Raanjhanaa: Twist In the Tale

 

If the cup of ethical issues around artificial intelli­gence wasn’t already brimming, an Indian produc­tion company threw a new hat into the ring. Eros International changed the ending of a movie called Raanjhanaa using AI for a re-release. In the original the hero, actor Dhanush, dies in the end. In the AI modified ending, he is alive. This itself would be a grey zone but they did it despite the director, Aanand L Rai’s disagree­ment with the change and by so doing raised questions over not just the ethics of technological manipulation, but ownership of imagination.

Eros perhaps felt happy endings resonate better with new audiences. In general, people want to come out of a movie feeling sunnier. Commerce underpinned the decision, and technol­ogy allowed it to be done on the cheap, so why not? The minds behind the movie disagree. Rai took to Instagram to post his sense of betrayal. He wrote it was done without the “consent of the director, the writer, or the team that built this film with blood, music, poetry, and pain… Changing it now is not just unnecessary, it’s deeply disrespectful. To the people who made this film. To the audience that carried it in their hearts for years. And to art itself…”

The issue will probably go to the courts for resolution but it is hard to see an immediate answer. If someone owns a movie, then they ought to have the right to do business from it. Enormous capital is required for filmmaking and those who come up with it have expectations of returns. To deny that is to handicap future enterprises. What this episode ought to do is make directors, writers and actors have clauses in contracts on the limit of AI encroachments into creative works. It is a hazy grey area at present. Should such practices become legitimised, every movie in Indian history can be remade on the cheap until no one is sure which is the original and which the remake.

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