Hey, it’s Prabhas’ birthday!  I’ll have to put up a post about it in a second.  But, more importantly, his birthday present is a first look at Baahubali 2!  So, let’s see what we can somehow discern from it.

Hey!  Prabhas 1 is in the clouds, like Mufasa in The Lion King!  Based just on this poster, it looks like the movie will mostly be Prabhas 2 with Prabhas 1 just being the strength within him.  But I bet the next poster is the reverse, and focuses on Prabhas 2 with Prabhas 1 being in the clouds.  Because from how Baahubali 1 ends, both their stories are only half done so they kind of have to both have to have equally big parts of the sequel.

(Now that I think about it, Baahubali kind of has a lot in common with The Lion King, doesn’t it?)

From the rest of it, it’s very classical portraiture in terms of the props.  You know, how the old fashioned formal portraits would have the subject standing at a table with a variety of objects?  Like, a spyglass because he invested in shipping, or a book because he went to college, or whatever?

So, in this, we have the sword that represents his father and his noble royal heritage.  And we have the wooden Shiva necklace, representing his connection to Shiva and his heritage from the forest people.  And we have the chains, representing the way his kingdom/mother have been tortured and imprisoned for decades, and how he will break those chains.  And of course we have his shirtlessness, representing shirtlessness.

All of that is kind of obvious, I guess what is really interesting about it is how much it relies on the assumption that everyone has already seen the first movie.  Without knowledge of the meaning of the sword and the chain and the necklace and the ghost-Dad, it’s just a picture of some guy without a shirt and then the same guy in the clouds look different.  This isn’t a poster that immediately makes you want to watch the movie just because the image is so unusual and arresting.  Like, well, the poster for the first movie!  This is a poster for people who know what they are getting and are just looking for confirmation.

(Knowing nothing about this movie, you would want to see it, right?  Just because this poster is super unusual)

UPDATE: moviemavengal just alerted me to the motion poster, now available