The promotional material for Jon M. Chu’s feature film adaptation of the classic 1980s cartoon Jem and the Holograms has slowly been rolling out. Up until this point, we’ve only seen a teaser poster and a photo, but today we have seven new images from the movie to share with you. And they are not-so-outrageous as we’d hoped.
The photos come from USA Today, and the director talked about the soul of the movie saying:
“It’s actually about a group of young people who are going to be inundated with this idea of fame and fortune and products and stuff, and within all that, how do you stay true to who you really are? That’s the real soul of the movie.”
The movie stars Aubrey Peeples as Jem; Stefanie Scott as Kimber; Hayley Kiyoko as Aja; Aurora Perrineau as Shana; Molly Ringwald as Aunt Bailey, the guardian of Jerrica; and Juliette Lewis, who plays Erica Raymond, a record executive at Starlight Music, who is described as “tempting you with everything you really do want and need deep down somewhere in your dark place.”
Chu goes on to talk about what inspired him to push this movie project forward:
“How can you even have a secret identity with all this social media? But then it dawned on us: Wait, everybody has a secret identity. The idea of ‘Who are you really?’ is more relevant today than ever. That’s what inspired me to say, ‘Let’s roll the dice and try to make this movie.'”
Peeples added, “The whole thing is just quirky and cool and badass.” There’s more information about the movie in the the article, but here’s the previously released 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.
It is worrying that this project was lacking the full-on eighties camp the fans really want, and these new photos seem to add to that fear. We do get that this was going to be a updated version of the story, but there is just a bit too much black and too little hair to get us really excited. Shana (Aurora Perrineau) looks the best, and Kimba (Stefanie Scott) the worst.
The other shots are below. We will grant them this: plaid-wearing Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples) does appear very different from Jem, so the secret identity thing does fly.
Jem and the Holograms is set to be released on October 23rd, 2015.
