Jem and the Holograms finally gets a cast, but are you excited?

The first casting announcement for the upcoming Jem and the Holograms movie was finally made on Friday.  Since Jem was one of my favorite cartoons during the 80’s, I have been waiting with bated breath to find out who will fill the heels of not only Jem, but also the members of her band the Holograms.

And now I know.  Sort of.

Aubrey Peeples from ABC’s Nashville has signed on to play Jem.  Nashville was recently renewed for a third season, which makes Peeples the biggest name on the Jem cast so far.  For those of you like me who have never seen an episode of Nashville, you might remember her not-quite-groundbreaking performance as Steve Sanders’ daughter in Sharknado.  Stefanie Scott from the Disney show A.N.T. Farm has been cast as keyboardist Kimber, and Hayley Kiyoko from ABC Family’s The Fosters will play guitarist Aja.  Rounding out the cast as drummer Shana is Aurora Perrineau, whose claim to fame seems to be one episode of Pretty Little Liars and being the daughter of Harold Perrineau, who played Michael in the hit series Lost.

I’m sure that these young ladies will do a more than adequate job bringing these characters to life.  The problem is that those of us who are old enough to have loved Jem in the 80’s are now too old to have any clue who these up-and-coming actresses are, and now they’ve been cast in what many members of my generation consider to be iconic roles.

Who was I expecting them to cast?  Drew Barrymore?  I keep having to remind myself that this movie is about Jem and the Holograms as they were in the cartoon, and not a continuation of the storyline from the original show.  Maybe I would love to see the Holograms in their thirties, really busy and tired and reexamining their career decisions while reuniting to play a fundraiser to save Starlight House, but that’s not what the younger movie-going crowd will want to see.  And that’s OK because that’s how this thing works: something old is made new again, but it has to be updated. I just hope they keep the keytar.

Are you excited about the new Jem movie?  Who would you have cast?  Leave your answers in the comments below and let us know!