Let's move on to the more important matters, shall we? Like, say, the build.

The Build

Regardless of my dissapointment of what was inside the box (only three bags?), I still looked rather forward to the build. I had watched the instructions online a few days before, and it looked interesting enough in certain places. So, how was it really?

Part 1: The Torso

You rip open bag one and the parts tumble out. The first part that'll catch your eye is this one:

The golden 2008 Ignika. It's wonderful. It's amazing. It's glorious. It's fantastic! It's everything I hoped it would be. I am an Ignika fan. I adore this mask, its cute personality, all of it. A golden 2008 Ignika was a must for my collection, no matter the price. This single piece made the set worth it for me. But that's just me. Now, on to the build of the torso.

Like almost every titan set, building Mata Nui begins with it. It's a pleasant surprise that it was fully custom, no Piraka or Inika torso in sight, unlike last year's excellent Takanuva.

As you can see, fully custom. Two lower hordika arms serve as the shoulders, a Toa Ignika hand as the neck. A gahlok kal handshield is rather oddly placed in the middle, and that worried me for a while, but it looks fine in the final set. What's not so nice is, as you can see, the flood of blue pins. I remember the days these things were black. They'd look much better black on a yellow set than these blue ones, really. Luckily, the torso armor covers some of them, but not all. It's not that big of a deal, but I can imagine some people disliking it.

Next is Toa Mata Nui's life counter. He comes with two of these, and they are in a rather clever and nice way attached to his back. They look much more in place than on say... Tuma. They don't get in the way, at all. That's nice.

And the end result of bag 1 looks like this:

As you can guess, or see, Toa Mata Nui has a metru head, needed to wear the 2008 golden Ignika. This is not bad at all, really, but what bugs me is the eye colour. LEGO has used blue eye pieces for metru heads before, like in Nuju or Onewa Metru. But Mata Nui has the same neon green as every Toa Nuva last year, or Toa Ignika. Dissapointing. Besides that, Mata Nui has the same double shoulder joints Takanuva and Tuma had. A black av-matoran arm is connected to a grey Hordika neck and attached to the torso. I found it ingenious on Takanuva, and it worked just as well on Tuma and now on Mata Nui.

Part 2: The legs

So the torso is done and put aside for a while. You rip open bag two and this falls out:

What catches your eye almost immediatly are four of these:

Four yellow Bitil Wings/Onua Mistika shields. I believe these were on the yellow Jetrax set from last year. Regardless, they're in this set too. If anything, Toa Mata Nui is probably a great set for parts for MOCists.

The first thing you begin to build is the foot. Like Takanuva last year, Mata Nui has big feet, needed to support his tall body. The build of them is very like Takanuva's with some differences like the parts. The feet are not symmetrical on their own, and mirror images of each other. There's a keetorange spiked inika feet and two metru feet also in keetorange on each foot. I was rather surprised by the way the Metru feet were attached, and in teh end it all fits nicely together. The only thing that might seem out of place are the silver bohrok eyes. The golden ones like on Brutaka would have made more sense. There's of course the double sockets for the shin to attach to and the piston for support.

After the foot is build, work starts on the shin. It's almost identical at first to Takanuva's, save for the colours of course. LEGO has learned from Takanuva 2008 however, and attempted to cover up the holes in his shins, with a golden Inika tigh armour. It's not perfect, because it stands too far off the shin I find, but at least they tried, and that's good. Also, unlike last year's titan Toa, Mata Nui uses a straight black hordika neck unlike Takanuva, who used a white hordika lower arm. The leg pistons are lengthened the same way as Takanuva's were, and have the same problem as his did: why use a 3 plusrod instead of a two? I don't get it, but anyway. The yellow Bitil wings aren't attached till later, making the end result of this part look like this:

After the shin we get to the thigh, which is the most refreshing part of building the legs. I found myself rather surprised by how it all fit together, but once it was done and I figured it out, I was very satisfied. Nice job, LEGO! This part is armoured with a keetorange metru foot, and has three sockets. One to connect to the hip and two for the waist pistons. The result is this:

So you've got the three parts of the leg build. All that's left is snap them together and connect the leg piston with the thigh and add the yellow bitil wings. After that, you can connect it to the torso. A complete leg looks like this:

The legs look very sturdy, bulky and well-armoured. They were a rather nice build, and have three main colours on them. But I'll comment on the colour scheme later. Now, let's move to the last part of building the set.

Part 3: The arms

When you open this bag and shake the pieces out, you can't help but feel a bit confused or dissapointed. The third bag contains much less pieces than the second, making you fear for the bulkiness and length of the arms:

You begin with building the right arm, which is the same as Takanuva's last year, minus the Takadox-head as shoulder armour and the colouring. While it worked on Takanuva thanks to said Baraki head, the arms of Mata Nui can't help but look small, tiny even, and weak, especially when compared to the bulky and sturdy legs. They also seem rather short. Many complain that the canister set's arms are too long, but I feel the titan set sufers from the opposite problem: too short arms.

As you can see, nothing new if you have Takanuva from last year.

Next are the hands. Many people were excited about these, because of the individual movable fingers. So how do they look and build in real life? And are they really that big of a deal? Well, if you ask me, yes and no. There's no doubt that they are nicely done, and they don't look out of place on a Bionicle set, but the colouring just doesn't work for me. The canister Mata Nui had black arms and yellow hands. The titan set has yellow arms and black fingers. It would have been nicer if it were the other way around, as well as closer to the original. Furthermore, the moving fingers are nice, but they can only bend in the middle, not at the base, and their movement is very stiff.

So, you made the arms and the hands. What's left? Mata Nui's weapons, of course. First up is the sword, which you could make blindfolded without ever having seen the instructions. Yes, it is that simple, as about everyone had guessed. It doesn't look bad, on its own, but because this is meant to represent his movie weapon, the handle is a no-no. The scarabax-shield piece should have been silver. It would look much better as a whole, too. The Jaller Mahri sword is as nice and big as ever, so no complaints there. It's about the only thing about the Mahri I ever liked: Jaller's sword.

After the sword, you build the left arm and Mata Nui's shield. I'll say it right away, this shield has nothing on the real Scarabax Shield, in my humble opinion. Some complained that Click wasn't much of a shield in the canister set, but in all honesty, the titan shield isn't much better. It's very easy to make, almost as it it were amde with left over parts and features two of this set's 'functions': the Bitil-sword pincers and the thornax launcher. We've all seen the thornax launcher before and made up our mind of them. I personally adore the Thornax launcher. It's an incredible improvement over the Cordak Blaster, Midak Skyblaster and Nynrah Ghostblaster, all of which were ridiculous, oversized, way too bulky and huge and much more negative things. The thornax is simple, small and actually fits on a canister set. It fits on Mata Nui's shield here, too. So no complaints there. As for the Bitil pincers, yeah, they can move a bit. Big deal. They can't touch each other at the tip, so Mata Nui can't grab anything with them. Lastly, a silver bitil wing serves as the foundation of the shield. Eh, I prefer Click.

After you've build all that you snap the arms on the shoulders and the black av-matoran arms, add keetorange scarabax shield pieces on the shoulders and voila, you're done building the set. This is the end result:

Now, let's judge the end result, shall we?

The Set

Front:

Right side:

Left side:

Back:

At first glance, Toa Mata Nui is a pretty nice set. He has a pretty enjoyable build with some nice twists, he has a golden 2008 Ignika, what is there not to like? Well, because you asked... You see, there's no getting around it: the colour scheme is rather messy. It's not as bad as I had feared, but still. This set would benefit so much from an even colour scheme. Just make all Mata yellow parts keetorange, that would fix so much. Also, there's only four golden pieces in the entire set: the Ignika and three Inika thigh armour. And then I didn't even count the thornax.

Furthermore, those arms are just too weak and small. They really needed more bulk. Like, desperately needed them. The scarabax shield pieces on the armour worked as shoulder armour on the canister set, but not so much here. There's a rather big gap between the scarabax pieces and the shoulder. Also, the torso is a little bit on the flat side, and it is gappy. Though it is covered up on the front by the armour, the back reveals all the gappy glory. Unlike Takanuva, Mata Nui doesn't have a well-covered backside. A shame, really.

There are some good things about the set too. The way the legs are connected to the torso is ingenious. The two pistons work marvelous, better than the double connection on Tuma and Takanuva, in fact. Tuma couldn't even bend his leg backwards at the hip. Mata Nui can do that no problem. He can bend over or backwards until his torso is in a straight angle with his legs. It really is nice. However, it's also not very pretty. The pistons might prevent the waist from looking hideously thin, it would have been nice if they were covered up a bit. But then again that might hinder the movement. Take your pick. The torso as a whole, however, lacks bulk just as the arms. A shame, for it had some nice custom ideas and elements.

The legs aren't free of bad sides, either. Yes, they look nice and bulky, colour scheme aside, but bending them at the knee might be difficult, thanks to the yellow Bitil wings getting in the way a bit. As a whole this set is rather stiff, thanks to the many double or triple connections. And that might hurt playability. I myself don't play with the sets, merely pose them for display, but even posing isn't easy with this set. It's big, sure, bigger than Takanuva thanks to the torso, but it is stiff. Too bad.

Comparing the two

So we've looked at the finished set from all angles and I told you what I liked and didn't like. Now how does this set compare to its canister counterpart?

"Hi there, mini-me!"

As you can see, Toa Mata Nui towers over canister Mata Nui. He's twice as tall, but height aside this is clearly the same character. LEGO succeeded in getting that point across, at least, but this is mostly thanks to the Ignika. The vitrivius man, you know? The helmet Ignika can be swallowed by the golden 2008 one, however, as many have pointed out before. Weapon wise, the two sets differ greatly, as Mata Nui has no sword but a thornax and a shield, and Toa Mata Nui has a sword and a shield that's less cool than the Scarabax shield. Colour wise, Mata Nui gives Toa Mata Nui a run for his money, even though Mata Nui doesn't have a golden Ignika. Oh well...

I, too, have a sword!

Just for fun, I've given Toa Mata Nui's sword to Mata Nui and see how it looked. See for yourself:

So, it doesn't really fit, does it? And I don't blame the size, in fact. I blame, again, the colouring of the sword. If it had just been totally silver instead of keetorange+silver, it would look so much better, and would also fit the canister set better. As it is, however, the sword in its current form is not fit for the canister. So yeah, no movie sword for canister Mata Nui. Just give him a Jaller Mahri sword, that would do the trick and look good, too.

Final judgement

What is there to like?

1. GOLDEN 2008 IGNIKA! It's awesome and wonderful, but...

2. A satisfying build. It took me about an hour and twenty minutes to build this one. Quite nice, but...

3. The hands are kind of neat, but...

4. It has a sword, which the canister set sorely lacks, but...

5. Colour scheme is not as terrible as I feared, but...

What is there not to like?

1. ...If you're not an Ignika fan, or don't care for this mask, than this might not please you.

2. ...Quite a bit is repeated from Takanuva. If you don't mind, or don't have Takanuva, than this is no big deal, though.

3. ...They're not really anything special, and the colouring is off.

4. ...The colouring of the sword is not that great, and because of that it doesn't fit the canister set.

5. ...It's not great either. This set would benefit a lot from a consistant colour scheme.

6. The arms and torso aren't bulky enough and suffer from gaps.

7. The shield can't compare to good old Click.

8. The set isn't very mobile, thanks to the many double sockets, it's pretty stiff.

So, in the end, should you get this set? It depends. If you don't have Takanuva or don't mind a similar build, don't like vehicles, adore the Ignika and have 50 euros to spare, then by all means, go for it. But if you could care less for the golden Ignika (adorable as it is), despise uneven colouring and don't mind vehicles, then I would have to say just cash out ten euros more and go for Thornatus instead. That set has an even colour scheme, looks like a fun build (I don't have it yet) and actually has a story role.

As for me, I don't regret buying this set. The Ignika is wonderful and awesome, and the build was quite fun. It's a nice addition to my collection, but not the greatest set I own. Takanuva 2008 beats it as far as titans go, regardless of Takanuva's boring colour scheme.

"Great Spirits for the win!"

[Zip]

Huh, the build isn't as bad as I imagined in the pictures. But those skinny arms and small head still make it bad. Should be some easy modding, but still not worth $50.

[Brickus]

Awesome, I cannot wait to get this set, even if there are absolutely no new pieces, just recolours, the Gold Ignika is worth it.

[Zaktan of the Shadows]

Titan Mata Nui is pretty nice looking. The design looks very interesting, the build looks worthwhile, and it stays true to canister Mata Nui. The price seems a little steep, but this still looks great. Thanks for the review!

-ZotS

[Satellite Jack]

Well I was never a fan of this set, believing it to be garbage. The only real reason I would think anyone with decent eyesight were to get this set would be for that gold Ignika. However, I have said Ignika, in silver. While I like it, I really don't "adore" it, as I believe you and some others would. So about the rest of this set.

I agree with what you were saying in the end, about the things being "a shame", and "too bad". At first, I thought this set was just a horribly colored ripoff of '08 Takanuva. After reading this review, I now see that it was like an upgrade, and a downgrade, in various aspects. Like the fingers, additional armor on the legs, the shield, the custom torso: All the right ideas, wrong execution. The custom torso, especially. It would have been great, but the neck is much to high, allowing the small head to look even more awkward. The piston system seems wonderful, but just doesn't look pretty, as you said. I would rather use Takanuva's method, which allows more bulk to the waist. Getting to the arms. It just seems like the creativity stopped here. While I don't think they particularly need to be lengthened, I do agree they need more bulk. And I couldn't believe TLC would leave such a gap in the upper arms, when they already had a solution for it the first time (Takadox Heads). The heads might not work exactly for Mata Nui, but they at least knew they should've put something to fill that ferocious gap (It almost looks as if something had taken a bite out of him, and they tried to cover it up with those scarab shield pieces? Please...) The fingers.... Well, I don't see why people got excited about them. They just seem too simple. If you want some decent fingers, find Hydraxon. And you've said what needs to be said on the weapons. Oh and the colors... well we all know how that is...

So basically what I think is that, while it's not as bad as I once thought, it's still, well, bad. Thanks for the review anyhow I always like a good read.

(*Phew* I don't believe I've ever typed this much in one post.)

[JINZONINGEN73]

Good review!

And wow... this is one butt-ugly set lol.

I dunno, I don't dig the disembodied head look. It's like all these "things" are just floating in midair.

He should've had yellow going up from his chest armor and over the top of his shoulders, at least like in a suspenders (DBZ armor!) kind of way... anything.

But bleh, these titans always blow. It's hard to look at this like a cool parts depot either. Looks like they just needed to slap the golden Ignika all the kiddies wanted onto something large and expensive.

At 50 bucks, I'd rather just buy a few duplicates of the canister version.

::goes back to playing X-Com : Terror From the Deep on a computer too old for internet access::

[Phantoka Kopaka Nuva]

As a stand-alone Mata Nui set, it's pretty good. As a bigger scale of the canister Mata Nui, this thing sucks big time. And being a Takanuva-sized titan, he's not worth 50 bucks.

[Front]

This is a very detailed review you've done here. And it's very fair too, I mostly aggree on your views.

I would have enjoyed having the pictures shown in the thread (deep-linked pictures), but they would of course need to have been smaller.

One thing to remember, Toa Mata Nui is quite bigger and heavier than Takanuva. I guess that explains the price difference between the two. I think it's a better design too, compared to that 2008 Titan. But, a titan like Tuma is much more to my liking.

[Vezon]

Note that this is the kind of set that looks a lot better in person than in photos. Despite all of the great pics I've seen, it just looks meh in every single one.

I bought it expecting something decent but nothing more, but after building it, spending some time posing it, and seeing it in person and not in a pic or a vid, I honestly think it's the greatest Bionicle set I own (and that's a lot of sets :P).

[optimus-convoy]

Thanks for putting it all out there for us. To me, the design seemed a bit lacking with gaps, holes, and general lack of "buffness" throughout, especially from the initial pics, but here, it's really not that bad compared to other titans these days. Definitely a step below Takanuva though. Beyond that, the color scheme is just all over the place. They probably should've either added more gold, stuck with one shade of yellow, or dropped the gold entirely.

And at 50 bucks, it all just doesn't seem worth it to me... (That is unless I snag it at Goodwill for $12 like I did Kardas. )

[jala12]

Note that this is the kind of set that looks a lot better in person than in photos. Despite all of the great pics I've seen, it just looks meh in every single one.

I bought it expecting something decent but nothing more, but after building it, spending some time posing it, and seeing it in person and not in a pic or a vid, I honestly think it's the greatest Bionicle set I own (and that's a lot of sets :P).

That's what I seem to hear a lot. When I'm done getting everything else he may be next on my list.

[JINZONINGEN73]

And at 50 bucks, it all just doesn't seem worth it to me... (That is unless I snag it at Goodwill for $12 like I did Kardas. )

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GOODWILL.

(Salvation Army is good too.)

[Vezon]

I've been thinking for a while that the titan looks a great deal like Mata Nui's original body. I decided to try something. I removed the weapons and the shoulder blades, as well as giving it a different head.

I have an image of it here.

Edited August 20, 2009 by Vezon

[ShaddowCroc]

I've been thinking for a while that the titan looks a great deal like Mata Nui's original body. I decided to try something. I removed the weapons and the shoulder blades, as well as giving it a different head.

I have an image of it here.

Wow, now that you mention it, it does look a lot like giant Mata Nui. Only a lot . . . yellower. I wonder if the set designers took looked at the CGI Mata Nui as a reference?

[Brickthing]

Wow, now that you mention it, it does look a lot like giant Mata Nui. Only a lot . . . yellower. I wonder if the set designers took looked at the CGI Mata Nui as a reference?

I think both the cansiter and this set where based on that, just this one has more resemblance because it's got more pieces. Storyline it makes sense that Mata Nui would try to look like his previous self, and we've been told that the designers knew who they were designing when they designed Mata Nui, and the GS body would've been their only idea of what Mata Nui looks like.

[Refia]

I think both the cansiter and this set where based on that, just this one has more resemblance because it's got more pieces. Storyline it makes sense that Mata Nui would try to look like his previous self, and we've been told that the designers knew who they were designing when they designed Mata Nui, and the GS body would've been their only idea of what Mata Nui looks like.

I thought that "They knew who they were designing" was more a reference to the Ignika. If that hadn't been in either of these sets, I'd have a lot more problems accepting it as Mata Nui.

[Brickthing]

I thought that "They knew who they were designing" was more a reference to the Ignika. If that hadn't been in either of these sets, I'd have a lot more problems accepting it as Mata Nui.

They definitely knew about the Ignika, but it would make sense that they also knew who the character himself was, and would've been shown all information on him in order to make the set seem appropriate for a once-GS.

[zero1312]

How sturdy are the sockets of the ball joints on yours? On mine some of the yellow ones broke and I had to replace them with black ones.

Great review by the way,,,,,,,

Edited August 30, 2010 by zero1312

[Front]

How sturdy are the sockets of the ball joints on yours? On mine some of the yellow ones broke and I had to replace them with black ones.

Great review by the way,,,,,,,

Remember that if some parts break you can contact LEGO costumer service at lego.com and report which elements have failed.

They will send you replacement parts, at least if they have them (they surely do in this case).

Front, aka

Erland, Part Design

[Refia]

How sturdy are the sockets of the ball joints on yours? On mine some of the yellow ones broke and I had to replace them with black ones.

Great review by the way,,,,,,,

I haven't had any problems with the sockets. Truth to be told, I have a lot of Bionicle sets, but I only ever cracked the joint of a bohrok foot on my Ussanui set and a cracked joint of my Makuta set, both from 2003. But that's all. Maybe the fact that I don't take my sets apart once built the past few years has a lot to do with that, though. But as it is, I have had no problems with weak joints in this set, they seemed strong and sturdy to me.

[Aanchir]

Brilliant and thorough review! I definitely loved this set for what it was, but in many ways it was still a disappointment. The gold didn't really fit at all-- even if there were more of it, I've never liked Brutaka gold (#297 Warm Gold) used in conjunction with any sort of yellow. It makes the gold look brownish and dull in comparison, much like the Sand Yellow Metallic used for the 2003 Takanuva set. In my opinion the set would have been better if the Ignika had been left Keetorange-- and if fans need appeasing, a gold one could be included as an extra much like the sparkly Avohkii from the 2003 Takanuva.

The Mata Yellow doesn't bother me nearly so much, as it makes a good accent color. Of course, it fails as an accent color on the legs, with their huge, flat areas of yellow that upset the color scheme. I might have liked it more if the Bitil wings had been worked onto the upper legs instead, echoing the thigh armor of the smaller set, but admittedly with the functional leg pistons this is easier said than done.

I find it would have been hard to execute the build better. It's one of the most complex torso designs I've seen in BIONICLE, what with its delicious use of pistons and brilliant pin-and-beam ingenuity. The arms, though, are a definite place where there was room for improvement. I agree to your comments about the hands, shield, and arm color schemes. I don't mind the sword really-- I think the color scheme chosen is a lot more exciting than just completely silver-- but otherwise, your review really strikes a chord with my own feelings on the set.

I think ideally the set should have paid better homage to the smaller version in ways like color scheme organization. But overall, the set was impressive. Perhaps I'm just easily impressed, but I'd like to think it's more than that, and the work put into this set by the set designers actually came out in a positive way.

[Masked Builder]

Great review! Keep up the good work.

[The_Customizer]

Great review on this set! I used to collect Bionicle, and this is good enough to get anyone back into it!

Good choice of the set as well!

[Mephek]

-Entire Review Cut-

A

Edited January 22, 2014 by VBBN
No need to copy the entire review once, let alone twice.

[Agent Fusion]

If only they made a Makuta equivalent. I mean, who was he meant to fight, Tuma? Mata Nui could step on him!