Preview - Endhiran 'The Robot'

The most hyped happening thing over the weekend was the telecast of the audio launch of ‘Endhiran’ on Sun TV on Saturday and Sunday. Though I could not watch the entire event (no interest and no time), I watched and listened to a few glimpses – and my initial thoughts were:

1) Aish looked her age (old?) and wifey was quick to point out “it is time she got pregnant” and wifey is named so because she possess this 7th sense like spidey albeit on such matters!

2) Why have the function in KL? Is it so you can charge for tickets? Has Shankar lost his confidence in the movie grossing the investment?

3) If my weak memory serves me right, this film was started by AVM and then taken over by Sun Pictures. AVM was nowhere in the show and it was a total Sun affair (with the usual Sun propaganda that Tamil fans celebrated in KL while showing pictures of yellow autos and Nalli signboards which clearly indicated it was Chennai).

4) The entire show resembled more of a ‘Star Nite’ than an audio launch – the usual ‘song and dance with skimpy costumes routines’ and the ‘comedy-on-stage routines’.

I happened to listen to two numbers on the Radio that is a default in my car. I liked one - ‘Endhira’, but strongly disliked the other with the robotic sounds. So, it is now wait and watch for the film to get released. But, before that happens there is the usual guessing game of what the story would be. As with any Shankar or Mani Ratnam film, the story is a closely guarded secret. The discussion in our office tea breaks now mainly revolve around this and to my horror on Friday, there was this suggestion that the story is an adaptation of the Robin Williams starrer - BiCentennial Man.

I was shocked is the understatement of the decade. Though Bicentennial Man is not on my list of all-time favorites (pls. see my interests on my FB profile), I liked the movie, especially the acting of Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz and Sam Neill. It was an interesting concept and very well put together. But, if Endhiran is an adaptation (inspiration?!), then the consequences are mind boggling. So, just for the fun of it, I let my mind run loose and tried to imagine how they would have to adapt the movie to Tamil and in particular to Rajni’s image.

So here goes the story I could imagine:

The year – 2050. The world has just become more meaner and bad than it was. So the opening shot would start with a son whipping his mother for not keeping the Beer in the fridge. Rajni enters and there is a huge tsunami (we have seen the whirlwind in Padayappa and Sivaji). Rajni just raises his hand and the waves retreat – then ‘punch’ dialogue indicating the need to worship mother as a God. At the end of the dialogue he says, “you are lucky you have a mother, I don’t even have a dead one”. That makes you wonder, and then it is revealed that Rajni is a Robot. Of course, this is where the opening song is with all the ‘thathuvams’ (remember ‘dhevuda dhevuda’ and ‘balle laka balle laka’???) .

Now, there is a problem – you cannot kill Rajni’s character even when he is human, let alone when he is a Robot. So what do you do? The other problem, Aish is a human. You also cannot have a story spanning generations like the BiCentennial Man since Tamil audiences would not accept it. So, the best option is to gradually make Aish a Robot. Also, these Robots are so advanced they can marry, make children etc. (the continuation of progeny is a very crucial concept in Indian cinema!!!). So, the human Aish who gets Rajni (the Robot) as a gift and hates it at first, starts to slowly like it. Then she falls ‘head-over-heels’ in love with it. This situation demands and will get at least a couple of love songs in exotic foreign locales which are shot in the usual Shankar grandeur. Just around the interval time, you will see Aish going into a workshop to get herself converted into a Robot.

Now, the question of villains. An ordinary Rajni movie has at least 3 villains, but this being one where he is a Robot should have at least 15. All the villains plot against Rajni and want to steal the secret of manufacturing a superlative Robot (like the one in T2 or T3). They all conspire and use Aish as a bait and capture Rajni and put him in a deep freeze (like Optimus Prime of Transformers). Rajni is powerless and is shown to be all but dead.

Intermission.

Now, the movie picks up pace. There is a massive earthquake and since Rajni is out of commission, there is no one to stop it. The earthquake cuts the power to his deep freeze and Rajni slowly thaws to life with renewed vigor. The freezing has also given him superhuman powers that were with Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Fantastic 4, Ironman, Schwazzeneger, Stallone, Vadivelu, Vivekh et. al. How Rajni beats all the 15 villains through the use of his ‘supercomputer’ brain and all these powers forms the rest of the story. Of course, there will be a couple of more dream love songs with Rajni prancing with Aish on top of the new Casino in Singapore, a bungee jump scene from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and a ‘Flo-ride’ on ‘The Liberty of the Seas’ top deck.

If you think this is the end, then you are wrong. No Rajni movie is complete without a mention of the fight sequences. Rajni, being a Robot, has all the modern weapons as part of his arsenal. He can launch a nuclear tipped tomahawk missile with a flick of his wrist. After the intermission, with the addition of the powers of the Super heroes, he becomes unconquerable. But, Rajni being the fair Robot he is, never uses these powers against the villains who are all human. He is so chivalrous, that he does not use these powers even against the superior villain Robot built by the 15 villains. Sample this:

The bad Robot launches a nuclear tipped tomahawk at Rajni. Instead of counter attacking with a Brahmos, Rajni just grabs it and throws it out of the Solar system. Later in the fight sequence, Rajni disables the bad Robot’s weapons control. Then, he opens his own abdomen plate disables his own weapons control and starts the hand-to-hand fight!!! Come what may, he will win only by means that are fair and square!.

Finally, with the bad Robot disabled and the human villains killed, Rajni turns to Aish (who has successfully made the transition to a full Robot by now). They join their hands and walk away into the sunset – only that it is a sunset on Mars!!!