Hollywood movies have become a top-choice of youngsters of India now-a-days. Nothing incredible about this though. Hollywood has almost everything to serve on the platter of a cinema aficionado or a movie-goer. While a few cities of India are entirely on the mercy of apocalyptic and giant-killer inspired Hollywood films, other metro-cities are, lately, home to several other genres. Gone are the days when English films would only mean Jurassic Park and Titanic (or the one with many objectionable scenes).
Our bonding with many Hollywood stars has increased many-fold and if bonding is a huge thing to say then at least we can confidently claim to know a few names of these actors other than just Arnold Schwarzenegger (although we always avoid taking his surname). Vin Diesel, Liam Nesson, Robert Downy Jr., Christian Bale etc. have now become household names. We cheer Leonardo DiCaprio, as if he was born and raised in India, and for that nobody expels us from our University.
But has Hollywood-movies evolved to its finest shape? Can these archetypal movies considered the supreme form of cinema art? The answer is definitely, No.
Bollywood has a long history of emulating (or most of the time bluntly copying) Hollywood but we hardly have any proof of Hollywood copying us except, of course, “Slumdog Millionaire” if we believe that we have copyright over poverty and slums. Had Hollywood been more receptive towards recent developments in Bollywood it could have been a clear gainer. Go through the list:
Why Oscars when award programs such as Filmfare could do the Job:
Why to go through excruciating task of going through every Oscar-nominated movie from all around the world just to honor sheer-talent? What is the need of taking into consideration the votes of more than 1000 critics just to hand-over statuettes? And even after the arduous task of refining the best among best, is Oscar holds an immaculate image? No. People accuse them of favoritism and thanks to its global appeal, Oscars have always been globally criticized.
Now let’s talk about our own home-grown film festival, aptly named ‘Filmfare’. We do not have more than 1 to 2 parameters to judge cinematic excellence in which Box-office collection, hugely influenced by presence of super-stars, plays a vital role. The formula is simple, if a movie earning truck-loads of money then it is implicit that people are going to theaters and also spreading good words so as to inspire others to watch the film. Now this liberates panel members from watching every insipid yet nominated story-line and over-acting of leads to choose a film and give it a title of “Best XYZ”. Had Leonardo DiCaprio been an Indian actor he would have got the black lady (I am not racist) many a times.
In this whole task of awarding, we do not forget our respected critics and connoisseurs and thus handover two-three awards to those critically-acclaimed (but critically-ignored) films that couldn’t been able to grab more than 100 screens country-wide.
Critics get happy, viewers get happy, world-wide audience don’t give a damn, formula hit!
Save Time, Roll out Anything:
Only Bollywood knows how to pick any random and eerie story-line and convert it into a blockbuster. Why to wait for a healthy script at the cost of waiting for a year or so when script, which is at your disposal, could fetch crores? Take any third-grade story, fill the void with item songs, unwanted action scenes defying every law of Physics ever made, sign a megastar and here you go!
It is not that Hollywood films completely rely on scripts and hence their film-makers too resort to fill the void but they do it through computer graphics and special effects and in this process end up investing 20 times more than Bollywood film-makers do. We are the clear winner.
Film Promotions:
This is a real task that we (read Bollywood) are mastering with every passing Friday. Not only Hollywood but our revolutionary ideas to connect to audiences should have revolutionized the marketing strategies by now. May be we are not the experts in film-editing but nobody comes near when it comes to making trailers. No doubt how our movies get bumper openings.
Right from sparking controversies to giving appearance in every reality show, we do it all and Ganga maiyya ki kasam it works more often than not.
How to make a sequel?
we roll out as many sequels as you like…
We copied the art of sequel-making and perfected it. Why to contemplate script of former to make its sequel? Why ‘Iron Man-2’, ‘Spider Man-2’, or ‘XYZ-2’ should start from where it ended previously? Why to give a lot of stress on continuity of story, star-cast, production house etc?
In Bollywood, film-makers make a film and wrap up it completely in climax. They don’t think of a sequel until movie yields a hefty amount of bucks. Then comes the idea of making a successor by keeping true to genre and change everything else if the situation demands. Then they try to make a movie more grand than its predecessor while sacrificing integrity, continuity, and a few basic elements. Big Deal.
Copy, Copy, and, Copy:
So Similar!!!
Everything is fair in love, war, and film-making. Creative contents are hard to come by and thus we do not think twice before going for alternatives, which is most often, Copy. Barring a few masterminds, Bollywood has a long list of successful breed of copy-paste-experts.
We do not discriminate while copying. Thus, we not only lift stories but also posters, songs, action sequences, one-liners and almost anything you could think of.
I find it hard to think of a single reason why can’t Hollywood copy as blatantly as we copy them. This is era of Globalization. Stealing is absolute necessity.
I hope, in future, we would see Bollywood-inspired Hollywood-films. I also hope Bollywood would keep doing the good work until movie-enthusiasts decide to stop spending on frivolous masala flicks.