Okay, here’s the red band trailer for David Fincher’s unneccessary offensive insulting upcoming version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
If you want, feel free to visit YouTube and read all the comments from fanboys having Finchergasms over it. My position will continue to be that David Fincher is a very talented director, Rooney Mara was rather bland in both Nightmare on Elm Street and The Social Network, Daniel Craig is boring and overrated but then again, so is the character he’s playing, and finally, Noomi Rapace will always be the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
That doesn’t mean that Fincher won’t make a good movie. The trailer is effective and the material seems well suited for Fincher’s vision. In fact, it could allow Fincher to get back to his Fight Club and Zodiac roots after going all boring and mainstream with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network.
Still, perhaps we should remake The Lord of The Rings trilogy next. After all, those first three films are just sooooo New Zealand. We need an American version.
Through the Shattered Lens 
I was wondering if you had seen the red band trailer and will you be putting it up. I guess my answer to those two would be a big YES. 🙂
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Yes, originally this post was a lot more — outspoken — in my feelings concerning this remake. But, as much as I’m not a fan of the idea of making this film, the trailer looked fairly effective. Then again, watching the trailer a second time, I can’t help but say that I recognized a lot of shots from the original Swedish film — you know, the same film that all the mainstream blogs are either hating on or ignoring all together with their nonstop Hooray For Hollywood blather.
(Lol, yes, the first version of this post was a lot like this comment…)
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And, by the way, the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo isn’t coming. She’s already here and her name is Noomi Rapace.
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I still haven’t given the originals enough of a chance. I haven’t even been able to make it halfway through the first book without nodding off. I saw half of the first (up to just after Salander’s) fight in the subway and loved it, but it was late, and I ended up stopping it. I did like Rapace, though. I’ll definitely return to it before this one comes out. As for the trailer, I’m not quite sold on it. I love Fincher, and Mara’s okay, but I have to get through the original story before I can decide if this seems like it might work.
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To be honest, I think I actually object more to Daniel Craig than I do to Rooney Mara. I mean, seriously — Daniel Craig is sooooooooooo boring! But for me, the character of Lisbeth is iconic and so is Noomi Rapace’s performance. Lisbeth is a true rarity in both fiction and film in that she’s a woman who doesn’t need a man to rescue her and who is never reduced to being a mere damsel in distress. (If anything, the character played by Daniel Craig is the series’ damsel.) So, for me, reading about her and watching her on-screen was a very empowering experience. So, I guess I do find myself wondering if Fincher — who, talented director that he is, has never made a movie with a strong female character (sorry, Marla doesn’t count because, at the end of Fight Club, it’s still all about Norton and Pitt) — will be able to handle that. Consider, for instance, that the Social Network didn’t feature a single female character who wasn’t portrayed as being either a bitch or psychotic. (Of course, a lot of that may have to do with Aaron Sorkin who, praised as he may be, has never been able to write a credible female character.)
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That was one of the elements that drew me to the book, the strength of Salander’s character, but it takes nearly 90 pages of wading through the backstory of the first book and Craig’s character to even be introduced to her, and I zoned out just about every time I tried reading it. I’ll find away through it, though.
Fincher and strong females, I don’t think he’s had one yet, really. Sorkin (who’s work I really like), on reflection doesn’t have any strong female characters. My first thought is Demi Moore’s from “A Few Good Men”, but I know I’m off on that one. That brings up a good question. Who’s working on the screenplay for this version?
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Yeah, the stuff with Mikael and really the whole thing about his lefty little magazine, that stuff kinda bored me because it was so obvious that the author was just writing about this idealized version of himself. So, it just got to self-congratulatory for me.
To a large extent, Fincher hasn’t had strong women because his films have told very male stories. By that, I mean that Fight Club was a story about men and it wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Zodiac, of course, was a historical film and it would have been really anchronistic to suddenly have Chloe Sevigny show up with a gun and blow away the Zodiac killer. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I thought, was sexist but I honestly saw that movie as being such a vanity project that I’m hesitant to read any of it too deeply. And the Social Network was one of the most anti-female films I’ve ever seen but that was really more of an Aaron Sorkin production than a David Fincher film. So, I’m willing to give Fincher a chance.
Sorkin, however, has created over a hundred female characters and he has yet to allow any of them to be anything other than a 1) plot device or 2) a fantasy figure. In the world of Sorkin, you’re either a bitch or a whore and regardless of which you are, you’ll eventually be put in your place by a “real” man.
As for the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo script, the Hollywood version was written by the very mainstream Stephen Zaillian, who wrote Schindler’s List, Hannibal, Gangs of New York, and American Gangster. So, he’s a writer who specializes in adapting the work of others but at the same time, he’s not a writer who really takes risks or is willing to give the finger to a complacent audience.
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I can empathize with your sentiments. Here is another excellent Swedish film in danger of being bastardized American-style. When a film is unique and compelling, and really makes an impression on you, you want to protect it.
Since this trailer is one of those music video-style ones, it’s hard to get much of a feel for the film. One thing’s for sure – I could do without that dreadful mechanized-sounding version of Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”. Why? Why? Why?!
Last year I (and many others) was bitching about Matt Reeves threatening to remake “Let The Right One In”. The “Clover field” guy? Why? Why? Why?!
With loyalty established for the original incarnation, one fears at least couple of possible outcomes. The new version will be slipshod shadow of the original, and American audiences, having seen only the remake, will think that that is all there is. Or, perhaps selfishly, we fear that the remake might actually be better than the original, which challenges said loyalty. Then we would have to grudgingly give credit. Who wants to do that?
As it turned out, neither occurred. Reeves, et al, produced a solid, surprisingly and refreshingly un-Hollywood film. It is smart and engrossing. Equal to the original? Certainly not. But that would have been a lost cause as a goal. The original has such a wonderful blend of beauty, bleakness, charm, and horror, surely borne in part of its “Swedishness”. But Reeves made a fine film. And the original still stands as the unique gem that it always was. If one were to see only the remake, it would be unfortunate for the viewer (because they don’t know what they missed), and unfair to the Swedes (to be unrecognized), but they would have seen a respectable telling of the story.
So take heart. I anticipate a similar outcome with the “Dragon Tattoo” remake. And whatever happens, you know what Rapace delivered in the original. And, unlike most people, you have a forum to attest to it. As often as you want to. 🙂
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🙂 Very well said. 🙂
What can I say? After you watch a certain amount of films, you start to realize just how predictable and/or forgettable most movies are. You start to get very cynical, taking whatever you can from each film you see and then just moving along to the next movie, never expecting anything more than maybe an hour or two of sensation. You don’t allow yourself to get emotionally attached to most movies because you know that another one will come along in a week or less. Such is the price that we film lover pay for being promiscous.
So, when you managed to find a film that actually makes you reject your cynicism and take achance on love, you’re protective of it. 🙂
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