Thalapathy Vijay’s The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) – Trailer Breakdown & Analysis
With the release of the official trailer of Thalapathy Vijay’s latest film ‘The Greatest of All Time’ (GOAT), mixed responses are everywhere. De-aged Vijay, CGI Vintage Vijay, New Title Card & Changed Last 15 Seconds in Hindi & Telugu were some interesting points in the trailer. There are hints of Chennai Super Kings players including MS Dhoni and some other cameos in the trailer. The same doubt that existed during Theri and Mersal in the past: whether it is 2 Vijay or 3 Vijay in the movie has now reached another Vijay movie after many years.
Gandhi is the main Vijay character in the movie. Gandhi is an officer who works in SATS (Special Anti Terrorism Gang) connected with RAW. An earlier theory that the title of the movie ‘GOAT’ is actually a short form of team is now being confirmed. G for Gandhi, so the rest of the letters will be the first letter of the character names of the main team members : Prabhudeva, Prashanth and Ajmal.
At the beginning of the trailer we see an elder Gandhi. Gandhi is arriving to be a new mission team leader of SATS. Prashanth’s character gave an intro about Gandhi to team members. He says Gandhi had 68 successful International missions, which is a reference to GOAT being Vijay’s 68th film. Hostage Negotiator, Field Agent, Spy and so on, Gandhi is the GOAT in SATS organization. Then Gandhi’s past missions are shown. This will come as a flashback in the movie. We see a train fight scene in the desert. When the train explodes, Vijay jumps to the ladder of the helicopter and escapes, with a bag on his back. Maybe vijay came there as a hostage to take that bag. Maybe this will be the first story that Prashanth’s character tells the team at the beginning of the movie.
The trailer then focuses on Gandhi’s family. Sneha plays Gandhi’s wife. Through the second single ‘Chinna Chinna Kangal’, we realized that Gandhi had a son and his wife was pregnant for another. The trailer hints that Gandhi is an alcoholic party man. Gandhi along with the GOAT team is shown at a party. Most probably the song ‘Whistle Podu’ is at this point, which can be further confirmed through the costumes. After that, when Gandhi wakes up the next day, he looks in the mirror and says that he will never drink again for real, which is actually a Mankatha reference. Ajith speaks the same dialogue in Mankatha which is also directed by Venkat Prabhu himself.
It is clear that Gandhi’s character is a charming person who is always fun, lazy but does his duty well. But a mission may cost Gandhi’s happy life to turn upside down. There is a scene in the trailer where the members of the team scolds Gandhi for taking his family to Bangkok during a mission. Also in a chase scene, Gandhi is seen driving in the car with pregnant Sneha sitting in the backseat. Since they are shown to have a son in the past, this son could be the De-aged Vijay in the present day. Most likely Sneha would be killed in Bangkok, then the GOAT team disperses and Gandhi retires to raise his son. The film’s main villain is most likely ‘Mouna Ragam’ actor ‘Mohan’. We only saw a small glimpse of Mohan’s character in the film. He says “Gandhi will also suffer what I had”.
My theory is Mohan’s character was related to the Bangkok mission and he may have a personal grudge against Gandhi. So he may turn Gandhi’s son (De-aged Vijay) into a terrorist. A lot of shots in trailer points to this plot. So most likely it is a dilemma of Gandhi to fight his own son for his duty. A crucial scene in the movie is going to be the bomb blast rescue in a cricket stadium. We know this scene was shot in Trivandrum But most likely, it will be shown as Chennai Chepauk stadium in the movie. Through the visuals, it has been confirmed that the match of Chennai Super Kings is held at the stadium. These scenes in the trailer almost confirm the earlier rumors that there will be cameos of 3 CSK players including MS Dhoni will be in the movie. We know that Vijay is a huge CSK fan and the ‘Whistle Podu’ song (which is a nod to CSK) is in Goat itself.
Actor Vaibhav, a regular presence in Venkat Prabhu films, is shown in the trailer quickly. From the only two shots shown, we can understand that Vaibhav is a person who has a direct connection to the Bomb blast. Apart from Vaibhav, another VP regular, Actor Premji was also seen in the trailer. Premji may play as the crowd controller of the stadium. It is almost clear that these roles of Premji and Vaibhav will be seen very little in the film.
Teenage Vijay was a shocking scene in the trailer. Vijay has managed to bring back the same face that he saw in his first film ‘Naalaiya Theerppu”. But it’s not De-aged, but CGI’d on the face of a body double. This body double is ‘Ayaz Khan’ who confirmed it in his socials. We see this Teenage Vijay in the trailer only in two shots. It is very likely that this Vijay will be a third character. But the past theories of cloning or time travel will be less likely to happen. Teenage Vijay will most likely be Gandhi’s second son. We saw that Sneha was pregnant in the flashback, so this could be the second child. This speculation reminds me of the 2017 Vijay Film ‘Mersal’. A man is seen fighting with Gandhi wearing a helmet who is also on a bike in another shot. Whether this is the villainous De-aged Vijay or the CGI Younger Vijay is in doubt. Anyway, this third Vijay will be a crucial character in the film.
In the present day, we see the elder versions of all four members of the GOAT team. But only Ajmal’s character is not seen with them. So Ajmal’s character will have some issues with the team due to past incidents. We see Jayaram’s character only in the past. There is a possibility that Jayaram’s character may have died in the past or turns into the villain’s side. Coming to other characters, Laila comes as Sneha’s doctor in the past. Maybe also as the wife of Prashanth or Prabhudeva.
Meenakshi Chaudhari will be seen as Young Vijay’s love interest in the present day. We see only a few shots of Meenakshi in the trailer. Her character’s name is reportedly ‘Srinidhi’. Apart from this, YG Mahendran, who played the famous ‘Thalaivar’ in the Venkat Prabhu film “Maanadu’, will also be seen in a cameo role in the film.
Gandhi’s present team includes Yogi Babu, Parvathy Menon and Aravind Akash.
The trailer ends with an epic animated title card. The main characters in Vijay’s career starts from his first film ‘Naalaiya Theerppu’ to ‘GOAT’ are flashed in mere seconds.
This will probably be the title card of the movie as well. What we got as the tail end is the recreation of the scene in Ghilli where Vijay sings “Maruthamalai Maamaniye”, a devotional song.
But this scene is not at the end in Telugu and Hindi trailers. On the other trailers, there’s the scene when Jayaram calls Vijay during the mission, Vijay is standing in the same partywear which is seen before in the trailer and beatboxing the Mission Impossible theme music. An earlier poster was reminiscent of Mission Impossible. The tail end was changed because the Telugu or Hindi audience obviously will not understand the Ghilli reference.
Overall ‘GOAT’ Trailer gave a mixed experience. But since the director is Venkat Prabhu, I’m expecting something unexpected from this movie. Moreover, I’m excited to see the new technology usage in the movie.
‘The Greatest of All Time’ will release on September 5 Worldwide!
Compiled By Sree Nandan Chengannur