Rehash, Remake and Replay

• "Mughal-e-Azam" and "Naya Daur" were recently re-released in colour with digitally enhanced soundtracks.
• "Don", "Sholay", "Devdas", "Umrao Jaan" and many more classic hits are being (or have been) remade. Some have remained true to the original storyline, while some have been adapted to a more modern storyline.
• "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge" was re-released to celebrate it's decade of success.

The aforesaid are just some examples how the film industry has been using nostalgia to rake in money from old classics. The music industry has been at it for quite some time as there was a phase when albums of remixed old songs outnumbered new original music itself. Then there are movies like "Bluffmaster" which used remixes of old songs quite intelligently. Giving the movie a little old-school feel while being completely new in story. There were remixes of "Do aur Do Paanch", "Sabse Bada Ruppaiya" and "Eena Meena Deeka" among others; the intelligent part was that the songs used reflected very well the con-artist theme of the movie itself. "Jhankaar Beats" is another such example where the music of maestro R. D. Burman was the essence of the movie. Another tactic is basing the movie title on old musical hits. "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge", "Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost" and "Dil Vil Pyaar Vaar" are few examples where the songs with these titles were huge hits.

Then there is there is the "inspiration" game. I'm not against this as long as the storyteller provider his / her perspective to the original book or movie. "Omkara" was an excellent play on Shakespeare's" Othello", "Sarkar" a good adaptation of "Godfather" as was the movie adaptation of Amrita Pritam's novel "Pinjar" and there is also the unforgettable classic "Angoor" based once again on Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors". All the aforesaid acknowledged their source of inspiration and rightly so. On the other hand are movies like "The Killer (Collateral)", "Abracadabra (Harry Potter)", and "Commando (Where Eagles Dare and American Ninja)" that are practically frame-by-frame rip-offs of the movies they have been inspired from with just a few changes twists thrown in here and there to make it look a little different. I'm appalled at how these blatant copyright violations even escape the legal tangle.

Using animation to tell old stories is gaining momentum in Indian cinema. Mythological epics such as "Ramayana" and popular gods like "Lord Hanuman" and "Lord Ganesha" have already been 'tooned'. A thought I have here is perhaps to animate some powerful classics like "Sikander-e-azam" or "Prithviraj Chauhan" using the soundtrack as it is (perhaps enhancing it further) and animating the visuals. What a pleasure it would be to hear the baritone voice of Sohrab Modi once again on the silver screen. The animation on the other hand would provide a means to make the classic even grander :) One may even give the visuals a more contemporary feel, the possibilities are endless. Virgin Comics has been trying to do this on the comic front in their tie-up with some renowned filmmakers and Gotham Comics.

Rehash, Remake and Replay is here to stay...