5 Things We Learned From the "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" Trailer

The trailer for the American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was recently released and for the most part, it looks like it will be a solid film (I am ignoring the terrible tagline “The feel bad movie of Christmas”).

Here it is in case you missed it.

Hmm, so what do we think? Here are my first observations.

1) I'd read that Daniel Craig was not going to take the part because it interfered with the next James Bond movie. It appears the compromise was that they would just turn this movie into James Bond, only with more rape scenes, less hot blonde sidekicks, and no tropical locales where Craig could wear tight blue swim trunks.

Can't be filmed in Swedish waters due to "shrinkage"

2) Rooney Mara emotes more in this trailer than Kristin Stewart did in all of the Twilight movies combined. I’m glad they dodged that bullet. Of course, they did manage to include a scene where Mara was making out with another girl. I think this is known as “Black Swan” marketing.

One of these is an immature, unemotional, and unpleasant character.
The other is Salandar from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

3) One of the major criticisms of the book is that iit was unrealistic that the main character — the middle-aged, not particularly in-shape Mikael Blomkvist — managed to get all the women in the book to sleep with him. Apparently that problem was easily solved by casting Craig as Blomkvist. After all, Craig could get pretty much anyone to sleep with him.

4) Another criticism of the book was that while positioning itself as being pro-feminist and empowering of women, it actually subjected the female character of Salander to much exploitative sexual violence and sensationalism. While the trailer seems to have avoided doing that, the latest poster features a bare-breasted Rooney sporting pierced nipples. This is commonly known as "Wardrobe Malfunction" marketing.

One of these is a sensationalistic attempt to draw attention using salacious methods.
Actually, they both are.

5) I wonder how the Swedish Tourism Board feels about this movie? Director David Fincher really went for that “empty, desolate and cold” vibe. Instead of saying “Come here with the kids for your next family vacation!” it’s more along the lines of “Don’t come anywhere near us if you’re feeling suicidal because our climate will certainly push you over the edge.”

Dr. Jack Kevorkian came here to vacation

As a fan of the book … and of Daniel Craig’s body, I’ll probably go see this movie when it comes out. Hopefully, they will manage to keep the smart, intriguing mystery of the novel and not go too off the rails trying to turn it into an overt, mindless action film.

That is what Transformers 3 is for.