Differences between 2002’s Red Dragon and 1986’s Manhunter

Starting off i would like to point out that the recent 2013 series ‘Hannibal’ is more a re-imagination of the fates of the original Red Dragon novel’s characters. The timeline is set before the events of the first novel and many of the character’s defining traits have been altered. For example Freddie Lounds has become a woman in her 20’s, dr. Bloom has also had a gender change of the same magnitude, becoming from a male doctor in his 50’s to a female doctor in her 30’s and Jack Crawford is now black and about 15 years younger. There are plays of the different evens in the red dragon novel in the series, freddie lounds being tracked down by a serial killer trying to make her write the story the way he sees it, not unlike Dollarhyde, there’s also an episode that mentions the local opera becoming better after the disappearance, presumably by Hannibal’s hand, of one of the opera’s members. By the end of the series though the timeline of events has been severly altered compared to both the original movie and novel so i will disregard the tv series in my comparrison for now.

In the original novel / movies the character and story of main player Will Graham is slightly different, although there’s only been 3 years since his and Hannibal’s encounter happened, he is married and has a young boy age 7 to 10 which would suggest he had established a family before his meeting with Hannibal, something far away from the TV version’s mind. Also, in the movies/novel Graham retired from the FBI after clashing with Hannibal not because he felt unstable, thus making the original character a little bit more stable in regards to his talent of emphatising with the serial killers he investigates.

In truth neighter of the two screen adaptations is fully in line with the original novel, however the 2002 version i feel tried to make things more complex, bringing forth a little bit of the psycho Dollarhyde’s background and childhood, an element totally neglected in Manhunter. Also the ending of ‘Red Dragon’ 2002 is more complex , featuring a twist at the end which is also part of the original book, a very important part, again, neglected by the 1986 version. Something also missing form the first film is the scene where Dollarhyde goes into the museum and eats the original Red Dragon painting thus attempting to stop his foul deeds for reoccurring.

As far as artistic differences are concerned, there’s obviously a slight difference between the screen time allocated to Hannibal, him being a more present in the 2002 version. Main chacater Will Graham’s previous relationship with Hannibal is shown in flashbacks rather than discussed, antagonist Dollarhyde is made to look even crazier with his opening scene showing him in a Psycho-esque manner speaking to his dead mother and generally there’s more emphasis on the drama, with a loud orchestral score and smaller characters being more fleshed out.

The ending is incomplete in both versions, in Manhunter there’s no twist at the end but Dollarhyde cuts Graham’s face, although he is shown embracing his son at the end and he’s not looking that bad. The 2002 version the twist exists but ‘Mr. D’ does not cut Graham’s face at all, whilst in the original novel Graham is fully disfigured after his face is cut in the final confrontation, making dr. Hannibal’s comment (which is also missing from Manhunter) about hoping Graham doesn’t look too bad absolutely irrelevant.