Baahubali 2: The Conclusion

Weird in Weird. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a podcast where we take a look at Indian cinema every other week. I am still your host, Chris Dashu, and I am joined by my good friend. You've heard him on here before and if you listen to the first bahu Bali episode, you knew he was going to be back because hey, that wasn't a complete story. We see.

We know you, ss rajah Muli. I know you can tell a story in one movie. I've seen Triple R. We're not talking about Triple R. We're here to talk about the second film in the bahu Bali series.

Joining me as always is my good friend, graphic designer Man about Town Dustin Dustin. Are you ready to talk bahu Bali too? I am ready. We're gonna be talking about bahu Bali two. The conclusion.

So the film came out in twenty seventeen. It is written and directed by ss Rajahmuli with the story by B. Prasad. Its stars, like we mentioned last time, Probus Rana, Dagubodi, Anushkashetti, Tomana, Nassar, Ramya Krishna, a whole bunch of people, but more or less. We're talking about talking probus, We're talking Rana Dagubodi, We're talking Oh, we're talking a lot of people.

Because this is the conclusion to the first movie that we talked about, bahu Bali the beginning. Could you believe that this movie is called the Conclusion? Actually, don't know why I thought bahu Bali to. It's just been called bahu Bali the Conclusion, right right? I think this is all Bahubali just as a thing.

Yeah, there's I mean part one, part two, just not bahu Bali too. That's the film does star promos as both Amendra bahu Bali and Mahendra bahu Bali, both father and son, because this movie is more about a Rendra bahu Bali, bahu Bali's father, who well, we'll talk all about it. He goes on a journey of his own apparently, and we find out how Katapa, well Katapa turned on his master. I guess, or I guess his master I guess is the way I guess. I guess you perceive it much pose?

I mean they're yeah, they're family slash friends, but there's also a slave master relationship. But he's also still his slave technique. Yeah and yeah, and and there's two storylines here once again, but I think we would both agree it's more one story than the other. So I will ask you, Dustin, as I ask you every time, tell me a little bit about what you thought about bahu Bali too. The conclusion, well, you can, I mean, you can tell that it was a different part of the movie in that I don't know, it had a different energy to it.

Just jumping right into it, you're I mean, you're going right and picking up where the last one left off. But it almost felt it felt different. I don't know how to explain it. Like there was just there was. It started off slower, if that makes sense.

Uh, not that the other one was fast by any means, but like it was just a lot of like somebody would say something and then the camera and zoom in on their face. Somebody say something that the camera zoom in on their face. Like everything was this dramatic ken Burn's effect that happened constantly. Outside of that, I really did kind of get into the story of Bahubali's dad Bahubali. I didn't.

The only thing that's different is their name. Amar Rendra is his dad, and Mahrendra is, Yeah, again they're bold blah who BALI they are, Yeah, but just how everything unfolded with Queen Mother being deceived and all like that was like the web of lies that was happening all the while He's just trying to hook up with Devin Sarah. I'm saying that right, And you know that that was just kind of a there's two stories happening at the same time, and I thought they did a good job of like weaving them into each other, and then they came to a head, much like in the first one, things came to a head. Yeah, I think, you know, for me, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as the first one. But I also I was kind of struggling with this because the first movie doesn't tell a complete story.

There's nothing that I can say that can change that. It tells a small it tells a part of the whole, and then that's a you know, it's weird. But I think that's why I liked Part two is because I needed Part two. Yeah, finish part one right, Part two was required. I had to have it.

Yeah, I don't. I don't think that this movie is a failure. I don't think that this movie is bad. I just I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around this movie because the story that it tells should have been told in the first movie. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Like the way that the character of Katapa played by Safiurage is the narrator of the piece is what it ends up feeling like with the framing device of the first movie continuing into the second movie of he is now recounting to Bahu Bali's adopted parents what happened to Bahu Bali's dad. So he serves as effectively the narrator for this entire movie up until the third act. And again, so we're looking at a movie that's one hundred and seventy one minutes, so it's almost three hours long. The part of the film featuring Baho Bali the Sun is the last forty minute, and in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like an afterthought. It's like they forgot that there was a story back in the present that they had to come and readdress them.

Oh my god, we don't know what happens to bah yet. Well, while I was watching it, like I paused it at one point to like go get something to drink and I saw the little uh you know, time left, bar progress bar, and I was like, oh my god, are they gonna be able to wrap this up? They're still talking about his dad well, and that's the thing. I'm really shocked at how little time they leave the story that they set spent so much time in the first movie with Look. I mean, realistically, the first movie, two thirds of it is the Bahu Bali the Sun story, and then the last act is the past, and then the first two thirds of this is readdressing the end of the last movie.

So I get what they were going for. You know, it's one two, one, two, three three. I mean that's what they were doing. I get it. Yeah, I just don't think for me, that's a super compelling way to tell this story.

And I think more than ever it really goes back to in this movie and a little bit in the first one, they should never have had him play his dad. Yeah, it's like weird at this point, Like I get it because they kind of make note of it. Baladeva does at the end of the movies like I've based you before and I killed you and I'm gonna now I'm gonna kill you as opposed to having somebody else do it for me, and like, yes, I understand that that moment is earned, and I would agree the moment is earned, as I'm sure you would agree. It's a completely earned moment, given the journey we've gone on and given the way they're telling the story with him literally being played by the same actor both the dad and the son.

But I feel like that moment, as impactful as it is, would not and isn't as isn't so successful that they could have done something different, like casting a different actor as his dad. Yeah, because it doesn't serve a purpose. I mean it serves a purpose in the sense that Prabhus isn't just in the half of the movie, and it's not, you know, the other half of somebody else's movie. But some of the best sequels do something different and interesting with the expectations of the first movie. Terminator two, Godfather Too, both movies that take the original film's premise or the narrative structure or something that the first film did and they change it drastically.

Godfather Too, you wouldn't think that it would be a movie about Beatle, but yet here we are for more than half of the movie. Is Robert de Niro's. Again, not something you would expect watching the first movie, just like in Terminator two, you wouldn't expect Schwarzenegger is the hero given the way the first movie plays out. But that's what ends up happening in this movie. They should have just cast somebody else as Dad.

Yeah, don't do the thing that makes the movie less successful overall, just because in certain moments it's kind of worth patting ourselves on the back, Like that's what it feels like when he's facing him at the end of the movie, and it's like I fased you before, and I beat you then and I can beat you now, Like, yeah, great moment. But I wish that the characters were different or it was different casting, because that's the thing, like the character of Bahubali the Dad and bahu Bally the son effectively the same character. Even Yeah, and if you're if you aren't paying close attention, you probably could get lost in what's happening. And again it's not it's not because we're Westerners, it's just the style of storytelling is very well.

In the transition of timeline happens quick like we're in Son's timeline. Boom we're in dad's timeline. Yeah, like, let me tell you a story real quick about what his dad did. And it's like, oh my god, this is three hours now of this. We we walk away from the main story for three hours.

I mean again, you can make the case that it's story A and story one A and one you know, one B. Again, you could make the case that they're you know, they have to both exist at the same time to tell the full story. I could see that being the case. But honestly, in a lot of ways, the stuff that goes on in the second movie, I was trying to figure out if it was this compel is the kind of conflict in the first movie, because in the second movie it's this kind of and we've seen it before in other things, and here in doing it, here is no different. Just like Fake Out, where they're trying to convince everybody of one thing that is not remotely true, and they end up convincing characters who have acted smart up until this point to act like idiots for one moment long enough just to achieve their goals, and then the moment that's done, they snap right back.

And I find that to be very lazy storytelling wise. Me personally, and this entire second movie inges on you being able to believe Bahu Bali's mom. Babhu Bali, the dad his mom adopted mother is such a strict authoritarian, which didn't really see to be the case. Kind of she's a very morally upstanding person to put her own son to death. Yea, all the words of two people that should not be trusted and clearly have ulterior motives without vetting anything, just like, oh he did, Okay, he's dead right like they like they wait again.

I don't want to get too bogged down in it because it's it's it's It was a frustrating part of this movie for me because it's so lazy and it's just it feels like I've seen it a million times in a million other things where one character it's just it's just just fucking say you love, just say this, don't just sit like and we saw it in the Ron Beer Kapor rom com that we talked about after we did brah Mastra, where it's like, just fucking say it, just say it, don't sit here like it's not realistic, Like I mean it is in the sense that, yes, I guess people do have unrequited loves and they don't want to be honest about it. But you're using the storytelling medium of film to be lazy, and this movie traffics in that because that's the entire conflict in this movie is a manufactured conflict.

There's not actually any conflict in this movie between the characters that are having a conflict, the mom and Bahubali, the dad. There's not actually any conflict there, yeah, which which does almost kind of irritate you as a viewer, Like I was irritated about that, And the conflict that I was more like invested in is Katapa's conflict, you know, having to take the directive to go kill Bahubali like that was because that was that was real. It was a result of the manufactured conflict, but that was like a real thing. That was like, oh no, well, and we know that we know where Katapa ends up. We know he's going to end up stabbing Bahubali in the back.

We've already seen it happen. We know because it's a flashback that this there's nothing that could happen that will change any of this. Right, But even though effectively the stakes are gone because we know how this flashback ends ends with the death of Babu Bali. I was still, like you said, I was so invested. Like Safiurrage is a fantastic actor.

I have not seen him in any other Indian cinema films that I watched, but my god, he kind of upstages bahued Wally in this movie in a way. The character Katapa is way more interesting in this movie than I think anybody else is. Almost I was going to echo that same thing. Is it almost felt like he could have his own movie totally well, and you know we kind of we touched on it last episode and I'll mention it here again. Other Bahubali things are coming out Bahubali TV show, So again where this ends up.

If I'm in promise, I'm going to sign up to do more of this because this movie, you know, the highest grossing film in India still still still. I mean, it is cool that there's I think there's a lot of like Indian culture in like mythology woven into the movie, and I think that's really cool. That's what I liked about from Aster too, was there's there's some it's anchored in some of that stuff, which I think is really neat, and I think that allows you to take in a lot of places, allows you to keep expanding it or tell news story well. And also I mean again, you know, the flavor that ss Rajah Mouley and his production team is coming into this with is so different from what we would expect to see on a network television show or a television show based on a pre existing intellectual property.

Like who knows what it's going to be. If it's half as good as this, it'll be really something exciting. But I was really kind of a little disappointed by this movie. Yeah, in terms of coming out of part one, like you needed part two. We had to have it right.

We literally don't have a fucking story otherwise, right, But the expectation I had going into part two, Yeah, it was underwhelming in that respect. And the gal he was courting like the whole first movie, the girl that he was like trying to hook up with, Oh yeah, on your hand, kind of like it just you know, she was just there in the second movie. It never really went anywhere after that. Yeah, Talana is I think criminally waste as aven Sinka. It's She's like, I don't get it.

It's weird, like again this in a lot of ways, this should have been three movies. I think I really think that there was enough with the Baladeva character and the son bahu Bali, so the you know, the uncle and the nephew. I think there was enough there to make it a full third movie. A bull have this movie be the entire second Just end the first movie at that point where it's like, and we're gonna tell the story of Bahubali dying in the next movie, but don't give us any of the stuff in the first movie of him and keep it like a nice lean two and a half hours, and then come back in this movie, tack on another thirty forty minutes, give it a nice three and a half hour runtime, and then the last movie hit it with just the three hours, so that you've got short long and then right in the middle at the end.

And I don't know why. The Baladeva character is an interesting character that ends up going nowhere. Yeah, I think even in the second one, like like I would saying earlier, there's just a bunch of like one line things that are like over dramatized. It feels like like he's just always like so tense and angry and he'll say something and then it zooms in on his face and then he punches a wall and like it's just kind of different energy than like in the first in part one. Well, what I don't get about this film specifically, is why not use this opportunity showing these flashbacks to really flesh out the Balladeva character, to give us an idea of why he is the way he is.

Bija Ladeva, his dad doesn't get any more characterization either, but I kind of get a better sense of why he's doing what he's doing than Baladeva. Oh, he's just more popular than me, and that's why I don't like him. It's man. I get that this is supposed to be an epic story and it's supposed to be themes that are you know, universal, right, But I don't know if you need to boil it down to that base of an element like give it well, you know what I mean, Like two siblings don't get along because one is better at something than the other. It's kind of like a Canaanables story almost, That's what I mean.

Like it's so biblical, mythological, Shakespearean, however you want to look at it. It's a story that is as generic as they come, and as with all the set dressing and with all the quality actors and the quality writing and the musical numbers, it still ends up just kind of being Okay, I like the first movie a hell of a lot more. Yeah, Well, the Queen Mother is just like I got angry at her character in me, and I guess that's probably what they were going for, because she's being deceived and you're just like, come on, lady. But you get the sense of, like there's all these anytime someone promises something in this movie, By god, you are not breaking that promise, right boy. It's like gold fucking golden clad, bro iron clad, it's golden plaid.

You don't even touch it because you don't even get near it. Well, I said you were going to die, So I'm sorry, no Takesia Packsis. I don't care. You're my son, I said it. So, I mean, Queen Bail may not always be right, but I'm never wrong right exactly.

That's what that and and that's what it feels like in this movie. And again, when you have a manufactured conflict that is then pushed to its kind of fatalistic ends, you can't help wonder just like what are you covering? What failing in the script? Are you covering up for or are you just being lazy? I kept waiting for this moment of Queen Mothers being like, all right, hold up, what happened?

Right, But it's never that moment, ask bah Bali, He'll be honest with you. And if you believe that he's an honest person, yeah you raised him. Yeah, they kind of touch on that, like that's all. That's the only angle he's coming from. He's like, I'm just doing what you raised me to do.

Yeah, you were my mom. You told me what to do, and I did it, and now you're telling me not to do that. Like there's only a promise to be honest. So by God, I'm gonna be promised right, be honest all the time. A fault to an unrealistic fault, except when they're in person catfishing Devin Sarah Wow at her kingdom.

So I wanted to talk about that because the character that Sweety Shady plays in this movie, David Sina Devison or whatever the hell character is, because they they say it a bunch of different ways in the movie. For you, they say her name plenty of the right way, though she is given so much characterization compared to Tamana's character. Yeah, yeah, like to a point where, yeah, I mean, I get it. She's the one that's locked up that we see in the first movie. We're getting context as to why she's locked up, why she made the decision that she made, why she is the way that she is.

But just like the Queen Mother, she's also unrealistically standing her moral ground. Yeah, like she heels him. It's like, hey, no, like this is just like a big missun understanding intentionally. Nobody had any compunction to say that at any fucking point. It's it's just very contrived.

That's the word I would use, because that is what it is. Yeah. I did have to chuckle when they get to her kingdom or whatever and they just pretend to be other people. Yeah, just to Bali looks like just to gain her favor. Oh yeah, this is some idiot and I'm his friend.

But we do get introduced to when they go to the the the kingdom of Kunda La. We get introduced to Subarazu playing Kumara Varma, who may be the second best character of the movie. I like him. Yeah, he gets a fucking arc. He gets an arc in the movie.

He gets some pretty good He's like the only one outside of He's the only one outside of Sathiurage who gets like fun scenes with Probus. Everything else is like so definitely serious that Again, it's not that it's not fun, it's just Probus is at his best when he's loose and fun, and yeah, he's kind of not allowed to do that in this movie as much, because again it's this movie's more Empire Strikes Back than it is Return of the Jedi. Oh yeah, yeah, but he, like Subarazu, is so good. He is so good as Kumara Varmatt to the point where like his death in the movie is more impactful than Bai's death. Yeah.

Yeah, when it happened, I remember feeling or like almost like saying, oh, I'm like ah no. So what ends up happening is he is roped into killing Bala Deva first because Bala Deva's dad seemingly has what wisened up gotten his you know, gotten his brain about him and says, wow, this is bad. I don't want to be part of this anymore. Only way to stop it is for you to preemptively kill Baladeva. So go do it.

I'll let you into his chamber lo and behold he goes in. And obviously it was a trap, just so that they could use it as the inciting incident to have Bahu Bali killed because he was trying to kill the king Wala Davia. It's so fucking contrived though, Like, but it works because for me it's it's a contrived thing that they managed to make it work because of the scene with Subarzu and Rana Dagubadi between Baladeva and Kumara Varma. Like, it works because of that scene with the two of them in his bedroom and you can just see Kumara Varma realizing, oh, no, I have completely shited the bed here and there's nothing I can do about it. And that scene is more my only way out is to try to kill everybody, right, And it's more impactful than everything else in the movie, even the scene where Katapa kills Bahubali.

Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know. Like, it was just something about it where you now understood that while the trap had been set, it still relied on one person stumbling into it, seemingly someone who we followed for almost two hours at this point, and he's again kind of grown on you as an audience member because when you're in introduced to him, he's kind of this cowardly dick who is taking advantage of Bahu Bali, kind of making him look better than he actually is. And by the end of it, Babo Bali is like, you have the opportunity to actually not be a coward. All you gotta do is in the moment, stand up for something. And you see him get that moment.

It's really impactful, and the movie kind of never rises back up to that moment, and it should have because it has a moment right then and there, like twenty minutes later where Babu Bali dies, and that should have been in. That should have been the lower peak before they reach the summit, because the summit should have been that moment where Bahubali dies. Everything else is a fall The way the movie treats everything else is like a falling action. And I think that was a mistake because Babu Bali and Baladeva's feud at the center of the movie, or Balla Davia's feud with himself, because again, like that's the thing Baladeva's not like he's just kind of bala Bally doesn't know he's doing anything, right, it's just living life.

Yeah, like uh, it's moving rocks and helping the kids water the trees and planting the seeds and da da da da da da dad. It's like, would you believe that this guy's trying to kill the king? Right? And Balbally's doing all this stuff for the further kingdom and just being a great guy all the while Belladeve's in the background was looking at him like you, dick, even though he's a king, even though he's king. Yeah yeah, and like yes, he could be right.

And that's that's an interesting kind of angle to it, the idea of like, well, Balladeva is just so consumed by hatred of vaporation, right, But I get it. I just I don't know. I get why the story is as generic as it is, because it is the most basic way to tell this story. Yeah, yeah, that's biblical. It's canaan Abeles like you said, Yeah, it really is.

It is. And you know what, I think the other kind of missed opportunity in this movie is I kind of wanted more action. Yeah, you only got a little bit at the end, yeah, and they're like, oh my god, let's okay. So we've talked about the kind of the first two acts of the movie. You have Bobali and Katapa going to Kundala so he can meet Davis Sena and they can fall madly in love with each other until they so all of a sudden, Balladeva wants to marry Davis Ana for no reason other than because he wants to saw a picture of her, and he's like, she's hot.

Yeah I want that, and he likes her, so I won't her, right. But I'm just shocked by how little time they give the third act to this movie, and really is surprising because it literally feels like they end the flashback and then it goes all right, now we gotta go kill Baladavia. Mm hmm. What whether you got anything in between? This?

Anything in between that I did like the Bulls of fire Horns. The movie's not The movie is not stylistically uninteresting. I mean in the first movie, you had the fire blanket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got you got fire cows, the the Spinning Chariot, the Blade Chariot makes a reappearance, the palm Tree, human catapulust. Oh my god, let's talk about it.

So there is a point in this movie where they're like, how do we get into this castle? And there's like bow bally, use your nugget, you smart guy. You So what do they do? I don't know how to explain this other than you have a group of people standing with shields in such a way that they make a circle and then they fly through the air. Yeah, they kind of all just like hook elbows and then their shields up and spin through the air and land on their feet.

I guess, so land like a human bomb on top of other people. It's it's unrealistic, but it's the kind of action that I show up for with this kind of movie, right, Like that's what that's what to do. That's what I want, Like, that's what I want from this kind of movie. Is I want it to just be something I've never seen before, and I've never seen that before. Yeah, we got that in both movies.

Yeah, I've seen things in these movies now that I've never seen before that are interesting and novel and feel like someone thought them out. But then you contrast it against the plot of the movie and the plot of the movies just justa it finds it. It doesn't find the same note in this film that the first one did, because I would say first movie had maybe what maybe twenty minutes more action. It's not like the first movie was a hardcore action movie either. Yeah, but there was more.

There was more more, But again, quality and quantity obviously are I wish the third act of this movie had been twenty to thirty minutes longer, just to give that conflict between Baladeva and Bahubali a true conclusion. Because yes, the way Baladevia meets his end I think is rather satisfying, but it's not visually satisfying. And as an audience member, I'm not sure that I was as entertained by the demise of the villain of not just one of that characters, but essentially every character in the movie. I don't know if he met an and deserving of the terrible things he had done throughout the movie, like he should have really met his end in a spectacular way, like in spectacular fashion. I was hoping he would have gotten knocked off that huge waterfall mountain, had the head of his statue smash him, because that's what bub bell I had to climb to get there.

Okay, I felt it only fitting that he fall from it. Well, I mean they kind of they cheated a little bit, right, and they had the head of his statue, So that was how the huge golden head floated down the road of her all the way down the river and all the way over the waterfall. But hey, it's a good visual when it's sitting next to the lingam at the bottom of the waterfall that Bahubali had to move and here comes the giant gold head of Baladeva. I like where this I like more than anything else. I think I'd probably walk away from this movie liking the most is the promise of something else now that we know what the story is.

Yeah, because like anything else, right, like any other series of movies, they have to give us an idea of who the character is. Most of the time they do it in the first movie. Very rarely are they doing it in a second movie, but sometimes they do if they're worried that bogging us down an exposition is going to be something nobody's interested in. Look at something like that Violent Night movie where it's like, here's two pieces of flashback, but we're not going to spend an hour on it. Right, I'm excited for the promise of what comes next because now they don't have to talk about this anymore, and we don't have to have Bahu Bali and Bahu Bali's dad, like, we don't need to revisit that anymore.

We can have prop Us playing Bahu Bali being you know, the king that he's supposed to be, but then taking on the threats that are even bigger than Baladeva, that require him to maybe go back to bij A La Deva and say, all right, I even know, I know you had my father killed. I need you to get the people that support you or whatever to come help me to defeat this bigger threat. I'm interested in it because that's what they have the opportunity to do. Now. This story does a good enough job getting us to the starting line.

Is kind of what it feels like in a lot of ways, like this movie got us to the starting line. Now. I would like to see what they do with with it after them, maybe but Bali will have another son and he can play with that character. Oh my god, three times three times Pravus has played bah Bali. You saw him in Bahu Bali one.

I don't think they're gonna I don't think there is any more bow Bali movies. I don't. I don't think Babu Bali three is a thing. I mean again, I think it's this the TV show and the extended you know media that you know, movie tie ins and all kinds of stuff. But there's a TV show so coming.

So I'm I'm excited. I am very much interested to see what the franchise has to offer past this point. Because the character of aven Thika, not at all addressed in the second movie, could be a main character in the show. We have all kinds, I mean, Katapa could be a main character in the show. So you could do flashbacks and bring back someone like Subarazu as Kumara Varma.

You could do all kinds of stuff. Really, yeah, I would like to see more Katapa, like just across the board. Nothing else. Well, yeah, just gimme Katapa Larean, just do that. We'll just have him and I don't know, I don't know who this This movie's equivalent of a groguesque character is that just wander the Indian out back, out back the Indian you know, the country side, getting into adventures jungle.

Yeah, well it's an all jungle, not all, but they reference in the movie. True, I would I would like to see that because I think personally, that's much more interesting than this. This is a very good start of your story. This is a very good conclusion to the story you set up in your first movie. But in terms of telling a story that ends up nailing it the way the first movie did, I don't think it did.

Mm hmm. Yeah, that's that's a good way to put it. It didn't stick the landing. So the first movie hit it. I mean the first movie jumped it and got it, and it got exactly where it needed to be.

I felt like at the end of the first movie, I, as an audience member, was exactly where the movie franchise wanted me to be. It deviated and again personally subject this all subjective. Personally, it didn't do the same note hitting that the first movie did. The first movie hit so many notes for me that I was really taken by it. I mean, the song and the waterfall, just the imagery at the beginning of that movie with Sivagami and then and then think how they introduced Baladeva as this kind of ball of energy and this kind of force to be reckoned with.

And then just the second movie just kind of goes, you know where this is going, so let's tell you that story. And again, maybe they shouldn't have said at the end of the first movie, Hey, Katapa's gonna kill Bahubali, and it would have been maybe that scene may have actually had an emotional weight to it because we don't know how it happens. We know that it will happen, given that bable Bally's dad is dead, but we don't know necessary we don't need to see it in the first movie. Yeah, visually, what that scene did offer, even though you know you knew it was gonna happen, what it did offer was just the performance from Proves in that scene. Oh yeah, I mean that delivered.

That's the part of that scene that delivered is the two of them. But like the I don't know, like I compared that to the scene with subar Zu as Kamara Varma and Baladeva like right before it, even I don't know. I mean again, I think maybe in my mind that scene between Katapa and bacle Bally is so built up that it couldn't ever really be as good as I hoped it would be. But I agree with you, the two of them is fantastic. I think just it's a weird, kind of a weird narrative conceit that they get themselves into where they're in the middle of nowhere fighting people, and then these people come down from the hills.

But yeah, but we know Katapa is in the back ground, like biting his time. Trump. I wish that there had been more of a we we could see more of the struggle that Katapa is going. We could really understand, like this is not going to be easy, even if, like we mentioned, this is a apparently a society of unyielding, morally upstanding people. And again in that part of the movie, fire lures all those bandits or whatever into the grassy area, lights the grassy area on fire.

Yeah that well that Oh my god, here again the visuals there with all the dudes nailed to that thing. Holy shit. I mean again, that's That's the thing that this movie does not disappoint on is it doesn't disappoint visually. But I wasn't worried about it visually disappointing me. Like all, ss Rajah Mouley has a very, very very specific way of presenting what he wants you to see, and in Triple R, it's there.

In the first Bottleboy, it's there, and in this movie it's there. He understands how to shoot something so breathtaking in what it is that you're really just staring at it, going I have never seen something. And that happens multiple times in this movie, to the point where you're thankful that some even if this movie is not as successful as the first one is, I'm still thankful that there are people out there making movies where by the end of it, I was like I, even if I wasn't completely on board the way the filmmakers wanted me to be, I am on board with whatever you want to show me, whatever else where, everywhere else you want to go, I'm on board. That is not an easy point to get with, especially if you're kind of middle of the road on the second movie like I am.

You know, and look, Triple R is as much fun as these two movies, but I think it's I think now watching Baja Bali one, Bajoa Bali two, and Triple R, I think the one that I would go back to the most is Triple R. But I think that's because the story it tells is one whole story, and by the end of it, it leaves you in a spot where you can go, all right, I want to see more of this. But the story that it told didn't feel like a Okay, we're just getting to the point where we can let the characters loose. These two movies felt like, Okay, we got to tell bahu Bali's story before we let Bahubali loose to do his own thing. Yeah.

No, I need to watch Triple R. You really do. It's You've referenced it a few times. It's so good. It's so good.

But again, it's very much just like this. It's the same big, over the top feel, with stunning visuals and a flavor that is so unique to India that you could not mistake it for some other filmmaking country. You could not mistake it for a film made in the United States. Like That's the thing that I appreciate about films like Bahubali, films like Triple R. Is, Yes, they're action movies.

Yes they're telling these epic, grandiose Shakespearean stories that we've seen a million times before. But you know where this movie came from. You know, the people behind it are really excited to show owe you something visually stunning, even if they can't nail it with the script. I mean we talked about with that with Brahmastra. Almost the same problem, except it's not the dialogue in this movie.

It's just the way they told the story, So storytelling technique, if you want to look at it that way, I would say this is probably closer in quality to bra Mastra than it is to the original bau BALI yeah, I'd agree with that good assessment, But by the end of Promastra, I feel the same way that I do here. I'm on board with whatever you want to show me next. Yeah, so you met You had mentioned that this was the highest grossing still is the highest grossing movie in India. Is that right? Yeah?

So to compare that to like US movies, highest grossing movie in US, I mean, we've seen Avatar and Endgame. I know it's on apples to apples comparison because there's it's too wildly different. I guess, Like like I mentioned earlier, there's culture woven into this movie and that could be part of its success too, is because it very much is uh steeped in there in Indian culture mythology, whereas like vendors, endgame like not really Avatar, not really, those are like created things and or adapted things. But to highest grossing in one country highest grossing in another country, I'm trying to see if there's any parallels there. There's big epic things happening, right, There's a big battie in a endgame, for sure.

Yeah, But like I just feel like watching Avatar in game Star Wars, there's a little more meat on the bone in those versus Bahubali. Yeah, I mean the second one. I don't think that. I don't think the first one. I think the first one actually stands as a pretty fun movie.

But I think this I would agree with with your assessment of the second one for sure. I think I think if I'm sitting here thinking about this, as you know, highest grossing Indian film of all time, two hundred and sixty million dollars, that's how much money it made. A lot of money. That's a lot of money in Indian cinema. For people to have seen this movie at the time and it still be the highest christ income, it's a lot of people who saw so as we like to say that many people can't be wrong, but to your point, it does feel a little one dimensional.

And I don't know what contributes to that, because that was also again kind of our sentiment in Bramostra. Yeah, kind of the same sentiment is that it was a little too one note, a little flat, yeah, and needs a little enriching. And I think maybe what Star Wars Avengers have going for him is they do spend time on those other characters. Well, and you know, I mean again we kind of mentioned already that there are going to be more Bahubali things coming out. So that's why I'm excited, because again, this is not a traditional way of storytelling in Indian cinema.

Again I've mentioned it before. Sequels aren't normally a thing like the Seek uncommon people don't make movies. So I thought in a few years, right, like, people aren't sitting and going, well, I've made this movie, and I can make eighteen more movies like it with the same characters. They go, I'm gonna make this movie and then if it's successful, I'll get different actors but do essentially the same thing. The sequels the way we know them here where it's the Mummy one, two, three, and maybe even four Star Wars one through eight, or if you want to look at Marvel movies as all sequels to one another, Marvel sequel nightmare where you have to watch everything to understand it.

Yeah, this is a different way of doing it. I think this is in its early stages. I think five. I mean again, here's the fucking crazy thing. Triple R is like the movie that this wants to be.

That's you know, that's like, that's the thing that kind I can't really drag this movie a whole lot. So it sounds like the director refined the formula. Well, that's why it's like I want to see more Bahubali related content because knowing what I know now with where Triple R goes, like, I'm on board. I've seen now what Triple R is and how good it is and how much myself and so many other people that I know went and saw it in theaters. People who have never seen an Indian cinema film and see in theaters before went and saw it or watching it on Netflix or heard about it, and now they've heard about it because of the Academy Awards.

Either way, I'm gonna take this opportunity to as always around this time of the year, Get on my soapbox, stell the Academy Award to go fuck themselves. I really don't appreciate the idea that that okay, so bansheees of Indus sheer in Right, Martin McDonough, he directed it, he wrote it. Starts Brendan Gleeson and Colin Ferrell, right, not American actor. The Academy Awards is an American institution. Yeah, movie is nominated for Best Picture.

Actors in that film aren't American actors in that film live in a country other than the United States. What then determines a movie to be a foreign film? Is it the lack of English dialogue? Because if that's the case, dismantle your fucking award system, because movies like this, movies like Triple R shouldn't be discounted for being nominated for Best Picture because you have to read subtitles. And if you think that that's okay, or that somehow is an acceptable way of doing this, you're contributing to the problem.

Because a movie is a movie, right, I watch everything with subtitles now period English language, fucking Tamil Telugu Hindi zo show. I don't give a fuck. I'm watching it with subtitles. You know why I'm going deaf. I'm getting old.

I don't want to blare everything, and maybe I want to talk to somebody if we're not just sitting and focusing on the TV. But don't tell me of what foreign films are only movies that have subtitles. Yeah, because that's not fair. No, not fair to anyone making film outside of the United States who care about the Academy Awards. That's the thing.

I actually could give two shits. I don't make anything that anybody at the Academy is going to have anything to do with. I'm just one of the people who, like yourself, watches the things that the Academy spends all of their time also watching and self ordaining that they know more than everybody else. Uh huh. Yeah.

But yeah, it continues to bother me as someone who's a fan of Indian cinema that because these films have subtitles, they are therefore considered foreign films and could not be nominated for Best Picture, which I think is I think it's at an antiquated way to look at it, and we're better than that. Now, we should be we should be just like when one of my favorite movies, Zodiac, didn't get nominated in two thousand and eight for an Oscar. Would you like to know why why it was not nominated? Because it was one of the first films shot on digital and at the time, the Academy said, you couldn't nominate a movie that hadn't been shot on film. Wow, let's see, let's see if they could get away with that now.

I mean, remember when the Academy refu was having this whole fucking, you know, crisis of faith about shit on Netflix bu streaming a streaming movie actually a movie, Yes it is, yeah, actually shockingly and you know what was really funny, The pandemic essentially destroyed that argument completely. Yep, because where would we be without it? Where would we be without streaming? We wouldn't have been able to see Triple R or anything for that matter in the last three years without it being beamed directly into our homes. So yeah, the Academy, look, they're I'm never gonna get invited to be part of their voting because I, like so many other people who like yourself, like myself, watch movies all the time.

We all know this is a popularity contest. We're not fucking stupid. Nobody takes that shit seriously. They gave Green Book the Oscar, they gave Dances with Wolves the Oscar over Goodfellas. It took them three tries to give Scorsese the Oscar.

Fucking Martin Scorsese had to have three tries to get an award from a bunch of old dipshits who didn't know what the fuck they were doing. So they gave the Oscar to Kevin I'm on Yellowstone Costner. So, I mean, nobody's talking about Dances with Wolves in twenty twenty three, but people are still watching Good Fellas. They do not have their finger on the pulse. They have their finger firmly planted inside of their fucking butthole.

I don't know, I mean, I don't know how else to explain it. Avatar got nominated for Best Picture, didn't it? Am? I am I lying there? No?

You did? You know it's it did? And just because it was it was creative. I mean a lot of movies are creative. Yeah, it just had I mean it was the thinking about it, the way you mentioned, like the Academy and just a bunch of old people the way movies get made, it's almost like, especially if it's something they don't understand via language or in On the flip side, Avatar being something that was basically just shot with people wearing jumpsuits of ping pong balls.

It was filmed through the magic of technology, and so they probably looked at that like, wow, well that's got a win. That's not only unique but also fun. My grandkids would love this fun story about little blue people underwater. How quaint, and they did spend a lot of money. Look, when something like Top Gun Maverick gets nominated, you're trying real hard to stay relevant.

Guys. I'm sorry, but nobody like it's Top Gun a movie where dudes played volleyball in the first one un ironically homo erotic yep, and I did the same thing, but football playing with the toys. There's none of them Bahubali, none of the damn boys, We dim boys weedemn bahu Balis. I am so glad we got to watch these two movies together. I really am.

This was a lot of fun. As much as much as I kind of walked away from the second movie, hmm, a little disappointed, this was a lot of fun. I kind of feel the same way walking away from this as I did with Doom three was like, you know, the journey getting here was a lot more fun than this movie ended up being. That movie has its own problems where it's that movie gets hijacked by somebody else, that's that franchise all of a sudden has a major actor just waltz in and go, this is now my franchise. So this doesn't have any of that, but it's that same kind of just like by the end of it, you're like, m you know that the conclusion wasn't it wasn't as satisfying as everything else that came before it.

Yeah, it was about the journey. Well, and ultimately in the end that is what it's about. It It's about the journey from the bottom of the waterfall to the top. That's right. That was the best part of that first movie.

Sin He's jumping on that waterfall. That song has been stuck in my head since we since we talked about that movie, and that was like a while ago. I yeah, yeah, because we were scheduled a few times. Hey, don't try to do this around the holidays, folks, You'll get very you'll get very Nowhere let's just put it down, so uh. Dustin final thoughts on Baho Bali two, the conclusion, well, I mean we've said a lot of it already.

It was it was about the journey the movie itself, like I needed it. I after watching part one, I couldn't wait to see it, and then I saw it, and there are just some weird like moments where you spend a lot of time kind of just down here and eventually it goes up there. But there's still a lot of content there. You got to meet new characters, and you got to see Katapa just kind of act like a dufus for a little bit. Anytime he's on screen is a welcome addition to the to the to the actions of the of the cast.

I was, uh, I mean, first movie I've seen Promise in it, and yeah, I want to see any more promise like that was. He He's a he's a fun actor to watch. He's good. I'd like to see him in like something that's not this. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean, Like I don't know, like a like a like a fun funny movie, like a comedy, that would be good.

He because he's got that about it too. Yeah, he's kind of he's kind of I don't know, he's kind of loose, right at least is Bahubali the Sun He's kind of loose, So yeah, he's I mean, I assume he's still jacked fucking ripped man like a rock character, but more so. But anyway, Yes, overall, I like the like the series, the beginning and the conclusion. I'm glad it wasn't two parts. I don't know if I could have sat there for six hours, so two parts was necessary.

But yeah, it's about both of them, and I'm glad I saw it. Yeah, I will, I will echo that almost entirely. You know, I've now watched two Indian franchises, Indian cinema franchises, and in their entirety, one of them being Bahubali, the other one being the Doom franchise. And you know, I wasn't not entertained. And if that's the goal of cinema ultimately at the end of the day, is to be entertaining.

Yeah, you know we have complet obviously, and if you know, if you watch the movie and you listen, you heard what they are and you know, again we're not in the minority here. But I mean again, this movie is rather well received, but at the same time, like you know, it's not going to be perfect. That all being said, I like we've said, I can't wait to see what Baju Bali ends up becoming or where they go with this franchise or what comes next. I don't know if it'll be Bahu Bali three. I don't know if it'll be Baho Bala TV show.

But whatever ss Rajah Mouley and his production company come up with and whatever they're bringing out next, I'm game because Triple R is, like you mentioned, distill it. It's this distilled down into a much more Again, I wouldn't even say like palatable, but the fact that it's as popular Western on this side of the globe as it is, I think is kind of telling. Not that this wasn't, but that provides an easier entry point in a lot of ways that this I think was kind of an incubator for This was kind of a ground to understand this kind of what what we can do, how we can push this medium in this genre. So I'm excited to see wherever we go from here, and that's where we'll leave it. So until the next time you and I talk Dustin.

You can find everything that you and I do together over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. This show, along with twenty plus other shows are over there, including this show, The Culture Cast, Mike White's The Projection Booth, Scary Stories We Tell, which Dustin does the album artwork for, and a whole bunch of other shows hosted by me and a whole bunch of other people that aren't me. As for this show, balio cinemaclub dot com like, rate and review wherever you get the show and share with your friends. Dustin, thank you so much for joining me. As always, you're welcome.

We'll catch up on next episode.