Karthik a.k.a. Sundar,
First of all, congratulations on coming up with a well written post. I really liked the style of your writing. My only problem is with the content.
It's amazing how you have almost analyzed all critical elements from the movie and the only good things that you can come up with the movie is the absence of intro song and பூசணிக்காய், this is like முழு பூசணிகாயை சோத்துல மறைக்கராமாதிரி. Why do you want to introspect in to how a male lead could have possibly fallen in love with a female lead? Relationships are a bit "touchy" in both real and reel life, to find a reason for them is silly. I agree to the unethical method employed to pass an exam, but I am not going to a movie theater to learn ethics in life. On the constable scene, it came across as basic human instinct to run away from danger especially if you know you are the root cause for the situation.
So you expected an Indian movie - biggest budget ever, targeted at more than 1 billion people of all ages across the globe, simul-released in several languages and countries - to explain the laws of robotics so everyone can understand? Good luck! I can see why Shankar's first choice for this film was not Kamal.
Robotics conference being in Tamil, I had no problems at all with everyone in the room speaking Tamil. This is way better than "வசீகரன் நீங்க இன்ன சொல்லுது.." or someone disguised as foreigner with thick accent. This is like watching Ramayana in different languages and asking what was Rama's mother tongue. This type of shot making is way better than Tamil films that comes with generous sprinkle of English.
On super natural robots not being used by Vasee - remember, this is Tamil movie with Rajini as lead. It is a great risk not to have usual cinematic elements, especially in a much hyped Rajini movie ever. Movies are all about packaging and marketing - Shankar had to sell this to audience, hence the low tech, presence of Karunaas and Santhaanam. It is silly for some high tech folks, but hey, my 6 year old daughter was thrilled to see robots giving flowers. My 70 year old mom could enjoy robot doing mehndhi designs.
I have problems when filmy characters do something super "intelligent" that is beyond human. In those situations, most of the time a super scene or act will get "யார் காதுல பூவ சுத்தறான்..". Imagine robot explaining how cancer can be cured using...yeah right! There is a problem here. If a director is intelligent, that's great. But if the director tries to show he is intelligent through his movies, it has more often than not failed or came across as cheap antics. I can quote several Kamal's experiments here.
Oh, the great Terminator. For Indian cinema, we are still struggling - and will always due to our diversity on everything - to classify a movie as a particular genre. For some of us, we are totally ok watching summer comic flicks and disney pixar movies and accept them because we know what to expect when you watch a particular genre.
You are an intelligent person and you are insulted? Sorry bro, I am an intelligent person and I like it. You know what, I know a few other intelligent people and they like it too. I have a few moderately intelligent foreign friends (no offense intended) and they were perfectly fine with Avatar, which in my mind is a 300 million dollars spent on a movie that had a storyline that is no different than several age old Indian movies where a city bred goes to village (or vice-versa) and become part of that place and never returns to his old life.
Shankar had taken a contemporary situation and created a parallel sci-fi track with robots to come up with an INDIAN entertainer that can be marketed and will also be appealing for most people. I think he succeeded in that for most part. dot.
P.S. Thanks once again for bringing me back to blogging! I AM BAACK!!!!
