MovieBob said:
Chu, Blum and Braun have promised a 21st century "reimagining" involving a teenaged orphan who becomes an internet musical-sensation.
....
No.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
NO!
NO!
<font size=3> NO!
First off, making her an orphan COMPLETELY destroys the character of Jerrica and her alter ego Jem. If I remember correctly, Jerrica's father owned a recording study, passed away and left it to Jerrica to manage. Those associated with the company, recording artists, backers and the other executives, did not believe Jerrica could handle the company on her own and threatened to leave (thus destroying the studio) unless she booked the next big hit. Fearing a backlash from the other performers and backers should she step up to the mike, Jerrica (who was a talented musician) decides to use Synergy, a super-smart computer with the ability to create realistic holograms, to create "Jem"; a holographic overlay that changes her appearance so no one will recognize her when she performs. Jem is a hit, Jerrica is given control of the company and greedy Eric Raymond, who had been controlling the company during Jerrica's father's absence, is bummed from his seat of power and decides to win back control by creating a band more popular that Jem's, a punk-rock grunge style band called the Misfits.
... God, I'm such a geek...
Anyway, for an '80s TV show, "Jem" was ground breaking. It had strong female characters AND showed one of them in a position of power. Jerrica RAN her father's company after his death. She didn't hand it off to a board room of old men. SHE was the one in control of finding talent, setting up contracts, scheduling tours and a number of other things, though the TV show did tend to glaze over that in favor of the action/adventure life of a super-star.
Making her an orphan takes all that away from her. Making her a TEENAGER means you make her vulnerable and uninformed, easily manipulated (probably by a re-imagined Eric Raymond who has naive and star-struck Jem working with the Misfits before she finds her "Fairy God-computer", Synergy) and prone to making rash decisions. Making her an INTERNET SUPERSTAR is just insulting.
I have no problem with a live action Jem movie. I, however, would like the CREATOR and FANS involved. I don't care if the producers and directors are all male. I DO CARE if they are actual FANS of the show or if they're just squeezing another nostalgia fruit to make a pint of money-ade. The only reason I say that is because, usually, when producers say "re-imaged" it means they have never watched the show and probably never heard about it until one day two weeks ago while they were in the break room waiting for the microwave to pop their popcorn and some lackey they employ comes in and says "I just found all the old 'Jem' episodes on this really cool website. Spent my entire weekend watching it. That **** was awesome."