Space Gen: Chandrayaan
Introduction
It is quite ironic on how the new Hindi film Space Gen: Chandrayaan tries to showcase the success of ISRO’s Chandrayaan 3 mission, even while having traits of Chandrayaan 2 – a mission that had previously failed. And the stumble takes place right at the start when the show refuses to stay focused on the proceedings at hand while trying to draw a needless parallel with the 1999 Kargil war. In the same breath, Arjun (Nakuul Mehta) remains a flawed character right from the start as someone working for the ISRO while drawing inspiration from his father’s death who had supposedly died in a battlefield due to the lack of GPS. These may seem like two unrelated events in play, that are needlessly tied together with a connective tissue of trauma, as far as the character of Arjun is concerned. And yet outside this flaw, Arjun as a character has so little going for him that you almost pause and reflect whether this show is actually a sketch. There is no emotional gravitas to Arjun, or even any remote sense of high that you get on entering the ISRO office that is witness to Chandrayaan 2 at the start. And just as you see the loss of communication that results in the failure of Chandrayaan 2, my disconnection with the show transpired within the first 10 minutes.
Story & Screenplay
Written by Shubham Sharma, Nitin Tiwari and Prashant Kumar, Space Gen: Chandrayaan feels a tacky attempt at exploring an important chapter of the country from the last five years. I still remember pausing my work and sitting with bated breath in hopes of witnessing history – of India being the first nation to navigate to the Southern Pole of the Moon, in what felt like a giant step for mankind. And having previously witnessed the cinematic high with Mission Mangal (2019), I secretly hoped that the success of Chandrayaan 3 will open another chapter of cinematic glory. With TVF, I did think that the show was in safe hands, only to later realise that this may well go down as one of the worst shows ever to be produced by TVF (and there is no other way to put it). In fact, this ain’t even a show – it is a tacky sketch!
One of the biggest negatives of the show remains the world building and characterization. The world building is such that it tries to simplify basic science by spoon-feeding the viewers at various junctures, while presenting images that literally feel like simulations of a video game. So in a scene where you see Arjun trying to program a lander, it felt like a PS-5 game set at Level 5. In another, you literally are witness to imageries of the moon that seem closer to a Windows wallpaper or screensaver, rather than an actual image of space. And lastly, the race between two orbiters literally made me go – ‘Sabse Aage Orbiters Kaun, ISRO…ISRO’ (yeah, ISRO’s orbiter is winning alright).
Even the characters are just so cardboard that it is hard to be emotionally invested in anyone. You have Rakesh Mohanty (Gopal Datt) working in one-mode only – of needlessly trying to apply pressure on the ISRO scientists by bad-mouthing them, only to hit a factory reset button during a TV interview with an Indian ‘Elon Musk-esque’ businessman who wants to privatise the space arena of India. You also have Yamini (Shriya Saran), the project director of the mission who spends most of her time in convincing her bosses to allow Arjun (who is the scapegoat after the failed mission) to be a part of the new mission(s). And then you have the new ISRO head Sudarahan Ramaiah (Prakash Belawadi) who seems relentlessly unsure of his stature and his leadership, being lost more than ever before, rather than coming across as being assured. Oh and Jairam Shetty (Danish Sait) showcases seeds of a classic sidekick positioning himself behind the protagonist.
The proceedings remain uneventful to the core, not to mention convenient and cliched too. Even while tackling fleeting events like saving the navy satellite, or positioning India as a Space Superpower, the writing is reluctant on completely committing to the core conflicts in play – both externally and internally. Externally, India is shown to be a victim of geopolitics – a superficial take on how geopolitics actually works. And internally, it doesn’t even highlight the politics in play with respect to the budget being assigned to ISRO for Chandrayaan 3 as opposed to making mythological entities for the future.
At times in the drama, a conflict doesn’t feel like a conflict. The COVID-19 pandemic ought to have been a major roadblock, but that is just used in the backdrop even as characters go about their duties. Arjun’s internal trauma is surface-level – never fully allowing viewers to get into his psyche, of the insecurities and uncertainty faced by him, while presenting him as a street-smart scientist who is more interested in building a last-minute firewall. The lack of an emotional depth applies to all characters, so much so that you don’t connect with their emotions even in times of despair or elation at the end. The screenplay felt just so amateurish that it really made me double check on whether it was TVF after all, behind the making of the show.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are as superficial as the screenplay writing here, often functioning in binaries as opposed to genuine insights that are usually a trademark of many TVF shows. The lines like ‘We have to find Vikram’ and ‘We Have Done It’ feel a part of skits more than webshows on prestigious web platforms. The music and BGM that was one of the strongest aspects of a TVF show, feels uninspiring and bleak, while never being able to raise the emotions in the drama. The cinematography never allows you to stay connected with the characters, while presenting outer space imageries as discarded drafts from a science project. The editing pattern scores on the account of the show being reduced to an overall runtime of about 150 minutes, which meant that atleast the editing was crisp and taut while allowing the show to be bingeable.
Director Anant Singh ‘Bhaatu’ yet again misses the mark wherein he is unable to create an interesting world filled with interesting characters. The high points aren’t elevated enough to create any impact, and the entire drama felt flat and rather bland for an incredible subject matter that it had to serve. And that remains a red mark in the report card of the director who flatters to deceive while further flattening the proceedings.
Performances
The performances are spectacularly uninspiring too, wherein I almost got a feeling that everyone was present for the paycheck. Talented actors like Meenal Kapoor, Rushad Rana, Amruta Khanvilkar, Meiyang Chang and Pratik Gandhi are completely wasted, even while the casting of Saurabh Dwivedi as the news anchor felt like a marketing gimmick. The likes of Krishna Solgama, Shreya Singh as Shaheen, Nitin Rao as Sartaj and Ankit Motghare as Nishant have very little to do for either of them to have an impact on the proceedings.
Prakash Belawadi as Sudarshan plays a derivative of most of the characters that he has already essayed previously onscreen, and that tells you a story or two on how he has been typecast. Gopal Datt is generally a safe actor but as Rakesh Mohanty, he is one-tone with his tone-deaf performance. Danish Sait as Jainam is hardly convincing as an ISRO space engineer, and his character can perfectly be labelled as a sidekick to the protagonist.
Shriya Saran as Yamini is underconfident and lacklustre with her performance, and you can distinctly make out that she isn’t very comfortable with the Hindi language (despite the show wanting you to believe that her character is South Indian who would ideally struggle to speak Hindi). The only actor who understands the assignment to an extent is Nakuul Mehta who is the lone shining star in a sky filled with darkness. As Arjun, you see him trying to make things work with his mannerisms and body language without relying on the lacklustre writing that he needs to contend with. And that speaks volumes of his calibre as a performer who needs the right scripts to totally hit it out of the park.
Conclusion
Space Gen: Chandrayaan features a rare bout of mediocrity from TVF in a space drama for dummies that never really takes off. It perhaps will go down as one of the weakest shows of TVF ever, even as ISRO deserved a much better advertisment for their efforts behind the success of Chandrayaan 3. Available on JioHotstar.