Hannibal Rising (2007)

November 6, 2015 1:25 PM

After the death of his parents during World War II, young Hannibal Lecter moves in with his beautiful aunt and begins plotting revenge on the barbarians responsible for his sister's death.

It's time to watch the movie of Harris' 2006 book. Accept it.

posted by tel3path (82 comments total)

I honestly cannot remember whether I ever watched this. It's possible I did not. So... This is gonna be interesting.
posted by Stacey at 5:18 PM on November 6, 2015

Well if there's any time to watch this, it's probably drunk at 4:30am local. I was hoping I'd be saved by it not being on Netflix, but oops it's on Amazon Prime.

This is a really weird way to make up for not having made any sufficiently questionable life decisions yet tonight.
posted by sparkletone at 2:28 AM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I didn't make it. I wish I could come to this movie relatively free of baggage but I'm a pop culture junkie who was deeply affected by related works that are INFINITELY better than this.

It's frustrating to me mostly because I'd really like to be able to think coherently, with first-hand experience, about comparisons between how this backstory stuff is handled here compared to the TV show... But nope.

2 garbage 4 me. ;(
posted by sparkletone at 3:21 AM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

i just wanted to add that the book wasn't as bad as the movie. that being said, there is absolutely no reason for lady murasaki being in either of them.
posted by noia at 5:41 AM on November 7, 2015

Well now I'm procrastinating on watching this.

But I'm no weakling.

Sort of wishing I'd put S1 back for another week, though, in case I have a lot of Works Cited to annotate. Do I?

The good news is my S1 box set, with all the extras we don't get on the UK DVDs, arrived yesterday.

We can get through this.
posted by tel3path at 8:41 AM on November 7, 2015

I saw this pretty recently (but before TV Hannibal season 3 was out) and in all honesty and fairness cannot remember a single thing about it that I liked or considered competent. I dunno, maybe the location scouting? Maybe?

Near the end I made a genuine effort to take the film on its own terms, and yet even the climax failed to be climactic in the (IMO misguided) fashion that it was clearly attempting to be. It's pretty sad when 2001 Hannibal out-Hannibals you.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 8:46 AM on November 7, 2015

It's time to watch the movie of Harris' 2006 book. Accept it.

Is it really though?

I mean, I guess, if everyone else is doing it.
I was trying to avoid watching this, but I won't be left out of a Hannibal conversation with my MeFi peeps.
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 12:37 PM on November 7, 2015

Okay, wondering why Grutas has a fake foreign accent when he's a local.
posted by tel3path at 2:13 PM on November 7, 2015

I'll watch it tomorrow, but for those who've seen it already - the podcast Eat The Rudecast (which reviewed Hannibal as it aired) has put up an episode about Hannibal Rising. Spoiler alert: they are not fans.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:24 PM on November 7, 2015

Also none of them look starved enough to justify that gross scene with the bird, let alone what they're about to do.

Man, the acting is absolute shit so far. Even the children. Normally the children are the best actors in any production... Maybe these are the least worst of a bad bunch.
posted by tel3path at 2:25 PM on November 7, 2015

I miscalculated the timing of various things today and I have to go to sleep in 35 minutes, so I'll be finishing this up in the morning. Meanwhile, on with the show. We are not here to enjoy ourselves.
posted by tel3path at 2:26 PM on November 7, 2015

Okay they are singing the Internationale in Russian, and I might be mishearing or does it contain a line about doing your own dishwashing. Because I could swear I just heard that.

Some Soviet propaganda art in the background, yep

Also I thought that hunting lodge had less of a clearing around it than it did, and that's why it was so well hidden? Maybe not.

And of course 13 yr old Hanni looks about 25.
posted by tel3path at 2:30 PM on November 7, 2015

And now we get to the first departure from, rather than elision of, the book content. I don't remember Hannibal getting shoved in a dungeon or pulling a sickle which was fortuitously lying around. Oh well.
posted by tel3path at 2:35 PM on November 7, 2015

Also that seems to be a storage area, not a dungeon? First rule of locking people up is don't lock them up with a vast supply of weapons and things they can use to get out? Also if there's any food in there, he's where he wants to be. Oh well.
posted by tel3path at 2:37 PM on November 7, 2015

Oh, okay, a definite departure. He finds his mother's letters and you think it's sentimental value, but he actually means to walk across Eastern Europe to get to Uncle Bowie. I guess a lot of people would do that.

The walking across Eastern Europe thing reminds me of an assigned book in school when I was 11, called I Am David. David is of course a complete paragon, so the similarity ends there.
posted by tel3path at 2:46 PM on November 7, 2015

Etampes is in Essonne.
posted by tel3path at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2015

Okay, and in this version Uncle Bowie is already dead.

Also, Hannibal has the Mary Sue ability to charm animals, or else the guard dog is just a bit rubbish.
posted by tel3path at 2:51 PM on November 7, 2015

Ow gross. Gross. PSA: don't do stitches on yourself or others. At a pinch, you might try superglue, though if there's bacteria in the wound you risk gluing it in with no means of escape. But really she should have taken him to the doctor. Why didn't she, I wonder - is this some kind of weird fanservice for piquerists? yukko.
posted by tel3path at 2:56 PM on November 7, 2015

Okay and of course the circumstances of his speaking are changed.

I did not like that stereotypical "weird mute kid" look of enchantment he gave her, and I did not like the sexual tension over a stitched thumb.

Also, there's no sign of Chiyoh.

And Lady M comes across as ordinary.
posted by tel3path at 2:58 PM on November 7, 2015

Also in the film, Hannibal intrudes on Lady M's prayer time rather than her leading him to the shrine. The masks seem like part of the religious setup rather than just inhabitants of a storage area they have to walk to to get to the shrine. And they make it look like Lady M is praying to the samurai, instead of his being behind them as he was in the book.

GDI I'm only 26 minutes into this godawful film I've got an hour and a half to go and it is going to be waiting for me when I wake up in the morning, with no escape. gAaaaaAAAAA.
posted by tel3path at 3:03 PM on November 7, 2015

I don't know if enough people would hop on, but I was wondering if we should propose some First Watch threads to go with our Rewatch ones. You know, proselytize.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:18 PM on November 7, 2015

That is an idea. A Rewatch thread with script comparison, book comparison and secondary material stuff like DVD commentary, and a First Watch thread for the wide-eyed innocents staring up at us with adoring eyes as we chop up their hearts in the kitchen.
posted by tel3path at 4:01 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Another question: there are already rewatch threads for the first two seasons. I'm assuming we'll need to reuse those. Will they let us somehow bump them? I'm not sure the site coding would support it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:29 PM on November 7, 2015

I did a reverse image search for the picture of the beheadings after the battle for Osaka Castle and I didn't turn up anything. If this is a real artwork, I can't find it.

Also, Hannibal learning kendo from Lady M, who just happens to be a kendo master? Of course.

Thomas Harris wrote this screenplay, y'all. He sat down, and he wrote it. That is what he did.
posted by tel3path at 1:25 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just had to clean the kitchen and change the beds and vacuum the floors and change the cat litter before I could continue. All those tasks seemed strangely way more enjoyable than returning to this movie.
posted by tel3path at 3:55 AM on November 8, 2015

Okay, back on task now.

I realized that I couldn't just procrastinate on important things while watching, of all things, a movie, so I had to just step away and have a lengthy shower, do some beauty treatments I've been neglecting, and test out this Too Faced palette that has been lying around my dresser for too long.

So proud of myself for overcoming my procrastination habit today!!! Yay me!!!

On with the









show
posted by tel3path at 5:42 AM on November 8, 2015

Okay, I also TinEyed the image from the second parchment and couldn't find anything. Until someone tells me otherwise, these artworks were created for the movie and don't reference anything outside it.

Hannibal practising in front of the armour totally reminds me of Dolarhyde working out in his attic.
posted by tel3path at 5:53 AM on November 8, 2015

Oh, Hannibal puts on the mask of destiny. Funneeee.

Actually that is not a bad point. It's the literal first good thing this film has done so far.
posted by tel3path at 5:55 AM on November 8, 2015

There's Das Mannlein again - the FIRST time we're hearing it in the movie, so the significance is lost.

Hannibal seems to be playing it on a lute or mandolin - not the koto as one would expect him to be eagerly learning.
posted by tel3path at 6:02 AM on November 8, 2015

Well, killing the butcher was complete narm, but it was still ugly. I didn't really need to see that, thanks.
posted by tel3path at 6:04 AM on November 8, 2015

Gosh, young Hannibal wore plaid. How cute. That's something he has in common with Will.

I assume there's no need for Lady M to walk around in a push-up bra carrying a candle, she just does it for effect, even when there's no-one around?
posted by tel3path at 6:06 AM on November 8, 2015

Why Lady M doesn't run for her life at this point, I don't understand. What the heck. The only explanation is that Hannibal reacted the same way Robertus died trying to, so she's tolerant of that sort of thing.
posted by tel3path at 6:09 AM on November 8, 2015

Oh, Popil is that actor you see a lot.

WHY is everyone talking in funny accents.

Lady M is so far the only good performer in this, and it helps that she's supposed to have a Japanese accent anyway. A Frenchman speaking with a French accent is a bit harder to explain.

Feh.
posted by tel3path at 6:11 AM on November 8, 2015

I'll say something for the costuming, though: Hannibal's plaid shirt is orange and blue, which maybe stands for orange and blue morality. Not the first time colour symbolism has been used in Hannibal's clothing.
posted by tel3path at 6:13 AM on November 8, 2015

Can it also be coincidence that Lady M's red blouse and pencil skirt is very similar to the red blouse and pencil skirt worn by Bedelia in S1? Given that Bedelia was originally meant to be a kind of mother figure played by Angela Lansbury? And that Gillian Anderson resembles Simonetta Vespucci and that Hannibal's mother's name was Simonetta, etc?

Anyway, I really feel like the red blouse outfit I just saw inspired Bedelia's one.

Also, the push-up-bra kimono outfit wasn't bad. So I've seen two good outfits so far in this movie. Three good points, then.
posted by tel3path at 6:16 AM on November 8, 2015

Talking to a pic of his mother, as though praying to his ancestors? Hannibal's mother is a celestial quasi-non-person to him from the beginning, and disappears from his mind entirely quite soon into the book. By the time he's at medical school? He's not thinking of her.
posted by tel3path at 6:18 AM on November 8, 2015

Hello, Sacrifice of Isaac.

Okay, I don't think the interior of the Jeu de Paume looked like that. It was an indoor tennis court, c'mon. Here are some photos from The Documentation Project.
posted by tel3path at 6:25 AM on November 8, 2015

They've completely skipped over his boarding school years, so it's not clear what age he was when he defected from the orphanage, or how he would have acquired the skills to get into medical school.
posted by tel3path at 6:27 AM on November 8, 2015

Hi, Goldberg Variations. You never got a mention in the book.
posted by tel3path at 6:37 AM on November 8, 2015

In fact, the book never mentions Hannibal learning an instrument at all. Others around him play, he never does.
posted by tel3path at 6:38 AM on November 8, 2015

Ah, Hannibal's equivalent of the Stalker Shrine of Crazy. Obsessive drawing of the object of his pursuit.

In the book, he didn't have so many pics and mementos of his family.

I TinEyed the painting on his garret wall, but I can't find it. I wonder if it's meant to be one of his own.
posted by tel3path at 6:41 AM on November 8, 2015

Okay, Das Mannlein is back, and now they're all singing it in a mocking way.

I can't make out any of the titles of the books on the shelf.

The anatomical heart drawing Hannibal glimpses - TinEyed that too, and couldn't find it.
posted by tel3path at 6:58 AM on November 8, 2015

And in this version, there are no other kids chained up with them. The only characters are the main characters. I guess to save money.
posted by tel3path at 7:03 AM on November 8, 2015

Medininkai.
posted by tel3path at 7:04 AM on November 8, 2015

Ah, a child's teddy bear. The universal symbol of sentimentalizing war.

And Hannibal is wearing the same tweed coat to behead Dortlich as Will used to dream-behead him.

I just - "so much mayonnaise, Herr Dortlich" you really aren't going to let us look away from the heavy handed symbolism, are you, Harris. We fucking get it already.
posted by tel3path at 7:11 AM on November 8, 2015

That was gross.

Also, wild mushrooms.

It sure is convenient that the majority of Mischa's killers are within a short distance of his medical school. What are the odds. If he had to go to Lithuania every week this just wouldn't work.

That samurai armour sure looks small and fogged up with cigarette smoke in the confines of that overstuffed apartment.

I really just want to hit this Hannibal's smirk with a brick. He comes across as that kid with psychopathic tendencies that one knew in middle school or high school. Of course Hannibal has always pandered to that kid's fantasies about himself, but still. Remember that feeling of repulsion you got when you had to interact with that kid?
posted by tel3path at 7:51 AM on November 8, 2015

"Ravens who made a shish kebob" - dude, everyone knows corvids are smarter than you. Do try to keep up.
posted by tel3path at 7:53 AM on November 8, 2015

What show!Will and show!Hannibal share is a general lack of faith in legal justice. Will is an upholder of the law, but apparently is aware of its limits from the beginning. Hannibal's work is to burn out that nightlight, and he doesn't do it alone.

In the book, I don't think Hannibal even gets to kiss Lady M, which is just as well. I didn't need to see that either.
posted by tel3path at 7:59 AM on November 8, 2015

Also, this samurai-oriented(? I wouldn't really know) stuff about adherence to a mission and not getting distracted by love, or anything else. Chiyoh carries that in S3 - people don't understand that she's from a completely different storytelling tradition in that respect which is why they don't know what to make of her - but I think she also reminds Hannibal of it, which is why he's able to say "I always keep my promises" WELL LOOK AT THAT my life's mission is now to save Will Graham cos like I promised. I'm not sentimental or anything! It's just that I promised.
posted by tel3path at 8:01 AM on November 8, 2015

One of the paintings on Murasaki's wall is "Eisho, Chokosai (Japanese, active 1790-1799)"

I can't place the huge one on the back wall, the rectangular treescape next to the door, the Buddha-looking statuette on the bookcase, and it looks as though there are a couple of ordinary-ish plaster statuettes on another shelf to the left of the huge painting, as well as maybe a sculpture I can't really see.
posted by tel3path at 8:27 AM on November 8, 2015

The other one is a part picture and I can't find that one.
posted by tel3path at 8:31 AM on November 8, 2015

The other one is probably also Hokusai, or at least from the same period, but I can't identify the work.
posted by tel3path at 8:40 AM on November 8, 2015

Also, book!Hannibal recovers surprisingly well from being shot in the back, which is never really explained.
posted by tel3path at 8:53 AM on November 8, 2015

In a way, you could say Hannibal does kill himself, in that he walks around undead by the end of the book.
posted by tel3path at 8:55 AM on November 8, 2015

What, is he supposed to be eating that guy? Didn't really need to see any of that, even before he got to that point.
posted by tel3path at 8:58 AM on November 8, 2015

Melville, Saskatchewan. Was declared a city in 1960, after the story is set. Today it has about 4500 inhabitants, which is a real good size for a settlement in that kind of landscape.
posted by tel3path at 9:03 AM on November 8, 2015

Well, it's finally over, amidst a chorus of Creepy Children.

Production designer was Allan Starski.

Funny how Gaspard Ulliel and Aaran Thomas never make it onto "who was the best Hannibal" arguments. Even the little kid wasn't well used in this, I'm sorry to say.

It had no redeeming features at all and it's obvious why it was the apparent nail in the coffin of this character.
posted by tel3path at 9:29 AM on November 8, 2015

Sorry I said "also Hokusai" above, I only typed that instead of Chokosai through force of habit.
posted by tel3path at 9:32 AM on November 8, 2015

That was just completely terrible, though. Hannibal really does come across as a common or garden psychopath, which is what he'd be in real life. If Harris was trying to kill off his character in the public imagination, he very nearly succeeded.
posted by tel3path at 9:36 AM on November 8, 2015

I urge a stampede to the Season 1 rewatch as the only effective form of relief.
posted by tel3path at 9:38 AM on November 8, 2015

Also, it's never fucking cold in fucking Saskatchewan in movie-land, it never snows, you can go around with your coat unfastened and with no hat it's practically tropical there yes sir.
posted by tel3path at 9:54 AM on November 8, 2015

I should add that Gong Li's and Rhys Ifans' wardrobes weren't just by Fendi, they were by FENDI. DID EVERYONE HEAR THAT.
posted by tel3path at 10:00 AM on November 8, 2015

I have not been brave enough yet. I have a migraine and I can't see making myself watch this while already in pain. But I felt the need to salute your bravery, tel3path. YOU MADE IT. The worst is over. Move on to the show rewatch in good health and the knowledge it all gets better from here.
posted by Stacey at 10:21 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh tel3path, you are a treasure.

And Popil, in case anyone was wondering, is played by McNulty from The Wire!
posted by fancyoats at 11:32 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

The thing that angered me the most about this movie is that, in addition to being ugly, it's shallow.

Whatever the book's virtues were or not, you couldn't accuse it of being shallow. Harris clearly thought through Hannibal's psychological progression carefully and treated the historical aspects seriously.
posted by tel3path at 2:16 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

It also would have been hard to follow if I hadn't read the book. I really wouldn't have known what was going on. Again, whatever the book's virtues were or not, you could certainly follow it. It was nothing if not follow-able.

(Off-topic: someone once said to me that they had never liked Monty Python because they "couldn't follow it". what)
posted by tel3path at 2:23 PM on November 8, 2015

I'm still not sure what I've seen. But it haunts me
posted by tel3path at 3:49 PM on November 8, 2015

I nominate this as bes FF thread ever
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:20 AM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Just mulling this over: I was listening to Eat the Rudecast and they were complaining that the movie has no protagonist. Hannibal isn't the protagonist because he isn't driving at anything; nobody is. They're all just there, somehow. It doesn't even seem like Hannibal is driven to seek revenge on these guys so much as he just happens upon them and beats up on them.

They also said that the possibility was floated of having Anthony Hopkins narrate the movie, which never happened. If they had done this it would have been a very poor fit - because the biggest proponent of Hannibal Is A Self-Made Monster, Has No Backstory is Hannibal himself. HE is the one saying "nothing happened to me, I happened". Furthermore there is clearly some truth to Grutas' saying "you have to kill everyone who knows [about your eating Mischa]". Hannibal would never narrate this part of his story, because he doesn't want anyone to know it.

They also complained that his backstory isn't interesting. I agree that it isn't particularly interesting in itself, but the fact that he has one, and that his logical progression into adulthood makes sense and has traceable influences rather than being totally bizarre and "he happened" - that takes Hannibal down a notch, and I think that's a good and interesting take on his character in and of itself.

Hannibal is the one who most needs to believe that he is the master of his own destiny and that nobody can ever hurt him in any real way because he's always more cruel and more clever than any opponent in any circumstances. He is the one who most needs to believe that he's self-sufficient and doesn't need anyone else except as a resource. Granted that he *is* amazingly skilled, present-minded and resourceful, and has devoted huge amounts of energy to emergency preparedness - how many identities, personal finance setups, and safe houses can one person have exactly?!? And he sustains his mystique through stage magic so that he often wins *because* everyone has bought into his hype.

What Will does is play back crime scenes in reverse, and you could say he did that by pulling down all the defenses that made Hannibal believe in his own self-sufficiency: jailing Will made him sad, running off to Europe with Bedelia made him sad, eating Will's head would have made him sad, and now Will is blowing raspberries at the idea that Hannibal outsmarted him by turning himself in. Basically, Will has begun the process of rolling Hannibal back to the person he once was, the person who did hope for love in his life. Maybe he can take it further and roll Hannibal back to the person he was before he ate human flesh.

But none of that would be possible if Hannibal had never been that person and had only, as far as we knew, ever been an inexplicable monster. They didn't use the backstory in the show, they only alluded to it, but knowing what the backstory is and that it exists really improves my understanding of Hannibal's character development at the point he went off the cliff.
posted by tel3path at 8:48 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Um and this ties in with Alana telling Hannibal that all he'll have is "the company of the dead" - cut to the scene of Abigail knifing GJH's corpse in Hannibal's office.

That scene wasn't just stuck in there for no reason. It shows how Hannibal is capable of not missing anyone (except Will) because he always has them with him. It also shows how unsatisfying that must be to him, now. Before Will and after Will. Like, I'm certain Hannibal doesn't miss Abigail, but he has Abigail in his memory palace and he doesn't have Will except on condition that Will comes to him. And what happens in that scene? Hannibal proves to Abigail that a dead person stays dead, that her father can exert no further influence over her. Well, the same is true of Abigail to Hannibal; she can't influence him either.

Whereas Will was imagining the relationship he wished he'd had with Abigail, unfolding over scenes that never happened in reality - Hannibal's memories of Abigail are confined to reality (as he remembers it); we are meant to think these scenes actually took place. Hannibal isn't imagining new stuff to do with Abigail; she's dead, she can't influence him any more. He can maybe visit her in their shared past, but her memory can't take on a life of its own in his mind. And if the thing he remembers is the lesson he taught her that the dead stay dead, isn't that just as true for him? So what has he really got, now? I think he has to be thinking that over, or else the scene doesn't tell us anything new (and the show is not big on spending time telling us stuff we already know).
posted by tel3path at 9:00 AM on November 10, 2015

They also said that the possibility was floated of having Anthony Hopkins narrate the movie, which never happened. If they had done this it would have been a very poor fit - because the biggest proponent of Hannibal Is A Self-Made Monster, Has No Backstory is Hannibal himself. HE is the one saying "nothing happened to me, I happened".

OMG. If Mythical Season Four included some kind of Rashomon-y "Hannibal's becoming" sequence with Hannibal plus Chiyoh plus maybe Uncle Bowie or someone? And then Will just empaths his way through all the bullshit? I would LOVE THAT A LOT?

(Might even make me not resent Chiyoh for existing and thereby taking away precious Alana, Margot, Pazzi, and Chilton time in S3.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:13 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have a lot of thoughts about Will's semi-living memory-Abigail vs. Hannibal's static one. They're just waiting for the right story to put them into.
posted by Stacey at 9:28 AM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Furthermore, it's insinuated that Abigail might have a level of reality in the external world (the priest can see her). So why isn't she haunting Hannibal? Especially if Abigail's primary unfulfilled need in life was to be understood: Hannibal understood her, Will didn't (and his daring to imagine the relationship he could have had with her has drawn a LOT of condemnation).

I guess she doesn't like Hannibal as much as she likes Will, for one thing. He did kill her, after all.

But that's not all of it. Abigail isn't haunting Hannibal because the way he thinks about her seals off her access to him. Having killed her, in his mind she can't affect him any more, and also, he can't affect her any more (just as she couldn't get any vital response from her father's corpse by knifing it).

She isn't haunting Alana because Alana isn't thinking about her and hasn't been, probably, since the end of S1. To all appearances Abigail ceased to exist in Alana's mind the moment Alana learned of her death. When Alana finds Will on Hannibal's kitchen floor, building a memory palace for all his friends, she responds with a remark about the nature of friendship with Hannibal - but it wasn't Hannibal on the kitchen floor with Will, it was Abigail. Presumably, Alana perceived Abigail as nothing more than an extension of Hannibal's hands pushing her out the window, Abigail-as-a-person appearing for a moment at best and then just as quickly returning to oblivion.

Which means that any existence Abigail has is relational and depends as much on how others see her as it does on her own quiddity. Which is kind of the point of the show, in many ways. Hannibal may want to see himself as the exception to the rule, but he isn't.
posted by tel3path at 10:36 AM on November 10, 2015

Huh. Ghost Abigail as narrator. Can I play with that idea eventually? That might be what I've been looking for.

On topic, I think tomorrow night I will tackle this movie. Wish me luck.
posted by Stacey at 12:24 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think I've only seen that done once, and you'd think there would be more of it given the level of upset in the fandom about how misunderstood she was. I'd love to read that (or anything you'd write, really).
posted by tel3path at 1:37 PM on November 10, 2015

I have SO MANY ABIGAIL FEELINGS but it's really hard to write something featuring her since she's only in Will's head now. And I refuse to write an entire dialogue for her hanging out with the Wendigo because that's just crackier than even I am willing to get. Ghost Abigail might do the trick. I'm gonna sit with that idea for a while.

I also have toyed with the idea of getting Head!Abigail and Head!Bev together to have adventures somehow. Its implausible to me that Bev is not also in Will's head somewhere and maybe Abigail just hasn't found her yet.
posted by Stacey at 1:43 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I dunno. Normal human experience floated out of Will's reach after Beverly died because she was really the only one handling the situation like a reasonable person. Like a reasonable person, she stayed dead after she died, and firmly moved on to the appropriate Jewish afterlife. She surely ascended very high very fast, having given her life in service of truth and justice.

Abigail, though, was so driven to survive she may even have managed to survive her own death in a limited way.

I do think Beverly should be able to have a word with her about the whole helping Hannibal kill her business. If, as that article suggests, the ascended dead still have some interest in the material world, and if Abigail was transferred to another thread of the material multiverse as she seemed to expect would happen, maybe they could meet there.
posted by tel3path at 2:12 PM on November 10, 2015

I know that I read this novel and I know that I saw this movie. My recollection of either experience is a little thin. The novel read to me like an especially lazy adaptation of a screenplay, which I guess is what it is. I remember almost nothing about the movie other than I thought Kid Hannibal wasn't bad.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:17 AM on November 11, 2015

kittens, the novel was published before the screenplay.

I wouldn't even call the novel lazy per se - to me it reads like a well-thought-out plan for what would potentially have been an interesting novel, 957 drafts later. Harris clearly did put the work in up to that point, though.
posted by tel3path at 8:24 AM on November 11, 2015

I believe Harris wrote the screenplay and the novel. The novel is much sparer than his usual work, reading more like a detailed outline than a book.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:46 AM on November 11, 2015

Spending the evening at urgent care instead of watching this movie, since my partner managed to slice his finger open. I owe him a debt of gratitude.
posted by Stacey at 4:50 PM on November 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well, I hope you'll enjoy the relevant scene. You could have reenacted it with him.
posted by tel3path at 7:48 AM on November 12, 2015