Human Alliance Barricade

[BWprowl]

Barricade’s a character from the Movie-verse who broke out pretty much on concept alone. The character’s never been portrayed as particularly interesting in any of the media. He’s one of Megatron’s smarter minions, enough that he can mobilize and command the other Decepticons with a decent amount of ease in the field. Other than that, there’s not much too him besides what comes from his base concept: that he enjoys using his vehicle mode to deceive humans. But that’s enough really. There’s something winning about an evil cop car Decepticon that people (including me) really latched onto, and among the Movie Decepticons, there’s a lot of love for Barricade. Sadly, the other reason his concept is the only thing that propelled him to fame is because no one would love him because of his toy. I say ‘toy’ because he really only ever had one: an unfortunate effort of a Deluxe that would be redecoed and retooled numerous times in Hasbro’s desperate attempts to cater to people’s love for the character. They made six versions of the damn thing, and none of them worked out because the base mold was just so lackluster. Well, here we have the Human Alliance line, and Barricade’s absence in Revenge of the Fallen be damned, Hasbro’s using this as their opportunity to give Barricade another shot. Will it work? If you read my glee-laden post in the Hauls thread, you already know, but for the sake of drama let’s just say we’re going to find out here!

Vehicle Mode: Barricade, as always, turns into a Ford Saleen, a modified Mustang. The police version, naturally. Two things have always set Barricade apart from most other police car Transformer toys: First of all, he’s based on an actual, real-life, modern police deco you could see almost anywhere. No Japanese-style police markings here folks, Barricade is 100% US Cop Cruiser. The other thing that sets him apart is the fact that he’s a Decepticon. As I mentioned, an evil cop Transformer is a winning concept, and the little details in Barricade’s deco play this up. He’s got his Decepticon Police shield (noticeably more detailed than the one on Deluxe Barricade, as it has the writing circling around the symbol), as well as his ‘To punish and enslave…’ motto written on the side. He’s also got his ‘POLICE’ and car number markings tampo’d in the right places in silver, as well as his license plate, which I think is a first for Barricade toys. He’s got more details than just his deco though. His windows, with the exception of the tiny little side windows in the back, are all clear plastic. This includes his rear window, which is a step up from Deluxe Barricade, who just had solid black plastic back there. The clear back window on this one does mean, however, that you can see chunks of his robot legs through there. His rearview mirrors are also of note, mainly that they’re actually fully mirror-shaped, as opposed to the oddly thin, bladelike fixtures Human Alliance Bumblebee has. His interior is better than Bumblebee’s too, being cast in a colors normal for car interior, and lacking any greebly robot bits poking their way in. His gas cap is not a molded/painted bit, but a fully separate grey piece, the reason for which will become clear once he’s in robot mode.

Barricade actually kind of has a gimmick in this mode! A pair of guns are free to swing up from underneath the front of the car, arming him for Road Warrior combat. Looks decent. I’ve heard some say that they’re also supposed to approximate the ‘interrogator’ arms he had in the movie, but they don’t do a particularly good job at that.

While technically part of the ‘Human Alliance’ line, Barricade’s partner is nothing of the sort. Yes, Barricade comes with a mini-figure of my other favorite Movie Decepticon, Frenzy! Yay! And he’s got red eyes again! Dammit! Whoever decides the decos for Movie figures really thinks that Frenzy is supposed to have red eyes. He must be a FIRRIB person, bleh. Anyway, aside from those damnable red eyes, this Frenzy toy is pretty kickass. He’s got most of the same articulation as the Sam that came with Bumblebee, but his more open, non-human form means he can get more range out of the joints, particularly the legs. He does have simple up-and-down hinges in his chest and head, rather than the swivels the human toys have, which is annoying, but there’s a reason for this: Frenzy is transformable! Sort of. Bend his head and chest section back, then wrap the legs around to meet up with them, and peg his elbows into his feet to hold him all together, and Frenzy is compacted up enough to store in Barricade’s grill section, in a callback to the Deluxe toy’s interaction with it’s own Frenzy mini-figure. Now, Frenzy doesn’t actually form part of the grill in this case, he just stores inside. It’s still a legitimate feature though, since Frenzy was shown to store this way in the movie. You have to halfway-deploy the guns and wrestle with a few other pieces to get Barricade’s rigid grill structure open enough to stick Frenzy in there, and you can’t even tell the difference when you’re done either way, but the fact that they included it shows that some thought was put into the design. Aside from the pseudo-transformation, Frenzy’s a pretty neat little figure. His arms are sculpted with the hands on top in gun configuration, with regular hands right below those. They’re open, to let him grip Barricade’s steering wheel if you want him to drive the big guy like with the other Human Alliance figures, but Frenzy spent most of his time in Barricade in the passenger seat, so that’s where I tend to have him. Oh, and while he’s technically head-and-shoulders above the original Frenzy minifigure in terms of quality, that Frenzy actually *stands* head-and-shoulders above the new one, despite being partnered with a smaller-scale Barricade! Interesting!

Transformation: One interesting thing about Human Alliance Barricade’s transformation is how closely it sticks to the pattern laid out by the Deluxe toy. A couple of the panels in the back travel with different robot bits, but the overall transformation scheme is almost exactly the same. Human Alliance Barricade adds a few extra embellishments to improve screen-accuracy: little bits swing up next to his knees, the front side-pieces on his shoulders rotate forward, and his bumper splits and tilts to give his chest section that distinctive ‘pinched’ look. Oh, and a piece from the hood that winds up on his back splits and rotates to fake the ‘wings’ that he’s supposed to form from his side windows. Overall, it’s a nicely intuitive, fun-not-frustrating transformation. Be sure to click his head-chunk into place, and fold out the extra bits from underneath his feet. Oh, and unlike Bumblebee, he actually has a minor Automorph: rotating his feet around allows his trademark foot spikes to spring up.

The only issue the transformation really has is in the hips. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the transformation joints could rotate out to put his hip joints at a proper ninety-degree angle, but they’re stopped at about the forty-five degree mark by these big chunks they’ve got on there. I suspect this was to help him pass a drop test of some sort, and I might go in and cut them out later. Otherwise, the only other sticking point is the pieces the shoulders swivel up on: they’ve got a bit too much play for my tastes, and feel like they may break if I pull them around too much. So I’ll be careful.

Robot Mode: Okay, here’s where Human Alliance Barricade puts the old Deluxe version to shame. First and foremost, you’ll notice he has some *color* to him. A dull grey and a brighter silver make up all of his robot parts, and these work with his black car parts and a fair amount of silver paint apps to make him look very nice. None of the horrible all blackness of the Deluxe. The head in particular is a winner: not only does it have some very well-done gold and silver on it, not only are the glowing eyes a nice shade of purplish-red, but this thing is poseable, dammit! He can look around, and a little up and down too, and his mouth opens! Revealing little robo-teeth molded it! This is awesome, and adds some great personality to the toy. The rest of him is well articulated too. He’s got universal shoulders, elbows that swivel in both directions (well past ninety degrees too, take THAT Human Alliance Bumblebee!), his right hand has claws that bend in and out, universal hips, knees that *would* be serviceable digitigrades knees if his messed-up hip transformation let him straighten his legs properly, as well as double jointed backwards-knee-type-bits below the first knee, and universal swiveling action in his ankles. This gives him a lot of posing options, and means he’ll be stable in most of them. I am seriously thinking about chopping off those hip-hinge chunks though, they really hobble his legs. I like the little fold-out panels on his feet here too: they’re stiff enough that you can bend them down to help stabilize him while you’re posing him. There’s something odd going on with his arm jointing too. He’s got side-to-side swivels at the elbows, but there’s *another* hinge where the car chunks connect to the elbow joint that also lets the lower arms swing in, a totally redundant joint that doesn’t even work that well. I suppose it could be there to give the panels more play and make transformation easier.

If you wondered why I only mentioned his right hand back there, it’s because he has no left hand! Yes, like Bumblebee, Human Alliance Barricade has a weapon in place of one of his hands. In this case, you press on that grey gas cap piece I mentioned back in the vehicle mode, and you’ll find that it’s actually a button that pops the wheel out of its well, revealing rows of spikes attached to it! Yep, a Barricade toy finally gets his distinctive spike-wheel weapon. You have to manually rotate all the spikes into position, but that’s easy enough since they only spread out to pre-determined points, and then you have a perfectly circular, free-spinning wheel weapon. It’s very cool, way better than that crappy spring-punch Deluxe Barricade had. It’s a little annoying that he sacrifices one of his hands to have it, but like I said, this seems to be a *thing* with the Human Alliance toys, so I can tolerate it.

And being a Human Alliance figure, the gimmicks don’t stop there. You can rotate the chair section on his right arm to level, deploy a missile rack, and have Frenzy sit up there to man it. It…kinda works, since Frenzy’s way too far back to actually be holding onto it or anything. Maybe Frenzy’s plugged into a control panel up there or something. Barricade also has a peg in his palm like the other Human Alliance toys, to let Frenzy stand up there. However, since the way his hand flips out leaves him without wrist articulation, it’s hard to get the hand into a position for this that doesn’t look awkward, though there’s a couple. One cool interaction is that if you pull back the roof shell piece on Barricade’s back, there’s foot-pegs for Frenzy. You can reclose the shell piece once you’ve pegged Frenzy in, it’s designed to accommodate his legs, and then you have Frenzy standing behind Barricade’s head, flanking either side with his machine gun arms, which is pretty sweet. But the final piece of interaction the two have is the coolest, possible the most awesome setup a Human Alliance toy has had to date. You flip up those guns from under his car-front section, then pop open the grill and wedge Frenzy in there; a peg in the grill slots into Frenzy’s back. Wrap Frenzy’s hands around little handles molded into the guns, and ta-da! You now have Frenzy, popping out of Barricade’s chest wielding twin machine guns. This provokes awesome imagery of Barricade fighting somebody in close, only to take them by surprise by having Frenzy burst out with guns all BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA! It is the COOLEST!

And that pretty much sums up Human Alliance Barricade. He is easily the coolest Barricade we’ve ever gotten (though admittedly, the competition was never too stiff), he comes with the coolest Frenzy we’ve ever gotten (He’s poseable, dynamic, and in scale. You can’t ask for much more, besides BLUE EYES!), and that might add up to the coolest Human Alliance toy yet. Might. It’s a hard call, as Bumblebee is still pretty terrific, and Barricade has those accursed hip-blocks which I will most definitely be chopping off. Between these two, I really like what the Human Alliance line has shown itself capable of. They really seem designed to be complimented by the minifigures, rather than just treating them like tacked-on accessories, and Frenzy and Barricade show just how good a well thought-out duo can be. If you’re one of those many, many Barricade fans who’s been pining for a non-crappy Barricade toy, then buy this one on sight. I’m even over the thirty dollar price tag, this thing’s so good. The fact that this is also likely the only Decepticon Human Alliance toy you’re going to be able to get to fight your awesome Human Alliance Bumblebee should be another factor.

I really should pick up Skids, I heard he was pretty good too. A pity Sideswipe turned out so lame. I guess they can’t all be winners…

[Dominic]

I will keep an eye out for this. Lewis and I are plannign a day trip to several comic stores. I know Lewis is plotting the route to have as many Targets (and Wal-Marts) or opportunity as possibe.

That said, as good as the basic concept for Barricade is, the character was aggressively marketed. "To Punish and Enslave" is about as ready made as a catch-phrase can be. And, the fact that Barricade was set up as (the merchandise man-whore) Bumblebee's enemy in the move did not hurt either.

Dom
-rather likes "Screen-Battles" Barricade.

[onslaught86]

Nice review, Prowl! That was a really good read, I am most entertained. Especially by:

You have to halfway-deploy the guns and wrestle with a few other pieces to get Barricade’s rigid grill structure open enough to stick Frenzy in there

.

Har.

Anyhoo, I finally have Sideswipe and Skids to go with AllianceBee, and am really enjoying the line thus far. It's pretty much everything I wanted out of Alternators, with unique and interesting transformations, and little touches that make them more interactive - 'Bee and Sideswipe's masks, Skids' and Barricade's opening mouths. Skids' is spring-loaded, heh.

Worth noting that FAB Barricade had the spinning blade wheel too, so it's not a first here. Shame really, that's the one thing I'm iffy on. Damn you, absent other hand. But hey, not like I'm going to hold off on buying AllianceCade, I heart me some Barricade. Enough to own that badass jacket anyway.

[Dominic]

I admit that the price of the line is kind of discouraging. Each of these costs as much as an Ultra. As good as they might be, the price is daunting.

[JediTricks]

HA Barricade. Alt mode is very nice. The most effort to date has been made to create a realistic interior, odd since the driver is the only non-human so far. Kibble is confined to the back, visible from the sides and rear below the fenders and bumper. Deco is pretty good. Frenzy is odd stuff, too bulky to really work well as the character, red eyes, rubbery parts, and much of the same odd HA figure articulation but used in weird ways. He can be folded up and stored in the engine bay, not as efficiently as the Deluxe figure but cleaner.

Transformation starts ugly, the first step is "PULL EVERYTHING SIDEWAYS" basically, more car gets pulled away than the deluxe even, which is saying a lot. From there it's a lot of limb and panel unfolding. It's almost simplistic really, but keeps stuff moving just enough to hide that and not feel like a waste.

Bot mode is the epitome of frustration, it seems like the sculpting isn't that fine, but it is. It seems like it's not that accurate, yet it is. It suffers a bunch of the same problems as the deluxe figure: There's another hollow chest issue on display. The arms are just a big mass of folded up side of car. One of the hands is basically non-existant due to the springing death-wheel gimmick. And most of all, the hips and legs are beyond problematic. The legs seem impossible to work with thanks to the INTENTIONAL FAILURE OF DESIGN known as the hips, they actually lock out the normal hip configuration, making the hip rotation at a downward 45 degree angle, which is UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY USELESS. There's a mountain of leg articulation, and all of it is rendered unusable by the unholy hip design. But with a lot of patience, the ability to look past the obvious and dig really deep into the true spirit of a TransFan, perseverance can realize an attractive, triumphant, powerful, BALANCED pose that goes a long way towards redeeming this figure. What do you have to do? Throw out everything you believe about an action figure hip, go the exact opposite, so that the thighs SEEM to be going knock-kneed, and then rotate the lower thigh in a way that seems like it'll flunk, and voila, the disaster that was the Hasbro way is turned into something immensely better. Yes, the figure still has long kibbly arms, yes his left hand doesn't exist without massive imagination for no reason whatsoever, and yes his head is a tad too narrow. All that is entirely true. But now he looks GOOD doing it, he looks like a robot should, the legs are long and look proportionate against the upper body, the lower legs are under him instead of in front of him, the figure can stand tall and really look right for the first time in any Barricade toy's life. I will post pics below comparing them because it's IMPORTANT to fans to know what it can be.

What else is going on with Barricade? He's got a fold-out mortar launcher on the shoulder, it's not really disguised at all so there's almost no reason to fold it out, the gimmick is especially labored for the Frenzy interaction. There's 2 fold-out guns under the chest, Frenzy sticks out of the chest cavity and puts his hands near them (the handles are angled oddly, there may be a way to get him to hold them but I don't see it). Frenzy can stand behind his head for no reason, all Master Blaster style. Barricade's left... hand? No, it's not a hand. His left non-hand springs out at the push of the gas cap to become a wheel with 4 flat fingers on either side, then you can spread the fingers into blades (they have unique stops to make an easy equidistant spread) thus having his signature spinny blade, but it's a ways out in front. Barricade's eyes are light-piped purple. Oh, and he's got a muppet-mouth. Yes, his lower jaw remains still while the rest of his head can move up and down, and he's got sculpted lines to be teeth inside, it mostly works. The jaw isn't stuck, it can move up too, it just has more friction than the head.

There are a few gaps but surprisingly they can be smoothed over by moving parts only a little. The back kibble isn't so overwhelming as the previous figure either. He's pretty solid and decently articulated, although the hips and legs require creativity for movement - if you've played with Playmates' Star Trek The Next Generation figures with their V-crotches, this is the same thing. The waist is articulated, but it's a SUPER tough joint to the point where I wasn't initially sure it was supposed to move - but it has full range and no transformational purpose, so it is supposed to. The figure is very locked together, tight connections, nothing flops about or really gets in the way once you figure it all out. It's not even that kibbly, when you compare it to the movie character who also had most of that stuff around.

Initially, before I realized how the legs could be done "right", this Barricade figure was pretty low, maybe a "D+" grade, it was that frustrating. Once I was able to fix a clear issue that had haunted the original deluxe figure as well, it was easier to smooth out other little issues and see it for what it was meant to be. It still has flaws and frustrations, but it's definitely above "C" grade, somewhere between "C+ and "B" depending on collector.


Here are a few comparisons I shot of the leg orientations while I wasn't feeling well enough to do it right...
Dudly:

Studly:

[Onslaught Six]

I get the feeling I'll figure out ways to make him look awesome once I get him. I have a habit of doing that.

Incidentally, I think your place is messier than mine.

[Dominic]

The arms, while not attractive, look to be accurate to the movie.
I am tempted by this toy.

Dom
-sees JT's Gundam collection.

[BWprowl]

Oh dude, no, you're doing his chest wrong. You don't have to have it all open with that big hole staring back at you, you can totally pinch the bumper pieces like they're supposed to go, but leave the chest cavity closed and invisible. I'll try to take pictures when I get home.

[JediTricks]

I get the feeling I'll figure out ways to make him look awesome once I get him. I have a habit of doing that.

The original leg config is so frustrating, and the V-crotch is so confusing that it took me a long time to figure out a way to make it work.

Incidentally, I think your place is messier than mine.

Guaranteed, but I got cooler stuff. Some of that stuff is only temporarily there, it's a mess in transit.

The arms, while not attractive, look to be accurate to the movie.
I am tempted by this toy.

It's probably worth checking out. The arms aren't THAT bad, getting the kibble on the top to not look like part of the arm helps quite a bit. The lack of a hand always bums me out though.

-sees JT's Gundam collection.

Only part of it. There's about 50 US Bandai figures on that shelf from G Gundam, Gundam Wing, 08th MS Team, and more scattered series' mobile suits, and then another handful on my desk from Char's Counterattack which I don't like with the regulars because the mobile suits are bigger and even though they're in scale it looks weird to have them all together.

Oh dude, no, you're doing his chest wrong. You don't have to have it all open with that big hole staring back at you, you can totally pinch the bumper pieces like they're supposed to go, but leave the chest cavity closed and invisible. I'll try to take pictures when I get home.

I know how to do the chest, but at the time it was getting in the way while I was moving it around and I didn't notice. But it's not a HUGE advantage, there's still a noticeable gap no matter what you do unless you leave Frenzy in there (which is now what I do).