Ranbir Kapoor hits back at ‘CGI critics’ slamming Ramayana after watching trailer on phones

“It’s quite funny sometimes because people who don’t know CG is done, they think someone has just some AI and released something. There are countless hours of work where artists are working for years. I’ve seen Nitesh and Namit sir sit on VFX calls ever since this project started, trying to get even the colour of the sky right. I think it’s tricky right now to impress the audience with authentic CG,” Ranbir told Collider.

‘Watch it on IMAX before judging’

Namit also argued that when the same people, who criticise the VFX while watching the trailer on their phones, when made to watch it in IMAX in 3D, the conversations change. “They’re judging the film in not a great condition. Here we are spending millions and millions of dollars to try and make something for that big-screen experience that we’ve been patiently waiting to bring to you. And then you’re judging it on a phone with a not great internet connection, and saying, ‘It’s not good enough’,” said the producer.

He referred to all the criticism around the VFX as “noise”, and revealed that they’ve been trying to “educate” a large number of creators and influencers to “at least try and give it a fair appraisal on the basis of what it’s supposed to be”. He quoted the example of Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster action adventure fantasy epic The Odyssey, the first-ever film to be made entirely using IMAX cameras, which is best watched, as he intended, on the 70mm IMAX screen.

“You’re judging the technical finesse on a display that’s not giving you an accurate representation of what you’re actually watching. The issue is not that we’re saying, ‘Consume it only on the big screen.’ Consume it wherever you like, but if you have a point of view, where everbody wants to be a critic of the visual and sound, you’ve not heard the right sound and experienced the right visual, and you’re making a comment on something, which to me, is unfortunately inaccurate,” he added.

VFX not a cakewalk

Nitesh revealed that currently, his team is busy giving “the finishing touches to the VFX work”. He called it a “very, very daunting task”. “Some of the VFX sequences have taken two-and-a-half to three years,” he revealed. Responding to the criticism, he lamented, “The sad reality is when someone is hellbent on nitpicking, your best effort will be ignored, and your smallest mistake will be amplified.”

Namit claimed that they were in a “good place, overall” as far as the VFX of Ramayana are concerned. “That being said, it’s one of the hardest project that DNEG has ever done. We’ve won a few Oscars, and we’ve worked with some of the most prestigious and challenging projects around the world. But it’s fair to say Ramayana has scaled up beyond all of those in terms of complexity and scale,” added Namit.

DNEG, a British visual effects company which comes under Namit’s parent company Prime Focus, has won eight Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects. These include for Nolan’s Inception (2011), Interstellar (2015), and Tenet (2020); Alex Garland’s 2014 sci-fi movie Ex Machina, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 2049 (2018), Damien Chazelle’s space drama First Man (2019), and the first two parts of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi action franchise Dune.

Namit also argued that as Nitesh pointed out, the VFX on Ramayana is still not complete. “There’s no doubt that when we put marketing six to eight months before release, the film is clearly in production or post-production. If it was ready, we wouldn’t wait nine months to release. It’s hard to make people understand that. Why is it not as good? Because it’s still in the works,” he added.

About Ramayana

Co-produced by Prime Focus and Kannada superstar Yash’s Monster Mind Works, Ramayana will be released in two parts, which will release in cinemas on Diwali this year and next year respectively. It also stars Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as chief antagonist Ravana, Sunny Deol as Hanuman, Rakul Preet Singh as Surpanakha, Arun Govil as King Dasharatha, Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi, Indra Krishnan as Sumitra, Vivek Oberoi as Vidythjiva, Shobana as Kaikesi, Kajal Aggarwal as Mandodari, Kunal Kapoor as Indra, Ravi Dubey as Lakshman, Sheeba Chaddha as Manthara, and Anupam Kher (voice) as Jatayu among others.

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Ramayana will be distributed in India by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. Releasing in cinemas worldwide on November 6 by Sony Pictures International, it will be the first Indian film to release on around 59,000 screens. Back home, while an exact release date hasn’t been announced yet, Namit said they’re targeting the Diwali day, November 8.