With Transformers: Age of Extinction getting closer by the day, it's a good time to take a look at the characters we've seen and heard about, and hopefully get a better idea of their role in the film. As always, beware of possible SPOILERS!









The Humans

The human lead is Cade Yeager(Mark Wahlberg). A struggling inventor, Cade finds a buried Transformer of some kind, and that discovery and its consequences set off the chain of events that our film will follow.

Cade's daughter Tessa Yeager(Nicola Peltz) is caught up in the action along with her boyfriend- a race car driver by the name of Shane Dyson(Jack Reynor). Shane has been a secret until now- but since the trio is seen escaping an explosion together in the trailer, it's fair to say that the cat will be out of the bag at some point.

The primary human antagonist is Harold Attinger(Kelsey Grammer), who was not shown in the trailer but was seen in this behind the scenes video shown back in August of last year. Little is known about Attinger at the moment, but from Grammer's description of him, he would seem to be a government agent- of which government, we do not know, nor do we know what his goals are. Among the agents said to be under him is Savoy, who is played by Titus Welliver.

Other human characters include would-be robot designer Joshua(Stanley Tucci) and his assistant Darcy(Sophia Myles), Cade's mechanic friend Lucas(T.J. Miller), and Su Yueming(Li Bingbing) who was referred to in an Empire Magazine article as "CEO of the Chinese Transformers." It should be interesting to find out what that means, exactly.





The Bots

Confirmed to return and seen in the trailer are Optimus Prime(voice of Peter Cullen) and Bumblebee(voice of carefully-sourced soundbites). Seen on-set in China are medic Ratchet(voice of Robert Foxworth) and Wrecker Leadfoot(voice of John DiMaggio).

Among the newcomers are presumed Autobot Crosshairs, seen parachuting into a city battle guns-blazing in the trailer. He transformers into a C7 Corvette Stingray.

Seen here in toy form is "Duke" -all of the early information on the film's new robots used code-names from the Rocky film series. More recent lists of toys have suggested this will be Autobot Hound. Hound transforms into an Oshkosh Defense MTV, and that's all we know about him so far.





Known to be in the film but not seen in the trailer is Autobot Drift, who is said to be pretty much what he has been in the IDW comics: disgruntled former Decepticon turned Autobot samurai. The image above is a very low-quality scan from a costume catalog, but is presumed to be Drift based on what we know about his character. Drift turns into a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse.

And then of course there are the Dinobots, starting with the mighty Grimlock. Little is known about his role and character in the movie at this time except that he is a really big T-Rex.

Longtime fans might be inclined to think that this two-headed pteranodon is Swoop, but the best information we have so far is that his name will be Strafe. This is pretty much all we know about this character at the moment.

On to the Decepticons! The `bot seen here shooting his mouth off is presumed to be Lockdown, and rumor has it that he is curator of a collection of ancient, deactivated Transformers. This is yet to be confirmed, however, so take it with a grain of salt for now. He becomes a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Coupe.

...is that Megatron? Given leaked toy solicitations and Megatron's fate at the end of Dark of the Moon, this is presumed at the moment to be Galvatron. How he has been revived and by who is anybody's guess.

Also said to be in the film are Stinger, a Decepticon who becomes a 2013 Pagani Huayra; and Cyclonus, whose alternate mode is not currently known. Vehicles believed to be Transformers are a Chevrolet Sonic RS, a Trumpchi E-jet, and one or more Local Motors Rally Fighter cars.

There's also a super slick looking 2014 Freightliner Argosy and a white 2013 Chevrolet Camaro- knockoffs of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee? We'll see.

As the movie nears release more will be revealed- and Toy Fair this coming weekend is probably our best opportunity to learn the identities of some of our mystery vehicles, as well as get better looks at bots like Drift. One thing is for certain: we've got a lot of new cast members both fleshy and ferrous, and hopefully we'll learn more about all of them in the run-up to Age of Extinction.