Visual effects for the Indian blockbuster “RRR”
blender.org
blender.org
I'm totally thunderstruck to learn it was all done in Blender pipeline. Bravo for making this possible.
It cost $73 million (according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission) RRR's budget was $72 million (according to Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRR_(film))
Seems a bit crazy with that comparison.
I actually felt stagnated and left after an year
If not, kindly delete your comment.
Dollar goes further with exchanges
For now. The rest of the world is rapidly catching up in pretty much every sphere.
But take movies:
America has but a paltry 330 M people. The appetite for "American" media will wane as India, China, and other vastly more populous Asian countries begin to produce Hollywood-caliber films. American box office increasingly relies on non-domestic consumption. Chinese films are doing bigger revenues, and soon Indian films will too.
Korea is starting to sweep the Oscars, Emmy's, and Golden Globes.
Hollywood is going to be washed out by the vast talent, capital, and differing tastes beyond American borders.
The age of the "American" film has already peaked. (It's not just the market growing up. Kids today no longer want to be Hollywood stars - they want to be famous on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch.)
The same trend is observable in other fields. Science, technology, fashion, etc.
edit for downvotes: Do not confuse this post for anti-American sentiment. It's an honest current and forward-looking assessment.
I don’t think Korea won a single award at the Oscars this year. They won a single golden globe and two Emmys. It’s just parasite and squid game, so far. They are very far from sweeping the award ceremonies.
And sooner or later the superior quality will sweep over to the mainstream. Parasite is just a relatively minor movie compared to the really big ones. https://koreanfilm.org/ might give a good overview.
>edit for downvotes: Do not confuse this post for anti-American sentiment. It's an honest current and forward-looking assessment.
I don't think it's "anti-American sentiment" as much as unsubstantiated claims.
Parasite was an excellent film I thought deserves all its praise. But "Korea is starting to sweep the Oscars" is a very different statement than "Bong Joon-ho and the Parasite team swept the 2019 Oscars".
What you're claiming is that American cinema has peaked, and "Hollywood is going to be washed out". A more reasonable statement is "The age of exclusively USA/Hollywood filmmaking awards is over".
I kinda sorta agree with this sentiment. I am a huge film buff, and most of the movies I remember fondly are from the 90s (can't blame this on nostalgia since I wasn't even alive then)
The US had a couple of Tim Minchins back in the 18th century too, and even up to the early 20th century it wasn't that much of a deal in terms of global cultural cachet.
As for GDP terms it only surpassed Great Britain around 1880 and then had its global share peak in 1960. It's been downhill since.
Currently a big next step for TikTok stars is moving into Hollywood stuff - Addison Rae, the D'Amelios - just like it was for the Kardashians a couple decades ago.
Even as you talk about American films doing less at the box office, Hollywood itself is rapidly adapting to produce more content for serialized US-market TV (primarily streaming, but this actually started in the cable era).
Many people argue that this stuff is actually better than the "blockbuster films" that are still trying to have global appeal, because of the ability to make more niche content of varying sorts.
It's hard to see Hollywood or a domestic US media market fed by US productions going anywhere. Thinking that the average US media consumption will turn into non-American stuff is the same fallacy as thinking that everywhere else in the world would have just consumed American stuff forever instead of creating their own local markets.
Waning once-huge markets still attract up and comers because of the residual prestige and money - but same newcomers get their popularity from outside those markets, and people wanting to be like them are from the outside too...
But it's not about the actual values but about the momentum...
Are those Chinese movies making big revenues outside China? Until that happens they are just catering local market. So far Chinese movies successful in China or Chinese speaking population. I think it is just logical thing not world changing.
One can also read about Indian movie economics where movies with massive budgets sank like giant turds. Clueless directors in India are shocked that their successful formula of movies is failing so badly.
Kids today also do not want to be doctors, should I be worried that no one will be there to treat my old ass very soon?
In fact, there is more control in this regard lately.
Hong Kong had a nice international movie market, especially for action flicks, but that's dead now.
Chinese media is crippled for the foreseeable future by heavy state censorship, including micromanagement of plotlines: can't do anything that lets the bad guys win or shows the state in a bad light.
I also note you don't include Japan, which is rich and has a population of 100M+, but with the arguable exception of anime has not produced any global blockbusters in decades.
Even if a lot of those movies were banned in China on release, there were much less consequences for a director of a banned movie than nowadays.
the exception is Korea but here too they make movies for themselves that also happen to resonate well with western audiences.
nobody is going to take over the place of hollywood anytime soon.
This person also said that AI porn will destroy all the current porn companies in 10 years and that small groups of people will soon be able to make entire movies, so I wouldn't take their extrapolations too seriously.
Here's the thread in question [1] where I made that claim.
> so I wouldn't take their extrapolations too seriously.
Long bets 10 years $10,000. Let's go. I'm serious.
Not that this is my thing (it isn't), and not to yuck anyone's yum, but my field has a ton of adjacent, quickly growing developments in "generated porn" that I would be remiss to not know about. Each and every one of them could shape up to be a "Pornhub killer", which is what we were originally debating :
- Unstable Diffusion
- Lewdtubers (look on Twitter)
- AI waifu, waifu engine
- Whatever this is: https://m.twitch.tv/nenoko_official [2]
Just as these technologies and democratization threaten Hollywood, so too do they threaten the porn industry.
(My earlier comments in this thread were about the global playing field becoming equal in terms of production and consumption. This post concerns the technologies that will disrupt the existing products. Both trends are happening concurrently.)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32711614
[2] One of my colleagues just recently pointed out this 100% autonomous, audience driven content. No humans are involved.
In which world do you think the porn industry is just going to wait around doing nothing instead of exploiting these tools and resources for their own benefit?
I don't think holodeck style content generation technology is too far off. Maybe one day they'll generate computer code too.
If you have RRR's budget you can easily waste more money explaining to the lawyers and accountants that something is free. The decisions is purly on which software is better.
"industry tools" he calls them. "why should i invest my time to learn a software when no one else in the industry is using them"...
glad the industry is changing behind the scenes to a point people like my friend would have to put blender in their workflow and maybe, just maybe one day work entirely off of FOSS tools.
In this other shot (https://youtu.be/wbuZQTud7YE?t=94) you can see there are actually support lines, but they have been "eaten" by the post-processing.
Both "RRR" [2] and "I Lost My Body" [3] are on Netflix.
[1] https://www.blender.org/user-stories/i-lost-my-body-a-stunni...
[2] https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81476453?s=i&trkid=13747225...
[3] https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81120982?s=i&trkid=13747225...
From the article
> Blender was used in our entire pipeline aside from the FX department
Houdini was likely used for FX work since Blender isn’t quite competitive with it yet.
Additionally, this is about a single studio’s pipeline and not reflective of all the total work involved.
Blackjack atm covers less than <1% of Houdini's modeling toolset. And modeling is the least used part of Houdini in VFX (less so in games, i.e. for massive open world building etc.)
Houdini is usually used for what is called FX/effects in VFX. I.e. fire, water, explosions, destructions. Also crowd stuff is not seldomly done in Houdini.
However, it seems the similarities with Houdini stops there. While Houdini might be famous for the procedural nature of the tool, where it really shines is the physics, simulation and effects department. Which blackjack seems to not have any features about at all.
(Submitted title was "Visual Effects for the Indian Blockbuster “RRR” made entirely in Blender".)
https://old.reddit.com/r/Bluray/comments/v3fzni/rrr_bluray/
I'll watch it anyway. Looks like a fun time.
"RRR is the best movie you've never seen"
Eye candy can contribute only so much to a movie. Spend 10x the budget on special effects and the movie will get at most 1% better, sometimes it gets even worse. Superman 1 was much more enjoyable than most movies that came out of Marvel the last years.
That being said, if you like the story you'd really appreciate the movie RRR. I was pleasantly surprised when I went there without any expectation.
I can recommend Blender Bob's YouTube channel, he has worked in the VFX industry for many years and primarily uses Blender and shows how VFX is made:
Besides what's wrong with a little ridiculousness? Some of the special FX I've seen in memes of indian movies look like they take a decent amount of imagination to visualize
Note that I have not seen any indian cinema, no idea where to start with that, other than to say that the Bollywood format (and musicals in general) has little appeal to me...
I don’t know what changed but now I’m not just down with it I’m actually a big fan. I’m there to be entertained - give me Gesamtkunstwerk; I’ll suspend belief for those few brief moments, give me wonderful melodies and over-the-top sights. All types of art each have their place! I mean, we put up with soliloquys in Shakespeare plays, we cherish fanciful wordplay, why not give me songs!
s/belief/disbelief/
So as an Indian I feel like this shouldn't be generalized as the 'image' in people's minds of what an Indian movie is. The over the top parts should be considered as a genre of its own
We’ll do that as long as you do us a similar favor for Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich.
The Bombay production houses have gone Hollywood-lite making movies for affluent westernized Indian class which as it turns out is not profitable. I am for artsy Indian movies but at the end of the day, this is commercial undertaking and the film crew and its producers should make money out of it.
As far as FX quality goes, the recently released Bhramastra sets the high watermark for Indian films. The FX are Hollywood level...probably because it's made by Disney's Indian film studios (Star Studios) and the FX were outsourced to some of the same FX studios working on Marvel films. (And as a side bonus, there isn't any of the weird fetishization of British/white women or obsequious political pandering to the India's current ultra-nationalist government like there are in RRR.)
As an example of the difference in FX quality: in RRR, you're always aware of the artificial nature of the CGI because it doesn't "blend" into the world around it; the CGI sits on top of the world and is clearly separate from the action on screen. The animal FX are especially bad. In Bhramastra, the "astra" that give people various powers blend in with, light up, and shade the world around them even though they're purely CGI.
Malayalam Films : Known for their subtlety and craft in film making, and obsession with crime novels. Dhrishyam part 1 & 2 are like no movies I’ve seen in Hollywood.
Hindi Films: Or Bollywood movies, known for their big stars, great attention to set pieces of grand dance sequence s and decent romantic comedies / sports movies. Hard to pick one as nothing has shined recently. I’d give “Zindagi Na milega dubara” / “Chak dhe” a look. Again nothing spectacular recently unless you want to watch a classic from the seventies “Sholay”
Tamil movies : Gritty movies about inner city gangs / social upheaval or focus on stellar music/dance romantic comedies and major action blockbusters. From recent years I’d give “Vada Chennai”, or “Vikram Vedha” a chance for gritty urban movies. Or just the most recent action blockbuster “Vikram”. Which has a really good score.
Telugu movies (the original language for RRR) : I’d give “Pushpa” a look before watching CGI drenched RRR.
+1 for Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - one of my all time favorites. For a more recent Bollywood film, Kapoor and Sons is pretty good.
Yeah this movie was made for a very specific audience going through a certain age and point in life, ('buddy road movie' but made for Indian millennials) hardly a great work of art.
First it was 'Dil Chahta Hai', when the Indian millennials were of college age or around that time. A movie about three friends hanging out and dreaming of the future they will have with the kind of partners they would hope to be with.
'Zindagi Na milega dobara' is about a early-mid career Indian millennials facing marriage, work issues. It's not a bad movie but the popularity and greatness of it comes from it being apropos for Indian millennials.
On the top of that there is a 'class' thing going on here, where RRR's target audience is a different class, and have an Inglorious Bastard style experience. Just like 'Dil Chahta Hai'/'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' are for the educated millennials class.
For other folks reading I always recommend Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) as the Bollywood movie to start with. It’s a bit silly and over the top (especially the fight sequences) but it has a lot of heart. I miss old Bollywood movies like this that actually had lots of singing and dancing. And it set a record for most Filmfare awards won when it came out so critics obviously liked it too.
Sometimes I wish people would talk about really old Bollywood too. Old Devdas, Barsaat, etc. There are some great movies there. I like Satyajit Ray a lot too (I know he isn’t Bollywood) but I wish people could see greatness in old Bollywood as well. I just rewatched Guide recently for example. Still a good movie.
Note there are critically acclaimed Malayalam Movies that not everyone would like (Eg: Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, Maheshinte Prathikaram), they are so slow paced that average viewer would doze off. There's a perception that more realistic is always better. But that's not always true. IMO Tamil middle budget movies get pacing better than Malayalam, for average audience at least.
They are all just films, just like Hollywood makes different genres, these countries make films in every genre. At least the Indian film industry is a behemoth large enough to be able to make movies in every genre.
(I haven’t seen this one yet though)
Why are you embarassed?
The embarrassment is for the comparably unsophisticated tastes, and I don't share the feeling but I can understand. It's like everyone discovering that your uncle is addicted to something cheap and insubstantial that only children like, like junk food.
I'm taking your "believable American action scenes" with a big semi full of salt.
Let's have the semi jump off the end of an unfinished highway overpass and do a barrel roll. While the truck is slo-mo flying through the air we'll cut to a ground shot of a middle-aged dad about to salt some meat on the grill, but the barrel-rolling truck overhead spills just the perfect amount of salt on his burgers so he just looks up and shrugs. Finally we'll cut back to the massive explosion as the truck hits the ground.
In American films, if someone does extreme, superhuman stunts, the filmmaker typically feels pressure to explain that the character is actually superhuman in some way and not an ordinary guy with an office job. And he or she will be in peak physical shape.
In Indian film, an utterly ordinary character in "office job" physical condition will catch bullets, run faster than a full speed train, etc. No pressure to explain the seeming contradiction with ordinary reality. The film could be considered a romance, having ordinary people as protagonists, and these characters would be doing the above-mentioned stunts as part of the plot.
These aren't hard and fast rules, both sides of the divide deviate from them, but that's been my observation.
this is a feature and not a bug. The urge for excessive exposition is so tiring. Not everything needs an origins story, explanation, or a prequel. Hollywood has been leaning on that formula and you can see it in the product - the movies have become tiresome.
Nobody needs an explanation for their “powers”. Excessively qualifying a character more likely burdens then than lifts them. RRR was such a refreshing, thrilling watch parallel to Mad Max: Fury Road.
Kind of like anime...
This is precisely what Americans love about it though. Indian cinema comes from a completely different tradition than Hollywood, and it’s a breath of fresh air. Action movies should be more silly. It’s just entertainment.
A great analogy is to the Ugandan action films as well (go watch “Who Killed Captain Alex” right now if you haven’t). They are doing something completely new that breaks the Hollywood tropes. We really need more of this, because the American film industry has reached a creative dead end.
In fact, Tom Cruise actually performs most of his stunts, especially for the MI movies. It's kind of his thing; while the context of the stunt might be CGI the action itself is real.
He's worth more than a billion dollars, so he can afford to pay specialists to train him; he supposedly spent over a year learning to hold his breath for several minutes just for the water tank scene.
Action movies have always been unashamed about having an element of lowbrow populism. You can enjoy seeing bad guys get their asses kicked in The Matrix even if you've never heard of plato's cave - and there's nothing wrong with that.
That’s why I like them. So refreshing.
overthetop cgi is equated with bollywood, to my knowledge
No. The overwhelming majority of Bollywood movies don't have much CGI. And RRR isn't a Bollywood movie to begin with.
Anyway would really recommend watching it. It’s a wild ride, and incredibly well done. If you’re not from India, you can largely ignore the issues with internal politics
Edit: Since people are asking for links about the politics…
https://www.vox.com/23220275/rrr-netflix-tollywood-hindutva-...
https://slate.com/culture/2022/06/rrr-review-indian-blockbus...
Essentially it’s holding up some of the more radical freedom fighters and downplaying the more pacifist and equitable ones which reflects the directors political stance
That these websites practically thrive on conjuring up issues even where none exists should surprise no one.
It doesn’t matter how far left they are or what that even means
Yes. I also consider every right wing media outlet to be between nutty and rabid. Horseshoe theory and all that.
I remember when India had conducted an airstrike on terrorist camps , INDIAN channels left w and right w alike invited their Pakistani defence guests and practically taunted them to start a war! (which thankfully didn’t happen)
And some of it makes me question the author's familiarity with the actual background.
> he’s seen assuming a wardrobe that invokes his namesake Rama
No, he assumes a wardrobe that invokes Alluri Sitaramaraju, the historical figure his character is based on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alluri_Sitarama_Raju
And this popular representation and the fictional fiancee named Sita come from a classic 1974 movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alluri_Seetarama_Raju_(film)
Rajamouli is not exactly big on subtlety. If the troubling implications need so much ink to explain, maybe the implications aren't actually there?
> Essentially it’s holding up some of the more radical freedom fighters and downplaying the more pacifist and equitable ones
Sardar Patel, Chidambaram Pillai and Tanguturi Prakasam were not radicals, they were lifelong members of the INC and were committed to Gandhian non-violence. Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose were capital S Socialists, it doesn't get more equitable than that. This argument would have held weight if someone like Savarkar was included. As it stands, it makes no sense.
In the end , I haven’t ever seen anyone show me anything that didn’t also require ignoring Bose’s significant ties to the Nazis to have a charitable take on the man and his followers.
And you didn't come across any references of him advocating for authoritarian socialism? This was way before he went into exile or joined hands with Hitler.
I don't actually remember the end credit scene and I didn't pick up on any contemporary political references. Could you elaborate?
There’s a movement among the right to downplay the more equitable and peace friendly freedom fighters in favour of more radical ones, including ones with ties to the Axis powers.
Again, it barely takes away from the film since it’s just the final credits but it’s quite a clear signal of the directors outspoken political views
- Bose was allied with the Nazi’s. I know it’s debatable whether the ends justify the means but he also held some fairly hostile views that are being used again
- there were notable omissions of freedom fighters who preached peace , but more importantly, those who were against the division of Pakistan and India.
I shared a couple links above in an edit, but there’s definitely an messaging to align with the directors more hardline views of modern Indian politics
A marriage of convenience like when Gandhi allied with the Ali Brothers.
> there were notable omissions of freedom fighters who preached peace
Three of them where Gandhians but OK.
> but more importantly, those who were against the division of Pakistan and India.
Nobody in the Congress wanted partion to begin with. But there was no leader against it when it became clear that it was apparent. Who exactly do you have in mind?
You don’t think it’s suspect that major figures were excluded from the list? And they just happen to be the same major figures the right wing governments try and move away from.
You don’t think being allied with the Nazis and never denouncing their views was an issue either?
the movie had a clear political agenda to it.
Yes. Because it's a fantasy movie. Reading complex political messaging into it is rather silly.
> Your entire comment is a “so what?”
I don't think excluding Gandhi and Nehru from a cheesy dance number is the end of the world.
> never denouncing their views
Again, read what the man had to say about the Nazis after he left Germany. Also read about what Gandhi had to say about Bose and what Bose had to say about Gandhi. We've had an international airport named after him for decades. Bose is not even remotely controversial in India.
> the movie had a clear political agenda to it.
But somehow that wasn't clear to overwhelming majority of the audience who actually saw it.
If omitting a subset of leaders is right-wing bias, then every other movie made in India should be considered congress propaganda.
I agree that there is a streak of revisionism in the air within both academic and pop history in India at the moment. However, it is not clear if this simply a long-overdue correction to 75 years of propaganda or if somehow, all history written by the prevailing powers of the last century were perfectly unbiased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose?wprov=sfti...
He went to Germany to escape the British after a failed insurrection and hoped to ally with the Nazi’s to lead an invasion into India to free it. The Japanese prisoners of war
You’re conflating his later efforts in Japan with his initial allyship with the Nazi party.
This is a very common smudging of history that happens in our Indian history books (the CBSE approved books in particular do this) to make things seem more justified.
> "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose".
This is alignment in every way, so I’m not sure why you’d put that in quotes.
Like many (most?) Westerners, I obviously appreciated the anti-colonialism aspect, but had no idea about all of that other context.
I am deeply appreciative.
There’s no scenario in which slate/vox would have written a ideologically uncoated positive review of this movie.
It’s subtle but it’s in the same vein of how many military and cop films push messaging
Where is the downplaying part in the movie?
if you don’t find it enjoyable, that doesn’t mean doubting the veracity of my stated opinion. You may however disagree
But the end of the movie, makes it quite clear that it is a nod to right wing Hindu nationalism. The most pointed example is the exclusion, in the end credits, of the 2 biggest icons of Indian liberation - Mahatma Gandhi and the first prime minister Nehru( the British locked him up for over a decade) who were secular liberals. Nehru happens to be the great grandfather of the main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.
As the right wing Hindu pre independence movement largely connived with the colonialists, the right wing government today is focused on appropriating a select few independence fighters and projecting them as right wing icons even though they were liberals or socialists. 3 prominent figures.
1. Bhagat Singh - a socialist who is now projected as a right wing icon and stripped of his Sikh beard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagat_Singh
2. Sardar Patel - Nehru and Gandhis colleague who had some right wing sympathies, but actually banned RSS (Modi's organization) following the assassination of Gandhi by RSS workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Unity
3. Subhash Bose - A foolhardy military strategist who tried to partner with the Nazis to fight the British. Eventually, assisting the Japanese in Burma and helping them invade India. Gandhi was extremely wary of Bose's plans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose
Towards the end, it projects the independence fight as a largely Hindu fight against British and anoints upper caste Rama as a leader of lower caste Bheem. At this point, it seems that the exclusion of muslims, sikhs and some Christians etc. From the script as freedom fighters seems deliberate.
Bheem is a nod to lower caste icon bhimrao Ambedkar, who converted from Hinduism to buddhism to escape caste hierarchies. This could have been a positive inclusion in the story, but it is flipped on its head when Bheem is shown swearing fealty to upper caste Rama in the end. The Ramayana itself, has a negative attitude towards lower castes, which makes this highly improper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambuka [1]
Moreover the choice of Rama is sensitive in the current political situation in India as Rama is being used as a tool to bully poor Muslims on the streets.
https://www.google.com/search?q=muslim+jai+shree+ram
[1] You will notice that Shambuka is noted as an "interpolated" character in Ramayana. This almost certainly true, but the Godliness of Rama as an avatar of Vishnu is part of the same interpolation. The original smaller Ramayana is simply the story of an "ideal king". This was converted into a story of divinity by the interpolation of Godliness, sexism and casteism(uttara and bala kanda) . Wikipedia has been edited to clarify that Shambuka is a later interpolation, while the article on Rama and Ramayana simply forget to headline that the divinity of Rama is a later interpolation. The interpolation makes complete sense as the brahmins successfully solidified the caste system and inserted casteist and sexist texts into several ancient sanskrit texts to anoint the caste system with divine status. There is a small ongoing movement to refer to the current version of Hinduism as Brahminism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Brahminism
It's a fantasy based very loosely on two historical characters. Bheem for the bulk of the movie pretends to be a Muslim and is sheltered by a Muslim family that knows his true identity. Claiming that this somehow excludes non-Hindus is farcical.
> Bheem is a nod to lower caste icon bhimrao Ambedkar
Bheem is loosely based on Komaram Bheem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komaram_Bheem and Ram is loosely based on Alluri Sitaramaraju: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alluri_Sitarama_Raju
You are ignorant of even the basic premise of the movie. But hey, don't let that stop you from theorising grand conspiracies.
I could be mistaken about the mapping of Bheem, but given that Komaram Bheem is also lower caste, my meta point stands virtually unchanged. And that's just one point amongst the 10 I have made with references.
Moreover, it is very easy for me to see that you are upper caste hindu - about 40% of indias population. You should ask the rest of the 60% about what they read from the movie.
> pretends to be a Muslim
Yes, I watched parts of the movie. How does this matter?
Any elements that you might perceive as mapping to Rama is an homage to the 1974 classic movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alluri_Sitarama_Raju
That representation is what is etched into the minds of Telugu audience.
> I could be mistaken about the mapping of Bheem
You are mistaken.
> And that's just one point amongst the 10 I have made with references.
Yeah, the rest them are either unfalsifiable or statements of opinion.
> Moreover, it is very easy for me to see that you are upper caste hindu
I'm fascinated to know how you came to that conclusion. I'm a half-caste with one side of my family entitled to minority status. Try again.
> Yes, I watched parts of the movie.
Wait, you didn't even watch the movie in its entirety?
The facts I mentioned are well cited and referenced facts that are well supported. Thanks for acknowledging that you offer no contradiction.
It is also obvious from your play with words - "half minority" that you are upper caste. Eg, Hindu Jain marriages are common.
> I'm fascinated to know how you came to that conclusion.
Lower castes - SC/ST would be irritated by the supplication by Bheem in the end. Non Hindus would find the conversion of a secular independence movement to a hindu religious paen and the exclusion of secular liberal leaders (the father of the nation and first PM) offensive.
This is a typical UC thinking. The only things that are offensive are those that offend me. If someone else gets offended by something else, there is something wrong with them.
I'm sorry, who bestowed godliness on whom?
> The facts I mentioned are well cited
You claimed non-Hindus were excluded and went into a tangent about the Ramayana.
> It is also obvious from your play with words - "half minority" that you are upper caste. Eg, Hindu Jain marriages are common
I didn't realise OBC Veershaiva Lingayats were now considered upper caste. Apparently stating the truth was playing with words.
> Lower castes - SC/ST would be irritated by the supplication by Bheem in the end.
Bravo, you reduced Ram and Bheem to their caste. Maybe if you had watched the movie before pontificating, you would noticed something else about the characters and their relationship. And interesting how you lump SC and ST together. If you do want to look at it from a caste lens, what does a Gond have to do with SC's? Or do they all look the same to you?
> conversion of a secular independence movement to a hindu religious paen
How the hell is it a religious paen?! Is this one of your facts?
> exclusion of secular liberal leaders (the father of the nation and first PM) offensive.
Exclusion from a cheesy dance number? Really, this is what is offensive?
> If someone else gets offended by something else, there is something wrong with them.
Offence is always taken, not given.
My wife isn’t Indian and she really enjoyed the film (which I did too as an action film) but I was aware the whole time of significant choices used to push the Hindu nationalist messaging. So I’ve been using it as an example of explaining the political climate in India
As a Hindu myself , but with a mixed caste/religion family, I’ve slowly been realizing how much messaging there has been in the media we consume as I expand on this with her.
For rural caste discrimination there are enough incidents like Hathras rape, but this movie gives a good perspective
Pros
* Incredibly stylized and fresh (not derivative)
* great bro-drama
* arguably best dance scene EVER
* Not deeply cynical towards society like everything made today.
Cons:
* Long (but still somehow incredibly fast paced and dense, just a lot of arcs)
* over the top (but shamelessly so, and taken seriously)
______
RRR is a tectonic shift in how Indian cinema views itself. It is worth watching purely because of its place in the Movie movement zeitgeist.
IMO, This is the first Indian movie in 10 years that makes it to must watch territory for universal audiences (the last one being 3 idiots).
But on the topic — I think this changes everything. Blender is now literally a viable alternative against behemoth setups that easily go in 5-digits (and 6 digits if you have hundreds of designers as some shops do). It’s now crossed that magical threshold where competent firms will choose it for their projects and any weaknesses that surface then, it will now be the, the big buys at big chops like the Mill or what-have-you, who will be contributing fixes and pushing Blender to new directions. Full alembic support, better volume-related features, some more UI touch-up, and we're almost all there.
I’m nothing short of stunned at the pace with which Blender is moving forward and it’s clear that come another 5 years, it’ll be a force to reckon with and a worthy competitor to dethrone Houdini.
[1] Not without reason. Read up on the depradations of the East India company
I really enjoyed IP Man 2 for the one dimensional portrayal of the British antagonists. Disclaimer: I’m from the colonies.
The few clips I have seen seem to have no relation to the life of the historical figure whatsoever. It is so disappointing when they make a film with a real historical figure and then distort their story out of all recognition (e.g. "Dragon" for Bruce Lee and "Imitation game" for Alan Turing).
The films are mostly entertainment only - only the facts have been changed.
The movies are hilariously sinocentric, but enjoyable for what they are. Much the same as plenty of US movies being sickeningly rah-rah the USA.
I think most educated British people now know there is quite a lot that was "problematic" about the empire. Interestingly there is a very good new British podcast called "Empire" which talks in a lot of detail about what the British did in India and it is not comfortable listening.
I would say the British Empire wasn't as cruel as the Spanish, Portugese or Belgian empires. But that is a very low bar.
Let's just say that nuance/subtlety is not a high priority of this genre of film. :)
I felt totally entertained at the conclusion. I even watched the credits roll.
Many of the CGI effects were pretty obvious but it made the movie more watchable in my opinion. The blending of real action with fake enhanced the ability to tell the story. It was great.
Kudos to all involved in this epic!
I'm curious what if any serious Indian movies there are. Are they common or rare? Pretty much every Indian movie I've seen is full of amazing and fun nonsense in one form or another. Not that I've seen more than 10 or 15 Indian movies, just curious what the mix is of serious drama vs, break into dance and or show crazy stunt movies is
Sholay is a classic , in the vein of Eastwood films.
Don is our take on Godfather
Rang De Basanti and Lagaan are also great films.
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum , Dil Chahta Hai and other romantic dramas are also very serious but do have songs etc because they’re huge drivers of engagement.
In the west, people see the dancing as making the movie silly. But those musical breaks are prevalent in very serious films too. There’sa whole difference in cultural norms when it comes to cinematic language.
Still if you want a list of movies which are "serious" but still approachable enough (i.e doesn't gaze at it's own asshole) and fairly new, I do have a few recommendations -
Udaan, Kahaani, Satya, Maqbool, Khosla's Nest, Masaan, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, Gangs of Wasseypur, Johhny Gaddar, Kaminey, Black Friday (2004), Aaranya Kaandam (not bollywood)
This list isn't some exhaustive "greatest" ever, just some oddball movies which stick out in my head.
Also keep it in mind this is just the list of Hindi/Bollywood movies which were historically known as "Indian" movies. Other regions of the country have their own list of favorites.
Tumbbad is somewhat considered masterpiece of indian cinema. It was made with just 700 thousand $ https://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews....
>Pretty much every Indian movie I've seen is full of amazing and fun nonsense in one form or another.
They are the most popular genre. Production houses love them as they make them money and viewers also love to watch them as they can be watched by whole families.
>Not that I've seen more than 10 or 15 Indian movies, just curious what the mix is of serious drama vs, break into dance and or show crazy stunt movies is
Most of indian cinema is action genre with slice of life twist. There are also good serious movies with genres like drama, romcom, comedy, horror, history, sci-fi etc.
You must also know that Indian cinema is not a monolith like hollywood. There are 7 big 'woods' in india branched due to various languages. There is hindi wood (bollywood), tamil, telugu, kannad, marathi, bengali etc. Each have their own tasted with respective viewers. Over the counter action movies (like RRR) are most popular in south industries and viewers.
By whom? Don't get me wrong, Tumbbad is an excellent movie but masterpiece is over selling it. And the low budget for VFX really shows.
> kannad
Wince
The language is called Kannada. Schwa deletion turns it into Kannad which sounds grating and seeing it written without the a is even worse.
> do Kannada-language films have a reputation?
I'll just say Sturgeon's law applies.
and if KGF 2 is any indication, they should stop making movies altogether
Yup. It's inconsequential but I find it very grating.
> and if KGF 2 is any indication, they should stop making movies altogether
I absolutely hated KGF 1 and didn't bother with the sequel. I honestly don't understand why people compare it to RRR.
For non fiction, Mira Nair's "So Far from Home" and Roberto Rossellini's "India: Matri Bhumi" are also captivating watches.
Off the top of my head
I personally found 90% of the movie to be great, but was let down by the climax. Went too hard on the CGI.
I went in thinking it was going to be some nonstop action flick, and didn't like it at all. It seemed like an overly long musical to me, which I've never been a fan of.
My wife on the other hand thought it was beautiful and loved it.
YMMV.
If you enjoyed RRR and it's over the top drama, action sequences you might also like following movies.
1) Bahubali 1 & 2 (same director)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62HrubdD6o
2) KGF chapter 1 and 2
but please do not waste your time watching KGF. It’s just a series of hype scenes made for tik tok recreation. Not a movie. Has great music though
Part 1 has shot / camera angle changing every 2 seconds, like an American music video (movie is not musical just talking about the video)
Part 2 is more traditional with the camera angle / shot changing every 4 seconds.
And then there is some story to fill these few thousand camera shots, but your head hurts so much from the very changing screen visuals … maybe it is my age :)
Do you have any recommendations for musicals? I love the 2000s era ones with super melodic songs. Last one I loved was Janatha Garage though. I feel like Telugu movies have seized the Bollywood crown. Not a lot of the jukeboxes on YouTube have impressed me since.
- No built-in assembly workbench. If you create more than 1 object, there is no way to align/attach them together. There are several competing, incompatible, and buggy plugins.
- Topological naming problem is way worse than in paid CAD software. It's very difficult to edit old constraints without breaking new actions as they're replayed: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem
- Software dependencies are not included. Essential features like viewing the dependency graph (to unbreak your model; See above) are broken out of the box. You have to manually install specific versions of tools like graphviz (no, not the same version used by all the other software on your system) to unbreak these features first. Same goes for rendering images, exporting to some formats, using some mesh generators, etc. You really get the full "linux desktop" experience even if you are not on linux ;)
This is the single, number one, absolute must fix problem in FreeCAD. All other FreeCAD work should stop until this gets fixed. Period.
Broken constraints were bad enough, but as an amateur I could live with them. However, every now and then the system would renumber and reconnect constraints wrongly. That's just not acceptable and should never happen.
Until FreeCAD fixes this not only can't I recommend it but I have to give anti-recommendations to stay far, far away from it. That pains me greatly as FreeCAD is the only piece of open-source software I have ever had to chase people away from.
Ha ha that's exactly what would happen if FreeCAD was a company and had a product manager, but it's very unlikely that would happen organically.
Maybe some day a megacorp will get so pissed off by solidworks licensing that they fork FreeCAD, rewrite opencascade, fix the high priority bugs, and release code+binaries out of spite. A man can dream.
Things have gotten better, but filesystems still drop errors.
I really doubt that has much to do with it. The Blender team has been working the hardest on creating sustainable funding, that is the major difference. Blender’s “Get Involved” link takes you to the Blender Foundation page, which is a business entity setup and devoted to funding Blender. FreeCAD’s “Get Involved” link takes you to GitHub. The Blender site lists paid jobs, and has a one-click donate button highlighted with monthly corporate level sponsorships listed, where FreeCAD’s has only a single $5 suggestion behind a menu. There’s a further link to a list on a wiki of a couple more ways to sponsor FreeCAD, but you can feel the difference in scale just browsing the two sites. Blender got started ~8 years ahead of FreeCAD, so yeah maybe if FreeCAD focuses on growing a business model they can get there too. The Blender Foundation was launched about 20 years ago though, and it seems like it look a looong time to get the real traction they seem to have now.
I really really want an OSS alternative to Fusion/etc but FreeCAD needs a lot of work before it’ll even come close.
It's only a few years since we used to hear regular reports of people really struggling with the Blender UI too. It's great to see the improvements to Blender now paying off.
I think there's a fairly good chance that the devs aren't aware of all the rough edges or quirky choices in the same way that a power user of another CAD system would be.
(My own personal CAD experience is so dated at this point as to be pretty useless. I learnt on Unigraphics on a Sun workstation way back in the mists of time but have forget almost everything about it.)
At least this is what I seen 5-7 years ago, gave up very quickly struggling with it - a software supposed to make things easier, not more complex, and FreeCAD made things unnecessarily difficult and complicated. Maybe I should look at it again now, hopefully things improved.
(I am trying to avoid using Fusion 360, which has a much more streamlined experience)
Blender on the other hand is very solid in the modeling department, in my experience. The mesh based approach certainly helps, but not depending on an external organization for the core geometry functionality does not hurt either.
I've been wondering what portion of the FreeCAD "problems" people report are actually issues with OpenCascade. I don't have time to deal with any of it, just a question that pops into my head when I see complaints about FreeCAD. When I have time I spend it in Solvespace, which is decades behind commercial CAD but is so much more fun.
The only way I could see it happening is if a consortium of large companies decided that they wanted to drop the big players and build an open source one. It needs a visionary in the position to decide to do it.
There are many issues with FreeCAD being OSS alternative to professional MCAD software, but UI/UX is not one of them
Sorry if I came off as anti-Blender, but I am anything but. I have written over 100 pages of open-access Blender related learning material and was responsible for moving our school (400 design students) from max and Maya to Blender. No one regrated this move, even those who have spent their entire creative lives in Autodesk's shadow. However, it was not without cost.
My top animator loves Blender, but says that its animation tools are not yet equal to those of Max/maya. And Max/maya can crease through files which Blender (currently) chokes on.