Where there is truth, there is victory.
— Opening lines
Arjun: The Warrior Prince is a 2012 Indian animated movie directed by Arnab Chaudhuri and produced by Walt Disney Pictures and UTV Motion Pictures (Disney's distributor in India).
Loosely based on the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, the story tells the tale of how the young Prince Arjun became a legendary hero in a conflict between his brothers the Pandavas and half-brothers the Kauravas.
In the West, the movie is available for streaming on Netflix.
Tropes in this movie include:
- Adaptation Name Change: Unlike in Mahabharata, the movie uses the more uncommon spelling of Arjuna's name: Arjun.
- Age Cut: Both the Kuravas and the Pandavas go through this drastic change in the Time Skip.They changed a lot in the span of 13 years. Some of them are almost unrecognizable
- And the Adventure Continues: The movie ends after Arjun defeats the Kauravas' army in Viratnagar. The movie only covers the first four parvas (books) of the Mahabharata, which has 18 (plus an addendum, making it 19) parvas total.
- Animal Motifs: The Pandavas have the peacock emblem. The Kuravas have the elephant emblem.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Almost all the kuravas.
- Barefoot Poverty: When the pandavas first arrive, they are seen carrying their stuff in a bindle and some poor conditions clothes with no foot wear. Since they grew up in a secluded forest, it only makes sense that fashion is not the main focus when living in a forest.
- Back from the Dead: After the attempted murder on the pandavas lives in the conflagration Duryodhana had plotted. He thought they were done for this time. Only for them to emerge back alive and safe surprising him and his family. Much to his dismay.
- Big Bad: The Kauravas.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Again, the kuravas. But not all of them.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Duryudhana, Dushasana and Shakuni.
- Blessed with Suck: Bheema has super strength, Arjuna is the best archer there is, Yuddhistira is righteous, yet all these strengths amount to nothing as the Pandavas spend the majority of their lifespan escaping Big Bad Duryodhana's schemes. Only in the end do they finally use their power against their cousins.
- Blue Blood: Both the Pandavas and the Kuravas are warriors of Royal Blood.
- Cain and Abel: The Kauravas and the Pandavas in the Mahabharata.
- City of Gold: Indraprastha.
- Compressed Adaptation: The Mahabharata is long, and the movie only covers four out of eighteen books of it. The movie compresses all of that into 90 or so minutes by simplifying some details and focusing mainly on Arjun.
- Darker and Edgier: If you want to count this as an official Disney animated movie, Arjun: The Warrior Prince is much more serious than its cousin films. No Funny Animal Sidekick, serious action fights (including army battles), shooting small creatures with arrows (and a bit of them writhing around afterwards), Sibling Rivalry that isn't heartwarmingly resolved by the end of the story, and so on. Just about the only thing that's signature Disney is the art-style. Otherwise, Arjun: The Warrior Prince probably has more in common with live-action Indian movies of this genre.
- Defeat by Modesty: Before the pandavas bet their entire kingdom, we see them topless with nothing but lower garments covering them and their heads low in shame. Indicating that they had lost their jewelry and clothes in the betting game of dice.
- Demoted to Extra: In the source material, Draupadi left with Arjun and the Pandavas in their exile.
- So were the twins Sehdeva, Nakula, Yudhisthira and Bheema who all had bigger roles in the Mahabharata.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The pandavas were humiliated, punished, banished, made slaves just for "losing" a game of "dice".
- Engagement Challenge: Arjun wins a swayamvar for the hand of Princess Draupadi, the daughter of King Drupadi of (Southern) Panchala. The challenge is to shoot the golden fish using a bow and arrow. Impossible? Maybe. But not for Arjun.
- The Exile: The Pandavas are forced into exile for 12 years and a year of Agyatvas after Yudhishtira loses in a game with the Kauravas. It's a cat-and-mouse game — the Kauravas will be looking for the Pandavas in the mean time and if they succeed, the Pandavas have to restart their exile for another 12 years.
- The Family That Slays Together: The Kuravas. They all participate in the final war. All 100 kurava brothers.
- Fatal Flaw: Several of the major characters here have their own flaws.
- Lust for power and egomania. Duryodhana was Driven by Envy and resentment of the Pandavas, as this jealousy ultimately caused him to develop an ends-justifies-the-means Machiavellian mentality that slowly destroyed him.
- Dronacharya has a near-fatal flaw in his own Hair-Trigger Temper.
- Yudhishtra was the eldest and wisest of the Pandavas, yet he took his righteousness and selflessness too far to the point he failed to protect Draupadi in the dice game.
- Karna made his friendship and loyalty to Duryodhana higher than anything else, even higher than his own morals.
- Dhritarashtra's excessive love for his 100 sons made him emotionally blind to realize which direction they were going and frequently forgave them for their transgressions.
- Bhisma's extreme but blind loyalty to the kingdom prevented him from criticizing his superiors, most notably when he refused to intervene in the dice game.
- Feuding Families: The Kauravas and the Pandavas.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: After the pandavas build their new Kingdom of Indraprastha and were kings and queens for just one day, they were brought down to dirt with nothing left but their broken dignity.
- Let Me Tell You a Story: The movie's framing device is that Prince Uttar asked his maid for a bedtime story, which prompted her to tell the story of Arjun. Of course, she is Arjun.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the source material.
- Draupadi only has to marry Arjun instead of Arjun and his four other brothers.
- Made a Slave: The Pandavas.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Both the Kuravas and the Pandavas have large numbers of siblings. The Pandavas being 5 brothers and the Kuravas topping them by 95 brothers.
- Misery Builds Character: All of the pandava brothers go through that. Even though Yudhisthir screwed them all, they come to forgive him and each other and decide to stick together till the end because, in the end, they only got each other. And that's what made them a better team and a family than the kuravas.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Yudhishtira plays the Kauravas' dice betting game and gambles away everything he has, including his kingdom, himself, and his brothers. He ends up losing, the punishment being that the Pandavas must go into exile for a total of thirteen years and mustn't get caught by the Kauravas lest they have to restart their punishment.
- Noble Fugitive: The pandavas go through this twice. One by escaping from their burning home and disguising themselves as monks to hide from the kuravas. The other one was their last year of exile where they had to disguise themselves as totally different people to hide from the kuravas.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The pandavas took in a helpless, desolate, ruined and bandit-ridden city and turned it into the most beautiful country on earth. What's their reward? Having the Kuravas burning it to the ground of course!
- One-Man Army: Arjun. At the end of the movie, he does this against the Kauravas' army.
- Plot-Triggering Death: King Pandu. without his death, the Pandavas wouldn't have left the forest to live with the Kuravas which would lead to the plot of who is more worthy of ruling Hastinapura.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Produced by Disney, both audience and critics can't stop comparing the animation style and the characters' designs to popular Disney movies and characters like comparing Arjun to Disney's Tarzan and Pocahontas instead of appreciating the movie on its own merit.
- Princeling Rivalry: The Kuravas and the Pandavas.
- Rags to Riches: And Zigzagged back to Riches to Rags. The pandavas go back and forth through this transition.
- Related in the Adaptation: In the source material, the Pandavas and the Kauravas were cousins.
- Rock Bottom: the worst moment of the pandava's lives. Where they were robbed of everything they own in a game of dice. Humiliated and exiled never to resurface again.
- Sent Into Hiding: The Pandavas do this twice. They were forced to escape from their homes. And so that Duryodhana won't find them, they had to disguise themselves as monks. The second time was a penalty. were they had to live 13 years in exile away from society where no one knows who they are.
- Sibling Team: Both the kuravas and the pandavas are families of brethren who form their own posses to out-power each other.
- Training Montage: At the beginning of the movie were we see Drona Acharya teaching his students as they grow into young men under his tutelage.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Almost all the characters in the movie, except women. Since it's the fashion style in that time and place, and considering the high temperature levels in india. It only makes sense that people have minimum amount of clothing.
