Aside from the obvious reasons, let’s take a look at why this movie is crap. Universal dusted off an old 80s cartoon that many people loved and decided to take a steamy dump on it. In this new adaptation Jem is a small town Midwestern girl that goes the way of Beiber and gets catapulted into stardom through a Youtube video. That’s right, Youtube. Then of course that leads to emotional turmoil, a love interest, blah blah blah same story line as soo many other movies. So why does it suck? They took away the female empowerment message that was so critical to the original story. 80s kids will remember but if not, let’s rewind a bit.
In the original story Jerrica starts a record company and is a big shot business woman. She wants something to add a WOW factor and some pizazz so she uses Synergy a holographic computer her father built before he died. With the help of Synergy she transforms herself and her sister and friends into Jem And The Holograms. Because they use freakin holograms for their on stage persona! OMG, it’s like they used that to come up with the name of the show, weird right?
So Jerrica no longer runs a record company and although they still selected a female for the role of the Starlight Music exec, she’s now an evil Cruella de Vil style leader that takes the super sweet country girl and stomps all over her turning her into a Lady Gaga version of her former self. Poor little Jerrica doesn’t know what to do now. The old version would know what to do. Oh, and are you wondering what happened to all the orphans from the Starlight House? Looks like they got kicked to the curb with the girls from Annie. The whole underlying message from the original cartoon and one of the main reasons why the series was so popular has been neutered. No more message of empowerment, and no more helping others. Now it’s just a poor girl that can’t handle stardom. Thanks Hollywood…
The official synopsis
As a small-town girl catapults from underground video sensation to global superstar, she and her three sisters begin a one-in-a-million journey of discovering that some talents are too special to keep hidden. In Universal Pictures’ Jem and the Holograms, four aspiring musicians will take the world by storm when they see that the key to creating your own destiny lies in finding your own voice.
