Michael Jackson should've been in it.

To be fair, the previous poster did say "Jackson 5", not "Jacksons" (a distinction that is a little bit like "Jefferson Airplane" vs "Jefferson Starship": they refer to the same groups in different time periods between which their musical style also had shifted some). In their Jackson 5 period (when Michael was still an adolescent who didn't look anything like Diana Ross) their music still leaned more toward Motown and R&B, without the hip hop flavors that could be found in the later Jacksons material.

However, even when talking about the Jackson 5 era material, I still agree completely with you that the Sorels are much closer to the Four Tops or the Temptations ....... with a much more direct linkage back to doo-wop's multi-part harmonies than the Jackson 5 ever had.

Also, I don't see Michael Jackson being a good fit for this role / movie on a couple different counts. In the first place, I've never seen anything that would make me think that he had the acting chops (and, yes, I've seen The Wiz). In the second place, in 1984 he was simply *too* big of a media star for this movie. He would have unbalanced the whole movie; certainly in terms of how audiences would have seen it at that time, and probably in terms of how the director and editors would have felt obliged to put together those scenes. He also would have cost *way* too much in 1984 for this movie's budget.

It can be easy to forget now (especially for younger viewers), because it seems like everybody who appears on screen is a familiar face & name (including Robert Townsend, who is the one that would be replaced), but at the time Pare was the biggest star (and he wasn't exactly Hollywood A-list either) and this was otherwise a pretty obscure cast. Lots of people still thought that Moranis' actual name was Bob McKenzie; Diane Lane was only known (if at all) for playing high school kids (and wasn't even among the best known teens in that generation); Van Valkenburgh (who doesn't have that big of a role) had done *one* "cult hit" (back when that still meant that only small "cult" of fans knew it) *5 years* before; and all the rest were still complete unknowns.

In terms of being a relatively low budget movie that had lots of then-obscure cast members go on to become quite well known, Streets of Fire is kinda the 1980s version of American Graffiti.