Our annual “All the Movies You’ll Want to See…” series has been one of the most viewed of all of our entries at borg.com each year. So this year we again scoured Hollywood and its publicity machine for as many genre films coming out in 2017 that have been disclosed. The result is a whopping 58 movies, many you’ll probably want to see in the theater or catch on video (and some you may want to skip). We bet you’ll find a bunch below you’ve never heard of. Bookmark this now for your 2017 calendar!
Most coming out in the second half of 2017 don’t even have posters released yet. We’ve included descriptions and key cast so you can start planning accordingly.
What do we think will be the biggest hits of the year? How about Star Wars: Episode VIII or Wonder Woman? Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of 1,000 Planets? Ghost in the Shell? Or Beauty and the Beast?
You’ve heard endlessly about Logan and Justice League, but 2017 will also see numerous other sequels, like Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049,Thor:Ragnarok, and sequels for Underworld, Resident Evil, Planet of the Apes, Pirates of the Caribbean, XXX, John Wick, King Kong, The Fast and the Furious, Cars, The Kingsman, Transformers, Despicable Me. And The Six Billion Dollar Man is finally on its way. Look for plenty of Dwayne Johnson, Tom Cruise, Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, Zoe Saldana, Hugh Jackman, John Goodman, Michael Peña, Ryan Reynolds, Sofia Boutella, and Elle Fanning in theaters this year.
So wait no further, here are your genre films for 2017:
The original Heroes provided a stellar cast and a great start to a fantasy world discovering it has superheroes emerging, scattered everywhere, with strange and interesting powers. It lasted four seasons, the last two only a glimmer of the first two seasons. Tonight many of our favorite Heroes return in the limited 13-part series Heroes Reborn.
A huge cast of newcomers awaits in the continuation of Tim Kring’s fun series. But Heroes Reborn will also briefly bring back many fan favorites, notably Jack Coleman as Noah Bennet, Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, Greg Grunberg as Matt Parkman, Sendhil Ramamurthy as Mohinder Suresh, and Jimmy Jean-Louis as The Haitian.
The not-so-surprising news is that all the actors who have since taken off in their celebrity status don’t look like they are coming back, at least as regulars, like Ali Larter (Niki Sanders), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), or even Kristen Bell (Elle Bishop).
Will the new series hold viewers’ interest without much of the key members of the original cast–even with the addition of a new character played by Zachary Levi?
A new cast of young heroes awaits in the reboot of Tim Kring’s fun and at least briefly successful series Heroes. But Heroes Reborn will also bring back many fan favorites, notably Jack Coleman as Noah Bennet, Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, Greg Grunberg as Matt Parkman, Sendhil Ramamurthy as Mohinder Suresh, and Jimmy Jean-Louis as The Haitian.
The not-so-surprising news is that all the actors who have since taken off in their celebrity status don’t look like they are coming back, at least as regulars, like Ali Larter (Niki Sanders), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), or even Kristen Bell (Elle Bishop).
New to the show is Zachary Levi (Chuck). Here is the first full-length sneak preview for the series:
With Burn Notice over and Homeland confined to premium viewing only, basic cable’s best hope for a weekly spy drama fix may be TNT’s new series Legends. Un-gripping title aside, this new Sean Bean vehicle shows surprising promise. Although it follows the cliché template for every crime drama of the last ten years (eccentric male expert and his younger female law enforcement handler), the format is elevated by familiar actors and an intriguing added premise.
Based on Robert Littell’s Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation, Legends the series follows Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, Patriot Games, National Treasure, GoldenEye, The Fellowship of the Ring, Sharpe series) as undercover FBI agent Martin Odum, the “most naturally gifted undercover operative” in the US arsenal. Bean himself seems naturally gifted for the role, easing eerily between his “legend,” or cover identity, and his real self, donning accents, hairstyles, and costumes with Mission Impossible-style finesse. But the ultimate deception may be on Odum himself–according to a shadowy figure with Manchurian Candidate overtones, Odum may not really be Odum. Martin’s “real” life may be nothing more than just another legend.
Bean’s performance is bolstered by a strong supporting cast, including Ali Larter (Heroes, Final Destination), Steve Harris (Awake, Minority Report), and Tina Majorino (True Blood, Veronica Mars, Corinna, Corinna, Waterworld, Andre), although we’re hoping Larter and Majorino aren’t getting typecast–Larter already stripping as she did in Heroes and Majorino as the same tech nerd we’ve seen her play so well and so often.
What we thought was going to be another ad for the DVD release of Gravity actually was a teaser for the return of Heroes to NBC. NBC released a few details to the press before the Olympics Saturday night teaser premiere, revealing a new Heroes TV series will be returning in 2015. NBC and creator Tim Kring will be holding the details close to their vests until Heroes Reborn draws closer, but we’re thinking there is no way to move the series forward and call it Heroes without at least Hayden Panettiere as invincible ex-cheerleader Claire Bennet, Milo Ventimiglia as power-borrower Peter Petrelli, Masi Oka as time traveler Hiro Nakamura, or the always awesome Jack Coleman as Claire’s dad, the horned-rimmed glasses guy.
NBC has ordered 13 episodes for the new mini-series, an entire season for any other property. Could this be a try-on that could be continued if the first year is successful?
“The enormous impact Heroes had on the television landscape when it first launched in 2006 was eye-opening,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke. “Shows with that kind of resonance don’t come around often and we thought it was time for another installment. We’re thrilled that visionary creator Tim Kring was as excited about jumping back into this show as we were and we look forward to all the new textures and layers Tim plans to add to his original concept,” Salke continued. “Until we get closer to air in 2015, the show will be appropriately shrouded in secrecy, but we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.”
Masi Oka is currently on Hawaii Five-O on CBS, Hayden Penettiere is on Nashville on ABC, and Milo Ventimiglia is filming a series on the Crackle online network coming off of his Mob City mini-series in TNT. Ali Larter, who played Tracy Strauss and her mirror twin on Heroes, last filmed a mini-series on TNT and continues her string of big screen movie projects, and ex-cop Greg Grunberg is making a string of movies. Although he’s been seen on ABC’s Scandal, Jack Coleman also had a key role in the last season of USA Network’s Burn Notice last year. USA Network is an NBC sister network. Could that mean a possible connection to have Coleman’s character lead the new mini-series? Something like Agent Colson on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Coleman is our top pick, and we think HRG is the most likely driver of a new series. But why stop there?
Both Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade and The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters premiered the same day. Chasing Ghosts premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2007. The King of Kong premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, taking place as well in Park City, Utah, but reserved for films with budgets under $1 million and only for first time directors. Other movies at Sundance included Black Snake Moan, King of California, The Savages, Snow Angels, Eagle vs. Shark, Reprise, Waitress, Once and Rocket Science. The King of Kong, by my personal calculation*, is easily the biggest movie out of Slamdance that year.
Don’t mistake that I’m saying popularity equals quality or the film festival where your movie premieres means a difference in quality. Still, Sundance, like Toronto and Cannes just seems to mean a higher pedigree, the difference between a regional dog show and the Westminster Kennel Club.
So, why is The King of Kong more popular than Chasing Ghosts?** I think it is that same reason that made the video gamers of both stories so special: specialization.
I just finished Chasing Ghosts and it is fascinating. Just like Confessions of a Superhero or Murderball or Grizzly Man or Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room or Capturing the Friedmans, there’s something about true stories and the voyages in life that people take to get to today that make my eyes and heart open wide.*** Following the story behind the boys and older boys**** in a picture from a Life magazine photo shoot in 1982 on the main drag of Ottumwa, Iowa made me smile many times.
The classic Life Magazine photo from November 1982, taken in downtown Ottumwa, Iowa with the gamers and some Ottumwa High School cheerleaders. Billy Mitchell, featured in King of Kong, is third from right at front with the moustache and his hand on the Centipede game.
But, it’s no King of Kong. Chasing Ghosts gave us glimpses of many different video game champions. Boys that spent up to 60 some hours straight playing video games.***** We learned about strategies (and saw some cool, modern 3-D images) for Pac Man, Berzerk, Centipede, Frogger and Missile Command.****** Each person had strategies and abilities that made these games easy for them. Each person had a compelling life story. The only names I remember though are Steve Sanders and Billy Mitchell and that’s because they were also in The King of Kong.*******
The King of Kong just looked at one game. The King of Kong just looked at the rivalry for this one high score. It followed Steve Wiebe as he tried to unseat Mitchell’s high score and what how much that meant for him at that time in his life. It had a compelling narrative because it focused on one thing, kind of like these video game specialists.
Why do we love specialists? Why do we put the most elite athletes, the most elite soldiers like Navy Seals, the most elite actors/directors/producers that win Oscars on pedestals, sometimes literally in the case of the Olympics or sports draft coverage?
I’d like to think this is some grand philosophical question, but it’s not. We all want to be the best at something, so we celebrate those that become the best. The richest man in the world. The most beautiful woman in the universe. The fastest. The strongest. The biggest weekend at the box office. The smartest. In recent years of baseball analysis and the Baseball Hall of Fame, most researchers (and conversely voters) show that emphasis every year. The guys like Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell who were pretty good at everything–and therefore each a great player–aren’t nearly as appreciated as those that did one thing well, like hit for average, play defense, steal bases or hit a bucket load of home runs (though because of steroids, that isn’t as smiled upon as before). Being the best wins, second place will always be a set of steak knives and third prize is you’re fired.
Capitalism expects us to specialize. We do one thing well, and we trade the money we make from that to other people that do their one thing well. So, did I like The King of Kong because I’ve been trained to like the specialized over the general? I’d like to think that isn’t the case. There’s room in the world for both movies, and I’m glad I saw both. If you ask me which one I liked better in this case, it’s Kong.
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*Check out the list here. I’ll admit, films with James Cromwell, Tony Hale^, Ali Larter and Gary Busey feel like they should be bigger, emphasis on “feel” and nothing more.
**I’m basing this on the fact that I saw The King of Kong in a movie theater and watched it on TV over Thanksgiving this year. I finally found Chasing Ghosts on Netflix Instant when a friend recently recommended it to me and it appeared in one of the lists that Netflix tailors to my watching patterns. Netflix is like my best friend who always can tell what I’m in the mood to watch. Except that Netflix is a cyborg, bent on taking over the world.
*** A note – in some cases the emotion from my “heart” is sympathy. Sometimes it is appreciation. Sometimes it is horror. Films that generate feelings always rank high in my book, but the documentaries that evoke horror I’m much more likely to never, ever, ever watch again. Like Capturing the Friedmans.
**** After watching the documentary, it feels weird to use “men” as their noun, even to this day. Yes, they have kids, wives, girlfriends and jobs, but you look into those eyes as they talk about video games or other aspects of their lives, and the boy inside still takes center stage.
***** I loved the still picture of one video gamer being fed French fries as he played. If this happened today in New York, he would have been video gaming’s Alex Rodriguez.
****** I have to admit to being a little more curious about the Missile Command guy. It looks like he made video game themed pornos. I can see that having major appeal. I mean, how many guys would love the fantasy of sitting at home, playing video games, when all of the sudden, a knock comes at the door and there are three buxom women who want to pleasure you. I’ve probably said too much. Still in the argument of specialization, I want to see a movie about him.
******* Ok, maybe a slight lie. I think I remember the name Ben Gold. I also don’t remember the Twin Galaxies owner/ref names that appeared in both films. It probably helps that I’ve seen The King of Kong twice. Then again, it’s been almost four months since I watched it compared to about four hours for Chasing Ghosts.
^That’s the Arrested Development and Community Season 1, episode 19 fan talking. I’m going to go ahead and assume you know Ali Larter and not give her a footnote. Why? She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.^^
Ali Larter in Heroes
^^World is defined as a section of my mind circa the first season of Heroes.
Back in Beginner Computing class in junior high, we learned the BASIC computer language on Commodore VIC 20s. The first program you learn to write is this:
10 PRINT HELLO
20 GOTO 10
The end result is a loop, printing the word HELLO over and over again infinitely like this:
HELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLO
HELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLO
HELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLO
HELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLOHELLO …
It’s an easy way to illustrate a temporal loop or time loop, a recurring story element in science fiction and fantasy works.
In 1905 Spanish philosopher George Santayana wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He didn’t mean this literally. As science and science fiction would later speculate, repeating the past may be a possibility one day.
It is difficult to determine who first put the literal repeat of history into story form, but it is a recurring science fiction device that is often used to great effect. Classic sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick used the time loop in his 1975 short story “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts.” The best and most well known example of this is the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where for for some unknown reason a weatherman’s day is repeated until something happens that is supposed to happen–he gets the day exactly right.
Unlike later uses of this device, in his short story Philip K. Dick did not express the element as a repeat of the actual narrative story, but an explanation of cause and effect. In his story, time traveling astronauts go on a mission, where destruction of the mission results in a time loop that may or may not result in the preservation of an eternal life for everyone. We don’t see the result, but hear from the tempunauts they have been there, done that, before. Over and over.
Usually use of a time loop on sci-fi/fantasy genre tales involves at least one person being able to realize the existence of the repetition. Bill Murray’s weatherman knows the day is repeating in Groundhog Day. Yet the other characters are not aware at all. In other uses, characters get to experience deja vu or even fatigue from living time over and over.
This week’s episode of the Syfy Channel’s Haven, the series based on a Stephen King story, is titled “Audrey Parker’s Day Off,” and is one of the best of the series so far. The main character Audrey Parker, played by Emily Rose, wakes up to repeat a day after she comes upon a death at a crime scene. She is in bed with friend Chris, played by Jason Priestley, to whom she must explain a different plan for each new day. In each new day she tries to figure out how to not cause any death, by changing the variables of each day. In the context of the mystic “troubles” the town of Haven is dealing with, Audrey as the only person person unaffected by the troubles. With Audrey the show uses this story device quite well. The parallels to Groundhog Day are unmistakable, but viewers can’t help but like it when it is adapted in a new way as was done here.
Jason Priestley may be strangely tied to time loops, as he also appeared in a television series entirely about time loops, called Tru Calling, one of borg.com’s favorite series. In Tru Calling, a graduate student and morgue worker named Tru played by Eliza Dushku is able to relive days in the hope of saving the life of someone who died on that day. Usually she has several opportunities to do this. Priestley’s character later in the series comes along as an agent of death to undo the seemingly good that Tru has been doing. His view is that Tru is interfering with the proper course of events, as if only one timeline is correct, and with him it is the first timeline.
Early Edition was another series focusing on the ability to “do over.” The loop also occurs in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Life Serial,” on the series Eureka in the episode “I Do Over,” the X-Files episode “Monday,” and the Xena, Warrier Princess episode “Been There, Done That.”
In theaters now is the fifth film in the Final Destination franchise. This series presents a variant on going back to change the past, without the ability to try again via repeats, although with the character of Clear played by Ali Larter in the first two movies, the repeat effort seems to be there all the same. In the world of the Final Destination films, an individual lives out a horrible accident, then snaps back in sort of a deja vu state, with only seconds to try to prevent the course of events from happening. However, like Priestley’s character in Tru Calling, an unseen power, like his agent of death, is set about to return the normal and proper timeline, even if it means the death of dozens.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut’s hero Billy Pilgrim similarly becomes what Vonnegut calls “unstuck in time”. He has no choice, he appears in various stages of his own life, but with the choice of changing events. This also happens in the episode of Angel called “Time Bomb.”
Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) experienced the same problem a few times in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode “Tapestry,” John de Lancie’s omnipotent character Q plunges Picard into the past to allow Picard to not only revisit his past, but to change it if he wishes. With no regrets, Picard changes nothing, even when that means a Nausicaan will again put a pool cue through his heart, resulting in Picard again needing an artificial heart for the rest of his life. But whereas revisiting the past in story form has been around for centuries–think Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol–a temporal loop requires repeated visits to the past. Luckily Scrooge gets it right after merely watching his past, and Q is just fine with Picard’s choices the second time around.
Actually the best Star Trek representation of the temporal loop is the Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect,” which might as well be an essay on how time loops work. The episode starts with a poker game between the bridge officers. The ship then experiences a temporal distortion and a ship comes out of nowhere to collide with the USS Enterprise, resulting in the destruction of both ships. Then we have a commercial break, and the show appears to repeat again. I know of at least one person who almost turned off the show, thinking there was something wrong with the network feed. Brilliantly, the audience must be confused. What did we miss? In this story, characters are impacted by the repetition, they feel tired, and they experience deja vu. Luckily Lt. Commander Data figures out how to leave a subtle clue for the next repeat, allowing him to save the ship before the end of the hour of the episode. His crew had been repeating the event for mere days, but the other ship caught in the anomaly, the USS Bozeman helmed by a captain played by Kelsey Grammer, has unknowingly re-lived the same day for decades, and the show ends with Picard informing the other captain of some pretty bad news about his lost time. Breaking a time loop is also the focus of the Charmed episode “The Good, The Bad, and The Cursed.”
Writers use time loops again and again because they are fun, and modern audiences understand them, mostly because of the success of Groundhog Day. In fact in this week’s episode of Haven, “Audrey Parker’s Day Off,” when Audrey explains all this to Interim Chief of Police Nathan Wournos, his response is “you’re stuck in my second favorite Bill Murray movie.” When on the following day Audrey has to explain the recurring events yet again, she cuts him off when he is about to repeat the line and finishes it for him.
, Vonnegut’s hero Billy Pilgrim similarly becomes what Vonnegut calls “unstuck in time”. He has no choice, he appears in various stages of his own life, but with the choice of changing events. This also happens in the episode of Angel called “Time Bomb.”
