10 Biggest Movie Tropes Of 2017

Seen in: Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 2, The Lego Batman Movie, Baby Driver, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Despicable Me 3, Blade Runner 2049, Daddy's Home 2, Little Evil

In a year in which semi-ironic usage of slightly cheesy retro music was very much the order of the day, it was a played surprisingly sincere use of Cat Stevens' Father And Son that proved one of the big tear-jerker moments in mainstream blockbuster cinema. 2017 was another year in which a lot of movie characters had trouble with their daddy issues, none more so than Guardians Of The Galaxy's Star Lord who had to face up to being the offspring of a monomaniacal living planet. Good thing he had another father figure in his life in the form of murderous outlaw Yondu.

"He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn't your daddy", Yondu's now much quoted words to his surrogate son could almost be a motto of half the movie characters this year. Yes, there were a lot of daddy issues and bad fathers in 2017 movies, but, in a year that began with Casey Affleck picking up an Oscar for playing a man suddenly thrust into an adoptive fatherhood role, there were a lot of really great stepdads, adoptive parents, and father figures to pick up the slack.

Both Batman and Spider-man have long been defined by the loss of their parents (and an uncle in Spidey's case), but their 2017 movies saw them finally getting a sense of moving on with new father figures - Tony Stark for Peter Parker and the perennially supportive Alfred for Bruce Wayne. Indeed, the need for a Batfamily in which Bruce both embraces his role as surrogate son to Alfred and surrogate father to Robin provided the main emotional thrust of The Lego Batman Movie.

It wasn't just comic book heroes who made surprisingly good adoptive dads this year. Despicable Me has become one of the most commercially successful franchises of all time ($2.5 billion box office and counting, $3.7 billion if you include the Minions spin-off) with a story about how adopting children makes a villain into a good man. Stepdads are better parents than absentee real dads seems to be the whole message of the Daddy's Home franchise (note that Dusty's characterisation as a decent father occurs at the same time as he too becomes a stepfather). Even the stepdad in Little Evil turned out to be pretty good at bonding with and protecting his new offspring and that child was literally the spawn of Satan.

Having returned to his two other iconic roles with the baggage of a difficult relationship with his on-screen son, Harrison Ford's third great part got a belated sequel in Blade Runner 2049 and this time he managed to bond quite well with someone who thought Ford might be his father but wasn't. In Baby Driver the eponymous driver replaced his dead parents with father substitutes in the form of both his deaf foster father Joseph and gang boss Doc, who, unlike his actor, turns out to be a better man than first appeared.

Finally, whatever you think of the revelations (or otherwise) about Rey's real father in Star Wars, at least she has no shortage of surrogate dads.