Avatar vs. Rupa ka Badla


Avatar was publicized to be the Movie of the decade. I watched its trailers both the making and film trailer at least thrice a week. Perfect advertising. I know several of my friends to be in this state of trance: mesmerized by Cameron's vision, overwhelmed by his 15 year persistence, overpowered by his imagination. I was under influence too. As 18th December drew close, my breath rose. There were so many whom I had personally influenced. You have to watch this movie man! Its gonna be awesome! Here I'll share the link with you. Watch the trailer first and then see the making video. Look, how much effort and vision goes into making a Hollywood flick like this. Compare it with apna desi samaan. To make 3 idiots these guys took 4 years. Avatar created a new world during that time. A new language, A new species, A new culture , A new technology (3D motion Capture), A new business. So came the fateful day of 19th December when I decided to enter Pandora. 3 hours later. It was the biggest disappointment of my Hollywood influenced life. I thought I went to see a Hollywood flick, but what I saw was a remake of the dacoit movies of 70s & 80s. Mera Goan Mera desh , Rupa ka badla and numerous other Dharmendra starrers. Take the plot of a typical 70s bollywood dacoit/zameendaar movie: Innocent villagers are enjoying there simple lives in their beautiful village. The evil city businessmen(ECB) want to take over a sizable chunk of land where there is a very old bhawani maa ka mandir. But the villagers protest, citing the reasons that this mandir is the basis of their world, the invisible life force that makes the village productive and we will die to protect its honor. The ECBs alone cannot fight them off, villagers know the territory very well. The hotel cannot be constructed , the ECB's side seems to lose but then munshiji(picture Kanhaiya Lal) comes up with a brilliant idea. He asks the ECB to find a hero who would be drafted as a villager and act as their ally in the community. Learning the ways of the village and using his influence there to destroy their bonds, creating a rift amongst the villagers thereby winning the battle. In return , the ECB's will make sure that hero's blind sister back home in Mumbai(picture Farida Jalaal) gets her eyes back. But guess what happens. Our hero being the hero falls in love with a village girl and sees a whole new angle. Finally finding out that he is playing for the wrong team. Joins the villagers and by just being brave and heroic rescues the villagers from the tyranny of ECB. Eventually the sister gets her eyes back. Bhawaani maa mandir remains untouched, he gets the village girl too. Happy ending Nothing Cameroonish about this story right. It ain't any Titanic or Aliens or Terminator. A simple story shown in different versions for at least 2 decades in India. The surprise is : remove all the unnecessary linguistic phenomenon, special effects, 3D motion capture babble and you get Avatar. I know of at least 10 bollywood movies with unknown actors that share the same base story line as in Avatar. This leads to a very important thought. Why go through all the trouble of creating a new world a new language when you don't have a story to tell. Special effects are of use only if you have LORD OF THE RINGS/MATRIX storyline, no matter how many special effects you show in DDLJ
it isn't of any use. At the end of the day people are in only for the songs and dance. Alas!! Avatar had neither.

So, my verdict on Avatar: CRAP Even in 3D. I didn't see any point. (Reddit agrees on the storyline too.)
Kaka's Avtaar was way advanced than this.

Learning: NEVER JUDGE A MOVIE BY IT'S TRAILER

Comments

Prologue said…
Well, I agree with your review for the movie, but it will be harsh for not giving credit to Director for making those special effects & designing a world. If we see Pandora with different angle James is just next to God. Isn't he? After all he has created a world not real obviously.
I think it was our fault that we had so much of expectation and he failed to live up to it.
But yes it was crap at the end as a movie is good if the story behind is good. It lacked of content but surprisingly they are doing great business which confirms the acceptance among viewers.
TheQuark said…
My response:
http://thequark.blogspot.com/2010/01/avatar-avtar-bindiya-and-collective.html

Do watch Charlie Kaufman's movies. Thodi ajeeb si hoti hai but they are away from the Hollywood "format":

* Protagonist falls in true love
* Protagonist (esp US passport holder) saves the world
* Protagonist resolves some life issues and get enlightenment too
.......

they are quite a refreshing watch.

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