My morals and values are the direct result of Saturday morning cartoons from the 1980's. "How," you may ask, "is that something to be proud about?" I could answer, but that would lead to a lengthy aside involving John Wayne, Robin Hood and Oedipus Rex. Back to the plot: if Transformers was most loved amongst the above mentioned cartoons, then the greatest hero of that era was Optimus Prime. He led the noble Autobots, championed "freedom [as] the right of all sentient beings" and carried the burden of stewardship over the populations of two planets. You never quite realized how much you admired him until he gave his life to save the day. Yes, robots can be role models too. I know it must be strange for non-geeks to empathize with why we über-geeks fall in love with toys from such cartoons. It's not a case of sycophancy, a la hardcore Trekkies, or other such maladjustedness. Perhaps the best way to contextualize it to you cool kids is to say that while you went on to collecting grown-up things, say the collected works of Bon Jovi from which you once derived your rip-jeaned glory from, we didn't and, instead, kept collecting the same geeky stuff because we never saw any reason to move onto "mature" collectibles to treasure. As I said before: these engineered, mechanical little guys are our heroes. What occasion brings about this reverie? Hasbro and Takara, the respective American and Japanese toy designers behind the Transformers toy lines, surveyed Transformers fandom for the most favoured character with which to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the toyline. While Prime being voted most popular was hardly surprising, the subsequent joint action taken by the toy manufacturers was: A 20th Anniversary edition of Optimus Prime has been redesigned from the ground up to make even the most jaded of geeks drool. h3. This Ain't Your Father's Autobot Before getting to the re-engineered Prime, first, take a look at the Old School Prime toy (designed in 1984 and re-released in 2002). Surely, this toy is a collector's classic and an exceptional design for its time. But, how dated is the figure by modern standards? Back when I was a boy, we had to deal with toys that had all the articulation and complexity of three latched together bricks--we also had to deal with "speedy" 2400 baud modems that took forever to handshake with ASCII-based BBS's only for a family member to pick up the phone and terminate your connection... but that's another semi-nostalgic aside for later. If you hadn't noticed, the degree of sophistication which can be incorporated into contemporary toys will probably make you feel as if your childhood occurred during the stoneage. These days, toy-makers rely on flawless ball joints, multiple sub-assemblies and the ability to mold fine details rather than resorting to those annoying decals--you know, they're the big fat stickers you could never quite place on the toy just right. Take all these new techniques and apply them to a "no-comprimises" quality toy and the resulting redesign leaves us with the newly unveiled prototype of 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime: Vehicle Mode Robot Mode Both Modes and Accessories To put the complexity of the redesign into perspective, this new model has more points of articulation in its leg than the original toy featured altogether. Accurately scaled accessories of Optimus' gun, a gun-mode Megatron and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership accompany the figure. There will also be an energy-axe as seen during the duel upon Sherman Dam in episode two of More Than Meets the Eye. Also, there are rumours that an accompanying deluxe Trailer may be in the works depending on the retail success of 20th Anniversary Prime. Now all that's missing is Roller--and if you can empathize with that, then you should probably stop reading and take a walk in the sun too. Most important of all, Optimus' body has been redesigned according to porportions more in keeping with the cartoon. Prime can be transformed into a convincing and uncomprimising vehicle mode. At the same time, the posability and sculpt lend the figure a commanding and powerful appearance. Optimus actually looks like he can kick some Decepticon tailpipe... and, afterall, isn't that what really matters?