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'Red Dragon' Redux? or Is This Trip Really Necessary?

post #1 of 10
11/9/00 at 2:27am
Thread Starter 
As a fan of Thomas Harris (except for the novel Hannibal. Yeesh.) and the original Manhunter, I think that the news of Dino's planned re-filming of Red Dragon is problematic.

Hear me out.

I've always thought that Hopkins was lacking only a handlebar mustache to twirl & an orphanage to burn down in SOTL. Hammy, man; hammy.

Brian Cox insinuated a metric ton of menace and cool, evil intelligence in his scenes that Sir Tony never chilled me with in SOTL. Brian's e-e-e-evil and Tony is hammy.

Red Dragon could be made as a better showcase for the criminally under-utilized Will Graham (hopefully played by William Petersen) but this smells like a real bad idea.

Let the flaying commence.......

Peace.
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post #2 of 10
11/9/00 at 2:36am
Manhunter was a cool flick. This new Red Dragon does have a funny smell to it, but Ted Tally did a decent job adapting SotL so I'm going to reserve judgment. The story of Hannibal's apprehension by Will was not the subject of Manhunter, just the backstory. I have a feeling this new Red Dragon adaptation will expand that story to the outermost limit of what's contained in the book. I definitely wanted to see more Brian Cox in Manhunter, so, depending on a) if this ever actually gets made; and b) who directs and who stars as Hannibal, this could turn out to not be such an abomination as it seems at first glance.
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post #3 of 10
11/9/00 at 3:28am
Just want to go on record that I ran this on CCC three days ago. Now everyone thinks it's a big scoop. funny.
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post #4 of 10
11/9/00 at 4:52am
There's a MONGO special edition.

PRE ORDER it here!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...nematichappeni
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post #5 of 10
11/9/00 at 5:39am
Manhunter was great, don't get me wrong, but it's not a particularly faithful adaption of the book. The ending to the film was pure 'Miami Vice' (suprisingly, given how it was done by the same guy...).

I think a remake could possibily work, the character of Graham is a fascinating one, and the source material is a 1000 times better than 'Hannibal'.

[This message has been edited by flint (edited 11-09-2000).]
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post #6 of 10
11/9/00 at 6:33am
I've never seen Manhunter (waiting for the SE DVD) but I can see why Dino wants to redo it with Hopkins.

Now if Hopkins isn't involved...
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post #7 of 10
11/9/00 at 11:43am
Why all the venom towards 'Hannibal'? I thought it was a remarkable novel, very Grand Guignol. It may have taken some characters down a path readers weren't expecting, but to me, it worked beautifully. Harris is a writer of great depth, and 'Hannibal' was not meant to be a summer beach paperback or action potboiler. I've read it three times, and have enjoyed it immensely.
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post #8 of 10
11/9/00 at 12:18pm
Well IMHO the problems are:

The pigs (Man Eating Pigs? I mean come on)
The final dinner scene (gruesome for the sake of being gruesome)
The resolution to the book (unrealistic, unsatisfying)
The explanation and humanisation of Lector (not needed at all)
The general meandering of the plot (no real direction, just drifting from scene to scene)

And the fact that Harris (whose other books I love, BTW) seemed to be writing this one for a big fat paycheque alone. I think he'd quite happily concluded his Lector story with Silence, and it was only the success of the film that forced him (with a big dollar sign) to add a third, redundant book, to the 'series'.

So yeah, I wasn't a big fan...
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post #9 of 10
11/9/00 at 12:31pm
I can't say I agree with the paycheck part, as it took him almost 11 years to write the sequel. There is an enormous amount of subtext in all of Harris' work that is easy to miss for a lot of folk. There was a great essay on the web (I wish I could find it now) that really discussed the symbolism and references that Harris uses in Hannibal. I'll post it if I can find it, it's a great read.
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post #10 of 10
11/9/00 at 12:43pm
There's also the curious dichotomy of the book having a third grade reading level.
Do you want your third grader reading this?
Wait, I'm on CHUD...scratch that....
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