Normally I'd go with the "What the fuck, are you a JRPG character or something? WORDS MOTHER FUCKER!" response, but in this particular case, what you said makes perfect sense.
[Movies] The Upcoming Movies Trailer Thread
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I deliberately chose that response, for pretty much those exact reasons.
My gut feeling is that people over the age of 20 should not see this movie. It will just disappoint them.
--Patrick
Honestly, everything that is really a part of Jem was not a part of that trailer.
No Misfits, no Synergy, no orphanage, no backstory of being a businesswoman with a double life as pop star. Just the names and the face paint remained. It took out everything that could have been truly, truly outrageous and made it truly, truly generic.
Wow, so the titular character is going to grow an ego and think she's bigger than the rest of the band?
That's NEVER, EVER been done in ANY movie about a band, EVER.
That's NEVER, EVER been done in ANY movie about a band, EVER.
It's not even that. It's more like "What if Teen Wolf was about a girl in a band instead of guy on a basketball team?"
--Patrick
My sister loved Jem and the Holograms. And you know, it wasn't terribly shitty. There was a lot to go with - a young woman who got a hot job at a record company an all female pop act, but realizes her boss is sleazy and he promotes a trashy pop all-girl version of Poison or other hair metal bands. Basically the sort of 1980's one hit wonders there was no shortage of, so she knows she'll be blamed when the group inevitably fails and her sleaze boss uses her as a scapegoat. Then she finds out that she's inherited an AI construct based off her mother with an incredibly cutting edge holographic projection system. She uses it to create a glam-rock alter-ego whose band she can manage and unleash her own talents. And they have adventures along the way.
How the fuck did they manage to screw that up so badly? It could have been a sort of Devil Wears Prada but with glam-rock instead of high fashion. Hell, you could even have it so that the band pioneered holographic performance, like a more elaborate version of that whole Vocaloid thing.
Shit, I'll even break this down, figure a 90-minute movie.
first 15: establish main character: excited about promotion to company's LA office, new management job with label on a heavily promoted new act. Phone call with mom, indicating that it's been a long time since she came home but she promises to, "soon". Conversation with friend mentioning old garage band they had that "could have gone somewhere", but main character decided to pursue a business degree instead because she "didn't want wind up living on a bus going from gig to gig", etc.
second 15: problems arise: LA sucks, she's not the real manager but the manager's assistant, he expects her to do all the work while he takes all the credit as well as being a huge creep, and the new act is a bunch of reality talent show "winners" who are more unstable than talented. Lead singer in particular a problem - substance abuse, social media nightmare, etc. Protagonist deals with stress via writing and playing music alone in her apartment.
third 15: glimmers of hope: producer for the new band turns out to be obvious male love interest, gives her advice on handling the band and dealing with creepy manager. Introduces her to the studio musicians that he remixes into the promoted band's work to make it actually sound good. She instantly gels with them and finds herself less alone.
fourth 15: things get worse: lead singer has eyes for producer and sees main character as obvious competition, drives at making her look bad in front of creepy manager and attempting to get her fired. Sudden phone call - mother has died of terminal illness the daughter hadn't been aware of. main character has to go home for funeral and deal with final business.
fifth 15: while going through mothers' things, including lots of papers and journals on AI research, simulacra, light projection, etc (mother was some kind of brilliant cybernetic researcher), she uncovers unique AI construct in hidden lab in family home. AI personality has memories of mother, so it helps give main character closure and advice. Then it shows her the powerful holographic matrix it can use to create completely lifelike images.
final 15: main character reinvents herself as a holographic persona, teams up with studio musicians (all recently fired from company in act of spite), launches their own act online as holographic rock/pop stars (a la Vocaloid/ Gorillaz/etc) and quickly become a super viral act known as Jem and the Holograms. She uses her business acumen to start their own label, and the movie ends with them going on tour, one of the hottest new acts on the scene. Main character gets call from friend from start of movie. "So, how's it feel, actually living on a bus going from gig to gig?" "There's no place I'd rather be." end music, credits. outtakes during credits/as stinger.
HOW FUCKING HARD IS THAT?! HOW DID THEY FUCK THAT UP?!
How the fuck did they manage to screw that up so badly? It could have been a sort of Devil Wears Prada but with glam-rock instead of high fashion. Hell, you could even have it so that the band pioneered holographic performance, like a more elaborate version of that whole Vocaloid thing.
Shit, I'll even break this down, figure a 90-minute movie.
first 15: establish main character: excited about promotion to company's LA office, new management job with label on a heavily promoted new act. Phone call with mom, indicating that it's been a long time since she came home but she promises to, "soon". Conversation with friend mentioning old garage band they had that "could have gone somewhere", but main character decided to pursue a business degree instead because she "didn't want wind up living on a bus going from gig to gig", etc.
second 15: problems arise: LA sucks, she's not the real manager but the manager's assistant, he expects her to do all the work while he takes all the credit as well as being a huge creep, and the new act is a bunch of reality talent show "winners" who are more unstable than talented. Lead singer in particular a problem - substance abuse, social media nightmare, etc. Protagonist deals with stress via writing and playing music alone in her apartment.
third 15: glimmers of hope: producer for the new band turns out to be obvious male love interest, gives her advice on handling the band and dealing with creepy manager. Introduces her to the studio musicians that he remixes into the promoted band's work to make it actually sound good. She instantly gels with them and finds herself less alone.
fourth 15: things get worse: lead singer has eyes for producer and sees main character as obvious competition, drives at making her look bad in front of creepy manager and attempting to get her fired. Sudden phone call - mother has died of terminal illness the daughter hadn't been aware of. main character has to go home for funeral and deal with final business.
fifth 15: while going through mothers' things, including lots of papers and journals on AI research, simulacra, light projection, etc (mother was some kind of brilliant cybernetic researcher), she uncovers unique AI construct in hidden lab in family home. AI personality has memories of mother, so it helps give main character closure and advice. Then it shows her the powerful holographic matrix it can use to create completely lifelike images.
final 15: main character reinvents herself as a holographic persona, teams up with studio musicians (all recently fired from company in act of spite), launches their own act online as holographic rock/pop stars (a la Vocaloid/ Gorillaz/etc) and quickly become a super viral act known as Jem and the Holograms. She uses her business acumen to start their own label, and the movie ends with them going on tour, one of the hottest new acts on the scene. Main character gets call from friend from start of movie. "So, how's it feel, actually living on a bus going from gig to gig?" "There's no place I'd rather be." end music, credits. outtakes during credits/as stinger.
HOW FUCKING HARD IS THAT?! HOW DID THEY FUCK THAT UP?!
Odds are that the name is all that they wanted. Same reason as making a Battleship film.
This seems like a super shitty version of Josie and the Pussycats which kinda makes sense, I guess, I know nothing about their respective source material really. I kinda love that movie though and it really doesn't seem like that's gonna be the case with this.
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A) I don't really know much of anything about Jem and the Holograms; I think I've seen one or two episodes but since it didn't air in Belgium, I don't really have any nostalgia for it.
B) It seems like a very, very generic movie - but not an especially bad one. I mean, it looks better than, say, Crossroads or Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. It's a tween girl fantasy movie. There IS a strong Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus vibe about it. This is not bad as far as popularity with that age group goes.
C) The name recognition will inspire a lot of actually-outside-of-the-standard-target-demograph to go see it. This is good as far as the company cares.
D) This obviously has a lot of potential for a comic reboot/toy line/etc. This is good as far as the company cares.
E) It isn't a "finally your youth nostalgia brought to the screen" movie. People will yell and rant about it because it isn't their Jem and the Holograms, but I really don't think it's trying to be. A bit sad for those with nostalgia looking forward to it or hoping, but the way of the world, sadly.
B) It seems like a very, very generic movie - but not an especially bad one. I mean, it looks better than, say, Crossroads or Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. It's a tween girl fantasy movie. There IS a strong Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus vibe about it. This is not bad as far as popularity with that age group goes.
C) The name recognition will inspire a lot of actually-outside-of-the-standard-target-demograph to go see it. This is good as far as the company cares.
D) This obviously has a lot of potential for a comic reboot/toy line/etc. This is good as far as the company cares.
E) It isn't a "finally your youth nostalgia brought to the screen" movie. People will yell and rant about it because it isn't their Jem and the Holograms, but I really don't think it's trying to be. A bit sad for those with nostalgia looking forward to it or hoping, but the way of the world, sadly.
figmentPez
Staff member
Imagine if someone made an X-Men movie where they weren't mutants, they just went to a really unusual school. Would you still be making the same arguments trying to justify why this is an acceptable treatment of the IP?
Or a Captain America movie where he has a shield made out of see-through plastic! Seriously, they couldn't have just painted it metallic? There's cheap and then there's lazy.
GasBandit
Staff member
In this case, for the metaphor to hold, Captain America would actually say out loud that the shield is plastic, and that he became super strong by eating his spinach.
Man, everyone knows Guile wanted to kick Bison SO HARD in the games, too.
I never said it was a good or decent treatment of the IP. I literally said it wasn't the movie nostalgic people were looking for and it was more-or-less Hannah Montana with another IP slapped on. I'm just saying that from the point of view of the studio, this makes sense and I'm not sure it'll be a terrible movie. A terrible J&tH adaptation, yes, I'm absolutely sure. A bad tweenie dramedy whatever, no.
I just wanted to give the perspective of someone who isn't looking with any sort of baggage - it's not because it's a bad adaptation that it's a bad movie. People confuse the two. Note that i'm also not saying it'll be the next Citizen Kane - I think it'll be either a soon-forgotten cash-in on the IP with some appeal among the Hannah Montana demograph, or, if it's palatable, the start of some more movies and a whole boatload of merchandise.
I just wanted to give the perspective of someone who isn't looking with any sort of baggage - it's not because it's a bad adaptation that it's a bad movie. People confuse the two. Note that i'm also not saying it'll be the next Citizen Kane - I think it'll be either a soon-forgotten cash-in on the IP with some appeal among the Hannah Montana demograph, or, if it's palatable, the start of some more movies and a whole boatload of merchandise.
figmentPez
Staff member
You've given the perspective of a cynic, someone who is just looking at the money-cash in perspective. It's possible to look at the property with no nostalgia, and still see how much potential was lost. I have no childhood attachment to Sailor Moon, I wasn't even aware that it was a show until I was an adult, but if someone made a Sailor Moon movie where they stripped all the magical girl elements out of it, and just made her a high schooler turned fashion model or something, I could easily see that there was disappointment far beyond just "OMG, this isn't the character I remember". This Jem movie doesn't just change the character, it strips out the interesting ideas and has turned it into something incredibly bland.
Jem was, in many ways, one of the first magical girl stories told by American media. This new Jem takes the story of a woman entrepreneur who takes control of her own career, by using advanced technology to her advantage, despite vicious rivals and a market that loves one-hit wonders; and changes that story into, apparently, young girls who stumble into fame and then are manipulated into stars by others who hold the power. It's not just a loss of nostalgia, it's the loss of a story that doesn't get told often enough. It's a loss of potential.
I'm in agreement with Pez. My only memory of Jem was my sister watching it, I still don't care about it, but that trailer looks dull. To slap the name of something else on an unrelated dull movie seems like a lazy money-grab.
Though to be honest, there was probably someone in the production who really thought "this is how to update it for today's world; it'll be genius." I went to college with these kinds of people. Whoever decided this course for the Jem movie is apt to have dreams of making a Peter Pan adaptation where it's actually a bunch of kids in a juvenile psych ward. You know, that kind of pretentious idiocy.
Though to be honest, there was probably someone in the production who really thought "this is how to update it for today's world; it'll be genius." I went to college with these kinds of people. Whoever decided this course for the Jem movie is apt to have dreams of making a Peter Pan adaptation where it's actually a bunch of kids in a juvenile psych ward. You know, that kind of pretentious idiocy.
All I really remember about Jem is being angry it came on because Transformers, GI Joe and MASK were over.
Outside of that I agree with Seanbaby, it's a fun premise that they're ruining with generic modern-day crap.
Outside of that I agree with Seanbaby, it's a fun premise that they're ruining with generic modern-day crap.
GasBandit
Staff member
I think there are a lot of guys like me who had Jem "forced" on them as kids because their local affiliate decided to put Jem between Transformers and GI Joe on saturday mornings in the 80s, so it was either endure Jem or something else equally out of demo, like the Get-along gang or the wuzzles or something, and at least the artwork was similar to the other hasbro cartoons on Jem.
I dunno, it would be pretentious, but also notable and an attempt to do something interesting (or at least Shyamalan-like in its pretentiousness) . This just seems like as generic and cold-hearted a money-grab "for kids" as you can get.
How hard?
Bringing up Shyamalan isn't exactly praise.
And I don't agree that it would be notable or interesting. Regardless of presentation, the change of setting at its core comes off as immature and lacking an understanding of how human minds work when the only way the writer can comprehend a fantastical escape is if there's something psychologically wrong with a person.
Something something Bison wanna-be etc etc.
It's not really supposed to be.
Or they could treat it as an escapist fantasy by the kids to get away from the drudgery of an understaffed, unprofessional mental institute. There are a lot of ways to play it without declaring the kids to be psychologically wrong.
I mean, we wouldn't want to be Zack Snyder in charge or anything, but aside from that...
Holy shit GU still updates? I haven't thought about that comic in at least a decade.