9 Films That Completely Ignored Their Source (And Sucked Because Of It)
9. Hannibal Baulks At The Ending
From the moment The Silence Of The Lambs went from regular crime thriller to Oscar great everyone involved was incredibly keen to get a sequel off the ground. With Thomas Harris taking his time with the next novel in the series and the question of how to otherwise pull off a film that didn't overblow the central Hannibal-Clarice relationship remaining unanswered it sat in development hell; by the time the final product rolled around it had lost both Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme. Still, when Harris finally did finish Hannibal, a film, this time helmed by Ridley Scott, was hot on its heels. Rightly cutting down much of Mason Vergers plot for both time and acceptability reasons (in the book he rapes his sterile, lesbian sister, leading to a cattle-prodding revenge), my main complaint here is the ending. The film does mostly stick quite close to the novel, but in changing the last ten minutes Scott makes the film seem incredibly unnecessary. The two stories diverge after the brain eating scene. While the film has FBI agent Starling handcuff herself to cannibal Lecter, leading to the latter severing his left hand to escape, the book has the two eventually become lovers; the obsession the two have harboured over the past ten years turns into adoration. The film leaves us with things pretty much the same as The Silence Of The Lambs. The novel is controversial and justifies the extreme violence were experienced thus far.
