Ramayana vs Adipurush — 9500 VFX Shots, DNEG, and Why This Time the Ramayana Story Is in Safe Hands

The Comparison Everyone Is Making

The moment the first Ramayana teaser dropped, social media had one reaction: "Is this another Adipurush?" The comparison is inevitable. Both films adapt the same ancient epic. Both feature Lord Ram, Sita, Ravana, and Hanuman. Both rely heavily on VFX to create mythological worlds. And both carry massive budgets. But the similarities end there.

Adipurush, directed by Om Raut and starring Prabhas, released in June 2023 to one of the most brutal audience receptions in Indian cinema history. Its VFX — particularly the depiction of Hanuman, Lanka, and Ravana — were compared to mobile game graphics. The Pushpaka Vimana sequence became a meme. The film earned approximately 430 crore worldwide but was widely considered a creative disaster that damaged the credibility of Indian mythological filmmaking.

Three years later, Ramayana faces the shadow of that failure. Every frame will be judged against Adipurush's low bar — and against the sky-high expectations of an audience that feels burned.

The VFX Numbers: 9500 vs 8000

Ramayana reportedly contains approximately 9500 VFX shots — more than Adipurush's 8000. But raw shot count is not the differentiator. What matters is who built those shots, how long they had to build them, and what creative direction guided the work.

Adipurush's VFX was primarily handled by NY VFXWAALA, an Indian studio that had previously worked on Tanhaji and Bholaa. While competent for standard Bollywood productions, NY VFXWAALA had never attempted anything close to the scale Adipurush demanded. The result was a gap between ambition and capability that was visible in every frame.

Ramayana's VFX is built by DNEG — the eight-time Academy Award-winning studio responsible for Inception, Interstellar, Blade Runner 2049, Dune: Part One, Dune: Part Two, and Tenet. DNEG is currently working on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. This is not a studio learning on the job — it is the studio that defines the global standard for visual effects.

600 Days vs a Rushed Timeline

One of Adipurush's most widely reported problems was its compressed post-production timeline. Reports indicated that the VFX work was rushed to meet a release deadline, with the team unable to reach the level of polish that the film's scale demanded. When the first teaser drew mockery in October 2022, the team went back and redid significant portions — but the June 2023 theatrical release still showed the strain of an accelerated schedule.

DNEG worked on Ramayana for over 600 days. That is nearly two years of continuous VFX production across DNEG's London and Mumbai facilities, with teams that have simultaneously worked on the Dune franchise and Nolan's projects. The difference between 600 days of focused work by an Oscar-calibre studio and a rushed timeline by a studio operating above its capacity is the difference the audience will see on screen.

Photo-Realistic vs Stylised: The Creative Direction Gap

The most fundamental difference is creative philosophy. Adipurush chose a stylised, almost animated aesthetic for its mythological world. The intention may have been to create something distinct — but the execution looked cheap rather than deliberate. Lanka appeared flat. Characters looked disconnected from their environments. The color grading was oversaturated to the point of unreality.

Ramayana has taken the opposite approach: photo-realism. Director Nitesh Tiwari and producer Namit Malhotra — himself the founder of Prime Focus, DNEG's parent company — made the explicit decision that Ramayana's world should feel physically real. Ayodhya, Lanka, the forests of Dandakaranya, and the Rama Setu bridge are built to look like places that exist, not digital paintings.

The trailer supports this. Audience reactions consistently note that Ramayana's environments feel tangible — the textures of stone, the movement of water, the weight of armour. When the Avengers: Doomsday trailer released in 2026 and was criticised for weak VFX, social media users pointed to Ramayana's trailer as the benchmark — an Indian film being used as the reference point for Hollywood VFX quality.

What Yash Said About the VFX Criticism

When early teaser footage drew some comparisons to Adipurush from cautious viewers, Yash addressed it directly. He pointed to DNEG's involvement and said the teaser footage was work-in-progress, not final renders. "It's DNEG on board," he said. "The photo-realistic visuals — it's still work in progress. I am sure it will be even better when we see the finished product. We are really making a product which is top-notch."

The full trailer, released on July 30, largely silenced the early skeptics. The 1 billion cumulative views and overwhelmingly positive audience response confirmed that viewers could see the difference between DNEG's work and what they had experienced with Adipurush.

The Adipurush Lesson Ramayana Cannot Afford to Forget

Adipurush's failure was not just about VFX. Its dialogue — filled with modern slang and tonal inconsistencies — drew as much criticism as its visuals. The irreverent treatment of sacred characters alienated the core audience. Ramayana's team has clearly absorbed this lesson: every public statement from Nitesh Tiwari and Namit Malhotra emphasises reverence for the source material. The marketing campaign anchored reveals to Hindu festivals. The trailer dialogue is drawn from classical tradition, not contemporary Bollywood idiom.

The stakes are high. If Ramayana delivers the visual and narrative experience its trailer promises, it will not just be a box office success — it will rehabilitate an entire genre that Adipurush nearly destroyed. If it falls short, the comparison will be merciless. Indian audiences have been burned once. They will not extend grace a second time.