Can we talk about the bad VFX of Baahubali for once?
As is standard, any time Baahubali comes on my TV it is imperative that I watch at least some of it, being the die-hard fan that I am.
And each time I watch it, while I am astounded by the acting and scale of the movie, the VFX just leaves me disappointed.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the movie is definitely in a league of its own, but I also feel as if the director and team only supervised the VFX team for the first movie, and after that they just got tired or ran out of funds for the 2nd movie to have the same standard of VFX.
Because if you asked my honest opinion, the VFX of Baahubali: The Conclusion, seemed something like out of the stone-ages or something.
Who Did The VFX For Baahubali Movies?
Let me clear the confusion and misconceptions people have that the Game of Thrones VFX team or some other international team did the special effects for the Baahubali movies.
That is not the case, the VFX was mainly done by Indian companies mainly, however, the bison that we saw being tamed by Bhallaldeva, was made by Tau Films, a Malaysian studio that has also worked on films like X-Men First Class, Hunger Games and more.
Speaking of the bison, while the rest of the Baahubali: The Beginning has decent, even great effects in certain places, the bison I would have to say was a big disappointment especially after learning exactly who made it. One has to wonder if they just duped the director and his team with fancy names and then gave a half-hearted effort.
Because frankly, that bison was so fake looking, I was almost astonished by how animated and cartoonish it looked in the final movie.
The rest of the VFX was done by Indian companies like Makuta VFX, Srusthi VFX, V. Srinivas Mohan was appointed as the visual effects supervisor and even Firefly Creative Studio worked on certain areas of the film.
Read More: The Rise Of Sivagami- A Look Into The World Of Baahubali: ED Poster Series
Which Movie Had Better VFX?
Without any kind of bias, I would have to say that going just by VFX, the first movie, that is Baahubali: The Beginning, had far better VFX than the second one.
Except for the bison scene, the majority of the shots that required VFX in the first movie were extremely well done and truly deserved all the praise they got.
The waterfall scenes, the entire scene where the subjects of Mahishmati were trying to erect the large statue of Bhallaldeva but the overwhelmingly huge image of Baahubali came behind it, the scene where Shivdu saved his mother Devasena, the entirety of the fight during the climax.
All of this was really mesmerizing and if going just by this 1 movie, it really set an example of good VFX being used.
However, that all went down the drain with the second movie that literally washed away all the good work done by the first. It was a shock to me when I saw the decrease in the quality of the VFX from the first one, the kingdom of Mahishmati looked like something out of a cartoon series, the buffalo scene during the fight with Pindaris, and even the fight scene at the end, all looked as if done without any supervision.
Perhaps the most disappointing and entirely unnecessary use of VFX was done for the song ‘Hamsa Naava’ which showed Devasena and Baahubali travelling back to Mahishmati in a big and elaborate ship.
Suddenly Devasena can do magic, where with a small flick of her hand she creates this big wave and Baahubali spun the ship’s wheel and with a burst of blue flames the ship quickly changed into a flying vessel. Matlab wah.
Then we have large sweeping shots of horses made out of clouds running beside the flying ship, the background dancers vanishing into purple swirls and flowers and such being made out of clouds.
I feel this song absolutely did not deserve so much of the special effects that it had, as it all seemed extremely unneeded and honestly a little out of place. I believe people don’t realize the amount of VFX this one single song had, instead all the efforts that were used here could have been better used for the climax battle and the fight that Baahubali and Katappa had with the Kalakeys right before Baahubali was killed.
It almost seems like the VFX team forgot to add in the last and final layer that would make the effects more realistic and what we ultimately got was a slightly animated and cartoonish look.
If you ask me I fail to see anything impressive about the VFX of the second movie and it was so bad that it almost managed to ruin the movie for me.
Image Credits: Google Images
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