Characters in movies without backstories

[Justin_Bailey]

@Raguleader

Similarly, The Operative’s lack of a backstory in Serenity means we don’t know who he is, where he came from, or even who exactly he works for (presumably he wasn’t hired as an act of Parliament as a whole).

While it’s not much of a backstory, we find out The Operative was hired by “certain members of Parliament” at the end of the Serenity graphic novel (written by Joss Whedon and considered canon) “Those Left Behind.”

[Sublight]

@Big Bad Voodoo Lou

I would have loved to find out more about Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) in Pulp Fiction, even if just to see why he was at a formal-dress party in a tuxedo during normal breakfast hours.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, so I can’t recall why I came away with this impression, but I always thought he was preparing for a wedding or a funeral (though the tux would make more sense at the former), and was in his own home when the call came.

[F.U.Shakespeare]

@Sampiro

Hannibal Lecter was extremely free of backstory in Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs. You knew that he was a psychiatrist and a serial killer who cannibalized his victims, and that he was caught due to Wound Man and was a gourmet, but little to nothing about where he was from/his family/etc… He worked much better that way.

Amen – I liked Lecter a lot more when he seemed a born monster, as Will Graham described him to Jack Crawford in the novel Red Dragon.

Sort of off-topic: did they change Clarice’s backstory? Specifically, the sequence of events leading to her being orphaned? IIRC, in the novel Hannibal, Clarice remembers cleaning motel rooms with her mother after her father was killed. But she says in the movie SOTL that her mother had died before her father was killed (when, in Memphis, Lecter is asking her about the death of her father). It’s been a while since I saw or read either, so I may have some detail wrong.

[tremorviolet]

@Jophiel

Not that I ever thought long and hard on it but my assumption was that Jerry couldn’t keep up with maintaining a (large-ish) home and stay-at-home wife on his salary. He over-extended himself trying keep a standard of living for his wife which his father-in-law would find acceptable and eventually started doing stupid stuff like the financing theft to keep the mortgage paid and his over-extended credit from collapsing.

I don’t have anything solid to base this on except that, like BrainGlutton said, he didn’t seem to have expensive vices and he obviously felt put upon by his wealthy father-in-law who thought his daughter was too good for Jerry.

Exactly. He’s one of those guys who wants to look like a “big shot” yet doesn’t make the enough money. Up to his eyeballs in debt (I’m sure his wife shops a lot), he starts stealing to keep up with the credit card payments. Plus, the parking lot wasn’t the first get rich quick scheme he invested in and he lost money every single time.

[Wee_Bairn]

@Wendell Wagner

Wasn’t it a shopping center, not a parking lot, that Jerry Lundegaard wanted to build in Wayzata? I haven’t seen the film for a long time though. Would somebody check this who owns a copy of the film?

I saw it again about a week ago and am pretty sure it was a parking lot.

[fiddlesticks]

I think the reason the Jerry wants to build a parking lot on the land in Wayzata is likely because a parking lot is probably the cheapest thing to do with a plot of land and have it turn into a source of income. Jerry doesn’t want the trouble of building an actual building. Its also worth mentioning that apparently the idea isn’t a stupid one, as his FIL and Stan Grossman think its worth investing their own money in, though perhaps they are more interested in the land for developing a shopping center or a housing development, but they aren’t about to discuss their real business plans with the Jerry.

Parking is an issue in Wayzata, actually. Though if the land is 40 acres as someone said upthread, the Lundegaard lot likely isn’t anywhere near the downtown shopping area discussed in the link above.

[BrainGlutton]

@H3Knuckles

I absolutely agree with you on this. I generally think the idea of any continued books beyond Red Dragon and Silence were a mistake, but even then they could have been written without creating the goofy Eastern-European noble storyline. Someone really should have stopped the author from doing any of that.

But if he just had to – dammit, how could any director have made a film adaptation of Hannibal without using that wicked awesome cool device of Lecter’s Memory Palace?!! I mean, that’s so visual! And I so wanted to see it!

[BrainGlutton]

@Sampiro

The novel The Godfather and the sequel Godfather 2 supply ample backstory on most of the characters, especially if you accept Pentangeli:Clemenza, but Godfather 3 suddenly springs Don Altobello (Eli Wallach) on us. This man was friendly enough with the Corleones that 50-odd years before the movie he was Connie’s godfather, yet he clearly wasn’t important in the Corleone family (we know Clemenza, Tessio, Genco, and Pentangeli were all above him) and it’s unlikely Vito would have chosen a common soldier as his daughter’s godfather, so obviously he’s from another crime family as opposed to someone like Zasa who rose when the family vacated their territories. While it’s unusual enough that Vito would have turned to a rival crime family for Connie’s godfather, it’s even more unusual that such a man would have been an underling in said family (which we know because the heads of the other 5 families were killed by the Corleones as well as the others who died in the war), would not have been killed during the war either as a turncoat by Vito or as a possible leak by his own don, and yet apparently decided to forgive/forget Michael’s orchestrating of the murders of the other dons or else just sit on it for 30+ years. It just didn’t play true.
It would actually have worked alright if he hadn’t been Connie’s godfather- you can believe that an old don who rose to head of the family because of Michael’s assassinations would make peace with- even have a sort of gratitude to- Michael (may even have helped set up the don), but nuh-uh.

I could never understand his motives, either, in setting up the attack on the bosses’ meeting in NYC (fairly obvious – it happened right after he left the room), or in trying to have Michael assassinated in Sicily. What was he trying to accomplish? He was a bit old to get much fun out of being Boss of Bosses.

[Alessan]

@Argent Towers

My dad used to have a tan Ciera. And it’s CIERA, not “Sierra” as everyone on IMDB calls it. The Sierra is a GMC truck, the Ciera was a shitty Oldsmobile. Why do so many car names also sound like medications?

There was also a Ford Sierra, sold mainly in Europe. My Dad once had one - a real POS. He swapped it for a Corolla as soon as he could.
Anyway - H3Knuckles, I’m a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to SW. Only the movies are canonical. And not all of the movies.

[Raguleader]

@Justin_Bailey

While it’s not much of a backstory, we find out The Operative was hired by “certain members of Parliament” at the end of the Serenity graphic novel (written by Joss Whedon and considered canon) “Those Left Behind.”

I’m pretty sure that gets mentioned in the movie too, but as far as backstory goes, it’s still precious little.

[Talon_Karrde]

I remember thinking that some of The Seven Samurai must have had interesting stories. I don’t remember which ones.
I actually like the first half of that movie the best, where the samurai are recruited and we’re introduced to them.

[Sampiro]

@F. U. Shakespeare

Sort of off-topic: did they change Clarice’s backstory? Specifically, the sequence of events leading to her being orphaned? IIRC, in the novel Hannibal, Clarice remembers cleaning motel rooms with her mother after her father was killed. But she says in the movie SOTL that her mother had died before her father was killed (when, in Memphis, Lecter is asking her about the death of her father). It’s been a while since I saw or read either, so I may have some detail wrong.

Yes, they did. Among other things they turned her dad from a coal miner and part-time security guard to a cop (or sheriff, one or the other), and her mother was definitely a widow in the books. I can’t remember if Clarice went to live with the rancher cousin when her mom died or if her mom sent her there. It was revealed in Hannibal that she had a great deal of anger at her father for being killed, not just the abandonment issue but because the way he confronted the thieves who killed him was stupid and unprofessional.