This Jem is not My jam.
Yesterday evening the trailer for JEM and the Holograms was released into the wild.
It showed the tale of Jerrica, her sister Kimber, and their two foster sisters who have an internet video hit and are signed to “the biggest record company in the world”. This is followed by the required makeover montage that both punks and pink-ifys Jerrica, giving her the new name: JEM.
Then it’s the pull between family and marketing department looking for a break away star.
For fans of the original show which ran from 1985-1988 there are some key ingredients missing. There are no Misfits. There is no Synergy. There appears to be no holographic transformations. They are still mid-teens, which adds a squicky turn when Rio – who was Jerrica’s/Jem’s love interest, works for the record company.
One twitter suggested:
My bet re. Jem and the Holograms – they had a “small town girl makes it big” script laying around, bought Jem, and did one round of rewrites
— Meat Robot Dan Olson (@FoldableHuman) May 13, 2015
That’s a charitable point of view.
Website Black Girl Nerds has been following this story for over a year. It started with the announcement, by three guys: Jon Chu who was the director of G.I.Joe:Retaliation; Scooter Braun, who is an investor, and manager of Justin Bieber; and horror film producer Jason Blum. The original creator of the animated series Christy Marx, was not invited to participate. Neither the original speaking voice of Jerrica/JEM, Samantha Newark, nor the singing voice, Britta Philips, was originally invited to be involved. Later word was both voice actors would have a role, and they are listed in the IMDB cast list, but with no character names or descriptions attached.
To be clear, Christy Marx created the content while employed by Hasbro, so as it was ‘work product’ she did not have any rights to it. But if you had access to the thinking behind the original material, wouldn’t that make a great resource?
These are my Holograms!
There were some reservations that the pre-Spice Girls Girl Power animated band reboot was being managed by an all male creative team, including the writer Ryan Landels whose prior film writing credits includes only the TV movie Collision Earth. The one comment on IMDB does not bode well for his writing chops.
The tag line “Every generation needs a voice”is more ironic given the all male team on the project.
Another concern is that the description is still the description of the animated series: “Music executive, Jerrica Benton, lives a secret, adventurous life as a glamorous rock star named Jem.” So if they can’t keep their IMDB page mildly current…
The longer description is what I hope is the real one:
In a hyper-linked social media age, an orphaned teenage girl, Jerrica Jem Benton, becomes an online recording sensation, and she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt – one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles – in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father. Written by Synergy
But the fact it’s been written by Synergy, which all Jem fans know is the name of the AI/hologram creator who Jerrica talks to through her earrings – hey it’s an 80s cartoon, roll with it– has me worried that the synopsis is more fan hope, than script accurate.
So while I’m generally not one to get my hate on early, the Magic 8 ball reading on this one is: Reply hazy. Try again.
But my name is Sunny – so let’s finish with something truly outrageous:
