Isn’t That What I Said All Along?

UPDATE: Conroversial Ending Exposed!

First Off: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a mini series on Swedish Television! How culturally advanced are the Swedes to make the trilogy a television mini-series? How Bad Ass was Noomi Rapace to have received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 2010?! 

2nd: Yes I actually saw TGWTDT 2011, I've also seen all 3 movies in the original Trilogy.This version was dark and not in the metaphorical sense. Americans love dark rooms, dim lighting, night. This movie was dark in many scenes.


Rooney Mara, left, and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.
(Credit: Columbia TriStar Marketing Group/Nordisk Film)

I knew that David Fincher wouldn't be able to replicate the magic.





Fincher also should have realized that merely choosing someone with a name almost as unique as Rapace's would only confuse a small portion of the movie going audience. No one is going to confuse the name Roony Mara with Noomi Rapace.


Hey ladies and others! It’s not that I don’t like American Movies, I really liked Young Adult [Of course it starred Charlize Theron]. However, I believe that Hollywood should employ a: “Hands Off” policy on remaking foreign films that are less than 5 years old.

 
I “say” this so that Hollywood will avoid the inevitable comparisons. Such is the case concerning Roony Mara’s performance in David Fincher’s The Girl With he Dragon Tattoo.



Seriously the movie industry needs to allow enough time between the original version and the remake to occur so that fans of the original aren’t insulted or otherwise offended by the American “We Do It Better” remake,  because inevitably the Americans never seem to do it “Better”.
Viewers have already commented that:

1. Mara's Lisbeth's look and style were more edgy punk/hipster, whereas Noomi's Lisbeth's look and style projected absolutely no conformity [And that’s what the author Steig Larsson intended. It really embodied a f**k-you outsider feel]. 

Granted, I could simply be misunderstanding Swedish fashion and culture. But I know American fashion and culture at least and I just kept thinking "Oakland hipster" all throughout. Don't get me wrong, I like the Hipster look, big time.  I often replicate the look myself [without the trim of course]. Being older than Mara though my hipster look doesn't scream "Forever 21."

2. One particular scene in the American version undid a good part of the badass nature of Kisbeth Salander, to much disappointment. It occurs at the end of the movie. We see Lisbeth, having conducted all of her business sitting at her desk making out a card or a gift. Then we see Lisbeth riding her motorcycle
apparently she arrives at Mikael's residence. She gets off of her motorcycle and takes off her helmet. It is then we hear laughter: Mikael and a woman are leaving his apparment. Lisbeth stands in the darkness watching them as they walk away.

After they are gone Lisbeth throws the card or gift onto the dirt.  

WHAT?! This is Such BULLSHIT if I came face to face with Fincher, I would Punch him in the nose.


Lisbeth Salander slept with men but didn't have feelings for men, at least not like she had for her Girl Friend/Lover [Sophia?] whose rape she avenges in the 2nd part of the triology.


So why did Fincher feel compelled to insert an allusion that Lisbeth had feelings  for Mikael? When did those feelings develop? How did they develop?  In a good film there is always a back story that gives some explanation as to why something has occurred. I mean this was just total bullshit that Fincher pulled out of his ass and slapped onto the movie's ending, as if intelligent and true fans of the movie trilogy will say: "Of course she loves him, I saw that coming a mile away."

That's right ladies the: Insecure Penis Strikes Again. It's almost as if American males can't survive a movie where the protagonist really doesn't need the male counterpart. So in a frantic move Fincher sets forth to disappoint [But isn't the act of "disappointing" just like a male?}. 


I haven't read the books so I don't know how true to the character it is, but I never saw that in the Swedish films.  I saw resentment of betrayal but that's different and in the original version there was nothing indicating Lisbeth preference leaning towards heterosexuality.  

No this was only done to satisfy the ignorant and sexually insecure American male. Even in the sodomy scene Fincher fails to match ther interaction that Noomi Rapace had with her assailant.  Remember in the original movie Lisbeth was sucker-punched in the face with such force that it took your breath away..when she awakened from being knocked out she discovered that she was handcuffed to the bed, that scene was so hard to watch I shut the movie off {I had purchased the DVD's] and the horrifying assualt happened in a brightly lit room [daytime], which made it even more terrifying because NOTHING was hidden by darkness.

As a result of her treatment by male, we saw where Lisbeth's indifference towards them stemmed from.

In contrast to the original version  Fincher heterosexualizes Salander by making her androgyny less significant and her heteosexualilty/femininity more apparent by having her adhere to heterosexual norms [Jealousy that Mikael is with another woman].
Yet where did this emotion stem from? Mikael certainly had not established any sort of relationship with Lisbeth other than work and suggesting that they shouldn't sleep together [before they sleep together].


Yet in order to pander to insecure heterosexual males [Of which I suspect David Fincher is one] he plows ahead and gives the viewer something incongruent to ponder.

Are you f*cking kidding me. director Fincher? Where are YOUR testicles that you buckle at the thought of an independent woman?
 
3. The casting: As Mikael Daniel Craig was terribly, terribly miscast. Craig plays the whole movie more Bond than Blomkvist. While Roony Mara, while is just fine in other things, she seemed far to soft to play such a larger than life character. In fact there are those who contend that Noomi Rapace looked “Too Old” to have played Lisbeth Salander, I disagree as Rapace was only 5 years older than Mara when she filmed TGWTDT.  Five years certainly does NOT make one too old, are you serious? Is the movie goer 13 years old?
 
I also contend that Rapace was MORE convincing as a hacker who looked like a 14 year old boy because Rapace literally changed her appearance by losing weight to develop a more angular physique as a teenage male.
 
[Here’s the thing: A lot of American movie goers who commented online are teenagers and while I do not dislike teenagers, I loathe that they test their burgeoning wings of adulthood by proclaiming their preferences as if they are always correct, as if 29 versus 24 is old, as if they don’t plan on reaching the age of 25. Heaven help them is they make it to 30 or beyond.]
 
“In fact, I would have had an easier time believing her more famous sister Kate Mara [?] (Google her)."

How famous is Kate if you have to Google her in the first place to find out who she is? Hell I’M on Google! 
 
“Mara lacks the edginess of Rapace and likeability. Even in the rape scenes, which were horrible obviously [because it were rape] lacked the impact of the Swedish version and I think it was mostly because:

1. the guardian “character” in the American version (besides his actions) was less Odious [Sic] than the original Guardian who you hated even before he did anything, because his demeanor indicated his intentions. The Gaurdian in the 2011 remake reminded me of a character from the movie: Deliverance, the one who "Squealed Like A Pig."

2. Mara's character comes across as just “mean and snotty,” or overly feminized[Sic] I felt outraged over her treatment without a doubt but once the scene is over, it didn't make me want to root for her and I think that was the magic of Rapace’s acting. [Sic]” Editor's note: I concur.
 
I’m a not trying to intentionally bash Mara, really I’m not, I am just giving my and a few other’s opinion.  I mean isn’t that what the majority of Americans do when they offend the sensibilities of their peers? Well I’m American so there you go.
 
As you can see here Rapace [Left] exudes a boyish “tough-guy” persona even when not in the guise of Lisbeth Salander. On the contrary Mara’s “girlishness” never quite goes away.
 

image

Noomi Rapace currently appears in the Latest Sherlock Holmes movie: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Finally one must understand that while Critics are raving that Mara’s performance as Lisbeth is a revelation, that they are part and parcel of the entertainment industry as a whole and can be biased. Think of it in the Context of former After Ellen Editor in Chief Sarah Warn constantly sucking up to and kissing Ilene Chaiken's arse in order to have access to the stars of the L Word.