A couple of weeks ago a new trailer for a Jem and The Holograms movie was released online. Jem and The Holograms is based off of an old series of dolls made by Hasbro that came out in the 1980’s, and just like any other Hasbro toy at the time it got it’s own cartoon series. Although it’s popularity didn’t catch on at the time it has developed a fan base over the years and Hasbro must have seen potential in it now that it is being made into a movie. After the trailer was released though it responded negatively with most people and even the fans and they all think that the movie looks terrible.
from en.wikipedia.org
With all the criticism about this new trailer it show’s Hasbro’s main problem, that their’s series don’t work well on the big screen. Hasbro originally tried doing movies with their series back in the late 80’s with Transformers, G.I.Joe, and My Little Pony.
from en.wikipedia.org
from en.wikipedia.org
Transformers The Movie and My Little Pony The Movie were both released in the summer of 1986 with My Little Pony coming out in June and Transformers coming out in August. Both movies despite being based off of very popular cartoons at the time didn’t do very well at the box office with both of them only making about $5 million. Transformers The Movie did become successful on video and DVD. While critics gave both of these movies negative reviews today Transformers The Movie has gotten better reviews while My Little Pony The Movie still has about the same reception. Today most audiences like Transformers The Movie while My Little Pony The Movie has gotten a mixed to negative response.
from en.wikipedia.org
Due to the box office failures of the Transformers and My Little Pony movie G.I.Joe The Movie was moved from a theatrical release to a straight to home video release in 1987. The movie got mixed reception from critics but today is considered to be a decent movie that while its not an amazing movie its still enjoyable. They were going to make a movie based off of Jem and The Holograms but they cancelled it. Hasbro wasn’t the only company to make a movie based off a cartoon based off of a toy. There was Gobots: Battle of The Rocks Lords which I had reviewed and the movie was uninteresting, dull, and also did poorly at the box office making only $1 million dollars. There also three movies made out of the Care Bears not just one movie which most of these shows got but Three!
Overall Transformers The Movie while good didn’t do well at the box office and got negative to mixed reception from critics. My Little Pony The Movie got the same reception and also didn’t do well at the box office. G.I.Joe The Movie was good and was moved to a straight to home video release due to the box office failures of these two movies. The quality of these three movies was kinda of a mix with Transformers The Movie being to best one and I even gave a good review to it in my first review. Now the main problem Hasbro had was marketing since these movies were based off of popular cartoons at the time I think that the movies weren’t advertised well enough to help get the attention of a wider audience. Not to mention while the shows were made to help promote toys that they were shelling the movie’s seemed a bit too focused to help sell toys and because of this some critics saw them as nothing more than toys commercials.
Hasbro ended up losing $10 million on both the Transformers and My Little Pony movie, Transformers The Movie did make its money back thanks to its success on video and DVD.
from en.wikipedia.org
from http://wikapedia.org
The main problems with Hasbro’s live action that are being made today is that they poorly adapt the source material to the big screen. When the Jem and The Holograms movie trailer was released one of the biggest complaints was that it wasn’t anything like the show. Some people even said that the movie looked more like it was Hanna Montana then a Jem movie. With the live action Transformers movies the story isn’t written well and they focus too much on the Human characters instead of the big war between the Autobots and the Decepticons and there isn’t enough action to make the movies worth seeing again.
With the live action G.I.Joe movies they manged to practically ignore the source material making the writing very poor. The action is very dull and in the first movie The Rise of Cobra the Joe’s are given these weird robotic suits that just seems like they were trying to make them like Iron Man. The sequel G.I.Joe Retaliation whats left of any resemblance to G.I.Joe is completely throw out the window, not to mention they even kill off Duke in the beginning of the movie. Not even the combined ninja powers of Snake Eyes, Jinx, and Storm Shadow could save that train wreak of a sequel.
It also doesn’t help that G.I.Joe Retaliation’s Jon M. Chu director who is also directing the Jem and The Holograms movie had previously directed the awful Justin Bieber movie Never Say Never. Of course there is also the BattleShip movie which ended up as well as you might expect, being horrible.
Also with every movie they try changing the design and look of the characters and instead of looking like a nice update to the original design and look. The character look dumb and are at times unrecognizable to the original characters like how in G.I.Joe The Rise of Cobra the joe’s all wear the matching black body amour. Some redesigns don’t look too bad like with Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Snake Eyes. But great characters like Dinobot leader Grimlock and the main villain in charge of Cobra, Cobra Commander look awful.
The character redesign’s should have looked like their modern day comic book counter parts as seen in today’s Transformers and G.I.Joe comics. Hasbro has succeeded in many forms of entertainment outside of the toys they make in T.V shows, comic books, and video games, with movies though not so much. In the 80’s they were too focused on having the movies promote their toys and they didn’t do well at the box office. Today their movies poorly adapt the source material and have redesign’s to the characters that mostly look bad.
With Hasbro’s movie may not be that great 1986’s and 87’s Transformers The Movie and G.I.Joe The Movie are both good movies that are worth watching. And are part of franchise’s that have spawned T.V shows, comics, and video games that are just awesome.
Inside the Film 