The magician Raj Kumar Hirani is back with his PK played by the perfectionist Aamir Khan enacting yet another unique character in a film produced by the experienced Vidhu Vinod Chopra who perfectly knows how to keep a team of exceptionally creative geniuses together to get a Hit conceived.
However this write-up is more about the possible inspirations of PK beginning from the most obvious one released in 2012 titled OH MY GOD, which was an official Indianised remake of the English film THE MAN WHO SUED GOD (2001).
Moving a step ahead than OMG, PK doesn’t showcase any real GOD coming on to the earth and also isn’t about any court case filed against the supreme power copying the concept completely. But it would be simply bizarre to say that it has nothing similar to what we earlier enjoyed in the courageous project made in 2012 becoming the first Hindi film boldly talking about the issue without any fear or hesitation.
To give you an idea (as written in my review), in the first half both films have their own sequences questioning the GOD’s existence, mocking the rituals blindly followed all over putting up many relevant queries. And then in the second half we have a collective session involving every major character in the script giving their own justification in favour or against the concept of GOD quite boldly. Now where OMG had this collective session in a court with all the GOD-MEN standing in the box in front of the judge, PK has the same kind of arguments given to the GOD-MAN in a news channel’s talk show going live, anchored by the leading lady of the film herself. So it would be really posing blind if one cannot see the exact similarities in both the films as mentioned above.
Further PK really puts me in doubts that whether Hirani had this idea of using the concept of GOD in his film before the release of OMG or developed it after that film getting some clear inspirations from its famous scenes. Giving the director a benefit of doubt, if he really had this idea before OMG, then he & his writers must have done a great amount of re-writing after watching Paresh Rawal asking all similar questions in that film in his own impeccable way.
Revealing the other possible inspiration of PK, the name is again of Robin Williams, the man Hirani seems to be a true fan of, since his MUNNA BHAI M.B.B.S also had the shades of Robin’s PATCH ADAMS (1998). And this time its MORK & MINDY, an American T.V. series aired between 1978-1982.
The famous sit-com is based on an exactly similar plot wherein the character of Mork, an alien played by Robin Williams, arrives on Earth in his spacecraft, assigned with a job to observe human behavior. Here he meets a young girl Mindy (Pam Dawber), who is feeling sad after a split/argument with her boyfriend and Mork offers her a friendly assistance. Looking at his odd dress up and strange talks she first considers him as a priest offering help, but soon gets the shock of her life when Mork very innocently tells her the truth about him being an alien coming from a different planet.
Knowing the unbelievable fact, Mindy promises that she will not reveal this secret to anyone and then takes Mork to her home as a caring friend. The story moves further as they both start living together with Mindy trying to explain Mork how to adjust with the life on Earth and then the couple eventually falling in love too as usual. But Mork is used to do everything as per his own customs learned showing some magical powers. For example he keeps speaking few gibberish words repeatedly and doesn’t know how to lie to anyone as Lying is considered a joke on his planet. The end of the episodes in this series was of utmost importance as in the last scene Mork used to send his reports back to his master ORSON, telling him what he had learned about Earth through his weird experiences. And these end-summaries used to have many humorous comments on the social rituals followed on Earth.
Incidentally the character of Mork appeared in an episode of series HAPPY DAYS aired before MORK & MINDY which was in fact an extension of another American sitcom telecast in 1963-66 titled MY FAVORITE MARTIAN in which the alien visiting the Earth could also become invisible, read the mind of people he used to meet and the one helping him out happened to be a news reporter too. Plus another film titled EPSILON (1997) was also based on a similar concept discussed above.
Hence in short, we can easily conclude that PK is OH MY GOD meets MORK & MINDY conceived entertainingly by the director who knows his craft well, featuring all his fixed enjoyable elements as it is………. except novelty.
Cheers!
(A big thanks to V.Madhurageethan for giving this valuable information in his comment resulting in the present write-up)