Ra.One

Managed to watch Ra.One this evening on the IMAX screen (the picture was quite grainy at times, so not sure if it was actually meant for IMAX), and it was definitely a unique experience for a Bollywood movie in terms of the special effects. There are plot holes aplenty in the movie, but if you go in without bias then it can be pretty entertaining (if you managed to sit through TMK, then this one’s a breeze). There are however quite a few other interesting things, including my customary tech observations about the movie:

• This movie probably has the maximum density of Apple products, given the number of iMacs we are shown, along with the customary iPhone (3 GS though)
• Which brings me to the second point that it is really peculiar that the game is being developed on iMacs…
• which have not been using NVidia GPUs for some time now (NVidia is a pretty prominent partner for the movie)
• The PS3 is probably the only product shown in the movie that uses an NVidia GPU, unless you consider the Alienware laptop & MacBook Pro used in the beginning of the movie for the demo.
• On the topic of gaming consoles, Microsoft definitely missed out a golden opportunity to showcase Kinect’s motion sensing capabilities.
• The comic book (Superman – he was a jumper initially), video game (Crysis for the suit design, and action games like Mortal Kombat, Tekken etc. for the general concept) and Hollywood (Terminator, Iron Man, Matrix) influences are very apparent.
• Talking of video games, Bollywood is definitely getting more serious about them. Even the recent flop Toonpur Ka Super Hero had a climax involving video game concepts.
• Coming to the non-technical aspects, the movie creators seem to have done quite a bit of Market Research to target the youth segment. The way they have researched action video games is pretty evident. The elite gadgets like the PSP & PS3 are also thrown in for good measure. Besides that, the impact of Japanese animes (just try switching to the Animax channel) is also pretty visible – the first action dream sequence for one. Even the soundtrack is not left alone.
• The car number plates were pretty interesting, particularly for the VWs owned by SRK – they all had featured IO (Aiyo?) in them. Rajnikanth’s was of course SUPERSTAR.
• UK seems to be getting back some of Bollywood love that it lost out to the US, with this movie (could have been due to budget constraints though) following in the footsteps of Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and Patiala House.
• Armaan Verma reminded me a lot of Ritesh Deshmukh
• SRK also seems to be pretty serious about song copyrights – this time it was “Stand By Me” (after “Pretty Woman” in Kal Ho Na Ho)
• Last but not the least, Chammak Challo will never be the same once you realise that it is G.One dancing with Ra.One