This week, things start to get back to normal! Supergirl, Limitless, Teen Wolf, American Horror Story, Heroes Reborn, Reign, and Nova all return! The Shannara Chronicles, based on Terry Brooks’ fantasy novels, debuts! Plus a full week of Steven Universe, and a couple excellent insect movies! It’s all on This Week’s TV.

Tonight

Steven Universe (5:30 PM, CARTOON NETWORK)

It’s Steven’s Birthday Week (he’s 14)—meaning we’re getting new episodes each weekday at 5:30. Huzzah! Today: “The Answer: Garnet finally tells Steven the story of how she came to be a Crystal Gem. ”

Supergirl (8PM, CBS)

“With Astra in captivity at the DEO, her husband, Non (Chris Vance), captures Hank, leading to a tense standoff between the two sides. Also, Kara continues to refute Cat’s allegations that she is Supergirl.”

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Tuesday

Steven Universe (5:30 PM, Cartoon Network)

In today’s new episode, “Steven’s Birthday: Steven has a birthday party at the barn and decides he has some growing up to do.”

Teen Wolf (9PM, MTV)

Teen Wolf is back this week. And so is the The Beast of Gévaudan!

The Expanse (10PM, SYFY)

“Miller pays a tense visit to his partner Havelock, who managed to survive a spike through the chest.”

Josephus Miller very thoughtfully keeps his hair in a side bun for this scene, lest it dip into his partner’s sucking chest wound.

Limitless (10PM, CBS)

“When an assassin makes an attempt on Senator Edward Morra’s life, Brian is ordered to sabotage the FBI’s investigation into it in order to prevent exposing the Senator’s connection to NZT. As Brian and Morra’s fates become further intertwined, Brian is faced with how far he’s willing to go to protect the politician.”

Limitless also returns this week, and the premiere promises at least a few minutes with Bradley Cooper. Perhaps three.

Shannara Chronicles (10PM, MTV)

Series premiere! When a leaf falls from the Ellcrys tree, a demon is born! That’s a fun premise. Read our review of the first few episodes here.

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Wednesday

Steven Universe (5:30 PM, Cartoon Network)

Another new installment. This time: “It Could’ve Been Great: The Gems take a trip to the moon.”

Nova (9PM, PBS)

“Join archaeologists who reveal traces of WWI’s most devastating, ultra-secret tunneling operation.”

Season 43 of Nova kicks off this Wednesday.

American Horror Story (10PM, FX)

“Ramona draws vitality from an unlikely source. Sally uses her past to negotiate her future. Scarlett learns the truth of her family’s affliction.”

Cannibalism! Furnaces! AHS: Hotel is finally back.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (10PM, FXX)

It’s not a science/science fiction/fantasy/ show, generally (Frank counts, though. “I love eggs, Charlie! And I love crabs!”), but we do get a lot of reaction GIFs of Dayman/Nightman, so it’s going in! Season eleven premieres, with an episode about selling a board game.

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Thursday

Steven Universe (5:30 PM, Cartoon Network)

This time around: “Message Received: Steven has some doubts about believing in everyone.”

Heroes Reborn (8PM, NBC)

“Following Noah’s mysterious disappearance, Luke (Zachary Levi) and Malina (Danika Yarosh) unite to rescue Tommy (Robbie Kay) and save mankind. At the mysterious Sunstone Manor, Carlos (Ryan Guzman) and Farah (guest star Nazneen Contractor) fight alongside The Haitian (guest star Jimmy Jean Louis) to take down Matt Parkman (guest star Greg Grunberg) and free the prisoners under his control. Meanwhile, Tommy and Miko (Kiki Sukezane) join forces against Erica (Rya Khilstedt) and her brutal plan for the future. “

Angel from Hell (9:30, CBS)

Series premiere. It’s about a guardian angel who wears a lot of purple and green: aka the Supervillain Colors...

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margret (10PM, IFC)

Hour long premiere! No one expected it, but Todd Margret has somehow bounced back from the nuclear apocalypse and his exile to North Korea. I’ll watch the first episode to see *how* if you do!

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Friday

Steven Universe (5:30 PM, Cartoon Network)

Steven Universe week ends! Here’s what’s in store: “Log Date 7 15 2: Steven sneakily listens to a friend’s audio diary.”

Reign (8PM, CW)

“As Mary and Catherine deal with the aftermath of Prince Don Carlos’ (guest star Mark Ghanimé) accident, Mary realizes that she will have to marry for the good of her country and not follow her heart. When Catherine is accused of poisoning Francis, Lola is shocked when Mary thinks Narcisse framed Catherine in order to become Regent of France.”

Mysteries at the Castle (9PM, TRAVEL)

An episode on topless dueling! Third season premiere, of course.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/a-princess-onc...

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Saturday

Svengoolie Presents Werewolf of London (10PM, METV)

Mutant Insect Double Feature (2:15AM, TCM)

Phase IV and Them! Stay up late to see Saul Bass’s sole directorial feature.

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Sunday

Bob’s Burgers (7:30PM, FOX)

Also returning! A frequent victim of sporadic scheduling, so I thought I’d include it.

Galavant (8PM, ABC)

Two more back-to-back episodes!

The Simpsons (8PM, FOX)

“Homer decides to buy a new brand of “milk,” which causes early puberty, both for Bart (augmenting his wooing powers) and Lisa (whose small bout with acne opens her up to the world of makeup and popularity).”

Not to be confused with Futurama’s season four episode Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles, here we have The Simpsons’ season twenty-seven episode, Teenage Mutant Milk-Caused Hurdles. The show’s second episode in a row with a science-fiction bent!

Contact the author at fisharebeautiful@gmail.com.

We’ve featured Brandon Bird’s fantastic pop art on io9 before, mainly because it is uniformly awesome. But his newest piece, in which a certain post-apocalyptic rocker has been ousted by the maddest man of all, Kenny G, may be our favorite yet. Check out more of Bird’s mind-blowingly great pieces on his website.

Contact the author at rob@io9.com.

Avatar is about to be dethroned. At some point, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will probably unseat James Cameron’s extraterrestrial epic as the movie with the highest (unadjusted) box office of all time. So this is a good time to remind you that Avatar is actually quite a decent movie.

It’s kind of bizarre that anybody even needs to be reminded that Avatar is a good movie. It’s still one of the most successful movies ever, and it’s had a huge influence on film-making in the past five years. It had largely positive reviews, including a lot of raves. People all over the world were dressing up as the Na’vi, those blue catlike aliens, and this film’s story of resistance against corporate oppressors became a massive symbol.

But it feels as though there’s been something of an Avatar backlash in the last five years. Certainly, among the readers of io9 and science fiction fans generally, this film’s reputation has sunk. Even as so many people were insisting in early 2010 that this was the greatest movie ever and a revolution in film-making, there’s now a corresponding overreaction in the other direction.

My guess is that when we start seeing trailers and cool art for the three sequels that Cameron is currently working on, a lot of people will remember that they liked Avatar all along. But for now, there’s a bit of an Avatar hate-fest on the internet, and among regular movie-goers, it seems to have dropped off the radar.

And there are definitely a few problems with Avatar. We were probably the first to point out that it’s very much a “white savior” fantasy. And it’s certainly no secret that Avatar (much like the original Star Wars) steals liberally from lots of other sources. (James Cameron admitted his movie was Dances With Wolves in space before it even came out.) As my original review points out, the film gets less convincing the more we explore the native culture.

But none of those things are enough to stop Avatar from being a decent action movie, and a cracking good story of encountering an alien culture.

http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Three-D...

I’ve seen Avatar a few times, on the big screen and on DVD, and what really stands out about it is how well-constructed it is as a film. For all the lack of originality in the film’s story about Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) infiltrating the indigenous Na’vi tribe only to change sides, Cameron handles every step of this journey perfectly, giving Jake a clear character arc and making sure we sympathize with his transformation.

And the major action beats of the story, from arriving at another planet to learning to live inside another body to traveling into the jungle, are all thrilling as well. This is a movie that’s jam-packed with military hardware, alien dragons, cool fight scenes, and monsters. And it all culminates in a pretty insane all-out battle between dragons and futuristic airplanes, with Jake Sully flying on the huge red mega-dragon that he somehow tamed all on his own.

I basically can’t find it in my heart to dislike a movie that has lots of dragons wrecking shit. I’m sorry. I feel like Avatar gets a huge stack of points just for giving us the dragon-on-aircraft smackdowns that we wanted from D-War and Reign of Fire.

Plus as cheesy and unconvincing as some of the stuff with the Na’vi is, Cameron’s obsessive world-building really pays off in Avatar. He’s so clearly thought through every minor detail of everything from the exact workings of all the human hardware to every speck and sprout of the alien ecosystem, and this leads to a universe that feels like a rich backdrop.

Edited to add: And little details of Jake’s journey, like the way his pristine vat-grown alien body has to get calluses on the soles of his feet so that he can run and climb the way a Na’vi warrior should, are painstakingly detailed.

And one of the great joys of rewatching Avatar is seeing Sigourney Weaver as a heroic scientist whose explanations of the world are suffused with a curiosity and wonder that feel genuine.

(And yes, the strong world-building is more than enough to make you overlook the film’s jokey name for its McGuffin, the substance known as Unobtanium.)

Also, as heavy-handed as this film is in its discussion of environmental issues, it deserves some credit for using its huge platform to make people think about unsustainable systems. Just the fact that James Cameron was able to get people to invest emotionally in a movie that’s basically about destroying the rainforest is kind of a win—and the central metaphor, in which the planet’s living creatures are connected via some kind of hidden network, is a neat way of thinking about the interconnectedness of every living thing on our own world.

In a lot of ways, Avatar represents the highest achievement of a style of film-making that has mostly failed since it came out. It’s the film that reintroduced audiences to 3D glasses, and remains one of a tiny handful of movies to use 3D effectively in the past several years. It’s jam-packed with greenscreen and motion-capture, and manages not to feel as disposable and fluffy as most greenscreen epics. In some ways, I think the slow downgrade of Avatar’s reputation is in large part due to people rewatching it on DVD, where it doesn’t have nearly as much power as it did on the big screen in 3D. When you actually see it in its original format, Avatar packs an incredible visual whallop, and it’s so colorful and intense that it still looks unique, after all this time.

And like I wrote in my original review, the film is built around a fascinating paradox: Jake Sully can’t connect to nature until he becomes a totally artificial life form. The film itself is a parable about rejecting technology, made with technology so advanced, Cameron had to help invent it. That’s a pretty fascinating set of contradictions, and at its most interesting moments, the film tries to wrestle with them. It’s a message movie that has a certain amount of ambiguity baked into it, which actually makes it a lot more interesting to rewatch.

I’m never going to claim that Avatar is a masterpiece, or that it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. But it is a really good movie, that sells a character arc really well and wraps it in some crazy-fun action. WITH DRAGONS.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, coming in January from Tor Books. Follow her on Twitter, and email her.

January is generally a pretty quiet time for movie releases, but one that’s definitely got our attention is The Forest, the supernatural thriller starring Natalie Dormer and produced by David Goyer. Four new clips just came online that are legitimately creepy.

The highlight has to be the one called “Maggots” (above), for obvious reasons. But the three other clips all have very off-putting content too, teasing a movie that can hopefully join the usually empty void of new and exciting genre films.

The Forest stars Dormer (Game of Thrones) as a young woman who travels to a real life place called “the Suicide Forest” to find her sister, who has gone missing. From there, shit goes down. Jason Zada directs and it opens January 8.

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

In Marvel’s comics, when he’s not flinging spells, Stephen Strange hangs out at 177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, New York—his magical “Sanctum Sanctorum,” the nexus of Strange’s supernatural practices. It’s no surprise that it’s going to appear in the Doctor Strange movie though, and it’s looking good.

The above concept art comes from Marvel.com, which revealed the image earlier today, as well as higher-resolution versions of the concept art revealed by Entertainment Weekly in its Doctor Strange cover story last week. While it’s not specifically confirmed as the Sanctum Sanctorum, the the designs of the windows and the massive circular centre window (complete with the symbol of the Vishanti—the mystical beings who grant magical power to Stephen) are all very similar to how the townhouse is often portrayed in the comics.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/behold-the-fir...

Aside from being the place where he meditates and entertains guests, Strange’s Sanctum itself is a hotbed of supernatural energies—and even has some TARDIS-esque “bigger on the inside” qualities. Hopefully we’ll get to see all that, and more, when Doctor Strange hits theaters November 4.

[Marvel.com]

The problems of female characters being under-represented in geek merchandise is real. But when it’s a secondary character like Gamora or Black Widow, at least toy companies have an excuse. When the girl is not just the star of the movie, but of the whole franchise, that’s another story.

That character, of course, is Rey, the main character of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the latest problem has to do with Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens Monopoly. In the game, the four playable characters are Luke Skywalker, Finn, Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. No Rey.

Obviously, she should be in there instead of Finn. Not just because she’s a more important character, or a girl, but for reasons in the context of the movie as well. There are parallels with the other four characters, implicit or otherwise. I have no problem with Luke and Vader being in there if you want to pay tribute to the original trilogy but Finn over Rey seems crazy.

Of course this isn’t the first time Rey has been missing from a set she obviously should be in. She wasn’t in a set of Target figures that seemed to represent the film’s main characters.

And plenty of people have been complaining that Rey toys haven’t been available on shelves. However, whether that’s because they were produced in smaller quantities or just in higher demand is up for debate. (Rey’s Black Series on Amazon has long been sold out, while Finn, Kylo Ren and others are readily available.)

It’s 2016. There’s no reason for a character like Rey, the star of Star Wars, not to be part of every single piece of merchandise possible. Everyone—not just girls—wants toys featuring this amazing character.

This 8-year-old girl says it better than most.

[via Gizmodo Australia]

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

It sucks that Will Smith won’t be in the Independence Day sequel—but wait ‘til you hear the random explanation for his character being gone. Alas, this is standard practice. When stars decide not to come back, movies come up with rationales for writing them out, that go beyond “dog ate my homework.”

Spoilers ahead...

In the case of Will Smith’s character, Captain Steven Hiller, apparently we’re going to learn that he died testing an experimental alien aircraft following the events of Independence Day. Which is kind of a sad way to go. “So what does this button do? Aaaaaaaaaaa.”

Here are some other major characters who were written out of movie sequels in the most hand-wavy fashion possible.

1) Agent L in MIB 2:

The first Men in Black ends with Will Smith getting a brand new partner: Agent L, aka the awesome coroner who has proved she can hold her own against him throughout the first movie. But for the second film, they decided to go back to the original pairing of Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. So she’s summarily removed.

How do they explain this? We’re told that Agent L decided to return to her work as a medical examiner between movies.

From the Men In Black Wiki:

“Now, she is probably once again the same sexy and cynical morgue examiner that she once was with no idea about the existence of aliens, although she probably still gets neuralyzed on a regular basis, as she probably continues dealing with alien corpses.”

2) Henry Jones, Sr. and Marcus Brody in Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It’s revealed in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that Henry Jones, Sr, died in 1951 of unspecified causes. Ditto Marcus Brody, who died of a heart attack the following year.In memorial, Indiana Jones pushed for a bronze memorial statue to commemorate his late friend.

Jones’ illegitimate son, Mutt Williams, would later decapitate the statue.

3) Amy in Fright Night 2:

Amy is MIA in Fright Night 2, seemingly replaced by Charley’s new girlfriend, Alex. A cut exchange from the original script clears this up:

CHARLEY

We kind of broke up, and she started dating a lot of older men. They all vaguely resembled Jerry Dandridge.

PETER

Oh my. Yes...

CHARLEY

One of them owned a bank. She married him and moved to Houston.

PETER

Well, I had to ask.

4) Agent Meyers in Hellboy 2:

Written to be a surrogate for audiences to ease them into the weird world of Hellboy, Agent Meyers was dropped for the sequel. According to Liz, the BPRD had him “transferred to Antarctica”—compliments of Hellboy.

5) Vanessa in Austin Powers 2:

Feeling there should be a new female lead in each sequel to fully parody the James Bond franchise, Mike Myers decided that Vanessa was a Fembot under the control of Dr. Evil. She explodes during their honeymoon at the beginning of the film, in a failed attempt to kill Austin.

Since being an android directly contradicts events and characters portrayed in the first film—including the existence of Vanessa’s mother, Mrs. Kensington—this suggests Vanessa was captured and killed off-screen in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Which is pretty “off brand” for these movies, to say the least.

6) Jack Forrest in Maniac Cop 2:

Not wanting to pay the same actor for two films (at least, this is the reason director William Lustig gave at a Maniac Cop 2 screening that I attended at the Sunshine a few years ago), Bruce Campbell’s character is killed early on, allowing Robert Davi to take the reigns as our new leading man.

7) Newt, Hicks and Bishop in Alien 3:

Ripley’s entire ragtag family died on impact when the Sulaco crash-landed onto a prison planet—or more accurately, they were impaled (Hicks), drowned (Newt) and deactivated (Bishop). They are eulogized thusly:

“Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren’t any promises. Nothing’s certain. Only that some get called, some get saved.”

8) Duke in GI Joe: Retaliation

Duke is killed in an airstrike early in the film, after Zartan has framed the G.I. Joe unit for stealing Pakistani warheads. Since the character was originally intended to die in the 1980s animated film G.I. Joe: The Movie, this may have been a callback or a correction, whatever your feelings about Duke may be.

9) Adam Yates in Hot Tub Time Machine 2

The character was said to have wrote a best-selling book and was currently on a trip of self-discovery, and thus couldn’t even be bothered to help prevent his best friend from being murdered in the past, or whatever. However, John Cusack did actually make an appearance in a deleted scene, which features a head explosion and neon green vomit.

10) Sam Witwicky in Transformers 4:

Absolutely no mention is made of Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Age of Extinction.

11) Valentine McKee in Tremors 2: Aftershocks

It’s explained that Val moved away from Perfection, Nevada to marry Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), leaving Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) to invest in a fledgling ostrich farm all on his lonesome. Luckily, they’re both coming back for the next one!

12) Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

While Orlando Bloom’s character, Will Turner, became a buoy-ghost (or something…) following the events of At World’s End, Elizabeth is still free to roam the mortal plane as long as she remains faithful to Will (or something…). In any case, she’s off doing her own thing.

13) George McFly in Back to the Future II:

George was shot and killed by Biff in an alternate timeline’s 1973 while on his way to receive an award for his writing. We do actually glimpse George in the sequel, but he’s played by a new actor.

14) Nightcrawler in X3

Nightcrawler was written out of film continuity in X-Men: The Official Game, explaining his absence in the third movie. Apparently he quit the team, thinking the X-Men are too violent.

15) The Freeling Family in Poltergeist 3

In the third Poltergeist, Carol Ann is packed off to live with her aunt, Pat (Nancy Allen) and her husband, Tom Skerritt. Lara Flynn Boyle rounds out the significantly less expensive supporting cast.

16) Superman in Supergirl (1984)

Superman completely missed out on Kara’s arrival to Earth, since—as we learn from a radio news report—he was offworld on an “intergalactic peacekeeping mission”. This trend seems to carry over into the current Supergirl series, where Superman is often mentioned, but never available when Hellgramite or Livewire is causing a scene.

17) Jane Foster (& War Machine) in The Avengers

Phil Coulson lets us know Jane had been transferred to a super max observatory in light of Loki kidnapping her colleague Erik Selvig:

“As soon as Loki took the doctor, we moved Jane Foster. We’ve got an excellent observatory in Tromsø. She was asked to consult there very suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She’ll be safe.”

No explanation is given for the absence of War Machine, but a tie-in comic to the movie tells us he was “fighting terrorists in China”. Maybe that’s the secret origin of his “tank drop” story?

18) Jane Foster (again) & Pepper Potts in The Avengers: Age of Ultron

This time around, Jane is overseas, having been nominated for the Nobel Prize following the events of Thor: The Dark World.

Pepper is busy running Stark Industries, and apparently is unaffected by Ultron occupying the internet.

19) Martin Brody in Jaws: The Revenge

Sadly, Martin Brody died between films of a heart attack—caused by a perpetual fear of shark incursion.

Michael Brody: Dad died of a heart attack!

Ellen Brody: No. He died from fear. The fear of it killed him.

20) Tank in The Matrix: Reloaded

Another instance of dying between films—whether he succumbed to his injuries sustained from Joe Pantaliano’s lighting gun, or another reason, is ambiguous.

21) Sarah Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Sarah Connor died of leukemia in 1997. Except in all the timelines where she didn’t.

22) Dan Smithson in Species 2: Subspecies

We learn that the empathic Dan Smithson was so disturbed by the events of the first Species, he just didn’t have it in him to track a second alien. Fair enough?

23) Vicki Vale in Batman Returns

Bruce mentions to Selina that Vicki Vale broke up with him essentially for being Batman. The original shooting script makes this explicitly clear:

SELINA

Girlfriend?

BRUCE

Had one. Didn’t work.

SELINA

What went wrong? Hang on, I think I know. You kept things from her.

BRUCE

Nope, I told her everything.

SELINA

And the truth frightened her?

BRUCE

(careful, pained)

Well ... How can I put this. There were two truths ... and she had trouble reconciling them. Because I had trouble reconciling them. Vicki said.

SELINA

(giggles)

“Vicki.” Ice-skater, or stewardess?

BRUCE

Photojournalist.

SELINA

Sure.

24) Xander Cage in xXx: State of the Union

We’re told Xander died while on vacation in Bora Bora, immediately following the events of the first film—which ends with him vacationing on the island with Yelena (Asia Argento).

However, a short film called The Final Chapter: The Death of Xander Cage—a special feature on the State of the Union DVD—depicts the true death of Xander.

In the short, Cage—filmed entirely from behind (and portrayed by stuntman Kristian Lupo)—was set up by the film’s villain to walk into a building rigged with explosives. No word on how they’ll explain his return in the upcoming sequel.

25) Carla Purty in The Klumps

We’re told Carla transferred to a new university, making way for Janet Jackson to become the new love interest to nutty professor, Sherman Klump.

26) Marie in the Bourne Supremacy

Marie is shot in the head in very early on in the second Bourne film, essentially freeing up Jason Bourne from a happy domestic life in India. Marie is basically the Tracy Bond of the Bourne franchise. Speaking of…

27) Irma Bunt in Diamonds Are Forever

Tracy Bond’s co-murderer, Irma seemingly managed to escape retribution from 007. The character was intended to return in Diamonds are Forever, but actress Ilse Steppat died of a heart attack between films.

If you really want Ms. Bunt get her comeuppance, though, track down the January 1997 issue of Playboy (Marilyn Monroe cover). In a story by Raymond Benson called Blast From the Past, Irma meets her fate after trying to kill Bond with deadly blowfish venom.

28) Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat: Annhilation

He’s killed in the first ten minutes by Shao Khan—Johnny has his neck snapped during a doomed rescue mission to save Sonya Blade. FATALITY!

29) Mace, Catrine and Jeremitt Towani in Ewoks: The Battle For Endor

Nearly the entire Towani clan is massacred at the beginning of the movie by invading marauders from the planet Sanyassa. George Lucas’s decision to make Cindel an orphan in the sequel was influenced by a recent viewing of the 1937 film, Heidi.

Contact the author at fisharebeautiful@gmail.com.

So how do you make the coolest Star Wars toy ever even cooler? Having finally given everyone an interactive droid they can call their own, later this year Sphero will also be giving Star Wars fans the ability to control BB-8 using the Force—or at least motion-tracked gestures that will make you feel like a Jedi.

Earlier today at CES, Sphero demonstrated the prototype hardware of its upcoming motion-tracking wearable that’s designed to pair with and control the company’s insanely popular rolling BB-8 toy. The production version of the wearable will look completely different when it ships later in the year, the company assures us, but functionality will be very similar to what was demonstrated for Gizmodo today in Las Vegas.

Instead of sliding your finger across a set of virtual controls on the touchscreen of a smartphone or a tablet, Sphero’s new wearable is packed full of ultra-sensitive gyroscopic motion sensors that track the subtlest of Jedi movements, and then translates them into commands for BB-8.

In addition to sending the tiny droid rolling away and then calling it back using push and pull motions, the wearable can also be used to precisely steer it around obstacles (how often has your BB-8 gotten stuck somewhere?) and trigger pre-programmed moves.

Depending on how you hold your arm and what motions you’re making, there are various control modes, indicated via a color-changing LED on the prototype hardware, letting you even control BB-8’s head movements so the droid can respond to other people interacting with it.

It’s far too early for Sphero to divulge pricing info for the new accessory, but in a roundabout way it will actually make the BB-8 toy slightly more affordable because you no longer need an expensive smartphone or tablet to play with it. The wearable interacts with the rolling droid all by itself, without the need for the Sphero app running on expensive hardware.

When finally available the wearable will be sold as a bundle with Sphero’s BB-8, or on its own for every one who already has one of the RC toys, but is tired of being completely dependent on the touchscreen app for interacting with it.

And if you’ve seen the movie and find you prefer the worn-out look on BB-8 instead of the original shiny version, Sphero will also be selling a new ‘battle damage’ edition of the droid that has clearly survived an adventure or two.

[Sphero]

Gizmodo’s on the ground in Las Vegas! Follow all of our 2016 CES coverage here.

When we caught our first glimpse of Supergirl last spring, Calista Flockhart’s Devil Wears Prada-influenced take on Kara’s boss, Cat Grant, seemed like the biggest potential liability. But nine episodes in, she’s clearly the best part of the show.

In fact, we’re fully Cat-Kara shippers at this point. All attempts to get us to care about Kara’s “love triangle” with James Olsen and Winn Schott are pointless, but this episode’s threat that Cat might dump Kara (because Cat has figured out that Kara is Supergirl and thinks she should be spending her time saving people instead of fetching coffee) carries real emotional weight. Just see the clip above, where Kara explains how important it is to be able to talk to her girlfriend boss.

The actual plot of last night’s episode, “Blood Bonds,” was mostly wheel-spinning. Aunt Astra (who got captured on purpose) got un-captured. But Kara found out that Hank is the Martian Manhunter, Astra had more scenes of talking to her identical twin sister about Krypton’s jeopardy, and we learned that Max Lord is working on a superweapon against Kryptonians.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, coming in January from Tor Books. Follow her on Twitter, and email her.

The instant DreamWorks Animation acquired Classic Media’s stable of animated properties in 2013, it started talking about a Voltron reboot. Given the decade(!) of talk about a live-action Voltron movie, most people generally assumed DreamWorks would also be making a film. Apparently not!

A new deal between DWA and Netflix confirms that the timeless story of five color-coded lion robots and the giant, sword-winging form they join to form will now be an animated series, not a mere movie, theoretically debuting on the streaming service at some point ater this year. It will be joined by its fellow cartoon Trollhunters, which is of course one of director Guillermo del Toro’s 18-bazillion projects he currently has in-progress.

Theoretically, the live-action Voltron movie from Relativity Media could still be happening, but someho I doubt those guys want to run afoul of DreamWorks. However, since no one’s brought up the live-ation movie since about 2011, it’s probably a moot point anyways.

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

Contact the author at rob@io9.com.

When is the ideal time to start your child on the path to a comfortable and mostly satisfying career as a developer? High school? Grade School? Fisher-Price thinks preschoolers should be introduced to the problem solving skills they might one day need to be a great coder.

To help parents accept that developing apps for a smartphone might soon replace Sesame Street as their child’s favorite pastime, Fisher-Price has gone and named its new coding toy the Think & Learn Code-a-Pillar. Aw, we can’t stay mildly disgusted at the idea of you!

More info on the toy will be made available come Toy Fair in February, but what we know now is that the various segments of the Code-a-Pillar’s body double as action and directional commands. So how a child arranges them in sequence changes how the Code-a-Pillar will roll around a room.

It’s programming at its most rudimentary, but Fisher-Price claims the toy builds the basic skills needed to understand more complex programming languages later in life. The Think & Learn Code-a-Pillar also connects to a free companion app, which proposes additional programming challenges for kids to solve as they get older.

[Fisher-Price]

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Wives and girlfriends of superheroes aren’t as hard-done-by as parents of superheros, but they’re a close second. Not only do they inevitably have a rough time, but everybody (including fans) hate them—which is no surprise. Each superhero girlfriend has a large number of factors working against her.

7. She’s Cast Before a Chemistry Check

This is primarily a problem in the TV shows and films. Two attractive leads are supposed to express the burning desire and unspoken compatibility between the characters when the show itself hasn’t yet established their dynamic. All anyone knows is that they have to be together, and so two people are pushed into scene after scene of emotional intimacy involving terrible revelations, meaningful looks, and declarations of each other’s greatness without even establishing a baseline for their relationship. This is why, for example, Oliver Queen in Arrow had such bad chemistry with Laurel Lance that he was more romantically compatible with every other female character on the show, including his mother.

In comics, girlfriends have things a little easier—but only because comic book characters have about seventy-five years of story behind them and the girlfriends who didn’t work always left with the next story arc. On the flip side, when a superhero girlfriend dynamic goes wrong in comics, it sticks until the end of time. See Carol Ferris, who has nothing in common with Hal Jordan except heterosexuality, and Betty Ross, who has spent the last fifty-four years miserably breaking up with the Hulk.

6. She’s the Last to Know Absolutely Everything

Superheroes include elements from adventure stories, detective stories, and science fiction—but when it comes to the relationships they’ve always been melodramas. Melodramas can’t miss any opportunity for a big revelation, which is why the girl never knows that her love interest is a hero at the start of the series. He will hide his activities from her, and keep lying to her in order to cover any slips or discrepancies.

Meanwhile, the beginning of a series will always involve a hero building a team. To do this he will find people with special abilities or commitments, take them into his confidence, and work with them towards common goals while building a rapport.

You’ll notice that the latter pattern of behavior is a great way to show people falling in love while the former is a terrible one. So while the rest of the characters are refining their relationships, honing their skills, and coming to understand each other as people, the girlfriend or potential girlfriend is wandering around in a state of perpetual ignorance, having no chance to attach herself to any other character.

5. The Hero Loves Her, and She Hates the Hero

Much of the stuff that superheroes have to do—rushing off without explanation, showing up late for a casual meeting, distancing themselves from a person close to them, and suddenly changing personality due to a poison, spell, or encounter with red kryptonite—will make them seem like real jerks if they can’t offer an explanation. This is bad enough.

What’s worse is the fact that the hero wants to avoid these behaviors every bit as much as the girl wants him to avoid them. He wants to offer an explanation just as much as she wants to hear it. Roughly one third of the time, he only falls into these situations because he’s rescuing the very girl who inevitably gets mad at him. Intellectually, we viewers know that she’s responding reasonably. But viscerally, this conceit is like trying to get a child to like vegetables by shocking them with a cattle prod every time they pick up a carrot. However great a girlfriend might be in reality, viewers learn to associate her only with pain.

4. The Course of True Love Never Can Run Smooth

Let’s say a girlfriend finally works her way through the misunderstandings and the bad timing and the fact that he had to arrest her father, the ice wizard, and she was once nearly seduced by his evil secret twin. Etc. etc. What’s next for the happy couple? Nine out of ten times, it’s more problems with the ice wizard and the evil secret twin.

This, again, comes back to the fact that superhero stories are melodramas, and melodramas eat stable relationships slowly and from the inside like a parasitic wasp. It takes infinite skill to make a superhero’s relationship any more than just an infinite cycle of cry-n-fight, fight-n-cry. It’s a shame, because we know long-term partnerships can work—we see them when it comes to the friends and allies of the superheroes. Two superhero friends can go through eight seasons and only get more comfortable and familiar with each other, but when you’re a girlfriend, every bump in the road is disaster.

3. In the End, She’s Always the One With a Knife to Her Throat

Us regular folks have people who we love. What we don’t have is the kind of creepy-intense love on display all the time in superhero stories. Superheroes gaze up at a window for hours while their loved one works on a laptop, or lurk in the shadows above a doorway, grimly overhearing conversations, or lose control and beat anyone who so much as looks funny at her to a pulp. This is fine, actually. No one watches television to see people handle their problems in a low-key, healthy way. Fiction is the place for over-intense relationships.

The problem is, when the hero is so focused on only one person, there’s only one person who can be threatened in the final, climactic confrontation. Everyone gets an occasional near-death experience during a superhero’s run, but it’s always the girlfriend who requires the most sacrifice.

2. She’s Surprisingly Disposable

One would think that all that adoration and those high stakes would make the girlfriend a permanent fixture in a series. As it turns out, no. In some ways, this is a good thing. Every fictional series has to have some way to jettison an aspect of the story that simply will not work. From Mary Jane Watson (only in the books, don’t worry) to Gwen Stacy, the girlfriend eventually gets eliminated.

That’s because the girlfriend isn’t the point—the adoration itself is the point. Something has to get the hero ready to fight and something has to drive his public life, and it might as well be the woman he loves. If she dies or moves away, it’s sad—but there can always be another woman he loves. Give him a year or two, and he’ll be saying, “I never thought I could feel this way again” to yet another totally disposable true love.

1. Her Behavior is Completely Constricted

This list of supporting characters for nearly every superhero includes the following people: the tough one, the funny one, the tech wizard, the prissy one, the wild one, and the love interest. Of the lot, you’ll notice that the love interest is the only one with no character traits whatsoever. That could be freeing. The love interest could be anybody—a crazily ambitious business woman, a weirdo artist, a slacker who uses her free time wander around the neighborhood at night superhero-spotting for her own amusement, an uptight gossip, a flamboyant opera singer, a slightly depressive stay-at-home-mom.

Instead, she’s everybody and nobody. This is the defect that female love interests most often share with male love interests—although male love interests at least sometimes fall into the “brooding man-of-mystery” category. A female love interest has sort of a goodish job and is sort of a goodish person. She may complain about money, but her apartment is decent and she dresses well, though never flamboyantly. She’s fairly smart, pretty organized, and, in order to get her into all kinds of trouble involving the villain of the day, she’s “plucky.” She’s grindingly fine, relentlessly okay. She’s the word “meh” in human form. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that’s why audiences dislike her. We sense, no matter what we’re told over and over again in the story, that she has too weak a character for anyone to ever actually love her.

It’s winter. If you drive a car that’s parked outside, you know what that means. It’s frigid as hell inside your car and the windshield is totally opaque from all the foggy ass frost. Not cool. How do you get rid of it? Hit the defrost button right? That’s not all. The always inquisitive Mark Rober tested out every combination on how to defrost your windshield and came up with a way that is twice as fast as other methods. That means you’ll get a clear windshield in half the time.

Watch the video below to see Rober explain what he is trying to achieve and how he conducts his experiments (it’s really fascinating) and the results are truly impressive but the nut of it is rather simple:

1. Turn heater on at full blast
2. Turn AC on
3. Turn off the inside air circulation
4. Crack open the windows

Turning on the windshield defroster is obvious, right? But definitely check out the video because Rober has some tips that would speed up the defogging process even more.

SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Steven Universe made its highly anticipated return last night with an episode dedicated to one of the shows most intriguing characters: Garnet. It was an episode that teased big reveals about the character fans have waited ages to hear, but it was also an episode where the biggest questions had the simplest answers.

Spoilers ahead, of course!

“The Answer” might be a small pit stop in Steven Universe’s ongoing story about the Crystal Gems working with Peridot to defeat a giant monster threatening to destroy the Earth, but in terms of the show’s highly secretive worldbuilding, it was a standout. Elements that fans have speculated about almost since the show began—life on Earth when the Homeworld Gems first discovered it, Rose and Pearl’s rebellion as the Crystal Gems, even the Gem society’s class structures—all got their dues in a whirlwind few minutes, as the episode quickly revealed its real meat: the story of how Ruby and Sapphire first met, and formed into Garnet.

Given the structure the reveal is given—Garnet telling Steven a story for his Birthday—and some simply gorgeous background art taking some major inspiration from the silhouetted animation work of German artist Lotte Reiniger, the whole thing takes on a very fairytale-esque vibe. You’re not given the full picture of Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship together, you’re given a montage of the two, set to an awkward love song that eventually flourishes into a hummed refrain from Steven Universe’s most famous musical hit “Stronger Than You.”

It might not be the entirely specific breakdown that fans might have desired when it came to Garnet’s origins, but it was lovely—and as Garnet says at the very end, when love is the answer, sometimes it’s all you really need.

Cinephile hotspot Videoport was located in Portland, Maine. But the tale shared in P3’s Videoport: A Short Doc will ring familiar to anyone who has fond memories of prowling the aisles of his or her favorite quirky indie video store, looking for a hidden gem or old favorite to pop into the VCR or DVD player.

When Videoport recently closed after nearly 30 years, Portland lost not just a place to physically rent movies, but a hub of offbeat culture that had become its own community over the years. Fortunately, there’s an unexpectedly happy ending (which isn’t just an isolated case!) The takeaway is that while viewing habits and technology may change, the love of cinema is something that will always endure.

A German research team recently discovered what they thought were five distinct species of nematode worms on account of significant facial differences. But it turns out they’re a single species of worm—a fascinating creature that changes the shape of its mouth depending on what food is available.

The newly described nematode worm, a roundworm dubbed Pristionchus borbonicus, was discovered on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean by a German research team led by Ralf Sommer and Matthias Herrmann from the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology. These worms, which live inside fig plants, have an assortment of food choices, from yeast and bacteria through to other roundworms. And it appears they’ve evolved the ability to alter their facial characteristics to take advantage of the resources available.

After looking at the worms through a microscope, the researchers observed five distinct mouth forms, hence the assumption that they had stumbled upon a sizeable trove of new nematode types. It was only after the researchers sequenced the worm genome that they were able to confirm that they were in fact dealing with a single—but highly adaptable—nematode.

The Max Planck researchers say this is a rather extreme example of evolutionary divergence. This happens when a single species is able to change its shape and form depending on the environmental context. In this case, the worms can develop a short and wide mouth, with a single characteristic tooth, for carrying out predatory attacks. Or it can develop a narrow mouth suitable for grazing on bacterial food sources.

“The different mouth forms of Pristionchus borbonicus, that we have found now, are specialized for the preferred intake of bacteria, yeasts or other roundworms,” noted Sommer in a release. “So, obviously they occupy different ecological niches within the fig. With this team of specialists the species can exploit a large food spectrum and efficiently buffer fluctuations in the availability of a certain resource by changing the proportion of mouth forms.”

The worms likely play a role in the rather complex co-evolved ecosystem occupied by fig fruits, fig wasps, and a significant number of bacteria, yeasts, and other microbes. Nematodes hitch a ride on tiny pollinating fig wasps to reach new flowers. The researchers aren’t entirely sure how Pristionchus borbonicus is contributing to this dynamic, so they’re going to turn their attention to this, along with an attempt to find new figs and worms on Réunion Island.

[ Max Planck Institute ]

Email the author at george@gizmodo.com and follow him at @dvorsky. Top image by MPI f. Developmental Biology

Mace Windu, a.k.a. Samuel L. Jackson, appeared on ABC to talk about his new movie The Hateful Eight and drop some serious shade on the The Force Awakens.

He’s being crazy diplomatic there, but it really doesn’t sound like he liked the movie at all. And the lightsaber training comments? Way harsh, Mace. Sorry these guys didn’t train at the Jedi Academy like you, but it turns out it was destroyed by a couple of Sith Lords that every single Jedi in the galaxy completely failed to notice.

[ABC News]

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

Lumosity, which created a brain game powerhouse by telling people it could make them smarter, is paying for its lies. Lumos Labs will pay the Federal Trade Commission $2 million for deceptive trade practices.

“Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich said in a statement. “But Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”

http://gizmodo.com/lumosity-brain...

People who signed up for Lumosity’s auto-renewal program between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014 will get notified about the FTC action and given an easy way to cancel.

Art by Jim Cooke

Is there anyway the movies of 2016 could live up to 2015? 2015 had Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Terminator and The Avengers. 2016 has Batman, Superman, Deadpool and even more Star Wars. But that’s just the beginning of what’s a super exciting year at the movies.

Below, here are 75 sci-fi and fantasy films coming out this year that you should look out for. Please remember that dates are subject to change, and there will be lots more released that don’t yet have release dates.

JANUARY

The Forest (Jan 8)

Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) plays a woman who travels to Japan to find out what happened to her twin sister—and finds herself in the famous Aokigahara Forest, where people go to commit suicide. Soon she’s lost in the woods and tormented by ghosts. This film was co-written by acclaimed novelists Nick Antosca and Sarah Cornwell, so fingers crossed.

The 5th Wave (Jan. 22)

We enjoyed Rick Yancey’s young-adult novel about a young girl growing up in a world that’s been devastated by an alien invasion. And now it’s becoming a movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz. But meanwhile, the aliens are preparing their fifth and most devastating attack. Watch the trailer here.

The Boy (Jan. 22)

Just when you were starting to get over your paralyzing fear of dolls... In this film, Greta (Lauren Cohan) gets hired to become a nanny in a small British village. But when she gets there, it turns out that instead of a real boy, she’s taking care of a porcelain doll that the parents got to help them get over the death of their son. Except... maybe the doll isn’t quite so inanimate.

Synchronicity (Jan. 22)

There are a handful of low-budget indie time travel movies coming up, and we like this trend. In this one, a physicist invents a device that is able to create small wormholes and bend spacetime. But then shit starts getting weird, including a random dahlia appearing out of nowhere. And a woman who may not be who she appears. You can watch the trailer! Writer-director Jacob Gentry helped make the underrated 2007 indie film The Signal (read our interview with him here.)

Kung Fu Panda 3 (Jan. 29)

The first new Kung Fu Panda film in five years—and yet, there’s still no crossover with Jack Black’s Nacho Grande franchise. This time around, Po gets reunited with his biological father (Bryan Cranston) and has to train a whole village full of clumsy pandas, to fight an evil spirit.

FEBRUARY

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Feb. 5)

Back in 2009, writer Seth Grahame-Smith had the idea to mash up Jane Austen’s classic novel with a zombie story, creating a literary fad that is now all but forgotten. And now, they’ve made a movie of it. Why should you care? Well, the cast includes Lily James (Downton Abbey) and Matt Smith (Doctor Who) plus two Lannisters: Charles Dance and Lena Headey. Watch a trailer.

Deadpool (Feb. 12)

Speaking of movies that were in development hell for a long time... Deadpool is one of the weirdest offshoots of the X-Men comics, a scar-faced assassin with healing powers, who breaks the fourth wall and necks with equal vivacity. And Wade Wilson’s journey to the big screen is one of the weirdest stories in superhero movies. Long story short: Ryan Reynolds played a botched version in the first Wolverine movie, and has been trying to make it right ever since. It looks pretty much spot-on.

Viral (Feb. 19)

A virus wipes out half the human race, and two girls find themselves quarantined inside their town—with their parents on the outside. At first, it’s all fun and games, until it looks as though the virus has gotten inside the barricades. And then, one of the girls has to make some tough decisions about the other. This low-budget horror film was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Paranormal Activity 3 and 4).

Gods of Egypt (Feb. 26)

In ancient Egypt, the evil god Set usurps the throne, and it’s up to a thief named Bek to team up with the god Horus to set things right. Even in the face of Hollywood’s long and shameful history of whitewashing, this seems like an egregious example—just let it sink in that Geoffrey Rush is playing Ra. Director Alex Proyas made Dark City, so we always hope for great things from him, but this looks like a guilty pleasure at best.

The Witch (Feb. 26)

This indie movie about a Puritan family dealing with the forces of darkness in early Colonial times won a directing award a Sundance and has been getting raves ever since. We saw it at Fantastic Fest and loved it. This is already one of the year’s most anticipated films—but watch the trailer and see for yourself.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (Feb. 26)

At first glance, a sequel to one of the most acclaimed martial arts films of all times might seem like a bad idea. But this one is closely based on another one of the books in Wang Dulu’s famous wuxia novel series, the Crane-Iron Series. And it’s directed by mastermind Yuen Wo-Ping. And the trailer looks utterly gorgeous.

MARCH

Zootopia (March 4)

Here’s another wacky animated movie about an alternate world. This time, it’s a world where all animals talk, and wear clothes, and live in a city togehter—and that city is called Zootopia. The good news is, it’s co-directed and co-written by the creators of Wreck-It Ralph, so there’s a high likelihood of awesomeness. The trailer looks pretty fun, and we learned a ton of cool details about the making of the film.

Valencia (March 11)

Here’s an oddball, possibly post-apocalyptic film. Mary-Elizabeth Winstead plays a woman who wakes up in an underground cellar, where a man (John Goodman) tells her that there’s been a chemical attack, and the outside world is uninhabitable. It’s just the two of them. (They can make it if they try.) Director Dan Trachtenberg was at one point in line to direct the Y: The Last Man movie.

Brothers Grimsby (March 11)

Mark Strong is a top superspy with incredible gadgets (like a retinal camera and stuff), and Sacha Baron-Cohen is his dimwitted long-lost brother. After a mission is compromised, the two brothers have to team up to save the world. The trailer looked pretty dumb, but maybe the whole film is better.

Other Side of the Door (March 11)

After the death of her son, Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) struggles to carry on—until she learns about a ritual that will let her communicate with her dead son one more time. Unfortunately, she opens the door between the living and the dead, and shit gets real. Writer-director Johannes Roberts previously made the underwhelming storage-facility monster movie Storage 24.

Allegiant (March 18)

Veronica Roth’s book trilogy is probably the most famous example of the “sorting hat” genre, in which people are evaluated and sorted into different groups, except for one person who’s a special snowflake. For the film series, they split the third book of the trilogy into two movies, which is one of those trends that is increasingly looking like a bad idea. But hey, the trailer looks pretty.

The Little Prince (March 18)

Why has it taken so long to get a film adaptation of the classic book by Antoine Saint-Exupéry? And actually, this isn’t a straight-up adaptation. Instead, it’s a quasi-sequel, in which the aviator from the book is now an old man, who befriends a young girl. And the little prince is all grown up, too. The trailer looks just stunning.

Midnight Special (March 18)

Michael Shannon plays a father who realizes that his son has special powers—and they have to go on the run to keep the boy out of the hands of a cult led by Sam Shepard. Plus a government operative, played by Adam Driver. Writer-director Jeff Nichols has said the film is inspired by classic John Carpenter movies like Starman, and it looks absolutely splendid.

Batman v Superman (March 25)

Warner Bros. is staking its whole superhero franchise on this one film, which has to establish an entire shared universe from scratch, while also knocking your socks off with cape-on-cape action. In this film, Batman (Ben Affleck!) hates Superman because of the destruction in his battle with Zod—which seems like a pretty on-the-nose meta comment on everyone’s criticisms of Man of Steel. So they fight. And fight. And fight and fight and fight and fight. Except that Lex Luthor has plans of his own, and it vaguely looks like Wonder Woman is going to sort all this mess out. Hey, watch a trailer!

APRIL

Rings (April 1)

Remember The Ring? The beloved remake of the equally beloved Japanese horror film about a videotape that after you watch it, you have just seven days to live? They made a buttload of sequels, and now they’re making one more. And this time Johnny Galecki from Big Bang Theory is in it, as a professor named Gabriel Lucifer.

Pandemic (April 1)

And here’s another low-budget virus apocalypse movie. This one stars Rachel Nichols (Continuum) and Mekhi Phifer (Torchwood: Miracle Day) and takes place in a world where almost everybody is infected by a deadly virus. Our heroes wear containment suits with cameras in it, and apparently it’s in the style of a first-person shooter. It’s described as “a new model of action thriller for the video game generation.”

Before I Wake (April 8)

What if Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven was a horror movie? That seems to be the idea behind this movie about a child whose dreams alter reality, causing his parents to become somewhat flustered. They don’t offer any tips for dealing with this situation in the parenting manuals.

Amityville: The Awakening (April 15)

A family moves into a house... but when strange things start happening, they realize that it’s not just any house. It’s THAT house. This movie has been on ice for a long time, which is sometimes but not always a bad sign. Watch the trailer that we posted back in mid-2014.

Jungle Book (April 15)

Confusingly, there are two Jungle Book movies in the pipeline. This one is directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and has a pretty great voice cast, including Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Christopher Walken and Scarlett Johansson. But the trailer didn’t exactly win us over.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (April 22)

Snow White and the Huntsman did well enough that they’re making another one. Except without Snow White this time. Instead, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) has to team up with a warrior named Sara (Jessica Chastain) to fight two evil queens (Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron). It looks totally ridiculous, but there’s nothing wrong with watching Thor fight Furiosa for two hours.

Paradox (April 22)

Another low-budget time-travel film! A group of scientists are experimenting with time travel, and they manage to send one of their group ahead in time one hour. But when he comes back, he tells them that they’ll all be dead within the next hour unless they shut the machine down. Starring stuntwoman Zoe Bell, plus Malik Yoba from Alphas.

Ratchet & Clank (April 29)

This video-game movie tells the origins of the famous duo, explaining how Ratchet the cute alien met Clank the robot. They have to team up to stop the evil Chairman Drek from destroying the Solana Galaxy. And Paul Giamatti is doing the voice of Chairman Drek! If this film can capture the zany humor of the games, then it should be a lot of fun.

MAY

Captain America: Civil War (May 6)

Just one year after Avengers: Age of Ultron, we’re getting another huge Marvel crossover event. This time, Iron Man is going to war against Captain America over whether superheroes should be controlled by some kind of super-supervisory entity. And everybody is taking sides. This film has everybody in it, but is most notable for introducing two heroes to the Marvel movies: the awesome Black Panther, and some kid named Peter Parker. The trailers look pretty epic.

The Angry Birds Movie (May 20)

Remember Angry Birds? It was one of our favorite games in the “creatures that feel one particular emotion really strongly” genre. And now that the game has kind of dropped off the radar, they’re finally putting out the movie version, starring Jason Sudekis, Maya Rudolph and Josh Gad. Do you actually want to see a full-length movie in which these birds have actual personalities? (Beyond anger?) Judge for yourself.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (May 27)

In the aftermath of Avatar making a bazillion dollars, other 3-D greenscreen projects were swept up in its wake, and one of these was Tim Burton’s misguided Alice in Wonderland. But because Burton’s Alice made a ton of money, there’s a sequel, in which Alice has to stop the Queen of Hearts from getting back on the throne. Johnny Depp is back as the Mad Hatter, and Rhys Ifans is playing his father. At least the trailer looks pretty.

X-Men Apocalypse (May 27)

Oscar Isaac is playing the titular villain, an ancient mutant who spells doom for everybody. And he apparently teams up with a bunch of other mutants, including Magneto, in this latest X-movie. And this time, Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) is Jean Grey. The X-Men franchise has been going since 2000, with an increasingly confusing continuity, but at least they keep finding ways to raise the stakes.

JUNE

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (June 3)

Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film made enough money in 2014 that they’ve rushed out a sequel just two years later. And this time they’ve added more characters from the comics and cartoon, like Casey Jones, Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang. It looks very much like more of the same, but hopefully with more turtles and less of Will Arnett macking on Megan Fox.

Conjuring 2 (June 10)

The Conjuring was one of our favorite horror films of the last few years, in large part because of the real emotion in the story of real-life demon-hunting couple Ed and Lorraine Warren. The good news is, director James Wan is back for the sequel, in which the Warrens go to England to deal with a poltergeist (in a story based on a real-life case from the 1970s).

Now you See Me 2 (June 10)

The first movie, in which four magicians outwit everybody and steal from the rich, was an unexpected pleasure. In the sequel, it’s a year later and they have to team up to defeat an evil tech magnate (Daniel Radcliffe), who’s the son of Michael Caine’s character.

Warcraft (June 10)

The epic game franchise is getting a huge film adaptation, directed by Duncan Jones (Moon). It’s the war between humans and orcs over the future of Azeroth, with good and bad people on both sides of the conflict. Everything we’ve seen from this film so far looks just jaw-dropping, and we were excited to hear how many practical effects the film has. Fingers crossed that Jones can actually pull this off.

Finding Dory (June 17)

The long-awaited sequel to Finding Nemo, in which the amnesiac fish named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) goes on a quest to find where she came from, accompanied by Nemo and Marlin. Andrew Stanton is back as writer and director, so fins crossed.

Independence Day: Resurgence (June 24)

And here’s another sequel that’s been a long time coming, although I’m not sure computer viruses have evolved enough to help take down a second, even more powerful alien invasion. It’s years after the first alien attack, and Jeff Goldblum has been preparing us for a second assault. But when it comes, we’re still not ready for the massiveness of the onslaught. Watch the trailer!

The Shallows (June 24)

It’s sort of a new version of Jaws—in this one, Blake Lively is a surfer who gets stranded on a buoy when a shark is between her and the shore. If you’re not opposed to the further demonization of sharks, whose numbers humans have already devastated over the past few decades, then this could be an exciting ride.

JULY

The BFG (July 1)

Steven Spielberg directs a fantasy from the mind of Roald Dahl. That alone is pretty incredible. But the fact this film, about a young girl who discovers a world of giants, is Spielberg’s first Disney movie ever is even cooler. Mark Rylance, so great in Bridge of Spies, plays the title character with Bill Hader, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall and others filling out the rest of the cast. Check out the trailer.

The Legend of Tarzan (July 1)

What if Tarzan got out of the jungle? How would the world treat him? That’s the start of David Yates’ new take on the iconic story with Alexander Skarsgard playing everyone’s favorite vine-swinging human. Margot Robbie is Jane, Christoph Waltz is the villain who draws Tarzan back to the jungle and Samuel L. Jackson teams up on the side of good. The trailer shows promise, but this is the same studio that brought us Pan.

The Purge 3 (July 1)

Frank Grillo returns for the third Purge movie, which this time will explore his mysterious anti-hero from the second film and dive a bit deeper into this world. A world where for one night per year, all crime is legal. After the second movie upped the ante from the first movie, you’ve got to hope that a third movie will give fans even more of what they want: wanton mayhem.

The Secret Life of Pets (July 8)

Think Toy Story with pets. That simple, genius idea of what pets do when their owners go out is the basis for this animated film from the team behind Despicable Me. And if the premise doesn’t grab you, the absolutely incredible voice cast should. They include Louis CK, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Eric Stonestreet, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Burress and Albert Brooks. Wow. Here’s the trailer.

Ghostbusters (July 15)

One of the year’s most anticipated films reboots arguably the best sci-fi comedy ever made. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon are four New York women who come together to fight the supernatural. Featuring tons of cameos from the original film and the amazing comedic eye of director Paul Feig, expectations could not be higher.

Ice Age: Collision Course (July 22)

Yes, they are still making these movies. The latest one, the fifth in the series, will reportedly tell the story of how Scrat, the always hungry and clumsy squirrel, finds himself in space. His actions there will then have a disastrous effect on the film’s main stars (still voiced by Denis Leary, Ray Romano and John Leguizamo) back on Earth. Bonus, Neil deGrasse Tyson will add his voice to the film.

Lights Out (July 22)

Horror master James Wan (Saw, Insidious) produces this supernatural thriller about a brother and sister (Teresa Palmer and Gabriel Bateman) who encounter an evil being that only comes out when the lights turn off. Which is kind of every single horror bad guy ever. But this film, based on a viral short film by David F. Sandberg, has some truly scary potential.

Star Trek Beyond (July 22)

The crew of the starship Enterprise is in the middle of their five year voyage mission started at the end of Into Darkness when they encounter Krall (Idris Elba), a new villain with a bone to pick against the Federation. Justin Lin, the direction of Fast and Furious 3-6, aims to breath some life in to the J.J. Abrams produced franchise that got decimated by critics and fans alike the last time around. From that awesome trailer, it looks like he’s on the right track.

The Space Between Us (July 29)

Ender’s Game star Asa Butterfield and Tomorrowland’s Britt Robertson play a boy and girl, one living on Earth and the other from Mars, who fall in love online. That would be okay if he wasn’t the first ever human born on Mars, and a total secret. An awesome premise and equally great supporting cast including Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino only raise the stakes.

Bourne 5 (July 29)

After a pretty successful detour from the main story, Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are back in one of the biggest spy franchises out there today. Not a ton is known about this as yet untitled sequel except it’ll pick up years after the third film and follow Bourne all over the world. Really, that’s all we needed to know.

Three Body Problem (July in China)

One of the most decorated science fiction novels of the past decade, The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, gets a big budget movie adaptation. The story follows a family in several time periods, dimensions and more as they live and contribute to the edges of science and beyond. Currently there aren’t plans for a U.S. release but if the film delivers on what audiences are expecting, it’s inevitable. Also, it’s the first film in a potential trilogy.

L.O.R.D. (July in China)

The kick-ass Fan Bingbing (X-Men Days of Future Past, Iron Man 3, Stretch) stars in this 3D Chinese fantasy film which is an acronym for “Legend of Ravaging Dynasties.” Um, yes please? It follows four kingdoms battling for ultimate dominance. No U.S. telease is yet set but it sounds like something to keep an eye out for.

AUGUST

Suicide Squad (August 5)

A star-studded comic book adaptation starring nothing but villains? Seems like a stretch but with Jared Leto, Will Smith, Margot Robbie and more from a script by director David Ayer, not to mention cameos and links to the DC Universe, Suicide Squad is a movie that everyone is excited about. It could either be the next evolution in what a comic book movie could be, or a huge miss. We won’t know until August but the anticipation is exciting. Check out the first footage.

Pete’s Dragon (August 12)

Disney’s string of making live-action versions of their animated classics continues with Pete’s Dragon, which stars Robert Redford and Bryce Dallas Howard. Lyrical director David Lowry (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) promises to bring some art-house cred to the story of an abused boy who finds refuge with his very own secret dragon.

Sausage Party (August 12)

The team behind This Is the End and The Interview bring their unique blend of potty humor and pop culture sensibilities to this hard R-rated animated film about a rogue sausage who must traverse the supermarket during a July 4th sale. How that story becomes a hard R-rated animated comedy, we don’t know, but in Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Edward Norton and more we trust.

Spectral (August 12)

“Ghostbusters without the humor” is the ultra basic pitch for Spectral, a new thriller from Legendary Pictures. First time director Nic Mathieu tells the story of a a group of supernatural eliminators who are called in to fight a threat in Europe. The “I know that person” cast includes James Badge Dale, Emily Mortimer and Bruce Greenwood. The whole thing screams under-the-rader awesome.

Kubo and the Two Strings (August 19)

Legendary stop motion studio Laika goes away from the supernatural that has served them so well and into realm of fantasy adventure. Kubo tells the story of a young boy whose family history forces him into an epic quest to find the armor of the greatest samurai who ever lived. The stellar voice cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara and Ralph Fiennes. Watch the beautiful trailer.

A Man in the Dark (August 26)

The team behind the awesome remake of The Evil Dead, director Fede Alvarez and producer Sam Raimi, are back with this thriller that follows a group of kids who break into the house of a blind man only to find out that was a big, big mistake.

SEPTEMBER

Patient Zero (September 2)

A super cool cast including Natalie Dormer, Stanley Tucci and Matt Smith star in this fresh take on a zombie movie. The Infected have a special language but one human (Smith) can speak it, which puts him at the center of the fight to save the human race. This is a movie that’s been teased since Comic-Con so hopes are high.

Storks (September 23)

Conceived, written and co-directed by Neighbors and Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller, Storks takes the tried and true idea of storks delivering babies and turns it on its head by having them deliver for online retailers. That is, of course, until one actually delivers a baby. As expected, the voice cast rules with names like Kelsey Grammar, Andy Samberg, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele

A Cure for Wellness (September 23)

Little is known about A Cure for Wellness except it’s a horror film directed by Gore Verbinski starring Dane DeHaan. Verbinski is at his best when he’s making smaller, intimate movies and he made one of the most popular modern horror movies, The Ring. We’re stoked to find out what he has in store here.

Delirium (September 30)

Who doesn’t love a good haunted house movie, especially from horror mega producer Jason Blum? That’s what you’ll get with Delirium, directed by Dennis Iliadis (The Last House on the Left), starring Topher Grace, Genesis Rodriguez and Patricia Clarkson.

OCTOBER

Gambit (October 7)

Channing Tatum is poised to put on a cajun accent and throw some playing cards as he brings one of the most popular X-Men characters to life in this solo movie. Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity) is directing and we can’t wait to see how Gambit will fit in with his other X-Universe characters like Deadpool, Wolverine and everyone else.

A Monster Calls (October 14)

Amazing director J.A. Bayona brings together a crazy cast (Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver) for this fantasy about a boy who deals with his mother’s cancer by listening to stories told by with monsters. It’s based on the best-selling book by Patrick Ness. Here’s the trailer.

Underworld 5 (October 14)

Yup. Another one. Rumored to be called Underworld: Next Generation, Kate Beckinsale is back as Death Dealer Selene in the continuing trials of a world where vampires and werewolves are at war. The rumored title suggests a passing of the torch, which also happened behind the scenes as first time director Anna Foerster helms this installment.

Ouija 2 (October 21)

How many times do you have to be told? Never, ever, ever play with Ouija boards. And while the first film was a critical disaster, it garnered enough of an audience to necessitate this sequel, which is rumored to follow the exploits of the same haunted board from the first movie.

Inferno (October 28)

Ron Howard directs a third Dan Brown adaptation starring Tom Hanks as symbologist Robert Langdon. This time he’s joined by Felicity Jones in a race to stop a billionaire mad man from unleashing a plague that will decimate the population of the world. The book was a fun romp in classic Brown fashion and there’s no reason to believe the movie won’t be more of the same.

NOVEMBER

Doctor Strange (November 4)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to get really, really strange this fall when Benedict Cumberbatch brings the Supreme Sorcerer to the big screen. Sinister director Scott Derrickson is in charge with Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams and rounding out the cast. Strange promises to send Phase Three off in a wild new dimension after the already massive battles of Civil War.

Trolls (November 4)

Yes. Those trolls. The ones you had on the end of a pencil in elementary school are finally getting the big budget, 3D animated film you never knew you wanted to see. Mike Mitchell (Sky High, The Spongebob Movie) directs for DreamWorks Animation (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon) and the leads are voiced by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. Timberlake will even make music for the film.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (18)

Fantastic Beasts is the first in a proposed trilogy of Harry Potter prequels written by J.K. Rowling herself, her first attempt at screenwriting. Eddie Redmayne stars at Newt Scamander, a Magizoologist whose briefcase full of creatures busts open and endangers the balance between the muggle and wizard worlds several years before Harry Potter was born. David Yates, director of Potters 5-8, is back at the reigns. Here’s the cryptic teaser trailer.

Moana (November 23)

Disney doing what it does best. Taking an ancient fairy tale and making it their own. This time it’s the story of a young girl from the South Pacific who goes on an sea-bound adventure with a legendary demi-god to prove herself and save her people. It’s also a musical, directed by the same guys who did Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.

DECEMBER

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Dec 16)

Just one year after the release of The Force Awakens, Lucasfilm will release their first “Star Wars Story,” a standalone, spinoff film set in the same universe as the main saga. This one tells the story of how a group of scoundrels stole the technical readouts of the first Death Star that play a crucial role in A New Hope. Godzilla director and massive Star Wars fan Gareth Edwards directs, Felicity Jones stars along with Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Riz Ahmed, Donnie Yen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen and Alan Tudyk.

Passengers (December 21)

Two of the biggest stars in the world, Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, team up for this sci-fi romance from director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) and writer Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange.) The film takes place on a ship that’s transporting humans to a far away planet and one person wakes up early. So as not to feel lonely, he wakes another passenger.

Sing (December 21)

The director of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Garth Jennings, makes his first foray into animation with this story set in the world of professional theater and music. Matthew McConaughy lends his voice to another animated film, and he’s joined by Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, John C Reilly, Scarlett Johansson and many more

Assassin’s Creed (December 21)

Video game adaptations have a rough history at best, but we have high hopes for Assassin’s Creed, which stars Magneto himself, Michael Fassbender. Much like the game, he plays a modern man who has the ability to relive the adventures of his skilled, assassin ancestor. He’ll then use those skills to fight the Knights Templar in the present. Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard co-stars.

Jumanji (December 25)

Jonathan Liebesman (Ninja Turtles, Battle Los Angeles) directs this remake of the popular book turned into a 1995 Robin Williams film. We don’t know how it’ll differ from that film but I’d expect bigger effects and a slightly different story, enough to warrant its existence.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (December 25)

New, weird Tim Burton movie alert! The Beetlejuice and Batman director works from a screenplay by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Kingsman) telling the story of a young boy (Asa Butterfield) who must help a group of “peculiar” children from monsters who are haunting them. Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench, Terence Stamp and others co-star.

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

Evolution is a pretty simple to grasp! Traits in a species that are more advantageous for like, survival get passed down to future generations because those traits helped the species survive. Evolution is not always hilarious though. It is in this video from Casually Explained that combines jokes about video games, platypuses, ducks, Donald Trump, burgers, Nazis, and more.

It’s well worth the watch (if you enjoy laughing).

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