10 Famous Movie Characters Ruined By Elaborate Backstories

Mystery is an underrated commodity in Hollywood. When an impeccably cool character without much of a backstory becomes a fan favourite, movie studios see this as an opportunity to cash in. A prequel, some origins-based flashbacks, or even a full-on reboot can be used to elaborate on a character€™s past in a bid to keep audiences engaged. This often proves to have a negative effect. By giving us too much detail about a character we loved in the first place, filmmakers can tarnish their perfect creations with ridiculous, uninspiring backstories, forgetting that the origin beats aren't always the most interesting part of a story. The mystery is often better than the explanation, after all. Audiences like to be left pondering how a character came to be. It gives us room to speculate for ourselves, rather than being spoon-fed a subpar preamble. When filmmakers push their famous characters' backstories into unsatisfactory directions, then, it can feel like they€™ve screwed up one of their finest creations...

10. Hannibal Lecter

When Hannibal Rising was released, we had already seen Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon. These three films €“ particularly the first one €“ set up Anthony Hopkins€™ version of Hannibal Lecter as one of cinema€™s most terrifying villains. Lecter was, simply, spine-tinglingly chilling under Hopkins€™ careful stewardship. But Hannibal Rising sought to undo all that by recasting the role for an unnecessary origins-explaining prequel, with Gaspard Ulliel failing to ignite audience interest in the same way as his Hopkins. The film takes us decades into Lecter€™s past, opening with him as an eight-year-old living in Nazi-invaded Lithuania. The Nazis kill Lecter€™s parents, before murdering and cannibalising his sister. Later in life, Lecter vows revenge and hunts down the former soldiers. The problem here is that Hannibal Rising seems determined to justify Lecter in some way. But, as grim as this might sound, he made for a more interesting character when we didn€™t know where he came from or when he got the taste for human flesh. Sadly, by showing us a young, tortured Hannibal, this film takes away all his mystique. Notably, though, Hannibal €“ the TV show €“ fared far better with displaying his origins.