Jem and the Holograms

[Psycho Soldier]

First trailer is out. Never before have I seen such nothing.



Seriously. I mean, I've never watched the cartoon before, but where's the fun in this trailer? It's not in the music, it's not in the characters or plot (so far as we've been shown). A movie adaptation of Jem could work as an '80s throwback, but that's not what we're getting, it seems. And I'm told that the trailer shows nothing in common with the cartoon. I'd be pissed if I were a fan.

[jellydonut25]

Who is this movie made for?

[lhb412]

Don't Jem and the Holograms have adventures and fight bad guys?

This looks like the Josie and the Pussycats movie with all the humor and fun sucked out.

[XvGojira]

Got no audio at work but that looks terribly bland. Truly not outrageous.

But I foresee future tumblr gifs from this movie.

[The Shadow]

So, Jem is going to be a cross between Hannah Montana and Lady Gaga? The movie apparently borrows/shares a chunk of it's plot with Alvin and the Chipmunks [2007] -- I guess the studio is going with the canned "band movie" plot as the story basis.

[Psycho Soldier]

This movie needs the Misfits. If somehow everything else is out of the question, at least have the Misfits as antagonists. They can play deathcore for all I care.

[daikaijusaurus]

I remember this cartoon show from the 80s when I was a kid. Had absolutely no interest in it, and didn't know any girl in school that did, they were all busy with Barbie. So why the heck did this movie get the green light?? Would't it have been better if they made a Barbie movie? To me that makes more sense since you can still find Barbie dolls and absolutely no Jem dolls.

[lhb412]

^Jem does have quite a cult following. Besides appealing to girls and women, it has a large following amongst gay men.

[The Shadow]

Hasbro (Transformers, etc). owns Jem whereas Mattel owns Barbie. Barbie doesn't have a cohesive story supporting the figures, so doing a movie that is distinctively Barbie is probably difficult. Jem and the Holograms was created with a story that centered around the band and featured action, adventure, and even intrigue. This live action movie doesn't seem to really use any of property's story (the trailer appears to be all canned band movie).

Man, I'm surprised I remembered that much about the show after all these years -- my sister liked the show so I'd sometimes watch it with her while waiting for my turn to pick something.

[MekaGojira3k]

Wow, I just read the wikipedia entry for the Jem tv show. I mean, I guess if you want to make a safe/cheap/quick adaptation of a property hoping to make money on name recognition alone....
Even that doesn't make sense, because from what I've gathered here it's fairly cult, so...Eh, whatever. This thing was filmed in 3 weeks. It's not surprising that it is what it is.

[jellydonut25]

It's got to have something to do with the Hasbro licensing agreement that Universal has.

Not that I really care. I know nothing about the show. Neither it nor this movie are in my target demographic.

[O.Supreme]

well this is hilarious. I didn't even know the movie was out, and the first article I ever read is about how it bombed so bad, it is being pulled from theaters by Universal.

If you didn't think a movie worse than Fox's F4 could be made, then you were wrong.



I think one of my cousins liked this show back when it was on. I only remember ever seeing the end, because it was the show that came on right before The Inhumanoids.

[The Shadow]

I was reading somewhere, I forget where exactly, that Jon Chu had originally pitched a movie that stuck close to the original show's premise (secret identies, holograms, AI computers, adventure & intrigue, etc.) but the Universal executives found it too outrageous (pun intended) and they forced the movie into becoming the bland Hannah Montana-esque story it ended up being.

[DannyBeane]

Wait this movie is in theaters already? I've been seeing 2-3 movies a week for the past month and I had no idea... not that I would have seen it anyway.

[XvGojira]

I really hope that this will show Universa; (and maybe other studios) that if you want something to work it has to be more than just similarity in name only. I doubt they will but one can hope.

If this was a more family friendly, female centric, sci-fi Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, I would have watched it myself. But it was just a ABC Family/Hallmark TV movie about a female indy rock band.

But then again, Josie and the Pussycats failed too even though that was kind of fun from what I remember watching way back in the day. So maybe American audiences don't like movies about fictional female bands? Whatever.

[Benjamin Haines]

[Dr Kain]

No, Jem bombing is not a bad thing, but a good thing. It means we won't see everything just because we grew up on it.

[lhb412]

^I see what the article is saying: it's a self-fulfilling prophesy to make crummy movies like Catwoman, Electra, and Jem and the Holograms and then when they bomb for the studios to chalk it up as proof that women don't go for that kind of genre fare.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

[O.Supreme]

[jellydonut25]

I watched this just to see how bad it was. Unfortunately, it's not bad in any way that's really funny at all, it's just whitebread (dull).

[TerranigmaFreak]

This movie is JINO.

[DannyBeane]

So nothing was outrageous? Truly truly outrageous?

[lhb412]

The liberties they took with the source material was outrageous. Truly, truly outrageous!