re: Rank the Hannibal Lecter franchise from best to worst

Red Dragon
Silence

Hannibal Rising
Manhunger
Hannibal

And the last one pains me because Mamet was involved.

quote:

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It's contrarianism. Manhunter basically sucks once you know Silence exists.

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(Some spoilers)

I read the first 3 books before I saw any of the movies. Manhunter is exactly what I had in mind when I was reading Red Dragon, barring the dropping of the scene when Dolarhyde returns from the dead to attempt to kill Graham at the very end of the book.

I didn’t get the sense of Lambs’ gothic horror undertones. In my mind, as I was reading Red Dragon, I saw these characters in a Michael Mann police procedural. This is a story about a detective mentally spiraling out of control.

Petersen’s edgy performance is outstanding, Mann’s direction and visual design is top notch. And Cox was how I envisioned Lecter. It’s not his fault that Red Dragon doesn’t feature Lecter as a main character. I’m sure his performance would have risen to Hopkins’ stature had Manhunter had the movie gotten more press in 1986.

But from my perspective, I genuinely prefer Manhunter to Lambs. The changing of the final scene might have been detrimental. But as Graham kinda drops out of the book series anyway, whether he get cut up and sent into a depression or if he has a happy ending is really a flip of the coin on what you prefer. But I prefer Graham having a happy ending.