JAIPUR, India — After months of controversy, weeks of threats and days of fiery protests, a contentious new Bollywood film hit the theaters in India on Thursday, and the reaction was:

What’s the big deal?

Moviegoers streamed out of heavily guarded movie theaters saying they liked the sets, the music and the grand Bollywood style of “Padmaavat,” a lavish saga about a legendary Hindu queen who may never have existed. But they couldn’t understand why so many people had violently objected to it.

“It’s silly, it’s sad, it’s ironic because actually the movie presented the Rajputs in a very good light,” said Preeti Sharma, who saw the film with her husband in New Delhi on Thursday afternoon.

The Rajputs, historically a caste of warriors, have been the ones most offended by the movie; Rajput activists said the movie was historically inaccurate and disrespectful. Hundreds of Rajput women even threatened to kill themselves over it (their elders eventually talked them down).

On Thursday, protests erupted in different cities in India, with some tire-burning and stone-throwing, but nothing major. It seems that Rajput activists may have won this battle because their campaign of threats and intimidation succeeded in terrifying many cinema owners.