Haters brought BW and Khans together - Page 2

Originally posted by: ohophelia

It's SRK's magic all over. Just goes to show how beloved he is and how much cultural impact he has had on the whole subcontinent to generate a response like this. He deserves all and more. For all the ridicule DP faced post JNU incident this is a pivotal win for her too.

That aside, Bollywood acting like this was the saviour for all it's movies flopping in recent years is a joke. They are still harping on event films, larger than life movies than focusing writing, music and direction. They still haven't learnt their lesson. Sid Anand came up with the script for this while he was on the shitter. He lucked out that SRK decided to star in it, any other actor and this would have been Shamshera 2.0. The nostalgia and the general good will for SRK and Salman's cameo, DP's pairing have done the trick.

The music is horrible. Bad picturization of songs, formulaic plot, funny CGI; these are only some of the few things wrong with the movie. If an actor other than SRK had starred in this, the outcome on this forum would have been different. Before someone assumes wrongly, I absolutely do not care for the Hindu-Muslim and Pathan-Pandit Idiocracy going on in the forum. I'm honestly appalled by some of the comments wrt those topics. My only gripe is that even action films could have solid stories, and well thought out plot points. The 'terrorist is attacking, desh ko bachao' plot is overused to hell and back. Look at MI, Top Gun, Bourne Identity or even Ghazi (so well made but unfortunately did not do well). Had there been a superstar like SRK in a project like Ghazi, it would have been unimaginable. I wish SRK would star in good movies and refuse crap like Pathan henceforth. 😌

Thank you for saying this. Pathan is a success because of SRK's magic and RW overreach and the audience just wanted some positivity for a change.

I don't know how many films coming up will succeed though. Every movie can't be an event movie. And OTTs can't buy up the rest. They won't.

Then the whole whining will start again about boycotters. Bollywood just refuses to learn.

If SRK is extremely disliked by RW, then he is also extremely liked by the liberals. Left leaning critics like Anupama Chopra who usually trash mindless movies, are praising it to the skies. He had always the support, just needed the right movie to make a comeback.

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

Thank you for saying this. Pathan is a success because of SRK's magic and RW overreach and the audience just wanted some positivity for a change.

I don't know how many films coming up will succeed though. Every movie can't be an event movie. And OTTs can't buy up the rest. They won't.

Then the whole whining will start again about boycotters. Bollywood just refuses to learn.

Bollywood is used to quick-fix solutions. They'd rather have a superstar star in a formulaic movie and clap hands and say all's sunny when it does historic collections than look at employing good writers and directors.

I am sorry if it came across that way. But I had to say it because many still pretend as if issue is only poor content from BW. It is not only about bad writing or bad scripts, bad direction, bad acting, bad casting etc.

Plenty of regional films that are hyped and did well, have no good story or writing. What if KGF? It is pure, larger than life masala film. What is unique in its writing?

What is unique in Pushpa or its writing? It is a typical masala film.

So it is clear that BW is not just suffering due to bad writing or bad direction issues. It gets flak for woke content, taking up issues or is falsely accused of insulting Indian culture and religion or pushing pro Pak propaganda.

There are heinous lies spread against the stars and it is made to look like boycotting BW films is some satyagraha in national interest! I am not saying all masses follow this but a section surely does. I am just happy they found no such success with Pathaan and the R day weekend, SRK's new avatar, action worked in its favour.

I do not think BW is flopping just due to content. To be honest, Indian audience is not known to be patrons of good content much. They want their popcorn entertainment and mirch masala. Where they get it, they go there. Probably if D3, Dabangg, Ghajini or ETT released today, they would get success too.

I am sorry for using word like 'pretend'. I just meant to imply impact of propaganda against stars of certain communities and BW in general is there for sure.

Nobody listens to critics. It is about masses now who are led by social media and TV channels like Republic, Zee News, Times Now.

Anupama hardly comes on TV now. She is reduced to YouTube.

Contrast it to bazillion WA forwards, FB, Twitter, YT rants and claims against SRK and in more accessible language like Hindi. That has more teach than Chopra waxing eloquent in English.

IT cell and channels like Times Now promoting Kashmir Files, Pushpa, KGF, Bahubali, Kantara make a difference.

this is the Beauty of India, hate doesn't win especially when it comes to entertainment, even with all it's diffiuculties for this young country, there is a spirit of secularism present in most people. I think this is even bigger than Bollywood..... and srk and Salman and even aamir are true seculars even in their own personal lives as are most of Bollywood, including akki's wife, unless she is a very good actress, which I don't think she is

Yup. This is why I find attempt to divide cricketers or stars or writers on political or religious lines as BS. I loved it how Virat and Dhoni took action against trolls and how cricketers came together in support of Irfan, Harbhajan, Shubman Gill, Arshdeep Singh etc when they were dragged in communal trolling.

I would like similar unity in BW also. And am liking their setting aside differences and rivalries to come together and fight off hate.

Our films or sports, music etc are not for political scapegoating in name of religion.

I am glad audience has shown time and time again that it does NOT look at religion or ideology of its artistes or singers or spokespersons. We like stars for their work. Not their religion or ideology.

Ah, no worries.

Idk I feel like Bollywood's problem is two fold.

a) they are not making good movies anymore. The focus invariably is on the star cast and the prod costs spent on vfx, cgi. They are badly convinced that big budgets and grand spectacles are the way to the viewers heart. Couldn't be further from the truth if you see small movies with sensible writing and direction making bank. Sita ramam, kantara etc. They feel that the stars would somehow make do for the lack of effort in filmmaking.

b) Coming to South movies with predictable and formulaic plots doing well, this is where Bollywood needs to learn. The South movies know what they are selling to the viewers - culturally rooted stories. There are all the ingredients to a typical masala movie, some cringe combined. But they are unapologetic about it. Parts of Pushpa is cringe, predictable plot of a lowly protagonist turning into a head honcho and making enemies with the police. But it depicts the village life as it is with no frills, has catchy dialogues, good music and above all good actors who actually fit the role. Same with KGF. It's rooted in the exploitation of the gold mine workers and emotionally invests the viewer with maa ki mamta. The South makers equally focus on all parts of filmmaking. They don't just sign Allu Arjun and think he'll do the rest. It's as Rajamouli says he makes movies to make money and make the people employed in his project profitable. He makes no ifs and buts about art. There maybe a lot to criticize with this approach but atleast he's clear what he endeavors his projects to be.

Now compare this with Bollywood's recent project Bramhastra that tried to ape South's formula. They tried to borrow every thing that has ever worked for any movie. Tried to ape marvel with unnecessary vfx, and the result was a laser show. Tried to borrow South's formula of focusing on culturally rooted story with astras. Would have been fine if they had fleshed it out properly but somewhere they thought the youth would feel disconnected so tried to put a modern twist on it with a useless lovestory. This confusion led to a hodgepodge of a movie. The problem is they are not unapologetic with their film making. They are always set out to appease every segment of the population. In such efforts the quality of the movie gets compromised.

b) There are too many boycott and protests around Bollywood and part of it is due to SSR's death. Post pandemic preferences have changed, viewers managed to discover much more varied content on ott. But all these have really miniscule effect in the real world of cinema. We need to see that online noise is not equivalent to real world. India is a large country and even with people boycotting Pathaan has managed to record historic first day. The protesting population is not even 1% of actual population. So it is not right to shift the blame on boycott trends. It may affect business in one or two states in select theatres where the boycott gang has imprints but apart from that the larger population doesn't give a f.

Bollywood however uses this excuse to take away the blame from their movies flopping instead of actually working on the content. It's a circular argument really.

Happy for Bollywood

So when Bhansali’s set was destroyed by Karni Sena (who is backed by Congress), why didn’t Bollywood support him? Does that mean Bollywood is congress’ puppet?

And DP won over protests in 2018 with Padmavat. So protests at large doesn’t matter.

Pathaan winning is good but it will again delude producers in thinking that big spectacle movie win so they will run after this formula and when bad movie won’t work, they will again cry victim.

Bollywood really need to focus on writing and originality. There’s not a 5 good songs from 2022.