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shadowkatMy email address was hacked into, apparently a lot of people on earthlink got hacked, but my friends and family immediately alerted me to it. Momster even called me. Easily resolved, although involved downloading an antivirus software to check my MAC, which is by the way is also fine. Evil marketing people. If there's such a thing as hell, the evil marketing people will be stuck there doing nothing but telemarketing for eternity. At any rate if you lucked out and got a weird email from me? Disregard it - I took care of the problem.
Been watching a lot of adaptations lately. All three of my favorite shows on HBO at the moment are adaptations from novels (I've only read two of the novel series in which they are based, and only remember one of them at all clearly). And last night I finally watched the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - after watching it, I came to the conclusion that it is not always a good idea to watch an adaptation of a novel immediately after finishing the novel. In some cases, it is probably a very bad idea. The novel version is still clear in your mind, and you find yourself comparing it to the film throughout. Although it could be worse, I could be reading the novel at the same time as I watched the adaptation which a couple people on my flist were doing with Game of Thrones, I'm guessing that didn't quite work out the way you thought it would, did it? And I'm guessing it probably didn't work quite the way they expected it would for the people who decided to re-read all the Harry Potter books prior to seeing the next flick. (With few exceptions - their reviews were criticizing the film for not being like the book.) What happens...is you find yourself invariably comparing the two versions in your head the whole time you are watching or reading, depending which you did first. Often reading the novel after watching the adaptation works better - because it will fill in the gaps, assuming of course the adaptation is close to the original version and doesn't take liberties with the stories and characters. No adaptation from one medium to another will be exact - that is impossible. I think the closest anyone has come to doing that is either The A&E presentation of Pride & Prejudice, Harry Potter and The Socerer's Stone or Lord of the Rings, and even those versions had to either condense or add explanations here and there. They were hardly exact.
John Le Carre stated in the DVD extras of the film adaptation of his novel The Constant Gardner - that he preferred adaptations that drifted away from his original work, he did not expect or desire an exact replication. He could do that himself. He wanted to see how someone else related to the work, how they read it and interacted with it, and more importantly how they interpreted it. This statement, which is by no means exact, haunted me. Because I think he is right, it is impossible to do an exact version - the best we can hope for is a faithful rendering or better yet interpretation.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is by no means a close adaptation of the novel upon which it is based. The basic mystery, plot, and lead characters are more or less the same. But a lot has been changed. There were two plot points that bugged me - and from my perspective drastically changed the two lead characters and their interaction. The first is why they meet or what causes them to meet, the second is how they part. Below, beneath the cut is all the ways the film version varied from the book:
1. Salander continues to watch Blomkvist's computer long after her assignment to investigate him is over. Risking exposure. She not only watches it, she sees all the work he is doing on the Harriet investigation and figures out one of the puzzles - the list of female names with numbers (which Blomkvist assumes are telephone numbers) - Salander realizes out of the blue they are from the Bible. And sends him an email - letting him know she hacked into his computer. He asks Dirch Frode and Frode tells him that a woman was hired to investigate him and most likely did it.
(This makes no sense and is typical movie crap - in real life? If Dirch, Vanger's lawyer figured out she was a hacker - he'd have turned her in. He's never told this in the book. The only one who figures it out is Blomkvist - which is a weird secret between them. Also, no hacker in their right mind would be stupid enough to send the person whose computer they hacked into an email telling them they did it. That could be tracked directly to them. Salander is paranoid and cautious - she doesn't take stupid risks like that. Also Salander makes it clear in the books that her personal code is not to stay hacked into the computer after her investigation is completed. She stopped. And did not do it again in the book until Blomkvist hired her - then she hacked into his computer and transferred his files. In the book she is hired by him, she doesn't randomly decide to help him or just jump at being his assistant when he shows up - she's more careful than that, he has to talk her into it. While I understand the need to condense all of this - I found the way they did it to be horribly cliche and unbelievable. Salander isn't stupid - they made her stupid and careless. I ranted at the screen for five minutes.)
2. Cecilia is entirely changed and her relationship with Blomkvist non-existent in the film. In the book, she is combative with him, tells him to stay away from the Harriet story and focus on the biography. She seduces him - in part because she is desperately lonely, and has also been abused terribly. Their romance in some respects is an echo of his later romance with Salander and ends similarily...Cecila breaks up with Blomkvist when she discovers his close relationship with Erika Berger and how that relationship will continue. She can't share him with Erika. In the film, none of this happens. She is barely there. And she is closer to Martin in the film.
I can see why they removed all of this from the film - it isn't all that important, except perhaps as foreshadowing for what later happens between Blomkvist and Salander, and is in a way a comment on Blomkvist's problems with relationships - he's a bit of a polygamous, or sleeps with whomever he grows close too, while the women he attracts, with the exception of Erika, can't handle it. His wife couldn't. Cecila can't. Salander can't. The implication in the book is that it's the woman's hang-ups, and it does read a little bit like a male fantasy piece since Blomkvist like the author is a magazine journalist. In the book - it provides a little bit more texture perhaps, but it also feels a tad self-indulgent. It didn't bother me as much as it clearly bothered several other people. In part, because I know and have known people who sleep around a lot. In part because, this is a popular trope in this specific genre and I've grown used to it. Heck, the last book I read made fun of it. There's a rather funny exchange between heroine and a villianess in one of Elizabeth Peter's novels...
Villianess: How did you know it was me?
Heroine: Well, John was only involved with two women and he told me that he never took Helena to his apartment. Actually he never took anyone...except...well the other woman -
Villainess: How do you know he is only involved with two women....he may have many women -
Heroine: Oh come on. There's only twenty-four hours in a day. And he's only been here two weeks. He may be the greatest lover since Casonova, but there's no way he could be sleeping with more than two women and do all the other stuff he had to do. It just isn't possible.
(John is the hero and male lead).
I've lost track of the number of books I've read where the writer, somewhat self-indulgently, allows their protagonist to basically sleep with every important or attractive character in the books, with the other characters wandering about drooling after them. It's rather funny sometimes. I found it hilarious in the Charlain Harris novels. While in the LK Hamilton books - it was just ridiculous. Clearly Steig Larrson read a lot of these books too. Heck Janet Evanovich's novels have the heroine ricocheting between two men for about ten books. And anyone else introduced?
Has the hots for her.
3. Blomkvist in the book - goes to prison for about two months prior to meeting Salander and prior to figuring out the Harriet mystery, while he is in prison - Salander is dealing with her legal guardian and investigating Wennerstorm - which is a continuation of an assignment she'd been taken off of, previously. A lot of business stuff falls under this section. In the film, they have Blomkvist serve the prison term after he resolves the mystery of Harriet - and it is during his prison term that Salander visits him and gives him all the stuff (that she discovered sometime between investigating him, and nosing her way into the mystery he was investigating) - which he reads in prison. Then to the utter shock and dismay of everyone at Millenium publishes an article from prison about Wennerstorm. (As an aside? Swedish prisons are tame. They look a bit like an assisted living center or half-way house in the US. Seriously - is this what a Swedish prison looks like? Granted I've never seen a white collar prison. But Leavenworth Penitentiary was nothing like that. That place was far more claustrophobic with bars and all sorts of security measures. In the book - the prison seemed a little more intense. I wasn't even sure he was in prison in the film - it took me a while to figure out where he'd gone and why.) Also in the book, he and Lisbeth go to his cabin, while he writes the article and book about Wennerstorm. This is when Lisbeth begins to fall in love with him. He's obsessed with Wennerstorm and still reeling from the whole Harriet thing. None of that happens in the movie. Nor is Erika involved in the movie. She barely has a role.
4. Millenium is almost non-existent in the film, but very important in the book. Martin is on Millenium's board and the Vanger family rescues Millenium (Blomkvist and Erika's magazine) financially. They promise to provide info on Wennerstorm, but this turns out to be a lie. This change actually works - because Larrson never quite went anywhere with it. Martin never truly uses it as a threat. I think it may be important in the latter books. Not sure. Harriet takes over the head role...which means she still factors in the books, to a degree.
5. The police in the film are called and informed about Martin. They aren't in the books. Both Vanger and Salander talk Blomkvist out of calling them or writing about it. An issue that Blomkvist struggles with morally. Salander literally threatens him - stating if he calls the cops, he'll never see her again. He doesn't do it for Harriet...because of what she suffered. Here, the police are peripherally involved. (This bothered me. It does not work. Although it is admittedly a cliche trope in this specific genre - in that unless the police are the main characters or detectives, they are ineffective and should never be trusted or called. But it makes no sense that Salander would permit it or Vanger. Also - it was a big deal to Blomkvist that they didn't. I don't understand why they changed this.)
6. Martin's death is different - Salander couldn't have saved him in the book. I'm guessing they changed it to provide a separate moral divider between Blomkvist and Salander than the one in the book - which is Blomkvist wanting to tell the story, and Salander not wanting him to. I preferred the book's moral divider - because it speaks to writer/journalist ethics and clearly was a moral issue close to the writer's heart - which the writer was struggling with. It may have been one of the reasons he wrote the books, and is certainly one of the major themes of Girl. Removing this theme - I think changes the story. There's three lengthy discussions on it - one between Blomkvist and Salander, one between Blomkvist and Harriet, and the last between Blomkvist and Vanger. It's also the reason he retreats to his cabin and can't face his co-editor and lover Erika. The moral dilemma - of having to tell the truth/the story vs. the exploitation of those who lived it.
Some of these changes made sense, some did not. And some changed the tone and flavor of the tale completely. I prefer the book to the film, because I think it's more interesting and has more to say, the film feels too much like other films I've seen in this particular trope. The best things are the performances. Noomi Rapace makes this film work. The direction and script however, could have been better. I'm admittedly curious what David Fincher will do with the material - will he make the same decisions? The film for example - left out everything about the business, the magazine, and did not go into too much depth on the incest. The incest and Martin's sexual issues come out a bit differently. Also there's less nudity and graphic violence in the film, not to mention sex. In the book - Blomkvist is nude and hanging from the rafter, while Martin kisses him and fondles him = when Salander pops in and smacks Martin upside the head with a golf club. She kicks and whacks for quite some time, before Blomkvist gets her attention and she frees him. I actually preferred the film version - because it makes more sense that Martin can flee if he hasn't been kicked and beaten half to death with a golf club first. But it is curious that they chose to change that, and I can't help but wonder if Fincher will too? It's possible that the American version will be quite different than the Swedish version - if Fincher ignores the Swedish films entirely and merely interprets the books. If so, we could end up with two totally different interpretations of the same book - which may or may not also depict cultural differences. That is interesting to me.
Overall? I preferred the book to the film. But, I think the film is good for what it is, ignoring the changes it made. And I really liked the two leads. While it took a while to wrap my mind around them - didn't quite picture Salander as being quite that tall. Or attractive. In my head she's smaller. I don't know if I'll rent Played with Fire any time soon. Or finish reading the book. Depends on my mood.
I have however decided that our impression of the original material that a series or film or comic is based on, may affect how we enjoy or react to the derivative work - the comic or film or tv series.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perhaps one of the best examples of this. It has been translated into four different mediums, three by the same writer. The first medium was film - starring Kristie Swanson, Rutger Hauer, Pee Wee Herman, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland. The film was written by Joss Whedon and directed by Fran Kuzuie. A novelization of the film version was written by another writer - if memory serves, it was actually better, but not by much. And it may well be the only novelization of Buffy that I'll say that about. Next, a television series was optioned by Fox, using the same character and general idea but differently. The tv series was by no means a direct translation of the film, it was a loosely based on the film. It had the same lead writer, and to a degree the same producers, title, and lead character - but everything else was different. After and during the tv series, came various novelizations based upon the series or of the series, by Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden. Comic book versions also popped up. As did X-box game versions, voiced by the actors. There was even an animated cartoon that was developed but never really seen. Two years after the tv series was ended, the original creator chose to translate it to yet another medium, comic books, except this time it would be a continuation that was closely adapted from the original source, not loosely based on it. (ie. canonical or as canonical as you can possibly get translating source material from one medium to another. It's impossible for it to be pure canon. Too many things lost in the translation.).
Did it work? Eh. It's hard to judge.
I admittedly made the same mistake with the Buffy S8 comics that I made with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I decided to re-watch the series half-way through reading the comics. Bad idea. (Although mileage clearly varies, didn't seem to affect other people all that much.) All it did was underline all the things that did not make it into the comic books and how different the two mediums truly were. It may have also clarified to me that what I found charming and entertaining about the tv series was not the writing, but how the actors chose to interpret the writing and inhabit their characters - something that did not translate to either novelizations or the comics. In other words - I discovered that I liked how Sarah Michelle Gellar and Nicholas Brendan said Whedon's dialogue better than I liked reading Whedon's dialogue.
The other problem with the translation, was actually similar to my difficulties with Girl with the Dragon, some of the themes that I liked in the first translation got lost or twisted in the second. In Girl - the whole moral dilemma of whether doing your duty as a journalist and reporting the "truth" as you see it is always the most moral and humane course of action - was completely lost in the translation. As a result - the film was little more than the victimized girl trope replayed yet again. It lost something in the translation. This also happened with the translation of the Buffy tv series to comic book form, although unlike Girl - it was not doing the same story, so much as a continuation of the existing story. In the series - the writer provides a strong feminist empowerment message - about sharing power, working together, choice, and not following traditional gender roles. The comics upset that message entirely, and sort of throw it out the proverbial window. Ending with a grim message that you are alone, you can't work together, power can't be shared effectively, and choice is limited to traditional gender roles. Granted not everyone interpreted it that way - but enough people did to cause the fandom associated with the tv series to well, split.
For Buffy - the translation from film to tv worked. The Film was about a cheerleader who killed vampires - no one took the film or the cheerleader seriously, it supported traditional themes and status quo. The tv series on the other hand was about a young girl, who had arrived at a new school with her single Mom, no friends, and a secret that scared her and separated her from everyone else. The TV series was about the horrors of high school and female empowerment. The film was about the dumb blond cheerleader who always gets killed in horror films being the hero. Part of that message translated, the part that didn't was the stereotype - the dumb blond cheerleader. People who refused to watch the tv series - were turned off by the movie - the dumb blond cheerleader who kills vampires. In short - with Buffy, you can see how the translation of a story from one medium to the next can help/strengthen or hinder/dilute/weaken it. Of course, being a subjective art form, people have varying opinions on all of this. Like it or not - which version works for us and how we interpret it, most likely is as much a reflection of our own baggage and insecurities as it is of the work's or the writer's. I'm not certain it is possible to be completely objective. I will state of the three translations of Buffy - plotwise and characterwise, from a purely objective angle, the tv series was the by far the best and garnered the most praise, and had the biggest audience. The other two versions generally speaking either prejudiced many fans against the writer and series, or alienated them.
Okay long enough and I need to fix dinner and watch Doctor Who. So make of that what you will. Unedited and very rough - so sorry for typos. And I tried three different versions of it off and on today. Couldn't quite figure out how to write it.
Been watching a lot of adaptations lately. All three of my favorite shows on HBO at the moment are adaptations from novels (I've only read two of the novel series in which they are based, and only remember one of them at all clearly). And last night I finally watched the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - after watching it, I came to the conclusion that it is not always a good idea to watch an adaptation of a novel immediately after finishing the novel. In some cases, it is probably a very bad idea. The novel version is still clear in your mind, and you find yourself comparing it to the film throughout. Although it could be worse, I could be reading the novel at the same time as I watched the adaptation which a couple people on my flist were doing with Game of Thrones, I'm guessing that didn't quite work out the way you thought it would, did it? And I'm guessing it probably didn't work quite the way they expected it would for the people who decided to re-read all the Harry Potter books prior to seeing the next flick. (With few exceptions - their reviews were criticizing the film for not being like the book.) What happens...is you find yourself invariably comparing the two versions in your head the whole time you are watching or reading, depending which you did first. Often reading the novel after watching the adaptation works better - because it will fill in the gaps, assuming of course the adaptation is close to the original version and doesn't take liberties with the stories and characters. No adaptation from one medium to another will be exact - that is impossible. I think the closest anyone has come to doing that is either The A&E presentation of Pride & Prejudice, Harry Potter and The Socerer's Stone or Lord of the Rings, and even those versions had to either condense or add explanations here and there. They were hardly exact.
John Le Carre stated in the DVD extras of the film adaptation of his novel The Constant Gardner - that he preferred adaptations that drifted away from his original work, he did not expect or desire an exact replication. He could do that himself. He wanted to see how someone else related to the work, how they read it and interacted with it, and more importantly how they interpreted it. This statement, which is by no means exact, haunted me. Because I think he is right, it is impossible to do an exact version - the best we can hope for is a faithful rendering or better yet interpretation.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is by no means a close adaptation of the novel upon which it is based. The basic mystery, plot, and lead characters are more or less the same. But a lot has been changed. There were two plot points that bugged me - and from my perspective drastically changed the two lead characters and their interaction. The first is why they meet or what causes them to meet, the second is how they part. Below, beneath the cut is all the ways the film version varied from the book:
1. Salander continues to watch Blomkvist's computer long after her assignment to investigate him is over. Risking exposure. She not only watches it, she sees all the work he is doing on the Harriet investigation and figures out one of the puzzles - the list of female names with numbers (which Blomkvist assumes are telephone numbers) - Salander realizes out of the blue they are from the Bible. And sends him an email - letting him know she hacked into his computer. He asks Dirch Frode and Frode tells him that a woman was hired to investigate him and most likely did it.
(This makes no sense and is typical movie crap - in real life? If Dirch, Vanger's lawyer figured out she was a hacker - he'd have turned her in. He's never told this in the book. The only one who figures it out is Blomkvist - which is a weird secret between them. Also, no hacker in their right mind would be stupid enough to send the person whose computer they hacked into an email telling them they did it. That could be tracked directly to them. Salander is paranoid and cautious - she doesn't take stupid risks like that. Also Salander makes it clear in the books that her personal code is not to stay hacked into the computer after her investigation is completed. She stopped. And did not do it again in the book until Blomkvist hired her - then she hacked into his computer and transferred his files. In the book she is hired by him, she doesn't randomly decide to help him or just jump at being his assistant when he shows up - she's more careful than that, he has to talk her into it. While I understand the need to condense all of this - I found the way they did it to be horribly cliche and unbelievable. Salander isn't stupid - they made her stupid and careless. I ranted at the screen for five minutes.)
2. Cecilia is entirely changed and her relationship with Blomkvist non-existent in the film. In the book, she is combative with him, tells him to stay away from the Harriet story and focus on the biography. She seduces him - in part because she is desperately lonely, and has also been abused terribly. Their romance in some respects is an echo of his later romance with Salander and ends similarily...Cecila breaks up with Blomkvist when she discovers his close relationship with Erika Berger and how that relationship will continue. She can't share him with Erika. In the film, none of this happens. She is barely there. And she is closer to Martin in the film.
I can see why they removed all of this from the film - it isn't all that important, except perhaps as foreshadowing for what later happens between Blomkvist and Salander, and is in a way a comment on Blomkvist's problems with relationships - he's a bit of a polygamous, or sleeps with whomever he grows close too, while the women he attracts, with the exception of Erika, can't handle it. His wife couldn't. Cecila can't. Salander can't. The implication in the book is that it's the woman's hang-ups, and it does read a little bit like a male fantasy piece since Blomkvist like the author is a magazine journalist. In the book - it provides a little bit more texture perhaps, but it also feels a tad self-indulgent. It didn't bother me as much as it clearly bothered several other people. In part, because I know and have known people who sleep around a lot. In part because, this is a popular trope in this specific genre and I've grown used to it. Heck, the last book I read made fun of it. There's a rather funny exchange between heroine and a villianess in one of Elizabeth Peter's novels...
Villianess: How did you know it was me?
Heroine: Well, John was only involved with two women and he told me that he never took Helena to his apartment. Actually he never took anyone...except...well the other woman -
Villainess: How do you know he is only involved with two women....he may have many women -
Heroine: Oh come on. There's only twenty-four hours in a day. And he's only been here two weeks. He may be the greatest lover since Casonova, but there's no way he could be sleeping with more than two women and do all the other stuff he had to do. It just isn't possible.
(John is the hero and male lead).
I've lost track of the number of books I've read where the writer, somewhat self-indulgently, allows their protagonist to basically sleep with every important or attractive character in the books, with the other characters wandering about drooling after them. It's rather funny sometimes. I found it hilarious in the Charlain Harris novels. While in the LK Hamilton books - it was just ridiculous. Clearly Steig Larrson read a lot of these books too. Heck Janet Evanovich's novels have the heroine ricocheting between two men for about ten books. And anyone else introduced?
Has the hots for her.
3. Blomkvist in the book - goes to prison for about two months prior to meeting Salander and prior to figuring out the Harriet mystery, while he is in prison - Salander is dealing with her legal guardian and investigating Wennerstorm - which is a continuation of an assignment she'd been taken off of, previously. A lot of business stuff falls under this section. In the film, they have Blomkvist serve the prison term after he resolves the mystery of Harriet - and it is during his prison term that Salander visits him and gives him all the stuff (that she discovered sometime between investigating him, and nosing her way into the mystery he was investigating) - which he reads in prison. Then to the utter shock and dismay of everyone at Millenium publishes an article from prison about Wennerstorm. (As an aside? Swedish prisons are tame. They look a bit like an assisted living center or half-way house in the US. Seriously - is this what a Swedish prison looks like? Granted I've never seen a white collar prison. But Leavenworth Penitentiary was nothing like that. That place was far more claustrophobic with bars and all sorts of security measures. In the book - the prison seemed a little more intense. I wasn't even sure he was in prison in the film - it took me a while to figure out where he'd gone and why.) Also in the book, he and Lisbeth go to his cabin, while he writes the article and book about Wennerstorm. This is when Lisbeth begins to fall in love with him. He's obsessed with Wennerstorm and still reeling from the whole Harriet thing. None of that happens in the movie. Nor is Erika involved in the movie. She barely has a role.
4. Millenium is almost non-existent in the film, but very important in the book. Martin is on Millenium's board and the Vanger family rescues Millenium (Blomkvist and Erika's magazine) financially. They promise to provide info on Wennerstorm, but this turns out to be a lie. This change actually works - because Larrson never quite went anywhere with it. Martin never truly uses it as a threat. I think it may be important in the latter books. Not sure. Harriet takes over the head role...which means she still factors in the books, to a degree.
5. The police in the film are called and informed about Martin. They aren't in the books. Both Vanger and Salander talk Blomkvist out of calling them or writing about it. An issue that Blomkvist struggles with morally. Salander literally threatens him - stating if he calls the cops, he'll never see her again. He doesn't do it for Harriet...because of what she suffered. Here, the police are peripherally involved. (This bothered me. It does not work. Although it is admittedly a cliche trope in this specific genre - in that unless the police are the main characters or detectives, they are ineffective and should never be trusted or called. But it makes no sense that Salander would permit it or Vanger. Also - it was a big deal to Blomkvist that they didn't. I don't understand why they changed this.)
6. Martin's death is different - Salander couldn't have saved him in the book. I'm guessing they changed it to provide a separate moral divider between Blomkvist and Salander than the one in the book - which is Blomkvist wanting to tell the story, and Salander not wanting him to. I preferred the book's moral divider - because it speaks to writer/journalist ethics and clearly was a moral issue close to the writer's heart - which the writer was struggling with. It may have been one of the reasons he wrote the books, and is certainly one of the major themes of Girl. Removing this theme - I think changes the story. There's three lengthy discussions on it - one between Blomkvist and Salander, one between Blomkvist and Harriet, and the last between Blomkvist and Vanger. It's also the reason he retreats to his cabin and can't face his co-editor and lover Erika. The moral dilemma - of having to tell the truth/the story vs. the exploitation of those who lived it.
Some of these changes made sense, some did not. And some changed the tone and flavor of the tale completely. I prefer the book to the film, because I think it's more interesting and has more to say, the film feels too much like other films I've seen in this particular trope. The best things are the performances. Noomi Rapace makes this film work. The direction and script however, could have been better. I'm admittedly curious what David Fincher will do with the material - will he make the same decisions? The film for example - left out everything about the business, the magazine, and did not go into too much depth on the incest. The incest and Martin's sexual issues come out a bit differently. Also there's less nudity and graphic violence in the film, not to mention sex. In the book - Blomkvist is nude and hanging from the rafter, while Martin kisses him and fondles him = when Salander pops in and smacks Martin upside the head with a golf club. She kicks and whacks for quite some time, before Blomkvist gets her attention and she frees him. I actually preferred the film version - because it makes more sense that Martin can flee if he hasn't been kicked and beaten half to death with a golf club first. But it is curious that they chose to change that, and I can't help but wonder if Fincher will too? It's possible that the American version will be quite different than the Swedish version - if Fincher ignores the Swedish films entirely and merely interprets the books. If so, we could end up with two totally different interpretations of the same book - which may or may not also depict cultural differences. That is interesting to me.
Overall? I preferred the book to the film. But, I think the film is good for what it is, ignoring the changes it made. And I really liked the two leads. While it took a while to wrap my mind around them - didn't quite picture Salander as being quite that tall. Or attractive. In my head she's smaller. I don't know if I'll rent Played with Fire any time soon. Or finish reading the book. Depends on my mood.
I have however decided that our impression of the original material that a series or film or comic is based on, may affect how we enjoy or react to the derivative work - the comic or film or tv series.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perhaps one of the best examples of this. It has been translated into four different mediums, three by the same writer. The first medium was film - starring Kristie Swanson, Rutger Hauer, Pee Wee Herman, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland. The film was written by Joss Whedon and directed by Fran Kuzuie. A novelization of the film version was written by another writer - if memory serves, it was actually better, but not by much. And it may well be the only novelization of Buffy that I'll say that about. Next, a television series was optioned by Fox, using the same character and general idea but differently. The tv series was by no means a direct translation of the film, it was a loosely based on the film. It had the same lead writer, and to a degree the same producers, title, and lead character - but everything else was different. After and during the tv series, came various novelizations based upon the series or of the series, by Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden. Comic book versions also popped up. As did X-box game versions, voiced by the actors. There was even an animated cartoon that was developed but never really seen. Two years after the tv series was ended, the original creator chose to translate it to yet another medium, comic books, except this time it would be a continuation that was closely adapted from the original source, not loosely based on it. (ie. canonical or as canonical as you can possibly get translating source material from one medium to another. It's impossible for it to be pure canon. Too many things lost in the translation.).
Did it work? Eh. It's hard to judge.
I admittedly made the same mistake with the Buffy S8 comics that I made with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I decided to re-watch the series half-way through reading the comics. Bad idea. (Although mileage clearly varies, didn't seem to affect other people all that much.) All it did was underline all the things that did not make it into the comic books and how different the two mediums truly were. It may have also clarified to me that what I found charming and entertaining about the tv series was not the writing, but how the actors chose to interpret the writing and inhabit their characters - something that did not translate to either novelizations or the comics. In other words - I discovered that I liked how Sarah Michelle Gellar and Nicholas Brendan said Whedon's dialogue better than I liked reading Whedon's dialogue.
The other problem with the translation, was actually similar to my difficulties with Girl with the Dragon, some of the themes that I liked in the first translation got lost or twisted in the second. In Girl - the whole moral dilemma of whether doing your duty as a journalist and reporting the "truth" as you see it is always the most moral and humane course of action - was completely lost in the translation. As a result - the film was little more than the victimized girl trope replayed yet again. It lost something in the translation. This also happened with the translation of the Buffy tv series to comic book form, although unlike Girl - it was not doing the same story, so much as a continuation of the existing story. In the series - the writer provides a strong feminist empowerment message - about sharing power, working together, choice, and not following traditional gender roles. The comics upset that message entirely, and sort of throw it out the proverbial window. Ending with a grim message that you are alone, you can't work together, power can't be shared effectively, and choice is limited to traditional gender roles. Granted not everyone interpreted it that way - but enough people did to cause the fandom associated with the tv series to well, split.
For Buffy - the translation from film to tv worked. The Film was about a cheerleader who killed vampires - no one took the film or the cheerleader seriously, it supported traditional themes and status quo. The tv series on the other hand was about a young girl, who had arrived at a new school with her single Mom, no friends, and a secret that scared her and separated her from everyone else. The TV series was about the horrors of high school and female empowerment. The film was about the dumb blond cheerleader who always gets killed in horror films being the hero. Part of that message translated, the part that didn't was the stereotype - the dumb blond cheerleader. People who refused to watch the tv series - were turned off by the movie - the dumb blond cheerleader who kills vampires. In short - with Buffy, you can see how the translation of a story from one medium to the next can help/strengthen or hinder/dilute/weaken it. Of course, being a subjective art form, people have varying opinions on all of this. Like it or not - which version works for us and how we interpret it, most likely is as much a reflection of our own baggage and insecurities as it is of the work's or the writer's. I'm not certain it is possible to be completely objective. I will state of the three translations of Buffy - plotwise and characterwise, from a purely objective angle, the tv series was the by far the best and garnered the most praise, and had the biggest audience. The other two versions generally speaking either prejudiced many fans against the writer and series, or alienated them.
Okay long enough and I need to fix dinner and watch Doctor Who. So make of that what you will. Unedited and very rough - so sorry for typos. And I tried three different versions of it off and on today. Couldn't quite figure out how to write it.