Kalki: Death of Originality

Kalki: Death of Originality

Like it or not, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ trailer starring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan is a brazen example of Indian commercial mainstream cinema going horribly empty on originality.

‘Kalki 2898 AD’ - touted to be the gamechanger in Indian sci fi, this mega epic reportedly made at a mind blogging budget of six hundred crores by the trailer seems to be a probable colossal disaster.

Prime reason is the plot/storyline that displays ignorance about the Indian concept of dystopia. ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ trailer opens up showing us the city of Kashi (Varanasi) under great suffering and the evil Commander Manas (Saswata Chatterjee) has gained control.

The dystopian culture seen in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is shamelessly similar to the Hollywood/western concept of dystopia where the powerful capitalists take control and the less privileged, poor are left for suffering and slavery.

In my opinion an Indian science fiction with the title like ‘Kalki’ should have talked about the Indian concept of dystopia in future – the Kali Yug where there is anarchy, greed and lust are only thing remaining resulting in humans losing sanity, humanity and sins after sins gets committed everywhere.

But the award-winning filmmaker Nag Ashwin shows sheer mediocrity in presenting the dystopia borrowed from Hollywood and seen in films after films, be it superhero or animation or sci fi or disaster or anything else.

It is painful and sad to see that an Indian sci fi film based on Kalki’ - the foretold tenth and final incarnation of the god Vishnu is set on a borrowed hollywoodised/western dystopian culture, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ should have had the ‘desi’ connect.

Honestly, I found Nag Aswin seriously trying to compete with the ‘Avengers’, ‘Mad Max Fury’, ‘Dune’, ‘Star Wars’ of the Hollywood world in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’. Why?

Why Rajamouli has never thought of doing that? Why Indian filmmakers no matter how good or bad they are ape Hollywood and it is sickening to find that Hollywood is the benchmark for these filmmakers turned project makers turned fakers.

Nag Aswinji’s ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is a demonstration that getting mega stars like Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan and Hollywood walas for VFX for action sequences and a borrowed dystopian concept with more borrowing/copying (in the article later) from the Hollywood super hero, sci fi adventures films etc is sufficient to collect all those six hundred core ka money bags with cashews, pista kishmish and badaam.

Worse, as told earlier there is more borrowing from the Hollywood, here it goes and sorry if it causes quiver amongst diehard fans.

‘Kalki 2898 AD’ trailer has sequences lifted from acclaimed Hollywood movies like ‘Dune’, ‘Mad Max Fury Road’. (What was the think tank of the production house doing).

Here are the examples Amitabh Bachchan’s character Ashwatthama is quite similar to that of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road. In Mad Max Fury Road we had the handicapped soldier - Charlize Theron. In ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ we have Amitabh Bachchan wearing bandages.

The arid deserts, those explosions, battle scenes shown in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ reminds of ‘Dune’, even Prabhas wardrobe at places resembled what Zendaya wore in ‘Dune’.

Is this a tribute to Hollywood by Nag Aswinji. No, it’s an Indian sci fi toh now its time to bring the Indian connect toh chalo lets bring Mahabharata and we get Amitabh Bachchan as Ashwatthama and Deepika Padukone as SUM-80 alias Sumati, mother of the Hindu god Kalki.

See, the above paragraph proves that ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is an Indian film, but why such clear influence of Hollywood? Nag Aswinji hi jaane.