Old gives way to new. Film industry is no exception to this. Every generation has its own heroes and icons. A whole generation people can identify such actors. No matter, to which era the heroes belong to, but tollywood heroes always have strong fans associations all over the state. However, there are few variations between the older generation actors and the younger generation ones.
The older generation movies are blessed with high talented actors like NTR, ANR, SVR, Sobhan Babu, Krishna etc where they themselves proved and established as actors in the industry. ANR and NTR started vying for the top slot as a hero. But, cleverly, they have chosen two different platforms. NTR was branded as mythological hero with a film in which he played Lord Sri Krishna. ANR has chosen love subjects and remained as class image actor. Sobhan Babu and Krishna joined the industry when there is good era and cowboy and James bond trend films have come in. Initially, they have done good standard films. There are lots of multi-starrer movies in this era where the story played the main hero of the movie
The middle generation contained great stars such as, Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, and Mohan Babu where majority of them were either heroes sons or the producers sons. In the middle generation era, hero started becoming the most important aspect of the film. Image building of a hero started at this point of time. The fans clubs and associations started growing rapidly for many heroes. The telugu people did not appreciate their favorite hero in a different role. There were hardly any multi-starrer movies in this era and the remuneration and the market for the hero’s suddenly started touching clouds at this particular time. Later on, it has become a formula machine with six songs and six fights. Although, the script demanded or not, there were huge settings and exotic locations and the trend of importing heroines from other places was also started in this generation.
The recent and the younger generation seems that the dynasty rules the tollywood industry. Today, it is every one’s question that whether telugu film industry does not encourage outsiders" since all of the today’s younger generation actors were stepped into the industry with the industry background. Actors are launching up their sons as heroes, grooming them and helping them to settle down in the industry have become the formula in the telugu film industry. Ram charanTej, Allu Arjun, Mahesh Babu, Jr.NTR, Prabhas, Naga Chaitanya, Manchu Vishnu, Daggubati Rana are few examples for this. Getting a chance to a new one is extremely impossible, unless he is extremely talented.
The competition has made the younger generation very hard to prove them in the industry. And in order to face, the competition youngsters are going to acting schools before their debut in the industry. However, the technology, graphics were developed and are been utilizing largely in this generation. Improved background score was an added advantage to the younger generation. The budgets have increased with the entry of the corporate moviemakers. They are willing to spend big bucks and the movies are becoming technically sound with good music and locations.” The market is no more limited compared to the past generations; it is grabbing the overseas market as well. Things are shaping up for telugu films in countries like US and UK, it seems to be getting better and better.
However, this generation actors are showing their passion for playing varied roles instead of sticking to one particular pattern. The heroes are also showing their positive attitude towards multi-starrer movies such as Allari naresh’s gamyam which was a box-office hit and recently prabhas- Gopichand multi-starrer, yet to release.
However, there are variations in this era, in the older generations, according to the story and scripts, the actors are chosen for the film while in this generation, based on the actor and his image the story is being created, resulting in the decline of standards. Previously, the actors’ involvement in the scripts is very low in the film making. It is to be noted that senior actors like NTR, ANR, Krishna and Shoban Babu has never interfered in the director’s job, even though they are masters in their job. But, the recent actors are involving in the scripts taking away directors freedom. Although the heroes of today are very good at dance, the expressions and dialogue deliveries among some of them are lacking, where a hero has to be a bit of everything. The new generation are doing the risk-stunts themselves that are required for the movie, while previously done by underpaid stunt men or created in the studios.
The freshers are certainly preparing well to face today’s competition and challenges. The new generation are also trying innovative scripts by exhibiting distinction to their previous movies and updating themselves with the current trends. However, at certain times the present younger generations are also following the trends of the older generations.
