Changes made when making a movie from an existing medium, like a TV show are inevitable. A movie is only around 2 hours long and usually tries to cover the events of the first season of a TV show, which is usually 26 episodes long. Movies very rarely do this well; the Sex and the City movie was ok, while The Last Airbender was a total flop, even though their source material was beloved by their audience.

When I heard that Jem and the Holograms was being remade for the big screen, I was excited. When I heard that the studio wouldn’t be using the film treatment the original creator had already made, I was less excited. When I found out they’d hired the director of the Justin Bieber documentary for the film, I was annoyed. When I found out they’d cut out every single element that made the original show unique and fun, I was devastated. After I saw the film, I was just angry.

Every choice the film made was the wrong one. The MisFits, the rival band and main antagonists at the beginning of the show, were nowhere to be seen in the movie, except in an after credits scene which I’ll talk about later. Synergy, the reason the band was called the Holograms, the sci-fi element that made the show interesting and unique, a goddess-like character in the show, had been down-graded to a second-rate WALL-E. While the singing was okay, the music (and the acting for that matter) belonged on the Disney Channel rather than in a major motion picture.

It amazes me that this film made every single possible wrong choice possible when it came to this interpretation and got one part right. Ke$ha is a huge fan of Jem and the Holograms and asked her agent to get her in the film. Apparently it was too late for her to be in the main film, but they had an after credits scene made just for her. In it, she plays the leader of the MisFits, in a sort-of teaser for a possible (hah!) sequel. It is the only good part of the film, and it wasn't even technically part of it! For some reason, the acting felt different, a bit campy, but better. The attitude was less serious and more fun and adult, and the music, even thought it was only there for a second, was a remixed cover of a song from the original show. Even the way it was shot was better than the main film.

I’m not sure if Ke$ha influenced it, or if someone else was in charge of that scene, but it was okay, perfect when compared to the mess of a movie that came before it. If the rest of the movie was directed the way that last scene was, the movie wouldn’t have bombed.