Review: 8995 Thornatus V9

[exxtrooper]

Yesh, today I have a review of a Bionicle set, as we all know (at least most of us?) Bionicle is now a discontinued line, and they are not produced by lego or any other company anymore. But that's another discussion, so we're not gonna get into that.

Although they are not produced anymore, it is pretty easy to get some of the old sets from online marketplaces, and luckily I was able to get my hands on this set.

Thornatus V9

Set name: Thornatus V9

Set Number: 8995

Price: 59.99 USD

Year of release: 2009

Starting of with the box itself.

The box shows our lovely vehicle and driver, driving past you without saying "hi!" or anything of that kind, he's just ignoring you and tries to shoot at something that appears to be at your left. The background suggets that he's driving in the night in a dark forrest/rocky-ish enviroment. There's also a skrall shield or something there aswell, but it seems that the vehicle is what that is supposed to get your attention, hopefully. There's also all the basic stuff like age range, set number and all that stuff. There's also a little picture showing that you can have the figure out of the vehicle as well, incredible.

On this side we can see our red driver looking right at you (oh lordy!) and standing at a "I am so cool am I right guys" postion on the side of his vehicle, suggesting he's a pretty cool guy and isn't afraid of most things. The back also shows all the features of the set etc. There's also some cute little pictures advertising the other sets. The box is also quite big, yeah, it's pretty big, I'm not really that good at describing how big a box is, so I'll go for a simple answer, it's big. The sides of the box shows screenshots of the Legend Reborn Movie, which is a movie we all loved deep down inside.

Inside the mysterious box, oh my!

Inside the box we have a couple of bags with lego, we also get the instructions (how generous) and couple parts that were too big for a bag, or didn't need a bag, cause they were too big, or they are not a "bag kind" of piece that doesn't like being in a bag, or something. Also, these plastic wheels roll pretty good, I was afraid that the fact that they were pure plastic would make them bad wheels, but luckily I was wrong, though they make alot of noice.

Putting the pieces together!

The first bag is just for the figure, I don't remember his name so I'm just gonna call him Peter. So Peter here is just another "Inika-figure" that we have been seeing for years now, and you could probably build him with your eyes closed, I'm gonna be honest, I built Peter with my eyse open, and I am sorry. But the driver is most likely just for having someone driving the vehicle, they made Peter red so that he would stand out more in his Tan vehicle to make the set look more fancy. If Peter was in his own set he'd probably have some fancy weapons, shields or something of that kind, but I'm gonna try to not get too off topic now, I promise! Also, isn't my green wall just, so, greeeen, am I right?

Next bag.

Before I go any further, I just wanna talk a little about the parts. Like most of the vehicles from 2009, they are using this great base piece in their construction, this set uses 4 of these, and I can see these parts being used to make great Technic creations, my point is that these can be useful, that is all.

We'll get back to the building shortly, I just want to say a little more about the parts, be patient! Here are some of the (old) new/intresting parts. In this set you get alot of great swords and weapons in silver, you also get two silver Makuta Krika heads (yay?) and one of those fancy crosshair bullseye piece thing. There's also a great amount of tan pieces in this set aswell, obviously. There's also a pair of the Mahri Nui matoran blades, which you most likely have dozens of by now. And there's the mask, meh I don't feel like talking about Peter's mask right now, moving on.

The bag is complete, master.

When you're done with this bag you'll end up with the whole front part. The building here is pretty technic-ish, that's all, oh and you get to use the big plastic wheels, which are actually big drills (w00t!). You're also done with the first Instruction book, now we're moving on to the next instruction book, exciting (not really)!

Blue blue blue.

Buidling the other half of the vehicle is quite harder then the front, you petter stick those pins where their supposed to be, or you're gonna have to take the whole thing apart when you find out you did something wrong, grrr. We also see some great use of the "vehicle base" piece.

As you can see, the building gets pretty tricky here, if you do something wrong here you're pretty much doomed, doooomed.

Peter is amazed by how green my green wall is, just wanted to point that out. Anyway, after you're done with the whole back part, you are tasked to but the together by some technic-ish-ness, you know what I mean.

Yay!

And hopefully you're done, here is Peter and his car-ish vehicle in all his glory, and there's by green wall.

And here's just a bunch of pictures to get a better look at the vehicle, if you're not that intrested in the vehicle, you can just stare at my green wall, I know you want too.

And here's a lovely portrait of our beloved Peter! Sorry the whole vehicle was too big for my scene.

Also note that you get 4 midak sky blasters ,and a thornax launcher, making it the most launcher armed vehicle of the bionicle universe!

Overall, this set is a pretty nice deal, it might be a little expensive but it's worth it if you really want it, and if you don't like it that much, the vehicle has a great range of useful tan parts and silver weapons.

That's my review people, thank you for reading!

Edited September 9, 2010 by 3D Brickthing
Indexed and poll added

[prateek]

Nice review. This set is on sale at Lego.com, so IMO, it's a good deal.

[jala12]

I thought this was a pretty neat set. It's the last large Bionicle set I ever got. Wait. No, I got Muaka and Kane Ra off of ebay, lol.