Blake and Weiss' Commentary of Jem and the Holograms (2015) (Part 3 - Final)
"So Lame Runner partakes in all the classic rock star cliches: throwing stuff off the desk, looking at herself in a cracked mirror, referencing bands better than her to make you think she's so unlike them. Hey, at least they seem like they aren't taking tearjerking references from sports films like Southpaw.", Blake starts off the third and final part of their Jem and the Holograms movie review as another snippet that has Jerrica narrating about how the Everly Brothers broke up in July 1973 yet Jerrica and others are supposed to be different, "Yeah, that whole one show you girls did together really cemented your staying power."
Weiss asked, "How are you supposed to be different? That's probably the fastest breakup ever recorded in human history! No matter. You're late to your biggest cliche: finding the old house you grew up in and sighing, followed by the cliche that her sister Kimber is there at the exact same time...and her foster sisters...and Rio, too.", adding, "You know, while you're at it, why don't you just bring the dead father back to meet them there, too?"
"And how do they solve all this conflict that's come between them in literally one day? How else? They hum the C note harmoniously once again. Yep. This is literally so stupid that even the film calls itself out on it.", the Faunus said before making her point and andwering when said scene where Rio comments the C note being weird was shown, "As well as lazy, contrived, and all-around unpleasant, Rio.", reclaiming, "But come on, gang! We still have a mystery to solve! You see, they discover that her entire hologram message is in the star earrings that Jem has.", before sighing, "As punishment, let's build up the Jem fan rage meter yet again.", as Weiss then reactivated her angry Jem fan computer program on her Scroll and puts the rage meter up to five-seventh.
The Schnee heiress described, "So they have to break into Starlight Studios to get it. So rather than, oh, just walk in because she's their biggest name and he's son of the owner, they disguise themselves to sneak inside.", as she and her girlfriend see the security guards taking the pictures and distracted by the disguised girls, "This leads to yet another YouTube video that in no way connects to anything again! We don't get it! We really don't get it!", figuring, "Except, apparently, this one has some guy named Rob Scallion... We don't even know him."
"So they're afraid the security cameras might spot them, but it's okay, because they put a video of a squirrel jet-skiing on! And it actually works!", abstracts the black-haired huntress as they saw a snippet where the security footage being replaced by a video with a squirrel jet-skiing, distracting the security guard; "What are we doing? Not in the film or the story, just...what are we doing as a species? What kind of mental illness was going on through the writer's mind? The only way this would be okay is if the screenwriter was like Dug from Up saying, 'And then they had to figure out how to get inside, so they used a...squirrel! ...Anyway...'"
The white-haired huntress added up, "But it's okay, because they just walk past the guards with no problem anyway. So this entire break-in was all pointless!", replying when the security guard mentioned the Frozen song Let It Go, which he had priorly said it was his daughter's words, "One of the many lies this movie's been telling you.", continuing, "They put the final piece in Synergy and... Yeah, you sure your dad didn't return to his home planet?"
"It's like the father said, 'Not instructions on how to patent the artificial life I created, but rather a scavenger hunt that, hopefully, you had way too much time on your hands to complete.', and when he said he wanted to teach them the lessons he wants to pass on, 'Lessons on how to find random shit and sort out simple clues.'", Blake says as a beat ensued just before she said her honest opinion, "Seriously, an episode of Scooby-Doo could've done that!", watching the excerpt with Weiss when Jerrica tearfully says goodbye to her father on the hologram as she imitated again, "Oh, and tell your sister she's cool, too, I guess."
Weiss assumes, "Yeah, kind of screwing Kimber over out on all of this, isn't he? This isn't just playing favorites, this is playing together a league of 'screw you'!", before explaining the following part, "Thankfully, Kimber wasn't in the room when he completely forgets her existence and Jem wraps up her quote/unquote confession.", as she and her girlfriend watches Jerrica make a confession video, "Yeah, we were shocked that this girl rock star was a girl rock star... Wait, what are we supposed to learn?"
"So this two-hour confession that apparently her bandmates were just listening quietly to the whole time gets deleted and is never shown to a solitary soul. Not that I don't wish everything in this film could be erased, but WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THAT?!", exasperates the Faunus, "Instead, she goes onstage to pretty much just say the exact same thing, except shorter and dressed like Data from Star Trek: First Contact.", before she and Weiss see Jem explain the truth to the audience onstage in the film's climax after she and her bandmates arrived at the next concert, "Yeah, share that message about being yourself...in a film that clearly has nothing to do with Jem!"
The Schnee heiress climaxed, "On top of that, Rio discovers his father's will...yeah, guess he died of that fatal 'just-be-dead-tosis' as Jem's dad...and it turns out he left him the company. So Erica is out.", remarking as the movie had the security guards taking Erica away and removing her from the concert presumably for her actions, "That'll teach ya for making us famous, bitch!", resolving thereafter, "So, what's the first thing he's gonna do now that the girls have agreed to make decisions together and always be equal? Totally rename the band without consulting them.", as the film had Rio tell a woman that the band's name is now Jem and the Holograms.
"Bet Rio would say, 'I think it matches their flaky, see-through, almost invisible personalities.'", preferred the black-haired huntress, "But after the movie's credits, Erica plots her revenge and goes to a band called the Misfits.", she then revealed as she clarified, "Were you thinking of the real life rock band? You wish. No, this is the rival band that always hated Jem, one of the few things they spontaneously out of nowhere wanted to make very similar to the cartoon.", before when Erica directs the Misfits to destroy Jem's fame as one of the Misfits members Pizzazz promised they will get her since their songs are better; Weiss then boots up her angry Jem fan computer program on her Scroll again and puts the rage meter up to a six-seventh, almost to the brink of completing it.
The white-haired huntress then asked as she and Blake watch the last seconds of the post credits scene where the Misfits and Erica enter the Misfits' bus, "Yeah, why don't you go ahead and join Azula in The Last Airbender 2, like that will ever happen? We're sure you'll have plenty of time to talk about things.", and then saying, "But even then, there's one more thing to talk about. We wanted it saved until the end, because it's a pretty big deal. You're probably wondering, outside of giving us an insultingly weak story and characters, explaining how to not be a corporate sellout while being one of the biggest corporate sellouts of all time, and having virtually nothing to do with the show whatsoever, how can they possibly insult the fans even further?"
"Well, you see, the makers of this movie actually offered the fans a chance to be in the movie. All they had to do is film themselves saying how much they love the Jem cartoon. A cute idea, get the buzz going, maybe play it in the end credits or something.", Blake explains as they watch the Jem fan video footage in the movie, "But that's not what they do. They take the footage of the fans saying how much they love the cartoon, and they edit it to look like they're talking about the Jem from the movie, a movie nobody had seen by that point and has little to do with the show they love. But now, it looks like they're praising the hell out of it.", as several Jem fan videos were shown as it cuts to the live-action Jem band in the movie playing, "Wow. That is low."
Weiss ranted, "Oh, you like the cartoon? You think she's truly outrageous? Well, this is what you were talking about the whole time! Yeah, yeah! This is Jem! You said it!", while two more fan videos are shown in the movie as one of them stated she has a voice and is not invisible, "Oh, you felt a strong, emotional bond? Well, that's not the cartoon! It's this Jem! This is the Jem you felt a strong, emotional bond for! This is like asking people to make videos saying why they love Star Wars, and then suddenly editing it to make it look like you're talking about The Phantom Menace! It's not just cruel, it's a slap in the friggin' face!"
"What makes it even funnier is how lazy it is. Not only do they have the text of the cartoon all over their stuff, not only are they dressed up like the cartoon characters and not the movie, BUT YOU CAN SEE THE CARTOON PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND! Yeah! They just left that in! It's so clear what they're talking about! How amazingly lazy can you get?!", infuriated Blake.
Weiss then was fed up, "We won't have it anymore!", as she activated her angry Jem fan computer program one last time, finally bringing the rage meter up to a full capacity of 7/7, as the boiling red-haired Jem fan screamed in anger and then exploded on Weiss' Scroll, self-terminating the Jem fan program; the Schnee girl concluded, "People, as two people who didn't watch Jem before and only kind of saw it once in a while and passing, even we both can say... This movie's an insult."
Blake and Weiss make their concluding thoughts on the movie;
"It goes out of its way to piss you off in every conceivable fashion. It doesn't work as a standalone film, it doesn't work as an adaptation, the choices make no sense, and it does everything in its power to make sure the fans will hate it. Look, we're not gonna act like we enjoyed this great cartoon. We all had our shows that only existed to sell toys. We had ours, you had yours, and that's fine. But there's a definite audience that grew up with this, and while we know there has to be changes when adapting a show to film, there is absolutely no respect and no love for any of the people that grew up with it.", Blake summed up.
Weiss also stated, "Say what you want about Transformers, but it had Transformers. This has no Jem...and they're strangely proud of that. While we both admit it is kind of funny just what a reckless sellout it is, it does cross a sort of line when it's taking fans of the show and manipulating their footage to represent something that they know they're gonna hate. It not only feels forced and stupid, it just feels...wrong. And we now both can see why they're trying to make the Jem cartoon become a movie! It's to win back all the fans that they lost! Did they learn anything at all?"
"I'm Blake..."
"...and I'm Weiss."
Both finished, "We remember it so you don't have to!", before they left their commentary chairs and went off to meet with the others.
End of Blake and Weiss' Commentary of Jem and the Holograms (2015)
Up Next: Team RWBY's Commentary of The Avengers (1998)