Cmdr. Gabe E.'s web journal :)

Hannibal Rising! Will the REAL Hannibal Lecter please stand up?
With the movie only two months away, I have to admit...Hannibal Rising has done something we didn't think any force in the universe would be able to do.

It has successfully turned this...

Into this...

Yes...Hannibal Rising has turned Mr. Fava-beans-Chianti himself into a lovelorn, tragic, tormented, anti-hero, vigilante POSTER BOY!!!

*Cue Vader's "NOOOOO" here*

Despite the fact that I abhor scary movies, I've seen ALL the Lecter movies...Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, and Hannibal! I don't know if I'm just being too picky, or that I think I *know* Hannibal, but the Hannibal in Hannibal Rising just didn't seem like the man he grew up to be. You would not expect *that* young Hannibal to be the man we saw in SOTL!

First of all, Hannibal isn't your "usual" romantic. He doesn't go making googly eyes at chicks or liking them because they're "hot". Yet in Hannibal Rising (the book anyway) we see him "crushing" over Lady Murasaki (his uncle's wife). Just look at the picture of them together! WTF?! He is NOT the kind of guy who'd hold you close, look into your eyes, touch your cheek, and whisper sweet nothings to your ear. That's just NOT Lecter! If you want to see what Lecter is like in love, look at his relationship with Clarice in SoTL and Hannibal!

Second, I think they made young Lecter look too much like a "male model". Hannibal Lecter was never the typical "hot guy". Never was. Also, considering that most fans have associated Lecter with Hopkins, Gaspard Ulliel just doesn't emulate a young Anthony Hopkins or Hannibal Lecter for that matter. In fact, the movie The Human Stain did a better job of emulating a young Hopkins with Wentworth Miller (Scofield from Prison Break :P).

For short, I just can't seem to connect the Hannibal in Hannibal Rising to the Hannibal in SOTL. It was almost as if the movie was written for a younger popcorn audience. But then, I've always been a "fangirl" of the Lecter movies, so that's probably why I'm desperately "holding on to" what was :P! Kinda makes me wish Thomas Harris kept Lecter's past a secret x.x!