Bates Motel and Hannibal

[Rev. Rye]

Seriously there's a TV series called Hannibal? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard - didn't they learn their lesson when they remade Manhunter into that fucking awful movie?

It's not that bad. Red Dragon's certainly more faithful than Manhunter. Better than Hannibal or Hannibal Rising, anyway.

Or even worse, when Harris wrote "Hannibal Rising" and created the worst imaginable plot line, contradicting his character? Did they find an actor with six fingers to play Hannibal this time?

Yeah, don't blame Harris for Hannibal Rising. Dino de Laurentiis insisted on it. In his own words: "I say to Thomas, 'If you don't do [the prequel], I will do it with someone else...I don't want to lose this franchise. And the audience wants it...' He said, 'No. I'm sorry.' And I said, 'I will do it with somebody else.' And then he said, 'Let me think about it. I will come up with an idea.'" So now you know why Hannibal Rising was so stupid; Thomas Harris just didn't care.

As for the series; the storyline is flawed, but it's interesting. I always wanted to know what Hannibal was like when he was a free man, as a psychologist and serial killer and now it looks like we got it. And I have to say that the performances are good. Hugh Dancy's Will Graham actually reminds me somewhat of a combination of both movie versions and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes. Mads Mikkelsen's Lecter may actually be better than Anthony Hopkins' performance. I can certainly imagine Mads coming from an upper-class Continental background more than Anthony Hopkins. Also, Lawrence Fishburne's Jack Crawford is good. I like seeing this character as being less of a non-entity than in the previous films.