Adipurush was the most talked about film on social media even before it hit theatres. Despite the film's large budget, people mocked it for its terrible VFX. It has been stated that this Prabhas and Kriti Sanon starred film was made on a budget of 600 crores, so naturally people expected VFX on those levels, but what Om Raut's team delivered was way below the expectation. Despite delaying the release and claiming to be working on the VFX.
In a manner, Om Raut's Adipurush, starring Prabhas and Kriti Sanon, is a paradox. It is in a safe zone because we all know the plot, so no surprises there, but it is also in choppy waters because it will inevitably be pitted against other superlative renditions such as the highly rated Doordarshan series, Ramayana (1987), as well as Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Ram (1993), produced and directed by Yugo Sako.
Om Raut's film is a letdown for those who have seen the other Ramayana presentations, including this author. The insufferable combination of its settings, sceneries, dialogues, and the overuse of VFX has turned this oft-told story of Lord Rama's struggle against Ravana to save Sita insipid.
Adipurush's VFX - or its rework - is simply unmanageable. Raghava and Sita appear to have been plopped into the settings of a video game, or is it Lord of the Rings + Planet of the Apes + Game of Thrones, with a dash of Marvel thrown in - whatever the case may be, it is too odd. Everything that the Adipurush frame comes into contact with is merely bad VFX.
The VFX supervisor of Adipurush is Prasad Sutar, the co-founder of the famous VFX company, NY VFXwaala launched by Ajay Devgn. Prasad opened up about the VFX of Adipurush in an exclusive conversation with AajTak.in, after the gative responses of the trailer.
"We have been working for almost four years on the shoot. After the kind of reaction that the teaser received, we got almost nine months till the release date. Look, we can't change things completely. The basic challenge that remained after the reaction was to re-correct the characters in the animation. We fine-tuned it. In the little time that we got, we only worked towards improving things. We are making it more real. This is a technical aspect. There were also efforts made to rectify the shortcomings in the performances. Other than that, the correction of lights and colour were also taken into note. The core story will remain the same. Whatever issues were found, we have tried to fix them by accepting them,” he said.
Regarding the budget, he said, “The film was already made on a mega budget. The production work of the film got increased due to the negative response of the teaser. There was a big jump in the budget too. Crores of money was spent on the important work.”
Even after the poorest of the poor VFX, the film is able to garner over 140 crores worldwide, and still growing.