More big battle! My goodness, if this is the edited version, can you imagine how long it was to begin with? Although it’s also strangely soothing to have all this big battle with physical fireworks after the emotional drudgery of the past few scenes. (part 23 here, you can go back through the archives from there)
Previously: 2 whole films happened! I’m gonna skip all that and go straight to the battle. Prabhas 2, the rebels, some quickly gathered together peasants who also hate Rana, and Kattappa’s elite band of fighters are all together on the battlefield in front of Mahishmati. Rana sends out his men, straight into boobytraps and unpredictable fighting styles from Prabhas 2 and his allies. Rana follows after in his lawnmower chariot, mowing down his own soldiers in his haste to get to Anushka and capture her again. Prabhas 2 tries to free her but isn’t fast enough, Anushka is taken back into the city and the drawbridge is brought up, smooshing a few more of Rana’s own soldiers, while Prabhas 2 is left outside, with an arrow through his chest shot by Rana’s bow.
Let’s talk about arrows! In Europe, arrows were a sign of the peasants and rebels. They changed modern warfare, especially after the invention of the crossbow, because they were cheap and (comparatively) easy to learn how to use. Suddenly the archers, the lowly archers with no swords or horses, were the most valuable fighters. And just as suddenly, back home, the lowly peasant folk had a tool they could use to hunt, to fight, to defend themselves. Essentially, Arrows=Robin Hood.
(the one true Robin Hood, accept no substitute)
In India, very different tradition of arrows! The Aryans used them as part of their invasion technique, and so did the Mughals. It wasn’t about a row of peasants barely taught to draw a bow shooting down a rain of arrows, it was about the greatest warriors in their chariots rushing in and with perfect aim and ability, shooting down the enemy. It was a weapon of class, of power, of sophistication. The greatest warriors would show their greatest skills through their ability to shoot. And someone of the lower class was never supposed to touch one (thus the incredibly infuriating story of Eklavya who taught himself to shoot from watching Drona, and cut off the right thumb, making himself a cripple, at his Drona’s command, since he was not supposed to learn these skills. I know I know, there’s more to it, but the point is that it was the ability to draw a bow in particular which placed him at a higher level than that to which he was supposed to belong).
We have seen that through out both these films. Prabhas 2 finally reaches the top of the waterfall, and his destiny, when he makes himself a bow and leaps out with nothing to rely on but his skill. Anushka and Prabhas 1 fall in love when he shares with her a trick with the bow, and earlier when he proves that even secondhand, he is a greater archer than she. Ramya gives a bow to Rana as one of her “sorry for making you second best!” presents. But you never see a common soldier use them. In fact, the films have to go to great lengths to avoid that, with the recurring mass weapon, those huge arrow towers that I don’t think would actually work, but okay.
(Never not going to use an excuse to put this song in a post)
Rana, also, almost never uses an arrow. It goes against his nature, he would always rather beat his foe into submission than use cleverness. His distance weapon is that mace that somehow swings out on a chain, not an arrow. But the two times we see him shot an arrow are when he has a particular goal in mind, and has to reach to the very limits of his ability to accomplish it. First, when he shoots Ramya in the back, so perfect aimed and so quickly accomplished that most of the palace is unaware it even happened. And second, just now, when he turns back and shoots his nephew Prabhas 2 in the chest, with such strength and accuracy that it forces him to fall back.
That first arrow, that was the most powerful and the most dangerous. But it is followed by a rain of arrows, all the hatred of Rana sent out in blind uncontrolled and unplanned fury. And Prabhas 2 is powerless in front of it, he has no protection of preparation or planning for this kind of attack.
And thus, Kattappa. This moment, when Kattappa leaps forward to raise his shield and protect Prabhas 2, it is the redemption for that moment when he let Prabhas 1 shield and take the rain of arrows for him, the first step towards his death. Then, Kattappa’s hands were tied, both literally and figuratively. But now, he has been set free!
There’s been a lot of debate about Kattappa in the comments, did he ever truly become “free”, if so when, why did he go back to working with Rana, etc. etc. Here’s how I see it. 25 years ago, when he killed Prabhas 1, something broke inside him. He returned to Ramya a broken man, ready to confront her and then will himself to death. But her need of him, to help her escape and save Prabhas 2, revitalized him. He regained the will to live. But it was only a half-life. He continued to work for Rana and Nassar, because he could not imagine any other purpose for himself. But slowly, over 25 years, his will was breaking again, with ever moment of sacrifice and every wrong-doing he was forced to witness. It broke to the point that he was willing to help Anushka escape. Although, I think even there it was only because Rana had given him sort-of permission in the earlier scene. He still needed some kind of justification. He was primarily, still, the King’s man.
But once Prabhas 2 returned, he became not just Kattappa-the-loyal-servant, but Kattappa the man again. The one who had someone to love and live for of his own, not just because of orders. This battle happened so quickly, the plans were thrown together and Kattappa just went with it, without thinking it through, letting his emotions carry him. Very Prabhas 2ian.
And this moment, here, this is Kattappa as free as he will ever be. Last time he was tied by promises and loyalty and doubts, as well as actual rope. This time, nothing is holding him back and his instinct is to leap forward and save Prabhas 2, and then call on others to join him in so saving him.
This is why Prabhas 2 will win where Prabhas 1, I don’t want to say “failed”, but could never win. Prabhas 1 was always protecting others. He had never learned the skill to ask for help. Kattappa, through out the films, has represented the common man. In the power of the nobles, but also their strength. He chose Ramya to rule. He loved Prabhas. He suffered under Rana. And now, with Prabhas 2, he sees an opportunity to make-up for the past 25 years, to do better, to not just trust his leader to take care of him, but to take up arms and lead others in battle and make things better for himself.
And so is everyone else in this battle. Kattappa’s troops are following him because they are ever loyal and trusting of Kattappa. The rebels are following Tamanna and Devasena because they trust them. Remember Tamanna is the one who convinced the rebels to come to the first battle, simply because she believed in Prabhas 2? Not as the king, but as a person she trusted. The forest people are there because they love Prabhas 2, the peasants are there because they believe in what they saw at the statue raising, everyone is there by free choice based on what they know of Prabhas 2 personally, or what someone they know knows of him. This is the protection, the shield, that Prabhas 2 has around him. Something Prabhas 1 never had, the only person ever willing to really fight for him was Anushka. His mother, his family, they all abandoned him. And the people believed in him, but not enough to fight back.
But all that belief needs to be harnessed, to be controlled. That’s what Kattappa is trying to accomplish in the moment after he stops Prabhas. To force him to grow into what Prabhas 1 spent his life training to be, the one who thinks and plans and comes up with the best solution for all people.
And that’s what Prabhas 2’s yell in this moment feels like to me. Growing pains, Kattappa (representing all the people who believe in him), is forcing him to grow, telling him he has to think like his father, not just react, but plan.
(I picture a similar reaction when Rajamouli told Prabhas he had to somehow grow a million muscles for this movie)
Okay, I’m not going to sugar-coat it, this Palm Tree catapult plan is STUPID!!!! But while the actual fact of it is STUPID, it does pull together a whole variety of themes in one. Maybe a smarter plan (ladders, anyone?) would have worked better and cut down on the cathartic giggling in the theater when everyone realized what was happening, but it might not have so perfectly encapsulated all the kind of loose ends that need to be tied up here.
First, Prabhas 2 is using a unique plan based on something Prabhas 1 did. This is clearly not something he could have read about or seen in pictures (like, say, A LADDER). It could only come from his fetus memories of his father (or else the story Kattappa just told him, either way).
Second, he is combining nature with manufactured. Again, as his father did with this plan. Prabhas 1 was almost always about manufactured, unnatural. The first moment he used nature was in the fight scene when he was distracted thinking of Anushka and almost without thinking used a tree as a weapon. And then it slowly grew, breaking the dam, using the stampede of cows. When he returned to Mahishmati, he awkwardly returned to that place of rules and artificiality. And then in “Dandaalayyaa”, he reached his full potential and combined the two.
(When are they going to post all the full videos? This is torture!)
Prabhas 2 is always about nature. In B1, he never used a manmade weapon or tool until the moment he grabbed a sword to break his mother’s chains. But he has been resisting that path ever since then, using clubs or blocks of wood, even in this battle. Now, Kattappa has forced him to think, and his solution is driven by nature (the palm trees), but the end goal is manmade (trained soldiers with swords and shields).
And the plan only works (kind of sort of if you pretend physics are optional) because everyone holds together. The people on the ground pulling the trees down, the people on the trees linking arms and flying through the air, everyone has to work together and trust each other or it will all come apart.
Finally, notice that Prabhas 2 goes first, with Kattappa, flying into the air ahead of the rest. And others follow, with no guidance or orders, just because they have faith and want to. The only moment I kind of sort of stopped wanting to laugh while watching this is when we cut from Prabhas 2 and Kattappa fighting on the wall, the closest this strange army has to leaders, and then down below group after group flying up after them. That’s the important part, that they are taking this huge leap into the unknown because they believe in it, believe it will work (it really really wouldn’t!), believe that Prabhas 2 and Kattappa made it and are fighting ahead of them, believe that this is a cause worth risking the impossible.
dontcallitbollywood 
– Excellent point about the archery! And I especially love the point about Rana’s use of the bow being only when he has this singleminded purpose to kill, that here, Rana being slowly going crazy at this point, he automatically undercuts by shooting a rain of unfocused arrows. (Is he completely unfamiliar with the laws of a fictional narrative? Shoot one dramatic arrow at someone, they are dead and gone. Shoot a million, and they’ll be just fine.)
– I agree that this is the start of Kattappa paralleling/making up for his past actions. Which probably means I have to stop irrationally hating him *gnashes teeth one last time*. But seriously, it’s definitely a shift from the Kattappa who stood on the sidelines for most of Prabhas 1’s undoing, to one who is going to fight. And when he is rallying Prabhas 2, he tells him to use not his dad’s strength, or his royal connections, but to think like him: emphasizing Prabhas 1’s personality rather than the larger than life legend Kattappa has described him as otherwise. It’s an oddly personal touch that wouldn’t seem right coming from anyone but Kattappa, except maybe Anushka, but apparently scenes between her and Prabhas 2 are impossible.
– Except Kattappa couldn’t have told Prabhas 2 about the palm trees in Dandalayya, because he wasn’t there! So I guess it was a fetal memory. Unless Anushka added that part, I guess. Which actually brings up a question I wanted to ask on the last post and forgot, but: What the heck is Kattappa actually telling Prabhas 2 in-universe? (He wouldn’t have known anything about Dandalayya, for example.) The voice overs we hear he is definitely telling everyone, but that opens up another can of worms, because if that is so, what was the point of the whole tracking down Saket/the spy narrative detour? (And Kattappa narrates the lead-in to Manogari naming Saket by name so it’s not just something the audience is shown but not Prabhas 2). For that matter, why did we hear about the Kalakeya battle in the first place instead of just being told Prabhas 1 was made king because he cared about the people and Rana didn’t, the end. Are we just supposed to assume that Kattappa is being a typical old man and just rambling on until they reached the parts Anushka was around for, at which point she took over the story and kept things more focused on just the facts? (Because I don’t think we hear a voice over from Kattappa after the beginning of the second movie so it could be anyone telling the story to Prabhas 2).
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-Shoot any number of arrows at the Prabhasi, and it does NOTHING!!! It’s just a flagrant waste of arrows, and this kind of poor resource management is why Mahishmati has to set up that pay telescope to begin with.
-Excellent point! I still think it is a combination of “think like him and be really really clever” and also “understand and appreciate the different way of looking at the world that comes with being a leader”. But both of those are specifically about Prabhas 1, who had a vision of leadership that was different from, say, Rana.
-I’m going with Kattappa knowing how to build a narrative. I mean, think about it another way, what is the point of the audience seeing/knowing all this? We have to get a sense of Prabhas 1 so we can fully understand the loss when he dies. So Kattappa takes the time to build him up, from a cocky young man, to a warrior in battle, to a king in waiting, to a young man in love, to finally the important bits. Also, remember Extra Who Knows Everything is there! She could pick up at some point “and then that time I was a prisoner of war. and then when I saw him in the square and we all cheered. and then when I was midwife for his child.” But it is an interesting thought, generally with these flashback narratives it doesn’t really matter what the people are “really” hearing, but in this case, since the flashback inspires direct action from the present day people, you do kind have to wonder.
On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 9:02 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The prabhasi😂. This word just cracked me up. You have a nice way of coining terms Margaret.
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– *shakes head* What Mahishmati really needed more than anything was for someone to run an audit of their finances and get them to use way more funds on say, education re: sensible defense strategies (again, I refer to the hay bales of fire, Mahishmati’s last defense against people escaping) and efficient weaponry choices , instead of telescopes that only work part of the time and lawn mower chariots and arrow towers that never hit anyone they’re supposed to.
– Ooh, I forgot about Most Interesting Life Ever Extra, she could have totally filled in! Yeah, it makes sense for the audience watching, but it confused me why he was going into so much detail for Prabhas 2/the forest people/the Kuntala people. But your point about Kattappa building up his narrative makes me wonder if Kattappa wasn’t intentionally trying to rally all the people listening to adore Prabhas 1 and want to fight to regain his throne and get justice for him. Sure, the forest people would have stayed to help Prabhas 2, but they might not have been as eager otherwise – and the Kuntala rebels might well have gone, “Eh, we saved Anushka and achieved our goal, so we’re good to sit this one out, thanks” The more anecdotes and random tangents about what a great guy Prabhas 1 was, the more Kattappa’s audience loves him, just as the movie-viewing audience does as well.
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Or else your original thought is correct, Kattappa is in the early stages of dementia. And much of what we see in flashback is actually his hallucinations and miss-rememberings.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 4:30 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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…That would make such a creepy horror fanfic if you ran with it! Rana as poor innocent persecuted monarch, Prabhas 1 and Anushka as these malevolent forces he killed/imprisoned for the good of Mahishmati, and then poor deluded Kattappa managing to get to the next generation and convince Prabhas 2 that Rana was evil all along….
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I only want happiness in my fanfic! So in that case, it would be Kattappa deluding Prabhas 2, Prabhas 2 “rescuing” Anushka, Rana really truly rescuing her back, finally in the middle of that big final battle Prabhas 2 realizing the truth, that he has almost destroyed his only living paternal relative and the man his mother loves, trying to lose on purpose, Rana saving him, and then cut to the whole family happily celebrating Tamannah and Prabhas 2’s wedding.
Dabangg, it would be Dabangg.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 4:46 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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*laughs* I’m fine with happiness, but I find I’m so invested in the Prabhas 1/Anushka relationship that even if they are evil, they are going to go be evil together. (I just can’t see Rana/Anushka working! It even bled over into their romantic pairing in Rudramadevi a bit!) So maybe pretty much the same as you say, except Anushka admits defeat and…wanders off…or something, and Rana celebrates the Prabhas 2/Tamannah wedding and happy ending.
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So, Prabhas 1 and Anushka are so evil that their son has to be taken away, and Prabhas 1 killed and Anushka imprisoned, and this is still happier than just making Prabhas 1 evil and letting Anushka move on with her life? I guess I can see that.
Anyway, be warned! Fanfic starting tomorrow is Rana 2 and Anushka 2 falling in love and reuniting the family. Of course, neither Anushka 2 or Rana 2 even exist in the “real” film universe, so I don’t know if you will mind as much.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 4:56 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, see, I interpreted that as a universe where Prabhas 1 was evil and had to be killed, (because Rana had to be responsible for killing him somehow) and Anushka still somehow wound up married to him and had Prabhas 2, which is too sad a married life for me to handle. But maybe you meant that Prabhas 1 died by accident, or Crazy Kattappa did kill him anyway, and then when Rana showed up to try and save him, Kattappa snapped and imagined he was chopping him up instead. Which lets makes Rana and Prabhas and Anushka all good people (I have no idea why I am thinking about this so much, this is a very depressing alternate universe.)
I am actually okay with Anushka 2/ Rana 2! Because even as little as we have seen her, Anushka 2 seems to be very much her own person. And Rana 2, I imagine, is free of Rana 1’s particular brand of craziness, so it all works out! (Is that tomorrow? I’m excited:) )
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Yes, I was thinking a universe where Anushka, after an appropriate period of grief, moved on with Rana. But Kattappa, never able to reconcile her re-marriage with his vision of Prabhas 1 as perfect (let’s also say in this universe that Prabhas 1 died for reasons unrelated to Rana, like maybe Nassar convinced Ramya without Rana being involved at all), in his crazy old man insanity has tricked young Prabhas 2 into thinking he is “saving” his mother, when really she is perfectly happy.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 8:24 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I guess Kattappa knows everything about Amarendra simply because they were close friends. We know the entire stories of our close friends’ lives even if we aren’t present for everything that happened. They either tell us about them themselves or we learn about them from people who know we care about those stories. And isn’t the foursome (I think i called it a threesome elsewhere! Silly me! lol) Amarendra had in Manohari something that his uncle/kingsguard/friend would know about?
Besides, Kattappa tells Bhallala and Bajjala in his BB2 intro that he could sniff out stuff that happened around the palace meaning he probably had his own intelligence sources.
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Great analysis, but you haven’t progressed much into the war. Take your time, delay the posts but do bring out good analysis of the shots.
Once again two things I would bring to notice
1. In Nippule Swasaga song, prabhas2 actually scales up the fort wall just like he scales up the mountain. If we observe that scene we notice that a) the wall isn’t that high at all. For all the machines to work as given in the movie, it has to be a smaller wall, perhaps 30-40 feet in height. b) the wall had water surrounding it which are usually filled with crocodiles. That means no ladders can be used. This is strategy in almost all Indian forts once upon a time. In the song mentioned prabhas2 actually jumps from the horse directly into war.(poor one. Was lucky not to be attacked by crocodiles).
I’ve started thinking is it really possible to have that fibre-elastic kind of property to coconut and palm trees? Then I realised I looked some of cyclone videos and the trees were bent nearly 70 deg and they still survived the cyclone.
Here is the tricky part. Jumping of trees. That’s not impossible, but certainly exaggerated. *Thinking if Rajamouli had pushed cinematic liberties in mind while doing this but pushed it too far*
2. The cross section of fort seemed too small and too weak for me. Two reasons I guess for it. The first one is that it really isn’t their battle facing front of fort. It seems more like leading into forest. It is mentioned in the map B1 that battle front has more elaborate structures with all those big statues we see during war.
So, I guess they were attacking from the place where nobody usually attacks from. If we observe carefully there are a lots of dry mountains , and terrain doesn’t really help for big armies. So they had natural boundaries and cared less create artificial fort walls with huge height.
It seemed to me.more like backside of the fort.
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I never thought the palm tree catapult thing was reminiscent of Amarendra’s trick with the water barrel. To me it was firmly reminding the audience about Shivudu’s inventive archery with which he succeeded in the final step of climbing the waterfall and reaching the top of the mountain. Same sort of thinking, really — use a tree, and something at hand to launch oneself up and above, high risk, but highly imaginative. I think Kattappa’s admonition to “think like your father!” just means to think outside the box, come up with something imaginative and innovative.
As for the rest of Avani’s points:
— lead up to Manohari song — duh, it’s an item song, and thus by definition has nothing to do with the story. For that matter, if Bhallaladeva and Amarendra are way out by themselves in the boonies in the thieves’ den when they discover the spy, how did Kattappa and his troops suddenly show up in time to prevent Bhallaladeva from carrying out his plan to murder Amarendra by letting go of the rope? How would Kattappa even know this to narrate it, when he came up on the scene too late to see it?
— the Kalakeya battle — it’s that old adage, to “show, not tell”. Would we the audience believe in Amarendra’s prowess as a warrior and compassion to his people, as well as Bhallaladeva’s ruthles ambition and treachery, if we merely heard about them, without actually seeing it. Besides, Prabhas has said that he wanted to do this movie because he wanted to be in a “war film,” so I don’t think he’d be happy to be cheated out of his war scenes. 🙂 BTW, Shivagami never agreed that the one who killed the Kalakeya leader would be crowned the king. Bijjaladeva proclaimed it, but she didn’t react, neither agreed nor disagreed. I wonder why not.
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I request you to rewatch the context and understand Manohari carefully. Both the princes are asked to set out on a journey tracing out saketha. So, after a little inquiries they aare tipped off that saketha is hiding in high security quarters of Theives den. So, they plan again with prabhas1 leading the charge. They dress up as foreigners and go into Theives den. They act drunk and act like strangers. They rent out few stripper girls – who don’t actually strip and thank God for Indian censor- and then prabhas1 puts up a show. If we observe carefully it is shown that prabahs1 and Rana are discussing the very same matter as they enter the den. I don’t want to recall the exact words but it implied they decided to use the plan on distracting the guards and everyone else by keeping their attention. This is a lot more tougher job to do than simply searching for traitor.
I also think among the dancers too there are disguised soldiers, though not kattappa. We have to look out for it.
So prabahs1 as usual shows his brilliance by buying wine for everybody and make them all drink for free. In map it is shown as a town along trading post where kind of pirates and alcoholics hang out. Brothels might also be there. It is obviously not recommended to attack the den as it might lead to suicide of saketha. Spies are usually trained to commit suicide as it is already shown immediately following the song.
Saketha runs for life, sends out information regarding the war using peigions and then jumps off the cliff. Once again we see prabahs1 brilliance to see that he is captured alive to know what secrets he spilled and to extract enemy secrets. That prompts them to plan “attack shepherd to mislead sheep” plan.
One interesting point. The very presence of such a pirate city and den indicates something about maahishmaati kingdom
Isn’t it?
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In Godfather movie most of the mafioso migrate from New York to newly built Las Vegas. Similarly Singapuram Bandit fort may be a sanctioned haven for the mafioso of Mahishmati empire. Just my thoughts.
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I was thinking kind of the other way around, that it is where the “bad guys” from outside the kingdom congregate. Mahishmati seems so controlled, I don’t imagine it would allow for many criminals to survive there, but they can get to Singapurum and make contact and sell goods and so on there.
On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 11:15 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Rana comments that if they had this kind of security in Mahismathi (when they see the guard slitting the throat of a chap who wanted to smuggle a knife into the fort), they would be out of a job. Then he asks “Knife (weapon) or brains?” And Prabhas1 responds with, “Whichever is sharper.” Manohari and whatever happens before that seems to indicate that they take the “brains” option.🙂
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I love the Manohari sequence, because it lets us see Rana and Prabhas 1 as these kind of carefree young men, before responsibilities and everything else came crashing down on them. It fills in what their lives were like before the Kalakeya battle, a long string of adventures and challenges with minimal responsibility.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 9:28 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I thought I was the only one who noticed shivagami not agreeing to the proclamation of king terms.
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Oh, no, sorry for the confusion, I love Manohari and the Kalakeya battle and would be really sad if they were cut (and also definitely agree from a narrative perspective, out-of-universe, why they belong there). I was just confused about why, in-universe, we would get this tangent, but like Margaret said above, I kind of like the idea that Kattappa is selling Prabhas 1 to the listening crowd, to get them invested in his life and getting justice for him, just as the movie is to us watching!
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Pingback: Bahubali 2 Scene By Scene Part 25: Nassar! JUST DIE ALREADY!!!! – dontcallitbollywood
Yup .For me the tree human cannonball catapult was ,if nothing else, a lot of fun.Given the time,personnel constraints and the fact that these forts are surrounded by obstacles they couldn’t have pulled off a proper siege on the fort with ladders and stuff .So Prabhas 2 thought of this plan.
-As some1 in the comments mentioned in a cyclone the trees can bend up to 70 degrees.So there is a lot of potential energy there waiting to be exploited.
-And if we remember the lessons about projectile motion ,at the very top of the trajectory the vertical velocity is 0 .Meaning u just have to take care of the horizontal velocity which is already being counteracted by the drag.
-The very first grp with 2 super humans, Prabhas 2 and Kattappa ,Would be able to take the impact and all of them would be fine.
-The director makes it a point to show some of the other human cannonballs don’t make it.And it is obvious other attempts will have some casualties.But only about 60-70 take this route .While the others wait on the ground outside.
All I am saying is the plan might not be too unfeasible in this fantasy world of Baahubali.
Also I wondered what the symbol on Kattappa ‘s forehead is ?Is it a dog , a fox ,a panther ?
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-Agree, this part scans
-Okay, yes, only what about aiming? You would need to make sure that the arch ends with them landing on top of the all, not overshooting, or splattering against it. At least Prabhas 1 had his little home made compass and engineering tools to work it out in advance!
-True, and not just the impact, but resist the drag that is trying to pull them apart as they fly.
-Although most of the ones who failed were an aiming issue, not the drag pulling them apart issue.
But most of all, totally agree that it was a fun visual and a nice kind of tension releaver (sp?) going into the last 20 minutes!
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 8:48 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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-yeah totally forgot about the drag pulling them apart .That would be an issue .I would require enormous strength to hold together.
-About the aiming bit guess we have to assume he worked it out in his head or on the ground.
-Also i liked the idea of the shields blocking the arrows once the soldiers realised what was going on.
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Now I’m picturing Prabhas 2, on the ground, doing a kind of “guess your weight” thing to pick the perfect combination of soldiers for each tree, and the ordering the exact angle to which the tree should go. Oh! Maybe that is the purpose of those little steps he stuck in the sides! So everyone can be exactly perfectly spaced and located for the exact right angle of the curve.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 2:03 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Sorry to say Meredith, but your notations of Prabhas 1 and 2/other actor names are confusing. Sad to leave the interesting discussion, but the threads would be much easier to follow with character names.
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Sorry you don’t like this method, unfortunately it is too late to change it after a year and a half of blogging, and 24 parts in to the film. I hope you will come back and check out the blog again at some point in the future.
(speaking of names, my internet name is “mredlich21” and my “real life” name is Margaret, not Meredith. You can see it in the information about my book)
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I don’t know, Margaret, in a way, the numeral system makes determining between the Prabhasi (love it !:) ) a little easier to me. Especially because they all have so many names! Prabhas 0 has only one (well, two, apparently, if what other commentators have said about the prequel novel) but it’s mentioned once in the movie and easy to miss. Most people refer to Prabhas 1 and 2 interchangeably as Baahubali, which is a mess to work out. Prabhas 2 could be either Shivu/du (and depending on which version you watch, literally has a different version of that name) or Mahendra Baahubali. In other places/discussions, I’ve used (and have seen used) Amarendra for Prabhas 1, but in the film itself, it’s pretty clear that he went by Baahubali and apparently didn’t use his first name. (Even Ramya, when using the Dreaded Maternal Full Name Ultimatum, only calls him “Baahubali,” not “Amarendra”). So by the time you work through all of that, it’s almost a relief, given how we jump back and forth in our discussions to talk about multiple generations, it’s almost easier to just go 0/1/2 and be done with it.
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I always prefer to use actors names anyway, for all those reasons I have given before. And also, if you are talking simplicity, I only have to learn the names of about 50 actors, versus 500 different movie characters.
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I dont think it is an issue with all the actors .Only prabhas 1 and 2 could be issues.But that too is simple.The numbers simply denote the generations.
Prabhas 0-vikramdeva
Prabhas 1-amarendra
Prabhas 2-mahendra.
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Prabhas0 full name is Veerendra Vikrama Deva
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Great analysis about history of archery in India and its relation with elites. Ram and Arjun were both great archers, learning archery from childhood under great gurus. Archery was considered to be representative of great and noble warriors, with great focus, intelligence, character and skill. It is telling that Rana never preferred the bow and arrow, while Prabhas1 and 2 used it freely. Rana used it in his most destructive moments, and the Prabahases in their best and most constructive. It is like the arrow is representative of focus, and while Rana is focused on negative things, Prabhas1 and 2 are focused on positive.
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Excellent point! Something else I hadn’t thought of, both Anushka and Tamannah are also archers above all else. We see them fight with swords, but the recurring image is of them with a bow and quiver of arrows. They are no less noble than their partners.
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 2:58 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I suppose if the Sword represents Dharma then the Arrow represents Karma.
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Ooooo! I like that!
Although the chains might be a little better for that, his sins coming back to defeat him literally.
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 6:14 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My favourite Kattappa theory is that he expected to die on the mission to kill Amarendra. We see that even Bahubali couldn’t break his handcuff. Even Bahubali!
Kattappa probably figured he’d lay the trap as promised, Amarendra would come to get him, he’d still be tied up so Amarendra would need to fight everyone alone, he’ll win and in the process Kattappa would somehow be injured and he’d die and he wouldn’t have to kill Amarendra. Amarendra has popular support and he’d take the crown by rebellion or maybe he’d just take his wife and head out to Kuntala.
It is only after all the enemies are defeated that Kattappa is left with no choice but to keep his promise to Sivagami. Or maybe he saw Bhallala approaching and thought it would be better for him to kill Amarendra than letting him die at the hands of Bhallala.
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That makes complete sense to me. He tries so hard to get Prabhas 1 to leave him, and he doesn’t really make any move to protect himself during the attack. I think there is some line within himself, when he feels like he is actively disobeying orders versus passively disobeying. Just sort of sitting there while everyone else does stuff is okay. But once everyone else has failed and Prabhas 1 is still alive, that’s when failure to act would be disobedience.
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 6:05 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I find it a little strange that everyone, including Devasena, just sort of accepts that Kattappa betrayed and killed Amarendra and they aren’t furious at him. Imagine the conversation:
Kattappa: … and so I killed Bahubali and that got Sivagami killed and that got Devasena 25 years in a pit and the people got oppressed and Mahendra nearly drowned at barely a day old.
Devasena: Oh, OK. Let’s go kill Bhallala now and take back the crown.
Mahendra: Cool, sounds like a plan.
People: Yay!
Wait, what?! LOL
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Yes! And, as we discussed in comments somewhere, they don’t just forgive him, they trust him! Wasn’t anyone worried that he would decide the rules had changed again and he should be on the other side? His firm adherence to loyalty makes him strangely unpredictable, because once he decides the loyalty has shifted, he could do anything.
On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 10:36 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Purely technically, Kattappa stays loyal to whoever represents the crown. When he knew it was the QM, he’s loyal to her, when he thinks it’s the baby king, he’s loyal him, when he thinks the baby king is dead and Bhallala is still king, he’s loyal to him, when he learns that Mahendra lives, he’s loyal to him. It’s still odd that Devasena who we know has zero respect for Mahishmati laws and technicalities just forgives Kattappa even after she learns of his betrayal and how Mahendra and the praja ally with him is incredible given how beloved Bahubali was.
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What’s even stranger is that she DOESN’T seem to have forgiven him in B1. He comes to her and offers to free her, and there is a bit of anger and distance there. Definitely not the same as the man she called “father” 25 years earlier. And then in B2, with no discussion or anything, they seem to be all fine again.
Oh well, maybe there is a deleted scene.
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 5:32 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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But at that point in the story, in BB1, she’s more outraged at his calling her twig gathering a useless obsession. Because the next dialog is like this is for Bhallala’s chita. You’re right maybe there are many skipped scenes that would perhaps form BB3.
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At the very least, her attitude is no longer the “aw, Kattappa! My son’s grandfather, old friend of my husband!” attitude it was when last we saw her. Something has changed between them in 25 years (only logical that it would, 25 years is a long time).
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Kattappa demonstrated his loyalty to Sivudu by putting Sivudu’s foot on his head and is an useful ally knowing the secrets of castle. And they are storming into castle as soon the flashback is over. So making fuss over Kattappa’s mistakes at this point would only damage the intensity of the story.
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1.Ladders is a good idea but they were in a hurry and forgot about the wall.
2.Building a ladder that high requires time and I don’t think they had a material that doesn’t suffer from structural damage to build a ladder.
3.Leaping onto the wall also gives the enemy less time to react and also makes it difficult for them to shoot at fast moving targets.And also Bhalla’s archers would’ve showered arrows on the climbing guys from above if they had decided to climb.
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All of this is true, but I think I would still find ladders more believable than slingshot palm trees.
On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 7:25 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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