Interview: S.S. Rajamouli Discusses ‘Baahubali: The Epic’

If you weren’t familiar with S.S. Rajamouli‘s body of work before RRR, now’s the perfect time to check out the movies that made him the sensation he is now in India. While he had amassed significant success with past works such as Simhadri, Yamadonga, Maghadeera, and Eega, none were as big as his Baahubali diptych, which starred Prabhas in a dual role as the mythic titular character and his son, in an epic two-parter (released in 2015 and 2017) that rivals the likes of The Lord of the Rings.

With Baahubali now celebrating its tenth anniversary, it’s not uncommon for the movie to be re-released to mark a specific milestone. However, Rajamouli wanted to do something different for the audiences and decided to combine both films into one continuous event, titled Baahubali: The Epic.

Speaking to Awards Radar on Zoom, the filmmaker says he is “excited to see how the audience reacts to seeing two of their favorite films put together, many of their favorite scenes chopped altogether. I am very interested in seeing these reactions.”

Combining two movies and editing them down to a more manageable length than over five hours is no easy task, since Rajamouli had to either condense sequences in montages (such as the relationship between Mahendra and Avanthinka in the first Baahubali film) or cut significant scenes altogether.

For the director, the process was “challenging because I like each frame of Baahubali. We are so emotionally connected to everything in these movies. Initially, we tried different kinds of edits, attempting to remove just a few shots from each scene, but it was not working. Then we sat together and thought about how this could be done and what the approach would be. We then said, “Ok, let’s forget our love for the film and just look at it in terms of the story. Which scene carries the story and which scene doesn’t?” If you were to remove a specific scene, the story shouldn’t seem significantly impacted. Once we started in that approach, we were able to do the operation of taking out even the most beloved scenes, but still put the film together and see that the emotions are working, the highs are working, and the story is flowing seamlessly.”

Of course, there was much more to talk about this incredible restoration and recut of two of the greatest mythological epics ever made. You can check out my full conversation with Rajamouli below: