So after following all the reviews, opinions, BO reports and most importantly after watching the movie myself, I wanted to create a lessons learned thread for Bollywood enthusiasts. My short review on the movie is that it seemed like an outdated govinda movie that had been in pipeline and they just wanted the product out without editing the movie or doing test screenings. Comedy was really flat and a Farah Khan choreography was missing to give the songs the value they deserved.

So, without further ado, here are the lessons learned from Ra. One

1) Never trust a film maker who shows you “portions” of the film.

2) Never trust a trade analyst who spends a day in bed with the film maker a week prior to release.

3) Never trust a regular director of the film maker who gives a glowing tweet on the movie on special screening.

4) Never trust a movie that gets Cameo’s added in the last few weeks.

5) Never trust a director who is a hypocrite when it comes to adult content in movies.

6) Never trust a film maker who hogs all the  screens on festive occasion by telling all other big films not to release with it.

7) The gap between SRK and Aamir in Prestige of their movies has widen so much that Aamir is seriously #1 to #5

8) 3Idiots is a phenomenon and no comparisons to this movie shall be made at least until second weekend of a release.

9) SRK can be bashed too. Even genuine fans have had enough manipulation.

10) SRK bought some media but not all the media , hence the backlash is apparent. (See Komal, Joginder and Taran’s negataivity articles)

11) Aamir was right in one famous interview when he said SRK is a PR person. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what SRK and team have been able to achieve with manipulations and paid trade analysts. Last word though “Public sab jaanti hai”

12) There are several ways to SPIN box office collections. The more favor (monetary or otherwise) for trade analysts, the favorable the SPIN.

13) All rumors are not rumors. (Some baba posted on NG a rumor that Ra.One has been getting thumbs down and something like efforts are on to collect as much in week 1. In retrospect, if that was a fluke, What a FLUKE !!! It turned out exactly that way)

14) Until MNIK, there were paid previews, by MNIK we saw paid reviews, and with Ra.one, we have seen Paid BO reports.

15) SRK as a film maker has proven to be so inferior than Aamir khan that a comparison is not even apt.

16) Lakhshmi pooja is a bigger villain than Ra.One for G.One (srk) and got more footage in the first couple of days than Ra.One

17) You can fool some people sometimes but not all the people all the time.

18) Shortcuts are only “shortcuts”.  Stars must learn to pick a good script.

19) Subsidy can make or break the film.

20) WOM is bigger than any 60 crore marketing campain, any 5 star reviews or any 170 crore gross collection articles.

Add your lessons learned, I am sure this can be a chapter in a Bollywood 101 book.