Ramayan’s Sunil Lahri says Adipurush’s CGI ‘was difficult to digest’: ‘Woh effort nahi karna chahte’

Sunil Lahri, who essayed the role of Lakshman in Ramanand Sagar’s 1987 television series Ramayan, has revealed that it was difficult for him to ‘digest’ the VFX in Adipurush. In a new interview, Sunil spoke about how there were no ‘cartoonish effects or mockery’ in his serial Ramayan. He added that nowadays no one wants to put any effort into their work. (Also Read | Adipurush’s bad CGI makes Twitter miss Ramayana The Legend Of Prince Rama)

Recently, after the first teaser of Adipurush was released a section of the people on the internet were left disappointed by the VFX and CGI of the film.

Now speaking with DNA, Sunil said, “Definitely it (VFX) was difficult to digest that. See, at that time (during Ramayan) we were new to technology, we tried to achieve the best with our maximum efforts. That’s why people still appreciated it even 35 years after of its release. The young generation doesn’t feel that the show had ‘cartoonish’ (effects), or made a mockery out of that. Agar iss tarah ki technology rahi hoti… toh ho sakta hai (Ramanand) Sagar Saab kuch aur banate, aur aacha banate (Had there been this technology, then maybe Ramanand Sagar would have made something else, something better). I do believe that even though we have evolved in VFX, the visual feat Sagar Saab has achieved, will be difficult to repeat it.”

“Phele sab manual kaam hota tha, aaj sab presets hai (Earlier it was all manual, now it’s all presets) and they stick to that. Woh effort hi nahi karna chahte (They don’t want to make any effort). Even though we used green screen and blue screen, we used to look after each and every detail, and we put in the same amount of hard work. The sequence where Hanuman ji carried Ram and Laxman on his shoulder, it took us 4 days to shoot that particular shot. Such was the detailing,” he added.

Ramayan was created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar. It originally aired between 1987 and 1988 on DD National. Arun Govil essayed the role of Ram, Deepika Chikhalia played Sita, Arvind Trivedi was Ravana and Dara Singh was seen as Hanuman.

In Adipurush, Sunny Singh plays Lakshman and Prabhas essays the role of Ram. Kriti Sanon is set to essay the role of Sita in the forthcoming film and Saif Ali Khan will portray the role of Raavan. Adipurush has been produced by T Series and Retrophiles. It is slated to hit the theatres on January 12, 2023, in IMAX and 3D. Produced by Bhushan Kumar, Om, Prasad Sutar, and Rajesh Nair, the film will be released in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada.