I've always thought this would make for a divine setup to the final entry in the series.

People felt "Red Dragon" was a better book than "Silence," for years, which was probably more a sort of elitist position against the success of the "Silence" movie than any meaningful literary preference. The moivie "Manhunter" received a similar following for similar reasons, despite being a fairly bad movie. I think the "Red Dragon" film probably gets the benefit of this as well.

I think all of Harris's books are pretty much standard, wholly unremarkable suspense-thriller potboilers, and the "Silence" film is the only one that transcends the source material, a feat it accomplishes by pushing the standard, tired "ticking clock" rescue to the background and recognizing the psychological interplay and manipulation of Starling by Lecter as the movie's chief purpose. The point is that the killer Starling is trying to catch is the same killer who's been in every psycho killer movie since "Psycho," and Lecter is something much scarier.

If you read the book, Harris doesn't recognize that the pursuit of Buffalo Bill is secondary, because Lecter as Harris created him is less interesting than Lecter as Demme reinterprets him.

"Hannibal" and "Red Dragon" aren't any better than Harris's fiction, and are similarly disposible.

I don't know if William L. Peterson could return as Will Graham. Didn't the "Red Dragon" movie pretty much remove "Manhunter" from the "Silence of the Lambs"/"Hannibal" continuity?

Why would Ridley Scott fans remember Red Dragon?

So, as they make more and more movies, they go backwards in time, earlier in Hannibal's life, but Anthony Hopkins keeps getting older and older. I thought it was laughable making him look younger in Red Dragon than he was in SOTL

I would rather see a sequel to Hannibal, it wasn't anywhere near as good as SOTL, but I'd like to see what happens next with that character, not what's happened before.

Silence of the Lambs was indeed better than Manhunter - but I did enjoy Red Dragon quite abit. However, Hannibal was a complete mess, much like the novel.

My main concern with the Hannibal movie is that they changed who the villain is.

So true. Not to mention they threw out some important subplots out.

Try quoting the whole sentence.

Exactly!

I enjoyed both Red Dragon and Manhunter. I also agree that sequels have no effect on the originals. If I enjoy a character, I would love 10 sequels; if some suck I ignore them. I love the movie Fletch. Fletch lives is not as good but I still enough it, and I hope they restart the series. The same with Star Wars, I hope Lucas changes his mind and we get a bunch more films, even if he doesn't write or direct them.

Another perfect example is Nightmare on Elm Street. The first one was genius, the second one was horrible. It didn't ruin the first one, and it didn't stop them from making 3 a good film. Then the films to follow were terrible, and then A New Nightmare came out, a wildly underappreciated film.

Ooops, I read that post a couple of times and somehow did not even see Hannibal listed

Uh, continuity? I actually had to google this to find out what it is. Are you serious?

It looks like the think the idea came from comic books, where a bunch of people deal with the same characters and the readers are intensely anal. They vet all the different stories through the continuity people, and there's an official storyline, and everything else happens in a parallel universe or something.

Only very expansive, lucrative franchises even bother to figure out if they have a "continuity," and only super nerds pay attention to it. I think it's important for fictional constructs with fan bases who like to pretend the fiction is true.

"Star Wars" apparently has people on staff whose job this is. I think that's why there's a thread on this page about whether the cartoon shorts made to promote episode 3 are "canon." Apparently, what happens in "real" Star Wars, as opposed to "parallel universe" Star Wars is vetted by these people, and worried about by fans who want to make sure that the planet they pretend to be from and the characters who they pretend are their friends exist in the "real" Star Wars.

In movies, this is basically about coffee cups disappearing off of tables between one shot and another, when the thing is edited together. Sometimes, this stuff gets through and nerds notice it. But a "Silence of the Lambs" continuity? Come on! Jodie Foster turns into Julianne Moore, and Anthony Hopkins is 15 years older in the prequel. Get a grip.

True, but it's not exactly like Edward Norton is dead or something...

I definitely like this idea. Especially since Manhunter and it's remake, Red Dragon are my favorites. I just wish they'd get Brian Cox back. I found him creepy but Anthony Hopkins seemed too much like Snideley Whiplash to me to be any bit scary. He's a good actor but I always thought he sucked as Dr. Lecter.

I'd agree with you if you weren't 100% wrong.

While I agree the FX might not have been up to it, the intent was correct as the story was set before Silence. And somebody else posted about Red Dragon kicking Manhunter out of the continuity, which doesn't make sense either as they're both a telling of the same story. Stylistic differences sure, but I don't recall any major differences in the story.


ScandalUMD, you hang out around here and this is the first time you've ever seen a continuity spat? I'll agree there can be extremes when trying to keep track of continuity, but I think you can look at the first three seasons of Enterprise as one of the things that can happen when you don't pay attention to an established continuity. If you just make crap that blatantly contradicts something, the audience will feel a disconnect and they won't like the story. You can go overboard with nitpicking, but it can also be an indication of lazy writing if you don't even try to pay attention to it.

I think what he was getting at is that, if we think of these films as having "really happened", then since RED DRAGON features Hopkins as Lecter, like SOTL and HANNIBAL did but MANHUNTER did not, then it is the "real" version of the story and MANHUNTER "never happened".

Continuity is respect.

No, I just have a different opinion than you is all. Besides, it's not like I hate Silence Of The Lambs. I just never found Anthony Hopkins to remotely creepy in the role. He just seemed to be trying too hard were as Brian Cox was rather laid back and actually seemed like someone who could easily manipulate people and make them forget what a psycho he really is.

The only one I like is Silence of the Lambs. I like Mann's work but found Manhunter to be unintentionally humorously bad. Hannibal was ungodly awful. And Red Dragon, while better than Hannibal by far, was really about making Hannibal into a Freddy Krueger-style lovable cartoon character, with Anthony Hopkins giving what I thought was a ridiculous performance (and I usually think he's brilliant). Loved the novel Red Dragon, though.

This is the problem I have him in this role in general. The only other time he disappointed me so much was in Alexander. He seemed so bored in that film and sounded like he was reading his lines for the first time. Every other time, regardless of the quality of the film in question, he's been fantastic.

Young Hannibal