Social Media and the Entertainment Industry has something in store for us every day, there is never a dull day, isn’t? However, there are days when we get super excited, like yesterday, after Thalaivar’s 2.0 making video was released in social media. The video is already hitting major views and is trending. The video was amazing.
One could see the enormous amount of work and time put by the entire crew of the movie, not just Rajni and Akshay, but the entire crew who is putting up sets at such large scales and technicians who are breaking their heads on the CGI works. It is very clear the movie is being made in a grand style like every other Shankar movie is. And we can’t wait for the movie to hit screens, but no matter what something seems to bother me. Something that I didn’t expect to happen in a Shankar’s sequel.
Where is Aishwarya Rai? Amy Jackson plays the female lead for 2.0, which is clearly the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster Endhiran that had Aishwarya Rai as the lead; in fact, she was the main reason why the movie had a story. However, for some reasons, the actress who is back for good post maternity is not part of the sequel. Though 2.0 is majorly the clash between Chitti ( the Robot Rajni) and Akshay who looks like a crow, we catch a glimpse of Thalaivar in Vaseegaran’s costume and make over. Therefore, that clearly means he is still there, so ash must be there too.
Am sure Shankar will give some explanation to it, or maybe even have Ash play a small cameo over Skype. The point is why we can’t make sequels with the same characters from the first movie, but still in an interesting and gripping way. Let’s take few examples.
VIP 2 did justice as a sequel; it had the same house, the same characters and the same leads, but the story was bad, there was nothing new, they lost it. On the other hand, we have hit sequels with the same franchise but there is absolutely no logic. Take Lawrence’s Muni or Kanchana Series for example.
Lawrence married Vedhika in Muni-1 but in Muni 2 – Kanchana he courts Lakshmi Rai, but his mother is still Kovai Sarala and his father from the first movie, Vinu Chakravarthy is supposedly dead and his photo hangs in the wall and Lawrence gets a new brother out of nowhere. The third movie has a different heroine, so does the fourth. However, his mother is still Kovai Sarala.
We do realize he is retaining only the things that worked. But using new heroines in each movie because they are just fancy dolls to attract the audience and apparently can’t be used more than once seems bad. The Singam series is another example, though the movie retained the same leads and made sense to everything they added, it doesn’t quite fit why there are second heroines who always fall in love with Suriya ( who was married to Anushka in the first movie, yet gets engaged and marries again) and be alive or part of the movie till that one duet song.
We do have good examples like Chennai 28 II and Bahubali, which did justice to both the films under their name. Even though Chennai 28 II came after almost a decade the first film got released, it did an amazing job. Youngsters who were die-hard fans of Chennai 28 at the time of release are now actually dads with routine and kids to take care, lifestyle changed. The film gave this exactly and the audiences loved it.
It is high time our directors understood that they are amidst audience who get the chance to witness International work. Hollywood has franchises that are releasing their ninth and tenth films with a continuous storyline and same artists. The Marvel series, for example, has big names under their banner, artists who are well established in their own movies, yet they are committed to the series.
However, it is not just in the hands of the artists, the director decides at the end of the day if his film should make justice to the title it holds or not. When directors like Rajamouli and Venkat Prabhu can find the cast that would work, why not Shankar?
Why give an explanation when you can do justification?