Adipurush’s Biggest Mistake Isn’t Bad VFX, ‘Tapori’ Dialogues Or Bad Casting But Its Attempt To Retell A Legend Without A Magician, A Master Story-Teller

When it was announced that finally, someone is bringing the Indian epic Ramanaya to the big screen, the excitement in all the Indians, regardless of what faith they follow, was at an all-time high. With the addition of ‘Baahubali’ Prabhas to Adipurush, the expectations took a mammoth jump because of obvious reasons.

Then the makers announced that they’ll allocate a budget of 500 crores+ to this project and all hell broke loose expecting it to be the best film coming out of the Indian film industry. Why? They had the story already etched in every Indian’s memory with Ramanaya, they had the budget, they just needed a few good skilled men.

They brought in Om Raut, the man who gave us Tanhaji, one of the best films of Ajay Devgn’s filmography. There were divided views regarding the VFX of Tanhaji and everyone hoped Om wouldn’t repeat the same mistake.

But, today, the film has been released after going through a roller-coaster ride of roadblocks and all the excitement has died turning into rage against the makers. Has this answered the one major question flowing on the internet, “Was Tanhaji ghost-directed by Ajay Devgn?” What do you think?

Even an ordinary person would agree that a story like Ramanaya needs someone not less than a magician, a master storyteller to portray such a humongous vision. Someone who won’t play with people’s beliefs, emotions and sentiments. For every Indian around the world, Ramayana is an emotion, Lord Rama is a hero.

With the 500 crore+ budget, it wouldn’t have been an impossible job for good-skilled men to portray this tale. Some people are already working on the same story at this very moment to prove why this isn’t the adaptation we deserve.

Over the years, the books, photos, and temples have set a notion in people’s minds of how Lord Rama should look & how Ramayana should feel. Adipurush makers lost the battle, the moment they decided to change that giving a modernized twist to it.

Ramanaya would need impeccable casting, decent VFX, deep emotional connection, hand-to-hand combat sequences, and a proper rendering of a known story. There are people in the Indian film industry who have proved of master storytellers, making fiction believable and delivering large-scale mounted budgets. They have the guts to make every rupee spent look grand on the big screen.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali: SLB can make a Red Light area like Kamathipura look so grand and beautiful, cast the right character, give strong dialogues and perfect costumes and create magic like Gangubai Kathiawadi. He has retold the story of Devdas making it a perfect cinema experience, giving the true meaning to ‘modernising cinema’. Check how he brought history alive with Padmaavat and Bajirao Mastani.

SS Rajamouli: Fiction based and inspired by history, myths and epics, Rajamouli brings to the audience an experience every moviegoer longs for in a Cinema hall. RRR was such magic to behold and gave edge-of-seat entertainment. A master in casting, technology and tight script he brings to you an unbelievable experience. Baahubali remains a milestone in cinema storytelling and presents a simple script in a lavish entertaining manner. Speaking of using technology in cinema, 2012’s Makkhi didn’t have out-of-the-world VFX and was made on a mere budget of 30 crores. Adipurush sucked 600 crores giving us the video-game graphics and asking us to believe that it’s one of the costliest projects the Indian film industry has ever produced.

Prashanth Neel: Presenting a larger-than-life character with whistle-worthy dialogues and a large canvas to showcase (even with an average script), KGF chapters were lapped up by entertainment-hungry class and mass. Here comes the art of creating experience and the director left no stone unturned.

Mani Ratnam: With his recent outings Ponniyin Selvan 1, 2 and his classics like Bombay, Roja & Guru, we’ve seen how grand he can get with his story-telling.

Shankar: If we talk about grand storytelling, we just cannot miss the man who gave all of us the Enthiran franchise (Robot & 2.0) & Anniyan (Aparichit). He redefined the way paving the path for today’s directors to own a monumental vision.

When you wonder where 500 crores+ is gone in the three-hour-long Adipurush, the cinema-lover in me goes back to 2011’s Ra.One in terms of using technology for sci-fi. It better job with VFX over a decade, just go through the scenes of Mumbai local, Ra.One & G.One turning into cubes over falling on ground & more. Yes, the script was half-baked and a direction lost midway with zero emotional connection, but visually it still manages to impress even a decade later.

So, dear Adipurush makers, you should’ve either left a story like Ramanaya to the legends mentioned above or should’ve taken the pain to do some intense research about the subject acting accordingly.

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