Rock On Through (to the other side)

Oh well, it was a matter of time before these started coming up. Blog posts bashing Rock On!!

I found one through Blogbharti. Blogger is a person who makes some interesting music, but he minces no words in bashing Rock On. When I say he minces no words, I don't really mean that his arguments carry any weight, or mass for that matter!

Lets take it one by one, his "claims" of plagiarism:

Look at the "Live Your Dream" headline. Notice the cool sign with wings underneath it. Looks familiar? No? Check this out.

You mean Harley Davidson? The wings with something in it has been there for a long, long time and used by several bands. Aerosmith anyone?

Check out the four band members. All of them are wearing the typical "rocker" outfits: Black T-shirts with "brutal" pictures on them, Jeans and Goggles.

Dude, all the rock bands idolise the masters. Its a typical heavy metal band costume. A lot of college bands wear these kind of stuff. If you see the movie, you will notice that this isn't exactly what they wear every time. They have got really good costumes. For stills, these kind of dress accentuates the look. A really dud, dud point.

Also, look at the dress of the Indian Ocean guy in the pic you posted. That looks very much like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Check it out below.



Now what about the Fuzon guys? Modeled after the Lizard King, Jim Morrison himself, downright to the facial expression!



The movie name itself, "Rock On!!!" is nothing original, it's just a popular mode of expression if a band performs well.

How about "Big Kahuna!!" for the title? Honestly dude, you crazy? The movie is about a rock band, and you are saying "Rock On" is not a good title? Many of us know what that means and we always show the damn symbol in concerts. (Interesting Trivia: Use \m/ in latest Yahoo Messenger!) You want originality? How about, "Rann Doja!!" ? You want them to make new words for "originality" ?

And then, finally, beneath the name, is a cassette. Very Original that.

Oh! Music isn't associated with a cassette? Especially for a band that existed 10 years ago? I still remember the times I listened to Nirvana for the first time in a cassette and getting distraught because I didn't have music system at home. Cassettes mean a lot to a lot of music lovers.

No, this is not a movie review. I haven't seen the movie. Nor do I intend to.

Thats awesome! Passing comments which have no foundation what so ever in a superficial manner! Plagiarism makes you angry? Ever heard about derivative works? And yeah, for your information I plagiarised the title of this post. Go figure! Rock On, man!

I had read some posts of Rediff saying that the movie is a rip off from couple of korean movies. After reading the synopsis, I can safely say that those movies are about bands reuniting after several years, band members struggling etc etc. Inspiration might be there, but certainly not a rip off by any means. I consider movies like Zinda to be a rip off and not Rock On!!

Also, there has been talks about the band in the movie being bogus because there is no bass player in the band. If you watched the movie, the keyboard guy is introduced as the virtuoso who creates the bass lines as well. Its perfectly possible and it has been done before by one of the greatest rock bands of all time, The Doors.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, thank you for this post!
You've just accentuated my point, which I think you haven't understood at all.

Unknown said...

Eh???

Praveen said...

hehhee...this guy alok is funny..he belongs to that elite list of people who puts out a different opinion from the masses just to make their own name shine thorugh. so that others would think that here's a guy with a different perception than us normal human beings..bravo!
by different opinion from masses, I dont mean someone saying bollywood is bad(its 99% bad:D)...its someone who says something untrue just for the sake of making a different opinion from the masses.
His comment on the rock band's attire itself shows his eye(or rather lack of it) for detail. Has this guy actually gone to any rock concert? Most of the bands in India(not international) wear black Tees having big pics of their rock n metal idols, even India's biggest bands do that.

and wats wrong with having a cassete beneath the title?tell me how many films had the same poster..we all grew up listening to music in cassetes and we should actually applaud the makers for not putting a cd underneath the title..
and talking about plagiarism for the mmovie title...am fed up with this guy man:D...if you call this plagiarism, then most of the movie titles are plagiarised...for the sake of being original, should they add new words to the dictionary?

about the music..u must understand that a hindi film caters to a wide vareity of people..not hardcore metal maniacs alone. if that was the case, we could have brought in judas preist to do the soundtrack. what shankar-ehsaan-loy has done is absolutely amazing considering the case that they had to satisfy a wide range of audience, not just rockers alone. and they have done it with absolute ease. talking about solos, have you actually heard the solos from rock on, pichle saat din and socha hai? what I can see from your bashing of the music is just bashing for the sake of it. Just to prove to your readers that you are a hardcore rocker who doesn't like that tinge of commercialism in music. will tell you a simple thing, try to see the good things in life and make it a habit to applaud if its good, rather than go on crib..its so fucking boring man..

and the biggest folly of all..passing opinion about something without actually having seen it. that itself takes the weight away from your hollow mindless bashing.

ps-thnks to narayan for pointing me to this guy:D

Unknown said...

@praveen: yup! These guys are elitists...People I call classholes...

BIG Omi said...

That was fabulous and amazing post.. I am just gonna forward the link to someone involved in the movie.. its reallly awwsum and its really to the point.. these guys have worked very hard and Alok's post just defamed the work done by artists.. who have worked day in and out.. these are young people like us who actually are influenced by rock music genre...

Though I disagree with Pravees's view about Alok. Alok happens to be a very good person whose guts are ruled by his rationality.. its very much essential to put up your point.. He dosen't seem to be a black sheep in the herd for me..

Its just that sometime his views are different.. and its no wrong to be different..

Anyways your post was good.. but again if you had made an altogether new themed post it would have looked better.. u posted just for the sake of bullying alok's post on Rock On.

Unknown said...

@BIG Omi: Thanks a lot man! Special thanks for forwarding the post. Its true that I posted this as a retort to Alok. But it was not for the sake of bullying him. The comment space wasn't enough to vent my thoughts on his post. Pretty juvenile to say the least! If you read my latest post, I do reflect on that. Praveen was also flamed by his post and thats what induced so much of fury. I am sure that all he wanted to do was uphold the integrity of a great movie.

nitesh said...

The Guardian has an interesting and valid points regarding the film and rock per se.

Rock On!! rocks like a granny in a chair

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/09/rockon

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