Kalki 2989 AD is is the Sci Fi premiere movie that Bharat wants to promote on the global stage. The movie garnered controversy when people felt some of the artwork in the movie was copied from video games and dystopian movies. Marvel, Star Trek, Halo and Doom seemed some of the references which were too blatant. Many others also filed open petitions and threatened the movie with copyright suits. The story itself is copied from Children of Men, or at least the movie is accused of the same.
But despite all these accusations and more, most don’t care. The film market is already oversaturated by the American Film industry for the last 100 years. The copyright laws make this worse and slow down creativity in developing countries. Even Sandeep Reddy Vanga of Animal fame said that his favorite movie was The Godfather, but he did not realize its influence on Animal until he was halfway through the movie.
Many times the art we consume inspires us as well, until we are the center for technological innovation. That is where the most amount of creativity comes from, whether it is the performance of Ramayan or other arts back in the older days. Songs remaking Biblical stories like “How Much A Dollar Costs?” by Kendrick Lamar ring close to many local “dehati” Ramayana, which many in the West call “subaltern” in anglophile historian circles. If these are “subaltern”, then we are by extension calling great artists like Kendrick Lamar “dehati” as well.
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Kalki 2989 AD plot and messaging
But how original is the Kalki 2989 AD movie? Personally, I would like to start with the date. Why not make it Kalki 3046 AV’ here for After Vikramaditya? Vikram Samvat started 57 years before the birth of Christ. It is the Indic calendar that is used across Bharat, as most people recognize Vikramaditya as the first one to unite all of Bharat (and invade many far-off territories) back in the day 2081 years ago!
But sadly, the maker of the movie, Nag Ashwin, wants to steer clear the movie from religion, confusing religion with theology and theology with politics. The movie is very religious, claiming its roots in the Bhavishya Puran. It has a very strong religious message; the common people are all poor and believe in multiple Gods. Meanwhile, the Complex is run by a single “Supreme Being”, a reference to monotheistic monopolistic religions and ideologies that are rapidly wiping away Indigenous pagan and animist traditions.
Conversely, the heroes are all part of many indigenous religions across the globe. Not only do we see Sanatani, Buddhists, and Sikhis in the city of Shambhala, but we also see animists from Africa and Native Turtle Islanders. This is the right ideology to have. It is a clear message of indigenous religions uniting against the Jewish religions like Islam and Christianity.
How accurate is it to the Bhavishya Puran?
But how accurate is the movie to the Bhavishya Puran scripture? Or even to the Mahabharat? The Mahabharat, for example, never had the instance where Arjun’s chariot was pushed back by two yards whereas Karna’s chariot is pushed ten yards; it is entirely made up. It never happened in the actual Mahabharat. Shambala (or what is known as Shangri-La in the anglosphere) is shown in a certain manner as well.
But this is meant to translate into AI and magic in equal proportions. The 3000-year recap of history is fine. It is seen as rather well-made. The movie keeps scriptural references vague or far between because the creator of this movie wants to inject their own creativity too, as they should.
But the creativity of the Sci-Fi does not come to light. While I do not think that a monopolistic company like Disney should win the case against Kalki when it comes to copyright infringement, simply because the universe of Star Wars is too generic; Deserts, lack of oxygen, flying cars, etc. These have been part of the imagination of the “future” for the entire world ever since the post-industrialization era came. It is too broad an understanding to be mad about.
The Westerners who point fingers at us today miss the point when they fail to realize the Bible mentioned only floods when the world ended, desertification is an import from the Indic imagination like in Bhavishya Puran.
The Vishnu Puran and Bhavishya Puran both mention how desertification, including no water in the Ganges, will be a sign of the Kaliyug. The fact that Kashi is the oldest city in the world, there since Satyug, also makes sense as the “last city”, as the last city would also be the first city if time is cyclic.
The Sci-Fi of the movie
But back to the Sci-Fi. It did seem very derivative of the Star Wars films. The neon light swords and the bikes and cars seemed too old and behind on the Sci-Fi curve. Maybe if the bikes had a stamp from Ola (a brand sponsorship) we could maybe believe the events happened here. I don’t think I can entirely blame the directors; we ourselves as Bharat are not at the forefront of innovation in technology; whether AI or Biotech. At most, we have Agricultural and green tech innovation.
We were not able to imagine the movie from an Indic lens from the perspective of technology. The same can be said about the picture of Kashi; I understand it is dystopian, but it does not look like “Dystopian Kashi”; it merely looks like “Dystopian”.
It could be anywhere unless the plot tells us so. We see many languages like Japanese and Russian in the background, which may mean Kashi is inhabited by many, or it may be a cheap set not edited (where the Kannada, Bangali, Gujarati, and Manipuri). The story is nice, but the aesthetic manifestation in the “Direction” is not up to the mark, whether it is Dharmic aesthetics or the Futuristic ones. Any number of retrofuture AI artists could direct this better.
Overall, the story of Kalki 2989 is great, but it does not seem too special because it wants to avoid, at least partially, being too close to the Bhavishya Puran and other sources narrating the birth of Kalki ji. On the other hand, it does not imagine tech, especially Indic tech, too closely, because it is not in touch with the latest technology and innovation in the world, in architecture or otherwise.
Maybe the “Complex” did not need to be modeled after Roman Buildings; why are they still the standard? Could they have not pictured an Indic palace of Luxury (then again, I would not oppose this either because it becomes commentary about the English-speaking elites in our country, pitted against the proletariat Sanatani in the ruins of an impoverished Kashi! I am only hypothetically putting this forward)?
Could they not have a bigger focus on the technology of the day? I would love to understand the scientific context of the serums, the weapons, and everything else in this universe. Could they have elaborated in depth on the Bhavishya Puran instead of merely mentioning a couple at the beginning of the movie talk about “those stories of the past”?
I would also love to learn which Bhavishya Puran scripture is quoted and come out “educated” on the Bhavishya Puran while also entertained by the end of the 3 hours of the movie. I would love it if they engaged with the original material more.
I focused more on the “Dharmic” elements of the movie in my discussion because they seemed to be the stronger suit of the movie.
Conclusion
There is also the weird North vs South aspect to this movie. Yes, the entire country is united in the movie, but we can see parts of the movie are shot in Telugu and other parts are shot in Hindi. I LOVE this idea as it does bring the two sides closer. But where is the representation of the North East? Why do we not see Manipuri or Assamese in the movie?
Southern actors like Dulquer Salman and Kamal Hassan don’t show up at all in the scenes shot in the North, and many Northern actors don’t show up in the scenes shot in the South. We can see the lip-synch off in half the movie regardless of who makes it. It would be great to see a “meta language” cut of Kalki 2989 AD, where all the scenes are from the original language.
We live in a country of diverse languages, so why not have a single movie expressing all of them; north or south or west or northeast? There is a lot of cinema talent in Rajasthan and the Northeast that could be brought to the forefront with this series in the sequel if Nag Ashwin feels up to the challenge.
Overall, this is a great and fun movie. It hits closer to the imaginational desires we have for our civilization. But it still hasn’t achieved its peak yet. So much more can be done, like bringing in Western Bharat (Punjabi actors or Rajasthani ones), Northeastern talent (Assam, Manipur, Nagaland films are big) or other regional talent (Bhojpuri, Tribal, etc).
They could have explored the technological aspect of the tech available today, bringing engineers, doctors, and scientists on board.
They could have done so much more with theology, writing the story as accurately as possible to the Bhavishya Puran.
This movie is the right step in a million-kilometer journey of achieving “India” as Bharat and Bharat as Vishwaguru through cinema. This movie felt like tasting blood but wanting a whole hunt now. I hope Kalki 2989 AD (or let’s call it Kalki 3046 AV) 2: The Sequel has these things and a lot more (without forcing it into the movie, but keeping it natural).
