Cade Yeager

"Hey, Speed Racer, you're welcome to leave anytime."

- Cade tells Shane that he is welcome to leave anytime

Cade Yeager is a tragic inventor and the main human protagonist in Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight. He is played by Mark Wahlberg who portrayed Detective Terry Hoitz in The Other Guys and John Bennett in Ted and it's sequel Ted 2.

Because this is an ongoing trait of actor Mark Wahlberg, Cade Yeager, Dirk Diggler, Terry Hoitz and John Bennett are very identical: being bad-tempered, easily agitated and willing to fight with other heroes but later on improving his attitude and relations with who they have argued with. This is parallel to Mark Wahlberg's real-life experiences, as he had many legal troubles while growing up in Boston, but ever since his jail sentences expired and he started an acting career, Wahlberg claims he regrets and feels guilty over his previous actions, remaining actively persuasive that he has redeemed himself.

Transformers: Age of Extinction
One fateful day, Cade came across an old dilapidated truck rusting inside an old movie theater. Thinking he could buy it and strip it for parts to send his young daughter to college, he jumped at the opportunity to purchase it....with his friend Lucas's money. Upon closer inspection of the truck, it was discovered to be full of artillery shells. Cade had the truck, along with other broken theater equipment, brought back to his farm and puts it in his garage. Tessa, Cade's daughter, observed this while video-chatting with her boyfriend and criticized her dad for buying the heap of junk. While attempting to salvage the truck's engine to sell, Cade realized it's actually a badly-damaged Transformer. After calling Lucas and Tessa, he connected jumper cables to its engine, only for it to begin replaying a distress message to the Autobots. Lucas and Tessa advocated calling the government, claiming that there was a huge reward for turning in Transformers. Cade convinced them not to call the authorities until he could spend more time working on the truck, as he could stumble on a technological breakthrough if he could figure out how the Transformers work. When Cade removed a live missile from the truck's "power core," it transformed into the Autobot leader Optimus Prime. The badly damaged Autobot roared in a fit of rage while waving a shotgun but Cade managed to calm the disoriented Transformer. Cade questioned why Optimus was so badly damaged, to which he replied that he was ambushed and that the Autobots are being hunted and he must help them. Cade began to repair him, and sent Lucas to buy the parts that would help him fix Optimus. The Autobot wondered why Cade would help him, to which Cade responded because he trusts him to. The two began to bond as they discussed the similarities between a Transformer's Spark and a human's soul. Soon afterwards, Cemetery Wind, the group hunting the Autobots, came to the farm looking for Optimus Prime. Cade almost convinced them to leave until he referred to the truck as "He" rather than "it". James Savoy, the violent leader of the group, had the agents turn their guns on the Yeagers and threatened to shoot Tessa. Cade watched in horror as Savoy threatened her until they were saved by Optimus, who burst from the barn and attacked the soldiers. Cade, Tessa, and Lucas made their escape with the aid of Tessa's secret boyfriend, Shane Dyson, whom Cade took an instant dislike to. During their escape, their house was destroyed by Lockdown, a bounty hunter Transformer who was after Optimus. Cade, Tessa, and Shane managed to escape in Optimus while Lucas was killed by one of Lockdowns grenades. The newly formed team took shelter in an abandoned gas station, shaken by the recent events. While Optimus scouted, Cade and Shane discussed the latter's relationship with Tessa, which Cade was strongly against due to the circumstances of Cade and Tessa's mothers relationship. After they spent the rest of the day and night there, Optimus returned to collect the trio, and began to assemble the rest of the remaining Autobots. Before that could be done, Cade made a pit stop to see if he could access his credit card account using a modified Cemetery Wind drone he had captured, only to find his account had been locked. As the scattered Autobot forces reassembled, Cade, Shane and Tessa initially found themselves having guns drawn on them by Hound and Crosshairs, before Optimus ordered them to stand down. Later that night, Cade took note of how disorganized and chaotic the Autobots were without their leader. Afterwards, Cade was able to access the Cemetery Wind drone's memory, revealing an attack on Ratchet and Leadfoot's death. Intending to gain more information on the fate of the Autobots, the group traveled to Chicago where Cade, Shane and Bumblebee infiltrated KSI. As soon as they made it safely inside the building, Cade found his way to where they were melting down severed Ratchet's head, and used the drone to transmit footage back to the Autobots. Cade was discovered, captured and taken into custody by Harold Attinger, who began to question him. The two icily faced off as Cade realized that it was Attinger who ordered the attack on his home and threatened his daughter. The building soon came under attack by the enraged Autobots, looking to avenge their friends, and Bumblebee rescued Cade. Once out of KSI, the Autobots were pursued by the KSI-built Transformers Galvatron and Stinger, along with Lockdown. When Tessa was scooped up by Lockdown's ship along with Optimus, Cade was unable to rescue her. He joined the Autobots in stowing away on Lockdown's ship to search for Optimus and Tessa and ended up roaming the ship with Shane. The pair came across a large armory, from which Cade took an extremely powerful gun, which allowed him to take out a number of Lockdown's minions. After some searching, he and Shane finally found Tessa, who was more thankful of Shane than her father, frustrating him. Unfortunately, the only way off the ship for them was the tow cables launched by the Autobots, which were connected to nearby skyscrapers. The trio then began to make their way down the cables to the tops of the buildings, until Lockdowns Steeljaw beasts began to pursue them, destroyed all but one cable. Bumblebee came to the rescue, killing much of the enemy forces and saving the three humans when the cables released. They were soon picked up by Crosshairs who had commandeered an Orbital Assault Carrier, and they soon took flight with the enemy close behind them. After a lengthy aerial battle with Cade and Shane operating the rear-mounted guns, Bumblebee lost control of the ship and crashed. The humans miraculously survived, though Cade had to deal with the issue of automotive insurance. After meeting up with the Autobots and learning about the Seed and Galvatron's true nature, Cade contacted Joshua Joyce to plead with the man to keep an eye on his creation. Before he and the Autobots departed to Hong Kong to prevent the detonation of the Seed, Optimus declared that the Autobots would leave Earth forever. During the flight, the two debated the matter, with Cade attempting to reignite Prime's faith in humanity, with mixed success. Arriving in Hong Kong, Cade joined Joyce who was trying to keep the Seed from Galvatron, leading to a chase through the city. Savoy found the Yeager's and Joyce on the rooftop and opened fire on them, but Cade led him away from the others. The two jumped across rooftops, eventually crashing into a house and getting into a fist fight which ended with Cade pushing Savoy through a window to his death. Cade reunited with the other Autobots and joined the battle, despite overwhelming odds, but thankfully, Optimus arrived with the invaluable aid of the Dinobots and turned the tide. As Optimus went to face Lockdown, Cade followed him to help, but ended up held at gunpoint by Attinger, who berated Cade for choosing to side with the Autobots. Optimus killed Attinger before Attinger could shoot Cade, though it resulted in Lockdown impaling Optimus. Cade kept the bounty hunter distracted while Tessa and Shane freed Optimus, allowing him to deliver the final blow to Lockdown. Once the remainder of Galvatron's forces were dealt with, the Yeagers, Autobots, and Joshua regrouped on a waterfront. Cade and Tessa happily reconciled, and he finally accepted Shane. Joshua also promised to help the Yeager family with finding a new home. Optimus then chose to leave Earth with the Seed, instructing the Autobots to defend Cade's family. Cade asked if they will ever meet again, to which Prime was unsure, but informed them to consider one of the stars above to be his soul. Cade, saddened by Optimus' choice to leave, watched with the others as the Prime blasts off into space to confront his mysterious Creators.

Relationships

 * Family
 * Emily Yeager - Wife
 * Tessa Yeager - Daughter
 * Allies
 * ​Shane Dyson - Enemy Turned Friend
 * Optimus Prime - Good Friend and Savior
 * Bumblebbe - Good Friend and Savior
 * Joshua Joyce - Enemy Turned Ally
 * Su Yueming
 * Darcy Tirrel - Enemy Turned Ally
 * William Lennox - Enemy Turned Ally
 * Hound
 * Chrosshairs
 * Drift
 * Lucas Flannery - Close Friend
 * Brains
 * Ratchet - Respected Hero
 * Leadfoot - Resected Hero
 * Enemies
 * ​Harold Attinger - Attempted Killer and Indirect Victim
 * James Savoy - Attempted Killer and Victim
 * Lockdown - Attempted Killer and Indirect Victim
 * Megatron
 * Stinger
 * Cemetery Wind's Soldiers