Human Alliance Barricade & Frenzy

Here's another fine example of me forgetting about a perfectly good toy for far too long... So long, in fact, that I acquired and wrote about the Masterpiece version of the figure more than three years ago, and that was ten years after this toy was released! Worse still, this blog was already in full swing when this toy came out, so I really have no excuses... I wish I knew why I neglected the last three Human Alliance figures in my collection... But, other than the blog getting off to a very slow start, I can't imagine what stopped me.

But let's not dwell on old mistakes and, instead, enjoy the process of revisiting a toy that had been stuck in storage for far too long. I was a massive fan of the Human Alliance concept... still am, in fact, and it's something I hope Hasbro will eventually revisit at some point in the future. Barricade was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting aspects of the first live action movie, being a Decepticon who transformed into a vehicle which, in an ideal world, is intended to reassure people, make them feel safe and protected. Barricade is, of course, the antithesis of that idea... but I don't think they really played into it as much as they could have, and then he disappeared until the third film, then again until his refit in the fifth.

The original Deluxe class toy was very much a product of its time, with all the shortcomings that implies. Let's see how this version of Barricade fares, being not only a product of a different time, but a different and much more advanced toyline.

Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-5 Barricade

The original plan was to have this posted ahead of La Hire but, for whatever reason, it didn't pan out that way... Nevertheless, I do think this is a decent comparison with that Third Party Masterpiece-analogue...

It might seem like a minor point in retrospect, but the fact that the first live action TransFormers movie had a character who turned into a police car, but was neither Prowl nor even an Autobot is both pretty significant and rather cool. Whenever a police car appears in TransFormers fiction, the automatic assumtion is that it'll be Prowl so, while Barricade was yet another new character created just for the film (who has nevertheless since been retconned into other continuities, by artists, the former Collectors' Club and, most recently, by Hasbro themselves), his presence subverted the expectations of the audience and the protagonist - Sam initially running away from Bumblebee and into the clutches of Barricade.

While he's had a few updated toys since the first movie's Deluxe class figure, the only other one I bought was the Human Alliance figure as none of the later Deluxes seemed like a significant improvement. When a Masterpiece version was announced, I was initially a little ambivalent because the HA version is almost a Masterpiece in and of itself... but when the first photos appeared online, I decided I'd give it a spin after all. It may not have a Frenzy figure, or an interior he could sit in, but is that really such a big deal?

The Last Knight/Premier Edition Barricade

Despite an astonishing lack of character, Barricade was one of the more interesting Decepticons in the first live action movie, if only because he was the first one sent to track down the AllSpark's location, and he chose to disguise himself as a police car. His fate was uncertain at the end of that movie, and he didn't appear in Revenge of the Fallen, only to resurface - briefly, and without explanation - in Dark of the Moon which, again, left his fate uncertain.

Now, having been absent for Age of Extinction, the Bad Cop is back... with a new vehicle mode and a whole new look... So, what's the 411?

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2014 (Timelines) Barricade & Frenzy

The problem with TF Prime not having the world's most extensive and diverse cast of characters is that it limited Hasbro's options for repaints... and what limits Hasbro's options tends to cause similar problems for the TransFormers Collectors' Club. Nevertheless, they do have a habit of creating pretty adequate adaptations of characters and designs that Hasbro neglect to exploit.

The second year of the Club's Subscription Service didn't offer much of interest to me, but I ended up buying three figures in one of their clear-out sales. Barricade was one of them, largely because it was loosely based on the character artwork from the cancelled MMORPG TransFormers Universe and I was pretty sure that there would never be a proper toy made to that design. As a combination of the TF Prime aesthetic and the movie franchise's 'bad cop' character under the Club's Timelines banner, it's an odd concept, but that's basically the Club's speciality.

TransFormers (Movie) Barricade

No-one can deny that the live action TransFormers movies have played with expectations. Sadly, most expectations ended up getting cruelly dashed by a series of movies that cared more about its human characters than the titular giant alien robots... and cared less for them than it did the potential for big explosions. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Michael Bay...

But I digress.

When photos first surfaced of a police car - a Saleen-remixed Ford Mustang police car, no less - the obvious expectation was that Prowl was going to be one of the Autobots. He would have been a good choice, too, considering his logical, tactical brain would be thrown for a loop by anything unexpected... and what could be more unexpected for a sentient alien robot than organic life? Oh, the possibilities!

On the other hand, casting a Decepticon as a police car was a rather neat way of playing on the expectations of the characters within the movie, which is surely more important... And so, we have Barricade.