Being original? You do realize that the Swedish movie is 100% unoriginal, being adapted from a book, right?
If you check out Little Nemo’s link, apparently they do. Thanks for that, Little Nemo, btw.
Making a film into book requires some creativity. Maybe even adapting the book again into an American setting. This does not suggest creativity. It suggests a desire for money. It is very tedious.
Yes, but I find that worse. They could have made it much more interesting by having a fairly loose adaptation of the novel that was set in an American location. But as it is it’s like the BBC’s Wallander. English (or American) people walking around in modern–day Sweden pretending to be Swedish. It requires way too much suspension of disbelief for me.
So for you can there be no movies that take place in different countries that are in English? That’s kind of sad. As for me, I know that the characters aren’t actually speaking English in say…HBO’s Rome or Dangerous Liaisons. But I just figure there’s some master babelfish letting us hear what they are saying in English. Just as long as they don’t speak in the accent of the language they’re supposed to be (i.e., speaking in French accents in Dangerous Liaisons would be a little weird to me).
Not to disagree with anything said so far in this thread, but…I had no idea that Steig Larsson died before his trilogy became an international phenomenon. His Wikipedia article says that before he died he wasn’t even known as an author, more as a crusading journalist. Apparently there were some issues with his will; he’d written a will giving all of his estate to the anti-racist organization he worked for, but his family contested the will and had it overturned because it hadn’t been properly witnessed.
Just a thought, but I wonder if the family was shopping English-language rights to the film in a hurry because they’re concerned about another potential court battle over Larsson’s estate.
His romantic partner of many years, who legally wasn’t married to him because of the security risk (because of all the controversial journalism he was doing, he didn’t want people to know who she was and come after her), also claims that that’s what he really wants. But legally I don’t think she has any standing.
A viewpoint that many dopers seem not to agree with. But probably true in the larger population.
You seem to be making the argument that the American version is unoriginal and greedy. I maintain that it is no more unoriginal or greedy than the Swedish films. They are both exactly as unoriginal and greedy as each other.
Dubbing is an abomination. I’m not a big fan of subtitles, but they’re infintely preferable to dubbing. I want to hear the actors’ actual speech regardless of language. But the subtitle/dubbing debate isn’t relevant to the point you tried to make. A whole new movie that’s filmed from the start in the native language is far preferable to subtitles.
I would love to have Noomi Rapace reprise the role of Lisbeth Salander, but she has said she doesn’t want to do it.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/14/entertainment/la-et-noomi-20100714/3
Daniel Craig should be fine as Mikael Blomkvist, but who cares. Rapace was the star of the movie.
Also for his own privacy and protection. In Sweden, whenever you get married you have to declare and make public record your home address. He received a lot of threats and they did not want to let people know where they lived. Some have even suggested that his death was not a random heart attack, but actually someone making good on their threats.
I was surprised to find out that writing these novels was just a hobby for Larrson and they weren’t even found out about until after he’d died. I don’t think he’d even tried selling them yet. Knowing that, I can forgive a lot of what I considered poor writing choices that he made in the book as he didn’t have an editor guiding him through rewrites.
I just finished TGWTDT novel yesterday and I’m looking forward to seeing the original film (it’s available for streaming on Netflix). I read that they streamlined the story quite a bit for the adaptation, so it’ll be interesting to see what got cut out and changed.
David Fincher, who is directing the big budget adapation, has said that he plans to stick pretty closely to the books.
Rooney Mara has been confirmed for the role.
Why yes, yes they do
James Cameron remade the French action-comedy film La Totale! (released in 1991) as True Lies in 1994. Not only does the latter film feature known stars that are a larger audience draw and top shelf special and visual effects (including ground-breaking CGI that is still virtually indistinguishable from real effects and background), it is from both an artistic and entertainment standpoint a vastly superior film. Sometimes remakes or re-adaptations are superior to the origin material.
Stranger
And when the Esperanto film La Seetisen Cain was remade by Orson Welles, some people thought he should have just added subtitles to the original.
But most critics preferred his version. He trimmed almost all the musical numbers, avoided the over-saturated Panavision look, and cut the infamous “Bloodbath at the Chicago Inquirer” scene completely.
(Welles later added a “Jedidiah shot first” scene, but that is ignored as non-canonical by film researchers… as are all the changes he made to the film during his “cheap white wine” period).
The advantage with foreign films is that they don’t have the budget to do big Hollywood special effects, so it’s all people in modern day settings, doing things that are within feasible human capability, and nary an explosion in sight. As such, compared to most Hollywood films, turning out a remake of a foreign film is cheap. You just grab a camera, point it at some actors, and two weeks later you’re making money.
For the expense and amount of effort it takes, it’s really not all that bad to do a remake.
I happen to think she’s an excellent choice for the role, and wish her well, but you’d think that being Princess of the National Football League would be enough for anyone.
Anything with a Mara sister in it is aces in my book. (Rooney’s sister Kate.)
For those who don’t know, Rooney and Kate come from NFL royalty. Their paternal grandfather was Wellington Mara, owner of the New York Giants, and their maternal grandfather was Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Both the Giants and the Steelers are near the top of the league in richness of tradition and respect as a franchise, not the least of which is because both have been owned by the same familes (Maras and Rooneys) forever.
Being a Giants fan, I am hopelessly in love with the Mara sisters, particularly Kate since she used to sing the National Anthem before some Giants (and Steelers) games when she was younger.
Hoo, boy. I just watched GWTDT tonight, thought it was pretty okay.
I work at a Blockbuster in a…financially disadvantaged part of town. And I cannot stress enough how much some people don’t want to watch subbed movies. We do our best to ‘warn’ people if a movie they’re getting is foreign, but sometimes we just don’t even notice what people are renting. Scan, ask if they want whatever deal corporate is having us shill this week, take payment, next in line.
So sometime someone slips out with something like GWTDT, and a fair fraction of those people come back, some of them mighty pissed off. Standing there off to the side, blocking the door and stewing as we take care of the line they’re too important to join, eventually flinging the movie onto the counter so it slides off onto the floor at our feet. “That movie’s not in english. I’m getting another one. Why the hell you you have furrin’ movies for anyway? That’s bullshit, I want a credit.”
God forbid anyone actually take a look at the back of a movie they’re about to pay money for.
Watch a trailer for a subtitled movie and the only way you will know is that it doesn’t show any dialogue. It’s like they have to trick people into seeing it.
I was cornfused about this, read the review of the movie, noted the photo of the GWTDT wearing a Dainese leather jacket (same one hanging in my closet!). Then a casting announcement for TGWTDT, what again, whosit, whassit?
GO for it Hollywood, you’ll never get more than $20 a year on movie tickets from me anyway.
As for subtitles, my TV is often on low/mute, subtitles on, late night tcm tv habit. I don’t like to miss any lingo…