Let me start with a question: How many times have you seen a movie and immediately dismissed its visuals as 'AI-generated nonsense,' only to later realize the human hours, sweat, and soul poured into those frames? This is the crux of the debate swirling around Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana—a film that’s being unfairly judged by a standard that doesn’t account for the sheer complexity of modern visual storytelling. Personally, I think the public’s obsession with nitpicking CGI is a symptom of a deeper cultural anxiety: the fear that technology is replacing artistry, when in reality, the two are inseparable.
The Ramayana team’s defense of their VFX work isn’t just about defending a film—it’s about defending the entire ethos of what it means to create something ambitious in an age where audiences demand perfection. Ranbir Kapoor’s line that people assume ‘someone just used some AI and released something’ strikes me as both frustrating and revealing. What makes this particularly fascinating is how it exposes a generational gap in understanding. Younger viewers, raised on social media’s instant gratification, often fail to grasp that CGI isn’t a magic button but a painstaking craft. A detail that I find especially interesting is how Kapoor highlights the years of labor behind even minor visual choices—like getting the ‘right colour of the sky’—which feels like a call to appreciate the invisible labor behind every frame.
Here’s the thing: When you’re trying to translate an ancient epic into a modern cinematic language, you’re not just telling a story—you’re building a universe. Nitesh Tiwari’s admission that ‘your biggest effort will be ignored and your smallest mistake would be amplified’ is a brutal truth about creative work in the digital age. It’s not just about the art; it’s about the algorithm. Social media amplifies criticism in a way that feels punitive, as if the audience’s job is to find flaws rather than engage with the narrative. This raises a deeper question: Are we, as viewers, becoming more critical of art because we’re more connected to it, or because we’re more detached from the process that creates it?
Namit Malhotra’s comments about educating creators and influencers feel like a battle cry in a war that’s already been lost. The problem isn’t just that people don’t know how CGI is made—it’s that they don’t care. What many people don’t realize is that the same people who criticize Ramayana’s VFX are the ones who binge-watch streaming series with laughably bad green screens, yet never question the effort behind them. There’s a double standard here, and it’s rooted in the way we consume media. If you take a step back and think about it, our relationship with visual media has become transactional. We want spectacle, not substance, and that’s a dangerous mindset for any art form.
Let’s talk about the bigger picture. Ramayana isn’t just a film—it’s a cultural experiment. By tackling such a massive mythological narrative, Tiwari and his team are pushing the boundaries of what Indian cinema can achieve. But they’re also forcing us to confront our own biases. The fact that the film’s VFX is being scrutinized so intensely suggests a broader issue: we’re still not ready to accept that CGI can be beautiful, nuanced, and deeply human. What this really suggests is that our expectations of ‘authenticity’ in visual storytelling are outdated, clinging to a romanticized idea of hand-drawn artistry while ignoring how much of today’s cinema is built on digital foundations.
In my opinion, the real tragedy here isn’t the criticism itself—it’s the way it’s silencing the conversation about what Ramayana is trying to achieve. This film isn’t about impressing audiences with flashy effects; it’s about resurrecting a story that’s been told for millennia and giving it a new life. If you’re looking for perfection in every pixel, you’ll miss the point entirely. The beauty of Ramayana lies in its ambition, its flaws, and the courage to ask audiences to look beyond the surface. And that, I think, is the most important lesson of all.
