Having read all three Millenium  books and having watched the original Swedish films (well, the first one and part of teh second one) and the new american version, its high time I addressed this book.

First, the name change (from the man(men?) who hate women) is a diservice to the films. The book title is catchy but essentially meaningless, as a more accurate 'tattoo' description would be the girl with the WASP tattoo (as it is referenced and detailed far more than the eponymous dragon tattoo).

Let me get this out of the way: The american version is, essentially, pointless. While not exactly a shot for shot remake, it fails to add anything but British accents and familiar faces to the original. Rooney Mara's take on Salander is acceptable (and a bit more technical in depiction perhaps), but Noomi Rapace fucking nailed it by any standard. I've been underwhelmed by her appearance in Sherlock Holmes, but her Salandar is a fucking gold star standard that Mara doesn't quiet seem to reach.    Of course, it is reasonable to suggest that Rapace's Salandar is just a bit more... stylized?... while Mara's seemes a bit more grounded. That, however, is neither here nor there.

Regarding the Books:  Leaving aside the technical wordsmithing (due to translations I couldn't accurately judge Stieg Larsson's sentances, obviously), the books are somewhat turgid.  Larson plows through a glacial plot with a workmanlike determination and a journalists obsession with lurid but extranious details.  Its a serviceable murder mystery that isn't, but honestly not all that much to write home about.  

I do find myself vaguely amused by the lack of self reflection, however.

Ultimately, however: Mikel Blomqvist is a rat-fuck bastard, and since he is the thinnest of covers for Larson himself, that means that Larson is, or at least would like to be, a rat-fuck bastard.

What do I mean?

Leaving aside the fact that he sleeps with pretty much every female character in the books that is given a name... which is just wish fulfilment rather than active rat-fuckery...

Mikel runs an investigative expose magazine (er... well, he publishes the misdeeds of the rich and powerful, m'kay?) with his long term business partner... ah... something or other.  As I recall they met in college.  Its a woman.

Which means, of course, that Mikel sleeps with her.  With me so far?

Okay, so: Mikel has been married but is currently divorced. Mostly because he kept sticking it to his business partner's lady bits.  Philandering isn't exactly a good character trait, but we're still building to the rat-fuckery.  Blaming his ex-wife (who, as I recall, is a vague and nebulous detail) for not being able to handle their relationship is just another step.

More richly, however, his partner is also married. As in currently. Not that it stops Mikel from a: Sleeping with her whenever he wants or (and this is the richest example of exquisite rat-fuckery here...) b: Expecting her to call her husband, explain that she's not coming home for a few days so she can comfort him, sexually, while he bitches about some misfortune in his life.

A Good Husband, apparently, respects his wife's lover as having priority in the relationship.

Now: Gender politics may be used to attempt to defend this point of view (a man doesn't own his wife, yadda yadda), but Mikel expects (correctly) his partner to violate her contractual obligation (fidelity in marriage is a two way contract, ultimately) to her husband, and, essentially it is incredibly disrespectful to.. um... gregor? (who is not a vague and shadowy bit. He's a two dimensional doormat defined by his most awesome character trait of 'understanding' that another man gets dibs on his wife's pussy).

To sum up: Mikel, the ostensible main character and stand in for the author, is a Rat-fucker because, ultimately, female characters exist more or less to wet his willy and do various other things on his behalf because he is just that awesome.  Spitting in their husbands face about it and expecting them to like it is part and parcel of his fucked up behavior.

As a note: Larson did not marry his long time companion and left no will, effectively cutting her off financially when he died.  

For all that, Blomqvist doesn't actually accomplish much in the book or the movies.  He has two 'mysteries' if you will: Find who murdered anna(?) vanger forty years earlier (no one...), and how did evil corporate greedmonger Hans Wennerstrom beat him in court over the expose on Wennerstrom's evilness (which, I should point out, is never actually in doubt.  Every corporate capitalist (and nearly every governmental official) is explicitly evil. Most of them are nazis. A balanced, nuanced book this is not. I should point out that the actual villian of this book/mystery is both a vicious serial killer AND the CEO of Vanger corp. And the son of a Nazi...)

Salandar 'breaks the case'. Salandar beats the nazi serial killer (with a golf club, literally, when she rescues poor hapless Blomqvist, whom she recently had sex with... and is the first person she has ever fallen in love with...). Blomqvist does manage to run down some leads for Salandar.

And, because she can, Salandar also hands him his proof of Wennerstrom's evil to redeem his name, and later gets genuine revenge against Wennerstrom, which Blomqvist cannot.

I should point out that there are three types of men in Larson's world.

Himself/Blomqvist, who loves women (literally), and is some sort of sex god in the sack.

Gay/Good men, who either act like women or understand that women totally should fuck Blomqvist. This includes old paternal men who are not sexually threatening Blomqvist.

Wretched evil misogynists, the titular 'men who hate women' from the original title of the book, which pretty much cover every other man in the books.


As a side note: In the second book pretty much the only thing Blomqvist does (aside from have sex) is to, at the very end of the book, manage to get the horribly wounded Salandar to the hospital alive. He also manages to capture The Dragon (TV Tropes) but he fucks it up and gets nameless cops killed, letting The Dragon escape.  

In the Third book he pretty much... has sex. And writes about how awesome Salandar handled her legal case. But at least he has sex, right?  The shift to all Salandar all the time in books two and three works better, go figure.

I won't go into the problems with diagnosing Salandar's fucked up psyche. People love the character, and given what she's standing next to (a rat-fucker sex machine), I can see why.  


Now: Aside from the pointlessness of Blomqvist's existance (Gary Stu/Mary Sue... whatevah), and what it says about Larson (um... glad yer dead because yer a twat-waffle?), I find it somewhat interesting how closely the movies follow the book.

In the original swedish film this actually makes sense. The vast bulk of the book is filled with descriptions, with surprisingly sparse dialog and action, so turning it into a movie directly is not terribly hard.  There are a few set pieces that make excellent, if uncomfortable, theater.

What amazes me, however, is the American version of the film. There are only about... three?... years seperating them, and a few million dollars in actor's fees and inauthentically capturing the swedishness of the setting.  Or, maybe, capturing the authenticness by putting a bunch of non-swedes in sweden to film locally at great expense.

See: if anything, a rapid turn over with american and british actors (Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, etc...), in the queens english (and David Lynch directing as I recall!) pretty much calls for an actual reinterpretation rather than a direct remake.  

For example: THe difference between Let the Right One In and Let Me In (a similarly swedish film and it's american remake) was more than just language. The American one moved to...well... America, making a number of small adjustments to draw a familiar landscape for people.  It removed the weird catastrati angle of the original as well, a bit of simplification that may have robbed the film of some subtle puns (a vampire girl saying she's not a girl vs a vampire catastrati in a dress saying he's not a girl...), but may have improved the movie... or at least made it more palatable to the common denominator (and as movies are a business, I have to approve in general terms when its as smoothly done as this).

Something similar could have been done with Dragon Tattoo.  Since everyone is speaking English, put it in America, drop the side show nazi fetish (or not) and make Blomqvist a bit more human and a bit less 'walking sex god'.

The key ingredients are a 40 year old 'locked room murder mystery' involving incestuous serial killers, a deeply fucked up hacker-grrl with eidetic memory and a knack for numbers, and the disgraced journalist to bring them together...

I'm not sure how many people would be upset if you cut out the rape scenes if you can't find a good analog to the swedish legallism of making full grown adults legally children simply because they've been instituitionalized once. Larson seems to treat this as a vast system of legal wards with appointed guardians (with WAY too much power over their charges...).  I'm not sure America really has any such formal, powerful, system that is subject to such abuse (specifically: Salandar has a job and her own apartment, but her new guardian can essentially take her paycheck from her and dole out an allowance, just because? I'm pretty sure if the state declares you incompetent enough to require a legal guardian, you don't get an apartment of your own, and if you had a job the state couldn't actually force you to hand over your check like that. Pretty sure.)

Note that I'm not clamouring for it to be Americanized just for the hell of it. I Am however saying that if you're remaking a perfectly good foriegn film just to cast english speaking celebrity actors, you might as well adapt the whole fucking thing to justify it.

I can recommend the books as a drinking game, if you read fast enough. I could put one away in about four hours, which would mean that if I took a drink every time Blomqvist wet his willy I'd maintain a pretty good buzz.