Mandy dearest,
What a dismal prospect! By now, Ekta has pretty much finished with demolishing Akbar, and reduced him to a spare time emperor, who spends most of his time even in the Diwan-e-Khas settling his family issues, and wandering about the palace making sure Jodha Begum is ok.
You yourself realise that nothing of any substance about Akbar's actual reign, the conquests, the
navaratna, the insatiable urge to learn and assimilate, the rest of his reforms (without his having been tutored in them by Jodha Begum!) can be expected given the kind of writers Ekta favours and her budget constraints.
Why, this Jalal cannot even pronounce the second line of the
Karmanyevadhikaraste sloka without massacring both the words and the
anvaya, the way they are split up. I literally cringed when I listened to him recite that second line last night, Could they not have redubbed it? It was awful, and as for Jodha's recitation from the Holy Quran, I do not know how good or bad that was as I do not know Arabic. So much for Ekta's take on Akbar's amazing level of interest in other religions and cultures.
As for your feeling that there was something missing in Jodha Akbar the film, I think it is pointless to compare a 3 hour 20 minute film with the 120 hour plus footage that the serial has already consumed. If Ekta had been limited to 200 minutes, then you could have compared the two! I loved the film and I still love it. I loved the effortless power and the insouciant arrogance of the early Jalal here, but now I am pretty much fed up with this milksop avatar, the flash in the pan of the Atifa track notwithstanding.
Nor can you compare Mughal-e-Azam, which was a very stagy, theatrical film, and Jodhaa Akbar. The latter was not meant to be powerful at all, it was a love story set against the backdrop of a mighty empire in the making, and the love story was effortlessly woven into the historical fabric. In Mughal-e-Azam, there was nothing but the stereotyped boy-loves--girl-and-boy's father disapproves violently track, spread over more than 3 hours. Just think of Durga Khote's Jodha Bai (she was not called begum there) pressing her hand to her heart and declaiming about her
mamta for her son, sent off to Rajasthan to lose his early addiction to liquor, and you will agree with me about the staginess of the whole thing. Akbar's loud declamations, given Prithviraj Kapoor's strong theatrical background, were equally predictable, and could have been taken from any sasur- bahu serial.
What made Mughal-e-Azam a classic was the superlative cast and their combined star power, which was incandescent in the heavy dramatic scenes, like the one when Anarkali flees from the advancing Akbar straight into Salim's arms, and then slides limply to the floor at his feet. Being the Mughal prince that he is, Salim does
not stoop to pick her up. That was a splendid touch.
It is fashionable nowadays to say that Mughal-e-Azam was a huge success when it was released, but nothing could be further from the truth. I watched in the theater in 1960, and the audience was completely put off by the heavy Urdu that they could not understand at all, and they sat on only for the
Pyar kiya to darna kya song and the wonderful Sheesh Mahal scene shot in colour, a great rarity then.
I loved the Salim-Anarkali love scenes, especially the white feather one in the garden at night, with Bade Ghulam Ali Khan singing in the background. I liked the haughty unbending Mughal prince that Dilip Kumar made of his Salim, but most of the viewers, with their tastes carried over from theatre and the old 1940s films, dismissed him as too stiff and preferred Pradeep Kumar in
Anarkali, which did much better at the box office!!
Now, if Ekta drifts to Salim-Anarkali, I do not see how this Jodha-Akbar jodi can have anything powerful to do. Whether Jodha is shown siding with Salim or with Akbar, in either case she will weep and lament a lot. Akbar is bound to be mostly rigid rage, and Rajat will go overboard with it, as he does all too often here, forgetting that the icy anger of the early episodes was infinitely more telling. I think it will be as bad as this serial has become for quite a while yet.
What I found interesting is the obvious eagerness with which you are looking forward to all this. I now see that Ekta is truly a magician. 😉 But her
jadoo does not work on me, more is the pity, for it is sometimes pleasing to be able to con oneself into loving something, even if it is substandard for the most part.
Shyamala
Originally posted by: mandyg
hi folks!
i was going to make a post earlier but prior commitments kept me away from it and finally i got the time to jot down some of my thoughts on how this show might shape up!
as we have seen so far ekta has presented us the detailed version of Ashutosh Gwarikar's johda akbar!..after watching the movie, although i loved it i felt that it was missing something and that it was incomplete..ekta took the bold initiative and went ahead to complete those missing parts with pieces of history and chunks of natkiye rupantars..now some NRs were appealing while the others were not but then that is how daily soaps work, in order to cater to the trp audience some
nonsensical stuff needs to be incorporated..for which i forgive ekta, not for all NRs but for some!
now with maham's end an era of JA has ended or i would say one season has ended..MC was going to replace her but could not stand for long as Ashwini's MA is incomparable..it will be impossible to fill her shoes..and i would not be wrong in saying that Ashwini has immortalized maham anga just like rajat has immortalized akbar..whenever i think of real MA i think of ashwini's face and whenever i think of Akbar i think of rajat's face..this is the impact of the great show that has managed to stay on top of the trp charts inspite of being surrounded by controversies on and off!
now with all the main villains coming to an end..the phase of akbar's 9 gems and the next generation has started..we have already seen how MS and TM are actively involved and are the most trusted men of Akbar's..in other words they are his eyes!..now since all the negative people are being eliminated what is there in this show that will keep the audience engaged..lets dissect..
romance was high trp puller factor up until the sr, but now that seems to have taken a back seat and it has become stale and repetitive, as the leads do not seem to be at that comfort level where their scenes can be enjoyed, instead they just go unnoticed as there is nothing new and special about them, therefore romance to become the trp puller for this couple will not work!
then what will work..politics? incidents from akbar's real life? his administrative achievements? wars?..i doubt if ekta will go that root as it would need a highly paid creative team and a lot f money spend on war scenes and costumes..!..for her its easier to show simple sbs style harem politics as she knows that it is a guaranteed trp puller...but with maham's character gone how will that happen! ruk can be shown as completely negative but that actress is not as powerful as ashwini was and might not be able to hold it too long on her shoulders...now what is needed and here is what i think ekta might do...
ekta will take the show slowly into its season 2 phase where the story of K Asif's mughal-e-azam will start..now those of you who have not seen the movie watch it on you tube it was a very powerful film even more powerful than Ashutosh's JA!..and if she follows the same story line and gives us the detailed version of the film i think this show might give us record breaking trps depending on how good the cast is! and the new negative female character might be the one who wanted to mary salim and i believe bahar was her name...
some of you might be thinking what will happen to akhda if the show shifts to salim anarkali..nothing will happen to them their roles will become stronger and powerful..the missing romance and passion will be filled in by the new couple and this time ekta will be extra careful in hiring and will get legal documents in place so that the actor or actress don't disagree to fulfill what the role demands!..and i think this phase will start with a small leap when salim is still a little boy just like how it was in the movie and then the major leap when he grows into an adult and then the whole anarkali kissa starts..i think nothing might happen until end of this year but be prepared to see more changes by the next year..as i have read somewhere that auditions for young salim have already started and MP's akbar went for that audition as per his tweet mentioned by sara!
so guys i do not think that the leap will be that bad in fact it might be more interesting, and it will not kick in soon but will kick in as per trps..if they begin to fall then yes might happen sooner than anticipated but if the trps are stable then ekta might take her sweet time!..so let me know who all are excited to watch season two in the name of mughal-e-azam😊
Edited by sashashyam - 11 years ago
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