Barricade is the most important Con in TF1

[Mako Crab]

The 2007 Transformers movie serves as our first introduction to the Autobots and Decepticons in Paramount's live action movies. And Barricade serves as our best introduction to who and what the Decepticons are. He may not be the leader, but (IMO) he is the most important 'con in the movie. A quick rundown:

- Only Decepticon to prominently display the Decepticon logo.

- First Decepticon to speak (English).

- First Cybertronian to engage with the main character, Sam.

- First Decepticon shown onscreen fighting an Autobot.

- First Cybertronian shown transforming clearly in broad daylight, and without cutting away to show the human reactions. (actually, no. I just remembered Frenzy on AirForce 1. Strike this)

- He's the only non-military Decepticon vehicle, setting him apart from the others (even Scorponok was part of Blackout's disguise, and there are military markings still present on Scorpy during his solo mission).

- The Only Decepticon to appear in all three acts of the movie (alongside his partner, Frenzy). His battle with Bumblebee signals the end of Act 1. His appearance on the freeway signals the start of Act 3.

- On a related note, he's the only movie Decepticon to crossover into other media in a significant way, namely the War For Cybertron & the TF Universe games. While there is a G1 character by the same name, it's apparent that WFC Barricade was inspired more by his live action counterpart.
Blackout did carry over into TF Animated, but it was only as a brief cameo.

It's a lot of little things (and a few big), but there are a lot of firsts attributed to Barricade. As the face of the Decepticons, if not the leader, he does a great job representing them and introducing the audience to the faction.

And all this is why I put him on my list of nominations for the 2015 Hall of Fame Awards.

[Almighty Unicron]

Bonecrusher hates this thread.

[Mako Crab]

He would

[Onslaught Six]

Barricade is also one of the only three surviving Decepticons in the film. (I originally wrote two but then I remembered Scorponok blasts out of the sand at the end of ROTF. I guess you could argue it's a second Scorponok, since his tail looks like it's fixed.)

Barricade is not just the most important, but my favourite 'Con in the film. He had a unique idea that hadn't really been done before (Decepticon police car) and he had a distinctive look (A lot of the first film's designs were really distinctive but Barricade is the most easily recognizable) and he could easily cross over into other universes. It's sad that he doesn't get more personality in the actual movie, but that could be said of pretty much any robot character in the films. (They suffer from focusing on the Autobots as actual protagonists. Maybe it was the way BW and BM were, or how the toyline is formulated, but I always felt there was a distinct element of "picking a side" to the line that made it so interesting.) But if nothing else, Barricade is at least portrayed in a way that makes it obvious he's not just a thuggish moron or insane murderer with an excuse to blow things up, like most of the movie Decepticons are portrayed (even in the techspecs), he's clearly a dude who plans things out and executes them, and has some degree of intelligence.

I could actually make a point that Frenzy is the second most important character, or arguably even as important (if not more) than Barricade. Barricade is the most notable "full size" Decepticon, but Frenzy's smaller size lets him interact more with humans, so it's a weird dichotomy, but I guess that's what makes it work.

[JediTricks]

Barricade is the most important only by virtue of being the least-worst of the lot. Had any of the characters been worth a crap in the film, they would have blown out Barricade since he's really just doing a normal job in the plot, he's not important or vital, but with every other Decepticon being ridiculously executed and expressed, it falls to the blue collar workhorse of the band to carry them. On his own, in an even halfway-competent film, he'd be pretty much nothing special, he is not terribly compelling or even remotely a character on his own, at least not in the chief media, he's just "a guy".