Recently Rajamouli was in Mumbai for the screening event of the hindi version of Baahubali - The conclusion. A reporter asked him something about a copied scene in his movie and his response was epic.
Several people have been making these allegations on SS Rajamouli for quite some time now. Fans have been leaping to his defense since the time these allegations began. This one hardcore fan of Rajamouli jumped up to his defense and provided a lot of counter points defending the master filmmaker. Not that anyone needs to justify, but this is something that you need to read, for academic purposes at least.
Here are all the allegations of plagiarism on SS Rajamouli
i) "SYE" Movie Rugby dance ii) "Magadheera" Cluster of arrows iii) Eega and the Cockroach iv) Rana's chariot in "Baahubali" and the one in Hercules movie v) "Maryada Ramanna" copied from "Our Hospitality" vi) Vikramarkudu scene and its eerie similarity to a scene in Vijayashanti's Film vii) Baahubali 2 poster copiedBut, is Hollywood copying SS Rajamouli's work ?
i) Jungle Book(2016) copied waterfall concept from Baahubali(2015)? ii) The scene in the film Lucy(2014) and its unbelievable closeness to SS Rajamouli's Yamadonga(2007) iii) Game of Thrones copied the architecture of the kingdom shown in the film Magadheera(2010)?? iv) The Final Nail
S.S.Rajamouli (SSR) and the horde of haters he made over the years is quite a popular fact. But if you ask them why? "He copied so and so scenes from Hollywood" is the popular answer you would hear and that is it. We term these ‘horde’ as ‘haters’ and today we have set on a mission to debunk these guys and present you with the reality.
First up, we show you the reality of the major claims they have made, which would justify the tag we have given them.
Scene 1: "SYE" Movie Rugby Dance by villain team
What the haters claim:
Remember this scene from SYE? Right before the final game of rugby at the climax, this strange yet impact-full dance is performed. Few people said that this scene was copied from this:
Reality: To begin with, that second pic we posted was not from a movie but an actual Rugby game. And the Act they are performing is known as ‘HAKA’, which is an age old tradition in New Zealand, known to be a war cry. The New Zealand rugby team known as the "All Blacks" in the rugby team adopted this tribal war dance as a routine before every game. For more information refer this wiki page about it.
An old painting of tribals performing 'HAKA'
So, even if you put some common sense into it, when a film has been made centered on Rugby, is it wrong to do some research into it and include something that is existing in reality? On a lighter note, if you make a film on cricket and one of the actors plays a cover drive, will that amount to copy? I leave it for you to decide. Haters have gone to the extent of editing the footage from the actual game so that people will think it is from a movie.
Here’s the actual video from a live game:
Scene2: "Magadheera" Cluster of Arrows This iconic scene happens when Sherkhan (Srihari) launches an attack on the stranded Bhairava’s army on the edge of a hill.
What the haters say: It was supposedly copied from this scene in 300 film.
Reality:- Let’s face it, Arrows when fired upward will only come down, that’s basic physics. This trademark shot of a group of men firing arrows into air has been used many times in Hollywood as well as in Indian film industry. During the medieval age Bow and arrow was a crucial weapon, and history tells us that they are fired together to inflict more damage on an oncoming enemy. Even when the first Guns arrived at our world, they used to follow the same strategy. A line of men stand forward, fire at will, change their position and allow the backup men to fire while they use this time to reload. If this is copy, any hero using a gun in any of his films also amounts to copy, isn’t it?
Scene3: Eega and The Cockroach
What the haters claim:- "Eega" was supposedly copied from an Australian short film released in 2010 called "Cockroach".
Reality: First a Brief insight into that short film "Cockroach" This short film is around 10 minutes and story goes like this, a man and a woman are in a happy relationship, right when they step out of their wedding ceremony, he meets with an accident and is dead on spot. Later he appears at his wife’s house re-incarnating as a cockroach and tries to communicate with her but in vain. At last, when he was still immersed in this convincing job, the woman hits the cockroach with a shoe and kills him unknowingly, and thus ends the story.
Analysis: Imagine SS Rajamouli was inspired from this not so popular short film that didn’t even get any good ratings and made a whole movie that is more than 2 hours. Frankly speaking, even if he was really inspired as the haters claim, isn’t it amazing that he created a wonder out of nothing. Think it over, is it just because of the concept alone or the way the film was directed that Eega went on to become such a colossal hit.
If it is the concept alone as the haters claim, there are enormous number of Re-Incarnation movies made so far and in most of them a human reincarnates as human, snake etc.etc.. Even though these are repeated concepts we had encouraged as they had given us good entertainment. The critics called these as just stereotypes and they only concentrated on content value but nothing more, never any one of these movies not called as a copy! But as soon as Rajamouli made a re-incarnation movie in which a human was re-incarnated as a fly and that has immediately became a copy of not-even remotely closer sect called cockroach? leaving a 15 secs concept that was similar to the cockroach film, how much creativity did Rajamouli had put into this one of a kind film? Doesn’t he deserve the credit for a masterpiece that went on to win 28 Awards and 41 nominations worldwide? Haters would immediately gun the due credit and cry : "no credit of any kind to Mr.Rajamouli please"
Scene4: Rana’s chariot in "Baahubali" and the one in Hercules movie.
The Claim:
That the above Chariot scene was copied from Hollywood film Hercules, shown below:
Reality: The Baahubali film released a lot of promotional videos updating the status of the completion of the shoot. And in one of the videos they have informed this,
As you can see the war scenes have been completed by the end of March, 2014. In the video you can see all the happenings, actors playing Kalakeyas, huge sets at Ramoji film city. This video was uploaded in July, 2014.
Now I’m very particular about dates because, if you googled for the release date of Hercules, then here’s the result you get
Guess the images speak for themselves, unless SS Rajamouli had the ability to time travel there is no way he could have copied this scene.
Scene 5: "MaryadaRamanna" copied From “Our hospitality”.
Reality: Firstly the story writer of the film isn’t SS Rajamouli, and the actual writer Mr.Kanchi and Vijayendra Prasad has more often than not told that it was adaptation of an old Hollywood classic, how old you might ask, well it was made in the year 1923 when the US Copyright was in complete shambles. Even if you refer to the Copyright act finally put into proper force in 1976, they have a mandate that many films that have released at that time i.e., 1923 and the pre-era are part of public property. And the funny part, it was a mime film. Generally when films of that age are remade they are considered as adaptations, why is it that no one raised their concern when Vishal Bhardwaj adapted Shakespeare's Hamlet into Haider?? Hollywood also does these adaptations quite often, but our fickle minds here overreact as it was a regional film, and their ego can’t believe that SS Rajamouli pulled of a thoroughly entertaining Adaptation.
Remember, SS Rajamouli was not the only one who adapted this film. And look where they included "Maryada Ramanna" in the official wiki page of the film 'Our Hospitality'. I’ll save your data costs,as much as the haters would’t want to agree, “Its an adaptation”.
Scene 6: Vikramarkudu scene and its eerie similarity to a scene in Vijayashanti’s Film.
Reality: Shambhavi (Vijayashanti’s film) released in 2003 and Vijayendra Prasad (Story writer and SS rajamouli’s dad) had submitted Vikramarkudu story and script for registration in Writers Association in 1999. How a Movie Script submitted for Registration/Copyright in 1999 would contain a copied scene from a movie released in 2003? If the scene is already there in another movie, SSR made everyone including Raviteja agree to copy the scene blatantly? So not only SSR decided to cheat but made everyone believe cheating is good? And SSR Decided to lose all his name and reputation he achieved with his earlier films like "Simhadri" and "Chatrapathi" which were industry hits then by deciding to copy a scene directly from a mainstream Telugu movie which was just released three years earlier (not even 10years or 20 years but just 3 years)?
Now, Isn’t it too obvious that Mr.V.Vijayendra Prasad’s script was sabotaged before? Also when SS Rajamouli grabbed too much lime light after Magadheera, the writer V.Vijayendra Prasad, who is SS Rajamouli’s father was banned by the producer’s council for some mishap on some fraud charges. If he committed some grave mistake that involved money, why isn’t that there is no police case filed at that time? If their claim is genuine, why isn't that there is no criminal case filed for this script reuse we discussed above? When a Land/State is against a Man, the Man is termed as a criminal. When Men are running a havoc against a targeted Man by not following any laws of the land/state, the Man should be called as a Hero. Isn’t it a conscious effort to deliberately undermine S.S Rajamouli’s success as a director, which of course failed miserably? The theory of haters is always to " back stab the success of a man if you can't back stab the man himself"!
Scene 7: Baahubali 2 Poster copied
Reality: This recent outrage of a copy claim has made us write this long blog to put a full stop to this farce that is on a repeat mode, every time something releases from "Baahubali" movie. we decided to showcase the world that whatever this copy claims that surface every time SSR releases something is not actually a copy/paste claim but the underlying idea is an cold-blooded "Hatred" on an achiever.
In Mythological movies one can't use modern vehicles but to use horses, camels and elephants. If a director wants to take a shot with a MAN standing on a Elephant how many different poses are possible? Just think for a minute!! Can you list a different pose/still of a MAN standing on elephant without resembling anyone of the stills that are already present in zillions of movies made worldwide on elephants and humans? Is it possible? How many permutations and combinations of a MAN standing on elephant are possible and why haters would have to link it to a still which is not even remotely close? See the above two images, are you not wondering that these haters eyes are blinded by hate and their heart is pounding with enormous and uncontrollable jealous?
Think of the pain this director have to go through because of these haters! Just to satisfy haters mammoth imagination on content copying claims, should he watch all zillions of films made till date and make sure none of his movie shots remotely resemble the existing shots! Is this really possible by considering the amount of movies already made?
A Real-Life example is the need of the hour to understand these haters mentality.
When “Mangalyan OR MOM” Was Launched by ISRO in November 2013, Some of the Pakistani twitterati commented that “NASA is helping ISRO to do this and it’s no greatness of ISRO”. One can’t argue with this because the MARS reaching technology is already there with NASA and it collaborates with ISRO on certain joint operations. So Indians have no choice but to take this allegation lying down even though ISRO has achieved this feat in its first attempt which no other space agency could.
But the interesting point is here. After Successful launch of 104 Satellites in one go by ISRO recently, still those Pakistanis are on the same line and commenting that “NASA is helping ISRO to achieve this”. Haters IQ levels are always laughable. Reality is NASA failed in launching multiple nano satellites operation as the satellites blasted just before they were placed into the orbit and on the other hand ISRO was successful in its launch. But Pakis mentality doesn’t change because that is their hall mark. They still say ISRO Copied NASA Technology. Our SSR Haters also having similar Hall Mark. Do you want to know why? Read below.
Now that we have addressed major claims and concerns, let us go ahead and see things in a different perspective,
Dear readers, here we present you few scenes that are copied by Hollywood from SS Rajamouli’s films.
Scene 1: Jungle book(2016) copied the waterfall concept from Baahubali(2015)??
A Concept Art For the movie The Jungle Book (2016)
A Concept Art For the Movie Baahubali:The Beginning (2016)
A Scene From the JungleBook movie (2016)
A Scene From the Baahubali Movie (2015)
Baahubali released in 2015 and The Junglebook released in 2016. For this VFX, Junglebook also got a Oscar Award in VFX category in 2017 Oscars. So a Hollywood movie copied Baahubali and got an OSCAR? Why Haters are silent, please cry copy!
When Mangalyan Launched, Pakis cried copy! When ISRO Beat NASA in record satellite launch still they are crying ISRO copied NASA. When SSR films have a resemblance with others, haters cried copy. When a Hollywood biggie copied Baahubali and got an OSCAR with the copied VFX shots, still these haters are crying SSR copied. Are these haters any better than Pakis in their IQ??
Scene2: The Scene in the film Lucy(2014) and its unbelievable closeness to SS Rajamouli’s Yamadonga(2007).
Remember this scene from Yamadonga, where the protagonist and the opposing guy are personified as a prowling cheetah and a deer? And when NTR finally leaps on to that guy, we are shown an original footage of a cheetah nabbing its prey. Well, if you watched the 2014 Hollywood thriller Lucy, this scene was exactly replicated in a less dramatized fashion where the lead actress Scarlett Johansson plays the victim.
But as always you can verify our claims. And where are those guys who get offended when any scene from SS Rajamouli’s film is marginally closer to any film ever released. Where are you guys, come out and cry copy!!
Scene 3: Game of Thrones copied the architecture of the kingdom shown in the film Magadheera(2010)??
The season 4 of game of thrones released in 2014 introduces us to a new slave city called Mereen, one of the striking features of this city is this particular piece of architecture,
Well, we guess SS Rajamouli time traveled again, as we can see an almost similar daunting structure adorning the kingdom shown in Magadheera(2010).
Before venting out the final leg of frustration, we have to understand that majority of the guys crying on SS Rajamouli can't blame his work, so they try to target his image. The sole purpose of this article was to prove how insecure these senseless idiots are about someone’s success. This wasn’t an attempt to change their empty minds, but only for the rational audience to soak in some wisdom. The ace director on many occasions has admitted that he draws some inspiration from Hollywood, and we don’t see any wrong in it. In fact the legendary Quentin Tarantino known for his works such as Pulp fiction, Kill bill series had drawn inspiration from other films and replicated them in his own films. And trust me, coincidences do happen, the story line of Avatar is same as an old Malayalam film, does that mean Avatar was copied? To sum up, if you still think inspiring from a few Hollywood flicks is a bad thing, the exact total number of scenes that SS Rajamouli replicated wouldn’t even cross 10 minutes of the entire 10 films that he has directed so far, so the whole copy thing is a big farce. If he uses a horse ride it is a copy, if he takes a shot on elephant it is a copy, an arrow releasing from a bow is a copy, everything he makes is pre-decided and pre-concluded to be a copy for these guys. FYI, This is not copy, this is ultra-clear "Hatred" in its vulgar display form!
The Final Nail When these guys will leave this slave mentality that has been persisting from British Empire? Still they are stuck to say, every white skin guy is great and all Indians including themselves are cheaters? Pathetic slave mentality! If they hate a person’s success, hook or crook demean the person’s efforts/skill by just crying without facts? The quantification of success is changing. How successful a human has become should be quantified in decibels of crying sounds of his/her antis. By that measure, SSR has already reached enormous heights as we can hear these crying sounds from every corner and every single day! Even Gods are not spared of hatred in this day and age; SSR is after all a good human being who is on a success path. We are with you S.S. Rajamouli, Crush this hatred into the dustbin and take a giant leap every time you step out there to become a Telugu Icon. All the Best!!
Post originally written on this blog.
