KCxTPB: The Millennium Trilogy

We're so my kind of a question for you, because we're gonna be talking about books that have the something, who did the what or had the what? So I want to say, if you could give yourself a girl with a dragon tattoo esque title, would your title be for yourself? Or would it be easier if I gave you one and you gave me one? The boy who edited podcasts. That's a good one.

Thanks, that is a good one. Very just a matter of fact, we would you be, Chris? I think the boy who runs his mouth too much? Oh my god. Definitely not the girl with the dragon tattoo, or the girl who kicked the hornets nest or the girl who played with fire or any of the titles.

None of those titles apply to me, but they all seemingly apply to the character that we're gonna be talking about through both Swedish and American film, slash TV series, slash TV mini series, slash sequels, slash reboots, whatever the hell they are. There's a lot of stuff going on here, folks. On this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Chris dash you much to the chagrin of many, and I'm joined by my good friend the man who edits podcast, the boy who edits podcast. He's the host of the Projection Booth podcast. Mister Mike White, Hi, Chris, thank you so much for having me always, especially to talk about something where I was like, Hey, Mike, you want to do this and You're like yeah, which means there must be some something here that resonates with the two of us.

But on this bonus episode of the Culture Cast, Slash Projection. But I think it's a crossover because we haven't done with these in a while. We're gonna be talking about the collected the collected film and TV adaptations of Stieg Larson's The Girl with the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. I guess that's what it's called, the Millennium series, the Millennium series, right, and also not the Millennium series, because one of these movies has nothing to do with Oh my God. But yeah, we're gonna be talking about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Girl Who Played with Fire, the Girl with the Hornet's Nest, and then we'll touch on the American remakes slash reboots as well.

So without further ado, let's kick it off with the Girl with the Dragon tattoo. I need to research a system. She's one of the best investors Gator's head. She's different on what play in every way, Lizabeth, I want you to help me catch a killer of women dyd r So. The original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo film came out in two thousand and nine.

It is directed by Niel's Arden Oplev. It is based off of the award winning, critically successful massive hit two thousand and five book of the same name by Steve Larson, and it stars Michael Nyquist and Knumi Ripas as Michael Bloomquist and Lizabeth Salander, an investigative journalist and I guess a hacker, but she's so much more than that to so many people who are tasked with investigating eight decades old serial killer slash missing person slash weird Nordic murder that becomes a genre into itself more recently, and well, we get to learn all about what makes Lizbeth seal Under the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and what makes Michael Bloomquist a character that's interesting in one movie and completely sidelined in the rest.

So, Mike, I'm going to kick it to you immediately. Why are we doing this episode, me and you right now on a snowy Monday night. It's not snowy out, so it's like fucking eighty degrees outside. Why are we talking about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series and this movie specifically? It's snowing somewhere, probably in Sweden.

It might be snowing there right lucky. Then, I think it's because we both like this series so much, and because it does present so many strange offshoots and things, and might have at one point been a series on Amazon Prime, but we never got that because I think it was supposed to start sometime in twenty twenty, and there were some things that happened in twenty twenty, so at least we don't have that to have to talk about. We've got spy movies that we need to discuss, so a varying quality. But for me, this first one with new me or Pace and Michael Nyquist, great, great movie, and I've seen this so many times. I think this and the other two of these Millennium series I've seen multiple times.

Though, of those, were watching them yesterday, I was like, remember this. I don't remember this thing either, but it might have been because I was watching the three hour each version of them, So I don't know how many times I've sat down and watched nine hours of Dragon Tattoo in a row. Well, and that's the thing, you know, The American movies are a much smaller ask, and I think quality kind of goes with that, at least in the regards of that second film that they released. But these first three Swedish the I would say, the official adaptations, it's Swedish author Steve Larson, kish Swedish actors, Swedish language. This first one is Head and Shoulders.

The best of these original three I have. I have a controversial opinion I will share later. I'm not sharing it right now, but this is the best of the three. And Mikhael Nyquist is I mean, him and Nera Pass have such good chemistry, just like that is what these movies more or less stake their claim on. Is you're expecting a sizeable amount of chemistry between the two leads because it's really it's really their story in this movie.

I think in the second and third movie it kind of very much becomes Lizbeth Salander's story to a fault almost. But I like that this first movie is these two are brought in for something else, and it's this other thing that's driving them, and it's their own personal attachments to it that make it important. Because Lizbeth is very much invested in righting the wrongs of violence towards females or women in Swedish culture. I guess it's fairly prominent as it is around the world unfortunately. But in the book they put a statistic right at the beginning, it's like sixty percent of women in Sweden have been victim to sexual assault sexual violence.

So it's like that it's bringing those two characters into investigate the serial killing, and that the kind of the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger that makes it so interesting. Once we start focusing on them more, I feel like all this kind of falls apart. Yeah, I like, well, we'll talk a little bit about the second movie, But there's also kind of a mystery in the second movie, but then that ends up being a very small mystery compared to what this one is. I mean, this one goes back in time forty years and it's this very cold case, but bloom Quists and Slander are able to unlock it, and I really appreciate the way that we're given you know, bloom quists at the beginning, and all of his legal problems that are going on, and that Salander you think maybe she's tied up in that, and just the way that we go back and forth between these two characters and how he gets introduced to this mystery and then how she eventually comes along.

You know, it's very I mean, it feels very much like a novel. It feels very much told in a very different way than you would tell a normal movie, which is great. I think that's one reason why this is such a standout movie is that it just feels different and it's not you know, oh, here's this girl, here's this boy, here's you know, and like they're not really like, yeah, they fuck, but they're not really a couple. And I really like Lena Andre and here is Erica Berger. I think that she's a great oil against blung Twist.

And then even the woman to police as sister is great as well. So all of these characters really add something to this well, and that you know, it's gonna be kind of hard not to bring it up, but I think because this is the only one that really has the an American comparison, I think this is the time to compare them. In the original Swedish one, they do a such a better job of really giving us an idea of who Nichel Bloomquist is outside of what's going on here with his case. I mean in the book, because I've read the book I think two or three times now, and they do a really good job of spending a lot of time in the early portions of the book talking about why he is doing millennium, where he came from, the whole Kale Bloomquist thing, about where he gets that nickname from, which, again, for Westerners or Americans more specifically, we have no idea what that is because that is a Swedish thing that they are referencing that they have to like explain pretty like.

I feel like in the Swedish version of the book they don't have this like long explanation as to what the fuck this is because people just understand. But I appreciate that in the original version of this movie they spend so much time fleshing out who he is, and the American versions like almost two and a half hour as it is, like it's not much shorter, it's just interested in doing something else. In a lot of ways, it's more focused and I think it's I think it ties into the later two Swedish movies. This movie is more focused on the characters, like really giving us an idea of who Salander and bloom Twist are as characters, and then letting them go off and do things. And again in the second third movie, we'll talk about the successes there, but in this first one they give them a perfect amount of characterization that is lacking in the American one.

Because of the American one, it does just feel like Daniel Craig, like it doesn't feel like he's playing a character, which is fine. It's the best thing I've ever seen Daniel Craig. And I am not a Daniel Craig fan, but here Michael Niquist is a like he's playing a fully formed character who feels world worn and kind of a little beaten down, which adds to the investigative journalist nature of him. Daniel Craig just seems so slick, like he's Daniel Craig. Guys.

We know. Yeah, it's it's really amazing to realize that Nyquist. I mean, he is known here in the States apart from Dragon Tattoo with him being the main bad guy and John Wick and then also being along for the ride and Ghost Protocol one of the Mission Impossible movies, and then the poor Guy he passed away in twenty seventeen. You know, it's like, because I really feel and I please scrick me if I'm wrong, that Nyqvist is a or sorry bloem comp is a stand in for Steve Larson. It feels like Steve Larson's like if I were to be a journalist and I know that Larson was, I would be this guy, fuck all the consequences.

I'm going to do all this cool stuff and I'm gonna, you know, fuck these hot women and stuff. And so I'm like, oh, well he died early, and then freaking nick Vs died early as well. It's like he didn't have to get that much into the character, dude, right, I'm you know, I was thinking that when I was rewatching them this time, I was like, this is just like wish fulfillment, right. And Steve Larson talks about He's interviewed and he's gone on record talking about like where these books came from, and if memory serves me, right, I think it was something like he watched his friend's gang rape someone when he was like a teenager and he didn't do anything about it, and like now he like like is like that's like what he is invested in.

Is like trying to like I guess a tone for that, but he's like yeah, like yeah, and like look, that's the other thing about this movie and that and that's you know, I think this series in general, it's not for the faint of heart, especially if you're talking about and again you know it's outright misogyny, but like that's the intent. You know. We've had this discussion, you and I both together and separately on our own shows about like things that are misogynistic towards women. Should we be watching them, should we be supporting them, should we be talking about them? Yes, because this is entertainment and it's not We're not watching someone actually beat the shit out of a woman.

Guys like fictional characters like and clearly for Steve Larson, it's a layer of Catharsis to him to create this character and play this character out because Lizabeth Salander is a victim of sexual assault twice in this movie. Well that the original Swedish title of this movie is men who Hate Women. I mean there's no dragon tattoo in the original title here Ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, and the title I think that title is apt. I think that title could have worked just as well as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, because the dragon tattoo is barely a thing so much of the time, and I mean it's it's very tough to see.

I mean, it's probably a great tattoo, but I've never actually seen a close up of it where I'm like, oh, what eloquent pen work that is? Right, it's a yeah, I mean the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is yeah, but yeah, I yeah, it has nothing to do with anything, like it's just a tattoos she has on her back. I guess there might be in the more recent trilogy, because now there are there's the Millennium trilogy, then there's the trilogy that has to do with another character that they introduce and Lisbeth Salander, and then there's a new trilogy. In that New American movie, they do kind of allude to their being something about the tattoo, right, like it's covering up something. Yeah, I forget, and maybe they explain it in that movie.

But yeah, I think the title would have been just as fine with men who hate women, because the entire kind of idea that the two of them are investigating a serial killer who butchers women and like presents them in ritualistic ways, and then Salander has to deal with her conservator, you know, sexually assaulting her like all of that. It's like that is the undercurrent of this movie. And frankly, I mean the entire first three books is all about like the societal ways women are treated and like again, like putting slander in a conservatorship because they think she is like mentally deficient. Like all of that just ties into it. But yeah, that is the one thing that like, if you've never seen these before, a why are you listening to this if you haven't seen him?

Be just no. If you watch these there's so much like violence towards women. It's it's rough. It's rough to watch. Like it is.

There's a lot of really just brutal things happening towards women that are very small and petite. Very few of them are like able to stand their own in any of this. This is not like an Ellen Ripley situation. Lizbeth Salander is a badass, but she's not an action hero. Fatti Alvarez, No, No, but I like I like Knumi Rapass so much in this movie.

Oh she's great. She is so great, and just this movie made me fall in love with her. And yeah, she's been in some real garbage, but when she's in great things, she's wonderful. Garbage as in Prometheus. Garbage is in Prometheus.

Yes, Sherlock Holmes, I enjoy that Sherlock Holmes movie. Oh wow, Okay, yeah, I don't remember if I was a big fan of What Happened to Monday. I remember liking the idea of it better than the execution. She was in one called Rupture that I liked a lot, But then she was in that awful Bright movie. So oh yeah, yeah yeah.

And I haven't seen Lamb yet. I really want to, though I've heard mixed things. I've heard it's I've heard it's a it's an A twenty four film. If you've ever seen one, and it looks like one, it has that aesthetic, right, and you know, well, I mean her look ties into that aesthetic. New Mira Pass is an interesting looking actress.

She has a very unique and distinct look that really works for the character of Lizabeth Salander, who's meant to feel at odds with the world that she lives in. Oh yeah, yeah, she pulls that off really well. And just you know, the use of the makeup and the hairstyling and everything really helps set her part as well. And then all of the piercings. And you know, it's amazing that when this came out back two thousand and nine, it was probably a big deal that she had a full back tattoo, whereas now it's like, hmm yeah and right right, oh totally.

Yeah. I do want to mention because again, we have this opportunity now and it might pass us by. What what do you think of the other actresses who play Lisbeth Salander. I'm not a big rooney Mara FANU. Just something about her puts me off.

And I don't know if that's and I hit to use this term, but I don't know if that's because I know she's a total neppo baby and just like, oh, hey, I want to be an actress. Okay, here you go, honey, you can be whatever you want. Um. Yeah, yeah, but she's a neppo baby from rich parents, not from people who already in the industry at least, yeah, I mean there at least it's not a fast track, right. I'm just I haven't, like, I haven't seen Carol yet.

I would like to see Carol, but so many of the things that I have seen her in, I'm just like, h yeah, okay, just they don't do it for me. So it just might be the movies that she's in rather than her. But I don't know. Just like I'm trying to think of like hand and night morally nightmare Ally, Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of that adaptation A Nightmare and elm Street she was Nancy and right, yeah, she's actually not bad and bad, but that movie is kind of I mean, that movie has a lot of problems. It definitely has problems.

Yeah, I haven't seen women talking yet, so maybe she's really great than that. But I think she does an okay job of Elizabeth Salander, but just I'm not that big of a fan of her. And then Claire Foy, I mean, we'll talk about that movie, but barely remember that movie because and I tried to watch that movie twice and I just couldn't get into it. I like Claire Foy a lot, but I don't know if she's a great Lizabeth Salander. I get it with Rudy Mara.

There are just some actors that we just don't resonate with, Like you know, for me, speaking of The America and Dragon Tattoo, Robin Wright is someone that I just don't resonate with everything I've seen her. M I'm like, are you the female William Hurt? Are you just disinterested all the time? Is that your thing? Which I mean, hey, cool, if that's your thing, that's your thing.

William Hurt made a career out of it. I Actually I think Rudy Mara is the best part of that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie. I think she's pretty good. Actually, I don't know, like I get it though. That character is meant to be played a very specific way, and I think the three actresses who have played that character have all brought something very different.

I think Numi Ripasa's character is a lot warmer than Rudy Maras. I think Rudey Mara is very cold. But I also think that plays very much into what Fincher is going for in that movie. I mean, that movie is visually arresting with the usage of the snow and everything, which is surprising because it almost feels like they're overcompensating because this movie has none of them. It's almost it's like they're like, hey, what do people know about Sweden?

S No, it's cold, so everything's cold and white and gray. And then you watch these original three, or at least this first one, and then you're like, there's not a fucking cold anything like it. It is kind of when blum Twist is there at the Vonger kind of like compound, but in the like in the American what it's just like like overbearingly white and gray and just so like it like it feels like they're really does feel like they're overcompensating. I'm not going to complain because I like it, but you watch this and it's like it's just when you see how two directors approach the same source material, it's so shockingly different. Because I would feel like more people would appreciate and resonate with this one because it's a much more straightforward retelling of the story, and it again, it does a better job of setting up where this story's gonna go.

The American one doesn't seem at all involved with where the story goes from here, almost like they knew they were going to have to fight to make a sequel, so they weren't necessarily too worried about going out on a limb to talk about all the backstory of slander this one does. I mean, there's a lot of it injected throughout, and I think for me, like a lot of things in filmmaking, not knowing your game plan ahead of time maybe doesn't always yield the best results. How are you talking about those Star Wars sequels again? Yeah? Right, Hey, say what you well about George Lucas's movies, but at least he's the one who made them, like nobody else can take credit for them, good or bad.

And that's the thing. These three Swedish movies feel very of the same tone, and I appreciate that because this first movie sets the tone so well, introduces the characters so well. It gives us again, it gives us something to chew on. I feel like they maybe aren't as it seems like they're less interested in the case in this movie and presenting the case and kind of investigating the American One spends a lot of time on the nitty gritty true crimey stuff. I think that's David Fincher, Like he loves that, I mean, Zodiac Man Hunter, Girl with the Dragon, like he loves it.

This seems a little less interested in talking about the case and more the characters. Yeah, I can definitely see that. I mean, the case is definitely there at points, but yeah, we are learning about the people as much as we're learning about the old cold case. Right, And and there are scenes in this one that aren't in the American one, like when he goes to the house and the guy pulls the gun on him, and there's there's just a lot more I wouldn't say set dressing, but just a lot more area and room for them to kind of travel. And they make the most.

They really make the most of a three hour run time. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And like I said, I like these side characters that they have. I like that you get to know the people at Millennium very well, that you get to know the sister that you get to know. I mean, my favorite character, Plague, you know, he shows up whenever she needs help, Elisabeth needs help, and yeah, just getting a little bit more of her.

And just when that information is being doled out, I think is really important. And then getting to know the shitty people that have been screwing her up through the system this whole time, and that her former case worker. I love that guy so much. But yeah, I think these characters are so much more well drawn. And I don't know if that's just because I'm having to read there what they're saying rather than hear what they're saying.

But I just feel like I know these people a little bit more. I just I don't Again, I think the American one was trying to satisfy the wrong would let me wrong, I mean, that's a me opinion. It was focused on something different than what this is focused on. It was focused on being atmospheric and weird and Fincher, I mean, Fincher makes it his own visually. He didn't write the screenplay, obviously, but he makes it his own visually.

But I think that that kind of speaks to maybe the issue with that movie versus this one. This one is involved in telling the story of the characters. That one's involved with telling the story of that murder and how those characters solve it. Yea, And in a lot of ways, the reason I like the American one so much is because it is just a standalone movie. There's nothing else.

It's it ends. There's no like there's like a little bit of kind of like that coda at the end with her putting the jacket in the trash cannon driving off, but that kind of is where this whole thing ends up. Anyways, is what it feels like. Like. It's like they're kind of always at arm's length from one another by timing or by communication, because at the end of this she just dips on his ass.

She's like, I'm out of here. I forgot about that. He comes back to the cabin after going and meeting with kind of the van the Vongers, after they've had the kind of the evening of Martin trying to murder you know, Michael and Lizabeth, and then she's just gone from the story again. Well she sees him with Erica and it is just like hmm, okay, that's it, and then yeah, yeats out of there, and then we get that great silence of the Lambs ending where she's having an old friend for dinner. That is kind of what it feels like it is.

I mean, when she puts on that blonde wig and I'm just like waiting for it to put the Panama hat on over it. I you know it for me, the end of Dragon Tattoo, all of them, both the book and these two movies, has always been the weakest part because it's gonna sound terrible, but I'm not sure I care about her going around to the Caymans and doing all that. Like, I don't think they needed to give it as much time as they give it, which is in the movies it's a fair amount. And in the book it's like, you know, fifty sixty pages type thing. It's like the book keeps going after the Martin Vanger stuff gets taken care of, and like again it's to wrap up the Venerstrum stuff from the beginning, but you almost kind of forget about it by the end of the movie.

You're like, all right, there was something else here and it you know, even in the American one and in the Swedish one, it's it's an unsatisfying conclusion to that story either way. It's unsatisfying in the book too, so it almost feels like an afterthoughts, like and then he got killed in the cabins by the people that he was defrauding. Okay, Like, well, I don't know Swedish actors at well, so watching the Swedish version, I'm not distracted by the other people that are in the movie. I'm not distracted by them the Wanger family, Whereas when I watched the American one, it's like, oh, here's Chris Plummer. Oh he's still in Scars Guard.

You know, even Stephen Berkoff in there is the lawyer that puts blown Quist in touch with Hendrik Foger. It's like wow, you know, like you're watching this and you're like, oh, I know that. Oh I see that. Oh I know that person too. And it's like I don't know any of these Swedish actors, you know, And it's only been since this movie came out that I know Nickquis and Repace.

So it's very much clean slate as far as all of these other Swedish actors in here. I'm not like, oh, it's that guy, and so you know I see Stell and Scars Guard. I'm just like, well, there's a good chance he's a killer, pretty sure. You know, if if it was one of the other Scars Guards, you know, for sure they'd be the killer. Because like they a lot of them just play murderers quite a bit, especially it is a Peter sars Guard.

It just is always a piece of shit and everything. I thought, wait, is it or Bill is which who's the one that played Penny Wise. I think that's Bill Bill? Yeah, yeah, it's stars Guard. Actually he's not actually related, so I was, oh, there, okay.

I was like, I was like, are you talking about the guy that's not related to them? Like, yeah, yeah I was, But no, I mean between Alexander who sometimes he plays a piece of shit, he was a really good piece of shit and the stand But yeah, definitely Bill. It's like, as soon as I see that guys show up in something, I'm like, oh, okay, well he's going to murder somebody. Well and one and there was one that was in West World too, scars Card. Yeah, look, I'm not gonna lie to you.

Stone. Scars Card is amazing in the American It's so good it's it's almost unfair because that whole like diatribe that he goes on when he finally kind of like let's let's loose what's going on is the scariest part of the movie. He is a force in that scene. It's almost too bad that the movie doesn't live up to that in a lot of ways, like the movie I really like the American One, but it has a lot of failings that I'm able to overlook. Also, can I just ask you something doesn't feel like it's also kind of just like a James Bond movie with that intro like, oh boy, that intro feels very odd BONDI and right, like very Bond adjacent, like especially like Craig Bond with like the CGI women turning into things like I love it.

I love that cover of the Immigrant song too. That shit seared in my brain. But there are some weird things that like again Stellen scars Guard, he's so good, but he again, like the moment you see him on screen, you know, like even if you don't know anything about him, it's like he seems like an guy who plays evil characters because he is because he is. And yeah, no, you're right. I mean again, it goes back to the hold Daniel Craig thing of like I can't get past the fact that you're Daniel Craig, Like I don't believe you as a journalist broke come on now, like yeah, I have no problems with that.

I don't know if it's just that I have been a fan of his for a long time. Likes who showed up? And it was the first time I ever saw him show up in something maybe wanted the Laura Croft movies. Oh yeah, yeah, the first one, Yeah yeah, the very first two Murder And I'm trying to remember if I saw him in anything else before that. But I mean, I've been a fan of his since then, and so I kind of can buy him in other things.

But I know where you're coming from. Um, you know, if he had just adopted a Southern accent, this would be a Ben ro Blanc film. And that's the problem, Like why didn't he just do like, why didn't he just do us Swedish accent? Everybody else is trying something, even Rudy Mara, Like I think she is the most successful of like trying to do an accent. First thing I ever saw Daniel Craigan, I was in ninth grade.

We were shown, for whatever reason, in world history or world politics, the power of One. Oh Wow, that like the PK. Keith movie, Like yeah, and he plays the bad guy in that movie. Wow, And he calls one of the characters a piss cop, but he like pisses in a hat like a helmet and puts it on the character's head. And I remember like not realizing who that was and then seeing him cast as James Bond, I was like, oh, fuck that guy, like he's yeah, you know.

It's not that I don't like Daniel Craig, I just don't like him as James Bond. And I think that is like soured almost everything else that he's ever been in, because I really don't as an with that James Bond at all. I really like that first one. I love Casino Royale, but after that its just the whole serious shit the bed for me because in that one, it's like, well, we've talked about this before, and people can go back and listen to that. But my argument always is that James Bond says, do I give a shit when it comes to shaking that stirred Martini?

And then after that it feels like, oh, yeah, of course I want to shaken that stain Martini. Of course I want to drive and Aston Martin have a Walter Peak pek. It just I have to be this thing now. Whereas that first one Casino Royal felt like he was just like, I'm not beholden to all of these trappings of this character, and that's what I love about it. Yeah, I'm with you.

I mean, it was that expectation of like, we're doing something different, and then you didn't do anything different at all. You just you were beholden to You were beholden to the people who complain. But I guess the people weren't complaining loud enough. Initially they said they liked it, but then they didn't, So I don't. I don't know.

I'm with you. I mean, I still think Sina Royal and Quantum of Salas are a good one too, And that's the only redeeming quality of that second movie, because that second Oh, I do not like Quantum of Salas at all. The last time you watched it was probably when we watched it together. Yeah, otherwise I will just stay away from that forever, thank you. Daniel Craig can't redeem those movies, like you know, and that's the thing, like I don't expect him to, but him being in them also for me, it's just a lot of the Daniel Craig stuff I've seen has just been James Bond stuff.

Or this. Otherwise he's fine, but he's also not really always asked to do a lot, like other than knives Out, which knives out, Like I get the appeal, but like, but Daniel Craig is doing. Anybody else doing it would be laughable, Like it would be a joke, Like people would be like, that's a bad accent, why are you doing that? But because it's Daniel Craig, it's like okay. So in my mind, like Daniel Craig has kind of exceeded where you can kind of he's he's an actor now, like he's Daniel Craig.

You know what you're getting when you cast him. It's not he's such a personality now that it's it's fine, it is what it is. I did not know that he's going to be playing William S Burrows in the film adaptation of Queer, so wow, it's gonna be Daniel Craig again, Like wow, someone looked at Burrows and thought Daniel Craig should play that guy. Also didn't really care for in the American version that it doesn't feel like the relationship between Erica Burger and Mikael Bloomquist is that strong, whereas in the Swedish one. I really feel that this is going on, and you know, they make mention I can't even remember when they make mention of her husband, but you know that becomes kind of a big deal as well, that she's having this affair and that he is divorced.

And I think that I think they talk a little bit about in the US version, but they don't talk about the Swedish version until maybe like the third movie. Yeah, it's I think they explain it in the first book. Is like her white, her wife, her husband knows that she's he's cucking him essentially, like he's a cuck. Like that's fine, An't nothing wrong with that, but that's that's kind of because he's like it seems to be that her husband understands. But yeah, I mean that for me is a big failing of Like the American one is like Robin Wright in that role with Daniel Craig, and they don't give him anything to do.

I mean, Jesus Christ. Joel Kinneman is in the movie as a character who has given a lot more to do in the Swedish ones, and he's just like in the background of the American one, are you they even have Mbeth David's in this movie, Like, what why are you casting big actors in one line roles? That's my question. It's very bizarre. Yeah, Julian sand showing up as young Heinrich.

I'm like, what where did this come from? Right? Oh, thank you for mentioning that. That's like the strangest one doesn't even have any lines. Yeah, none, just like all through like weird flash backs like, but no lines whatsoever, never opens his mouth.

I mean, you've got Chris Plumber playing the older version of So I don't know what anyone else would need to say, but I mean that is the thing that I do. I do think the American one does succeed at is they put recognizable actors in the roles that matter, so that there is this like level of gravitasay of Daniel Craig and Chris Plumber in the scene together. But to your point about the Swedish actors, I am an American. I do not have the deepest knowledge based on Swedish films. That's a failing of my own.

So I don't know if these people. If someone saw this movie, like with Indian Cinema and went, oh, that person, that person and that person. I'm sure they do and looked these movies were. This movie was immensely successful. Of a budget of thirteen million and it made one hundred and four that's pretty good.

But it's also a pretty big indicator of the cultural relevancy of this book, especially at the time. Especially I would say between like two thousand and five and twenty and eleven is like the height of the Girl with the Dragon tattoo kind of fervor, because that was when I read it initially. That's when all these movies came out. Yeah, there's been a more recent thing that's come out since, but like all of this came out in that corridor, and that's like this was a big deal then. So this like it was a big deal when they were like, we're making an American one, and we're going to look at people, Like if you go and look at the list of people they tried to cast as the leads, it's like every single big actor and actress in Hollywood at the time, right right, Hey, Johnny Depp's name showed up at one point and fuck that by the way, Yeah, I remember it was a big deal when Ronny Maher was cast, Like, oh, who's going to be the new girl with the dragon tattoo.

And yeah, just that it was three years after the Swedish version came out, and what would that be seven years after the book came out, because the book came out in two thousand and five, right right, Yeah, so it was pretty quick compared to some things that happened in Hollywood. Yeah. Well, and you know again, I think ultimately they both are trying to do different things. I think they were both. I think the American one was hoping there would be a sequel, but isn't concerned if there was.

The Swedish one. The Swedish one knows that there's going to be more, Like the Swedish one has already like that's dead set in their mind. So they're doing some things that allow them to, as our friend Rich Hadham says, plant to payoff. I mean they plant the thing about her father and lighting them on fire in this movie. I forgot they mentioned that in the Swedish one.

They showed like flashbacks to it. When she's in the when Martin Vanger has finally crashed his car, she's walking up to the car, they start showing flashbacks of that. I was like, oh shit, right, and then they don't do any of that. In the American one, they have the one line where he's like, they're in bed together, and in the Swedish one they don't. In the Swedish one, they know that they're going to talk about it more so they don't get into it.

In the American one, they have to talk about it because there might be anny there might not be an opportunity for them to ever bring it up again. So he's like, oh, well, why are you still here talking? I lit my dad on fire, blah blah blah. But she does none of that. In the Swedish one, he's just like, I'm glad you're still here.

I don't know what you had to deal with. I'm gonna be finding out here pretty quick, but I'm glad you're still here. Well, it feels like she is much more willing to talk the American version, whereas Repace is just like, unless it is absolutely necessary, I'm not going to say anything to anybody. And as much as I like Rudy Mara, I think Knumi Repass's version of Lisbeth Salander is the best version at least to this. I mean, again, say what you will about being close to the source material, but in terms of what she brings to the role and what the role is able to achieve through all three films and more specifically this one, I think she does a better job than anybody else at giving us a look at a person who is at odds with the world outside and can't seem to figure out their place in the world, so they're just ultimately not concerned with it.

And Rudy Mara just she seems weird, but that's about it. Yeah. I mean the haircut helps quite a bit as well. Right on the haircut, the lack of eyebrows, her look is great, Rudy. I don't think Rudy mar has ever looked better.

Frankly like that. That's my version of Rudey Mara when I think of Rudy Mara. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I think she does really brock that look. Yeah.

I mean, though again that this much just Knubi does, right. I remember when the American one came out, it was a big deal that Rudy Marrak got her nipples pierced for the role. There was like a whole do you remember when it came out. There was a one sheet poster that had her top lists on it. Oh, I don't remember.

Yeah, I had it. I have a I have it in my basement actually just sitting never hung up. It's it's Daniel Craig with his arm but he's behind her and he's got his arm over her chest and her breasts are out both people. Wow. Yeah, And I was like, where are they?

Where are they hanging this pot Local twelve MULTIPLEX? Like I don't fucking think so, but I have a copy of it. Was super strange, Like, I don't think that's the thing anybody has. I don't think people. I don't think there's are there rules for nudity on posters?

I'm sure there are, Yeah, there's gotta be. I'm really I know that blung Quist has a daughter and these guys an ex wife that we I don't think we ever see. But the daughter shows up in the American one and she's the one that tips him off to the Bible Code, but then he doesn't seem to get it, like it eventually does take Elizabeth to come up and be like, oh yeah, here's more about this Bible code. And I think that the storytelling in the Swedish one is much more efficient that that becomes her entree into introducing herself to blown quest by actually going into his computer and like typing in information and so that it can actually see that somebody is still in his computer. Well, and in the American one, like what purpose does it serve?

Like his daughter is not a character at all, She's a plot. She ends up becoming a plot device, right, like Slinder is just I don't know. She's such a dynamic character that I appreciate the Swedish one going through her character more like just feeding more of the plot through her character and more of the everything through her character. The American one doesn't even have the scene where she gets assaulted in the subway, right, which is weird because that's also a huge part of why she has to go to Nil's Burman to go get the new laptop and then she gets sexually assaulted. Like it's weird because yeah, I think you're You're totally right.

It's they're more concerned at telling this story holistically than just one or two parts of it that they find interesting, which I mean, again, it would stand to reason, given that this is a TV movie, that they're given so much more time. But then again, I mean it is released as a as a film, but I think they do more to suit the story in the Swedish one, and the American one is more just like atmospheric and some I mean again good performances, but I think the Swedish one stands as a more consistently quality film versus like one. I mean, the highs in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the American one are very high. I mean, look, you have David Fincher behind the camera camera. I know you're a fan of his.

I'm a huge fan of his, so I'm not going to complain if you get a director of his caliber to adapt this, but you are going to have certain things fall by the wayside because he's not going to be interested, or Steven Zalian, who wrote the script, is not going to be interested, and those things are going to get cut off. And some of its cultural stuff and some of it is just American audiences aren't going to care, and we don't care. Fine, but again, they're not interested in telling the Lizbeth's Salander story. They're interested in telling the Martin Vanger Harriet Vanger's story, which is fine, but then you see what the second and third movie have and it's like, that is what this is about. It's about her, and this is like that first initial moment that you meet her and the case, but then everything becomes about her from here on out.

Yeah. And I had to say the second and third movies, I enjoy them, but you can just tell that they weren't meant for the theater, if that makes sense, Like it feels so much like I'm watching brit Box or you know, PBS or something. When it comes to that second and third movie, they just feel I don't want to say cheaper, because they don't really feel cheaper, but just the lighting and the quality of filmmaking. I don't know if that's Daniel Alfredson, the director of the second two, if he just wasn't as good as a director, or if they were just like, yeah, these are going to just play on TV, so shoot them like TV. They feel like TV movies, feel like TV mysteries rather than movies.

I think, yeah, I think that's the Oh my god. So this is kind of the controversial opinion part. I do not like the second and third books of the Millennium series and the movies. I have the same problem with the story that they're telling it's just not interesting. Lizbeth Salander's dad is path Burn and he's a criminal mastermind.

I guess who is Russian who came to Sweden that they're now protecting because he was an asset and he's her dad and she gets thrown into the mental asylum because they're protecting her dad. So how is this Elizabeth Salander story then, Like that's my question. It's about her dad and her relationship with her dad. And they get one scene together. Yeah, you know what this is?

This is this is the Star Wars phenomenon, right exactly, because then the girl with the dragon tattoo, it is Elizabeth and Martin solving this mystery that has really nothing to do with them, even though you know blun Quist was babysat by Harriet when he was or was it Henrietta? No Harriet? Yeah, Carrie, yeah, yeah, yeah, the woman who disappeared babysat him, which they don't even mention in the American one. No, no, because it doesn't got little flashbacks and stuff, of course, and that necklace and you get that as a clue and all these kind of things, and then the necklace is really what unlocks it for him. Because he's like, you know, oh, you took her necklace.

She's like, no, this is my necklace. And then he realized, oh, Harriet is actually a different person than this other woman. So it becomes this like really unlocks the whole story. That's great, and then you get to the second and third movies and it's just like, oh, you know, Luke, it's time to face your father now, and it's like, oh, okay, I really yeah. It's like I like the beginning of the Girl who Played with Fire and the whole idea of what's that Guy's named dag Yes the reporter New Reporter and his fiance or his wife, and she's doing this thesis on human trafficking and he's there working at Millennium writing up the story and they're going to expose all these big politicians and it sounds just like America, where it's like, yeah, get this, the guy who wrote the legislation is also a customer of these prostitutes.

But yet he's you know, outspoken human trafficker guy, and right, okay, imagine that and that's great. But then when he dies, then she gets set up for the murder and you kind of go through all that stuff. Once that is solved, I'm kind of done with it. But then they're like, oh no, here's the girl who kicked the hornets nest. Here's here's even more of that story that you might not have cared about that much.

And the girl who played with fire well, and then the girl who played with fire. Not only are we introduced to her father, Alexander Zalachenko, the former agent, the former I guess turncoat agent who worked for the Swedes and they protected, but we also meet oh Jesus Christ, her brother. Oh boy, yeah, good God in heaven. Look, it's fine, I get it. You want to have a kind of a ruthless golam of a battie, right why, Like, yeah, I get it.

But the first the first story had none of this. The first story was a true crime story with two interesting detectives. Right, it's to put paf Row. You can put anybody in there to solve that murder. It doesn't matter.

It's a murder mystery that needs to be sold. And you've got two characters uniquely suited to solve the murder. The second third movies, what the is it about? You said it best, like it's the Star Wars thing. I couldn't stop thinking about it when I was watching.

I don't give a fuck about what Lizbeth Silander's character her motivations are, because it's not really what's driving the character in that first movie. What's driving the character is for her to make good on her protecting other people seemingly maybe who knows. It's not really made clear what her desires are in the first movie. In the second movie, it feels like, oh, I gotta stop my dad. Maybe I just I have a hard time understanding why we should care so much in the second movie about what Lizabeth Silander has been going through her whole life, because it didn't seem to be important in the last movie.

And I hate to be this guy, but Georgie's Steakov, who plays her father. He's fifteen years older than knew me her pace and it's just like you can tell, but you're just like, whenever he comes on screen, I'm just like, this guy's way too young, Like he needs to be like seventy eighty years old. He was born in nineteen sixty four. He's not that old. And so like what they do with the burn makeup, they should have just really overdone it.

What the burn MAKEU also make him look like he's old because all the other people that are protecting him are old men. It feels like he should have been one of these guys. Is just like I'm fifty sixty years years old and I'm banging chicks whenever I want, and oops, I happen to bang Elizabeth Salander's mother and now I have a problem. Now I have to get her locked up. But why Yeah, it's never made clear as to like why it's a problem that he's her dad and that he has kids.

Like through as many times as I've seen these, now, like I still don't understand why are they doing what they're doing to her? Like what is it? Is it her connection to him? Like I just I don't understand how she fits into all this, And maybe I'm just missing the point. But if she wants, like I get that they pin the murder on her.

But while like yeah, yeah, why because because she burned him and he's been sitting and waiting in the wings this whole time, Like it's like so bond villainy and such an opposite of what that first book is and what made that first book in movies so good? Is it this is not its own story. This ends on a fucking cliffhanger. This is a middle book middle movie if I've ever seen one, Like, well, it's really weird because they they murder her guardian and for the longest time and this just could be me Burman, right, Peter Henderson. For the longest time, I was getting him and the other guy who eventually goes on trial here.

Um, I can't remember what his name. Oh oh, the doctor Teleaborian. Yeah, I used to get those two mixed up, and so I didn't realize until I was rewatching the movies yesterday. Oh um, the one guy was ganked that he shot in the head because I was like, well, why are they just showing that video of her getting raped over and over again at the trial? Like I yesterday, I was trying to count how many times do you show that video because it's so disturbing and they just think you the hell lot of it over and over again.

The Swedish one loves showing it. I don't know. I don't know why. I mean, I do know why, because it's brutal and like it proves a point, but like I don't you don't even need to hear it. I don't need to I don't need to hear it, and I don't need to see other people reacting to it.

Every time I watched The American Girl of the Dragon Tattoo or the Swedish one Ice fast forward through those scenes, I got no problem admitting and I don't give a shit. I don't need to see it. I know why she's doing what she's doing. I don't need to watch Numi ripass and or Rooney Mara get fake raped on celluloid. It's good, like it's good.

I don't need to see that. There are some things when you watch movies you don't have to watch over and over again. That's one of them. But then when the second and third movie, you're like, you want to see it again. I'm good, Please let me back it up.

I'll play it again for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pause for slow motion, like now we're good. But I think you're totally right, and that is that's my biggest condemnation of the second and third movies is Lizbeth Salander. I didn't ask for her to be the main character of this and the sole focus and like, oh no, we got to learn about her backstory. That to me is like that that is totally just like it's like what they did with Hannibal, It's like what they did with Darth Vader.

It's like, we're going to tell you the backstory. It's like I don't necessarily like why do you think I care? We don't. She didn't even need to come back to Sweden. You know, she's in the game and islands, has a boyfriend there, has a nice tan going on.

I'm like, why did you come back? You know, right, did you come back for bloom quiz? That doesn't make any sense because you won't even talk to him? Who did Why did you come back to Sweden? And especially from the Cayman Islands, you know, like we just talked about how cold it is in Sweden and like yeah, I mean like her girlfriend was nice and very nice lady, but you know, fly here down, don't just you know, like she comes up Caesar for some hot sex, says here's my apartment and then that's it, then fucks off again.

It doesn't make any sense. Like I just don't understand what's going on in the second movie, why she comes back, why she doesn't just leave. The other thing I don't understand is like, you know, the I think you might agree, like the entire dragon tattoo first book. What's one of the biggest parts that works for both of us is the interplay between Bloomquist and Salander. Right, there's none of that.

No, in the second movie, it's like, oh, yeah, you like them being together. Fuck you, I'm gonna keep them separate up until the last frame of the movie. And then oh, by the way, third movie they do the exact same fucking thing, like exactly, hey, wait, okay, so the last time we see them on screen together is the end of the first movie, and then at the end of the second movie, and then by the third movie, I just don't care anymore, right because they because what because the sandbox that they're playing and is not as interesting as it used to be. It's not that the stakes aren't very high. And honestly, the way the Girl Who Played with Fire ends, it's like, what else do we need to say here?

Like why is there? Oh we're continuing with more of this, Like oh, there's more and more of this, right, yeah, we didn't really need any of that stuff, I know, because you know, I mean again, Zalachenko not dying at the end and her brother getting away like that ends up having to be a huge part of the next book until it isn't. Like he like her brother is a big part in the second book, and then he just kind of shows up intermittently in the third one. And then Zalachenko dies and like again kind of the way you would expect given this kind of high intrigue and you know John Leacare type spy shit where it's like, oh, we're gonna you won't do what we want, so we have to you know, neutralize the threat and we're gonna go kill him in the hospital and then our own guy will kill himself, like okay, Like yeah, I get it.

Okay, So that last movie didn't matter then, is what you're saying, Like, yeah, I don't know, Like I just it's weird that I don't find lizbet Slander that interesting of a character when she's under the microscope, right right right, Yeah, yeah, you would think you'd be like, oh cool, Marla Lisbeth, but it's like, well, no, just small doses please, which is unfortunate because she is an interesting character and knew me Ripass is still good. I don't get me wrong, She's still fantastic in this second movie and third movie. Oh yeah, and I like how Paolo Roberto is a real person. I didn't realize that. Oh really, yeah, like that's a real guy, Like that's just him playing himself, like which I did not realize until this most recent time, that Paolo Roberto is playing himself in a fictional movie.

Yeah, which one he's the guy who fights her brother hand to hand the boxer. Oh okay, but that's like he's like a real boxer in like real life, So he's just playing himself. He was a pretty good actor, right, but in the book him and Miriam have a lot more going on. In the movie, once he has that fight with Ronald Niederman, then he's gone, right like completely written out of the story. Okay, that's odd, very yeah.

I just feel like I think you're right. The second and third movie just feel like they were made for TV. Like that's just not as competently written. I don't even think the stakes are that high. Like, you know, Lizbassilander's not going to be in any harm by the end of the story.

She'll figure out a way to come out on top. But a bunch of old guys keeping a woman in prison because of her father being an agent. Is just like she's caught in the middle of things that she can't control. That's not interesting, right, I mean that the whole system is against her and the corruption and the police and all that. I mean, it does kind of play with the stuff, how you know, the hypocrisy that we're just talking about, as far as you know, the guy who writes the legislation is also the biggest purveyor of prostitutes.

I'd say that this that the second two movies are really good for sitting around on a lazy Sunday after a new Like, yeah, I wouldn't pay to see them at the theater, but they make a great triple feature just sitting on the couch, not a whole lot of other stuff going on, not even really needing to pay attention to him that much, because they don't do a whole lot. No, the second and third ones really don't. And you know, Michael Niquist has given more to do in the second and third ones than he is in the first one because he's but even then, like what he's doing is not interesting. He's going and like intimidating politicians who are having sex with sex workers, like and like showing up late to things, like he shows up at the end of the second movie to save her, and like there's that weird scene where he shows up in Niederman just like leaves as opposed to just turning around and killing mcael bloom Quist.

Like right, I don't it seems Look, I don't want to besmirch the good name of Steve Larson. But that first book's good. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how good the second and third book are really. I read the second one.

I never read the third one, but the second one was okay. I don't remember liking it even that, which is why like I'm you know, and this is gonna sound kind of bad. I'm glad that the American One American one skipped the second and third books to just jump to the fourth book, because like, I don't really find the Ronald Niederman Alexander Zeleachenko government conspiracy teleaborian stuff. I having seen it two or three times now, I don't find it that compelling. And like I'm always glad when it's over, but I'm always like I wish it had just been something else, Like this is the route we went down like this is.

It reminds me a lot of that the start what's the Star Trek movie with Tom Hardy, where it's like the clone of Picard. It's like, this is the Packers. Yeah, I was like, this is the pack You're going down with this. He could have done anything you wanted and you were just like a clone of Picard. It's like this is the same thing as like, oh, her dad is a bad guy, Like okay, yeah.

But then but then the American one comes back with the with that, with that reboot movie, and it does exactly what this is trying to do. I you know, you you know, fucking crazy, I am. I think that what they're positing in the Erican remake and the fourth book is a more interesting version of this. The second and third books is because it's talking about the same things, talking about her sister. She magically has a sister now and her and her sister is like her father, and she's following in the footsteps of her dad and she's now a criminal mastermind.

Like that's much more interesting than her dad is an old burned guy who has this giant gallum, who has the fuck does he have? Like congenital yeah, anal Jesu something or other basically can't feel pain, right, Yeah, they'll do a whole lot with that either, not of the movies in the books they do. Yeah, I mean, I like the whole thing of you know, he's pretty much you can't beat him up whatsoever. The whole thing where she eventually uses the nail gun. I love that part on him nails his feet to the ground and then lets the bikers have their way with him.

Yeah. Yeah, that for me is one of the high points of the third movie for sure, is that scene. But it's just it's kind of like you're mired in this muck of just it's okay, Like I don't know, maybe that first movie set the bar way too high. I mean, that's probably that's part of it, right, Like that first movie is so good that the second and third one were never going to be that good. But it's almost like they kind of just knew, they kind of gave up.

They didn't even try. And it's what's surprising is you would think that the second and third books slash movies aren't adaptations of Steve Larson's stuff, given that he ends up passing away. But that's they're all adapting his source material, like, yeah, I don't know. Maybe he was a one trick pony. I don't know.

I like dragon tattoo. The other two have moments of bright spots, but I don't I don't think that they're worth the rewatch the way the first girl with the dragon tattoo is. I agree. I agree. Yeah.

I had a real hard time with the Girl in the Spider's Web. As I said before, And if you held a gun into my head right now, I couldn't tell you what it's about because I just it just it was defying me to pay attention to it, just like, oh you think this is interesting, Well here, let's switch gears real quickly and you won't be interested in anymore. So how do you feel about the Girl in the Spider's Web? So I hadn't seen it. I kind of forgot that it came out.

It came out five years ago, which is mind blowing. Um, what's funny is so Fetti Alvarez directed Don't Breathe and eviled Evil Dead remake and which I I you're not. You're not a fan of Evil Dead remake? Right? Not a fan?

Now? Which I understand, Like it's it is definitely. It's in a lot of ways. It's an endurance test of a movie in a way that the original isn't. But what's weird is Fetti Alvarez.

I would consider him a horror director Evil Dead, Don't Breathe, an upcoming alien movie like Okay, So if we use what he has worked on before as a kind of primer to understand where he's going, this movie makes no sense why he directed it because she's an action First off, my issue with Growth in the Spider's Web is actually just the characterization of Lizbeth Salander. Why the fuck is she like an action star? Now? She's like a badass in the way of like Ethan Hunt, which is fine, but that's a little bit of a stretch. Yeah.

Yeah. The thing I do remember the most about the girl in the Spider's Web is motorcycling and just her on that cross rocket tearing around, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I know that there is a motorcycle in the other movies, but yeah, it's like, to your point, she does not seem like she's going to be able to jump off of that motorcycle and you know, crash it into a building as she like lands in a three point landing or something, and that's what girl with the Girl in the Spider's Web, That's what that feels like to me, is just like she has suddenly become somebody from the matrix, which, in my opinion, undercuts what made the character interesting. It's like, now she's just a generic character like every other generic female heroine.

Which again, if that's what you're going for, fine, it's just it's not what made the character interesting. I will say, like you've mentioned, Claire Foy is fantastic. I don't think her characterization if Lizbeth Salander is wrong, I think it makes sense for that movie that they're telling. In the story that they're telling here, it's a very it's a very much more action oriented. She's like a like a Jack Reacher almost like where like a Jack Ryan like, um, you know the actor that they recast.

Because here's the other thing we didn't mention it. Um, this is technically a sequel to the twenty eleven American film Wow, Yeah, it's a sequel. Like they mention, they do that kind of like bullshitty thing where they're like, what about that thing that happened when you were in you know, her to garden or wherever, where the where, And they even mentioned her dad a couple times, like he's in the beginning of the movie, you know, like a version of him that we've never seen before, which the non burned version. But ultimately it's it's you know, it's weird because the story is, you know, she is facing her sister, who is just as smart as she is, just as crafty as she is. And Sylvia Howoks plays her sister, and I think she's a better foil than any of the characters the villains were in the second and third movie where but again it just kind of again comes back to the Star Wars thing of it just feels a little wrote like, oh this best Salander has black hair, her sister has blonde hair.

She wears black, her sister wears wide. She's she's the girl with the dragon tattoo slash I guess wasp her sister is the spider like, oh, yawn, guys, come on. But at the same time, like it makes it feel very James Bondie Mission impossibly, which is I don't know if that's what I don't know if that's what Steve Larson was going for that first movie and First Book are such a like quiet serial killer thing where the action that happens is like he gets shot at when he's running, and then it's like almost an anti climax in The Dragon Tattoo, where like, you know, Martin Vonger is driving and then his car just slips over and he dies. In this movie, it'd be like and she chases him down and pulls out a gun and shoots him.

It's like, there's none of that in that this it feels like they they just wanted her to be something different that's not what she was before, which is fine if that's your interpretation of the character, but I don't think it tonally is the same character from the American movie, which is what they're claiming this is. Yeah, I wouldn't have really ever picked up on it. It kind of reminds me of when they recast Laura Croft and who was the new Laura Croft? Oh, Alicia the Condor, thank you, And it was just like, yeah, there's these other movies and this is the same person, And I'm like, oh, is it really Is it really supposed to be the same Laura Croft? I don't think so.

I will say that there are a couple of bright spots in the Swedish one. Klais Bong is in the movie. He plays Dracula in the BBC Dracula that they redid a couple of years ago. He's great. He looks blonde for seemingly no reason.

And I always like Lakeith Stanfield. I think he's good. He's amazing. Like he he almost has no reason to be in the movie. But I am glad that, like it has to do with NSA, so they have to have like an American actor in there.

I'm totally cool with it. Stephen Merchant's given nothing to do, yeah, which is a shame. Yeah, I'm such a fan of his. I really wish Lakeith had come back for The Glass Onion. I was like, oh cool, it's not only is it you know, Ben wal Blanc, but it's cashas screen as well.

Right. No. I love Lakeith Stanfield. I think he's he's a He's a phenomenal actor who we have only seen the like a very small offering of what he will undoubtedly offer to acting as a whole. I'm sure he'll end up with god knows what, an Academy for something or who knows.

I mean he is a very dynamic actor, and having him in the movie's fantastic because he plays off of Claire Foy really well. I call him Casha screen. That's his character from Sorry to Bother You. He's Lieutenant Elliott and knives out. I don't think that movie Sorry to Bother You gets talked about enough.

Oh my god, it is so good. What a weird ass movie. Oh I love it. I love it that you know that. I'm surprised you've never done an episode on that movie for your show.

I have been trying to get a hold of Boots Riley, So if Boots ever wants to come on the show, I would love to have him. I absolutely love that movie. It's such like a oh yeah, whatever man that was by the end of that movie, I was just like, whatever man. But but he's great. He's great all the time, so having him in this just adds to it.

But yeah, it's ultimately it just feels like a movie that anybody could have been in, Like you could have put any character Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan, some new character, another literary character like Ethan Hunt, even or or I mean even James Bond. Because they're they're trying to steal in the nsay saying that allows them to access all the world's nuclear codes. It's like, okay, so this is this is a world ending threat. The original Girl the Dragon Tattoo is that guy's just a serial killer and he's killing people. Ain't no world ending anything.

So it's it's weird that the stakes like amplify so much more between the first and the second and third books and even the third and the fourth books. Yeah, it's it's pretty outrageous to be like, what when did this happen? You know, like you think about like the Fast and the Furious movies and you're like, hey, remember when this was about stealing VCRs? Yeah, exactly, and you just ask a fucking space right, And we were making jokes about them being in outer space for like five years, like, well, where can they go now that they've gone everywhere else? Al, they'll go to space, And then those assholes had the audacity to fucking do it.

So good on, man, I guess. But yeah, it's just you know, I mean, I get it that action movies are entertaining and that these kind of movies are what people, what a bulk majority of the movie going public want to see, but that's just not true to this character. It's just not true to the character of Lizabeth Salander as I remember her from the first three movies. Now I've read I started reading the fifth book, the book that comes after this movie, the girl who takes an Eye for an Eye, and she seems more like the character from the oog books, less the Claire Foy with a gun shooting people. That's the other thing.

How do you feel about Lizabeth Salander using a gun. It doesn't seem like her style. I mean, she uses that gun to threaten her her rapist pig supervisor guy, which then gets her in trouble. You know, she seems much more like a taser person, you know, just up close in person, maybe a knife. But I doubt it right because at the end of the American one, she picks up the gun and she goes, can I kill him?

And I'm like, what what? Because because they make such a point in the Swedish one of going you know, I couldn't have done what you did. Let that guy just burn alive in the part and she goes, well, yeah, well that's because you're you and I'm me. But in the American room, like hey, give her a gun like and have her chase him down with a gun. And then in the Girl in the Spiders, but she's rocking a gun the whole movie, the whole movie, she's got a gun.

I'm just like, this is Look, if that's the character you want, maybe just write your own book and don't call it Lizbeth Salander, right right, Yeah, but how else am I going to make money off of that? If I call it lizbet Slander, then there's a guaranteed audience. Coincidentally, Girl in the Spider's Web did not make any money and there will be no sequel to it, I'm assuming, And like you mentioned at the top, they had plans to do a new series and I guess they went with Lord of the Rings instead. Yeah, yeah, I look, I think you would agree. I think the next time they adapt this it probably will be that, right.

It will be a TV series, an HBO or an Amazon or a Hulu will do something, and it will probably not have it. It will probably have nothing to do with the original three books. It may have nothing to do with the second trilogy. It may be solely based off of the upcoming trilogy, which, by the way, Ladies and Gentlemen is finally being written by a female author. Shocking.

I know, up until this point, David Langer Krantz and uh well Steve Larson, neither one of them are women by their names alone. Yeah, so, I actually I'm really excited because the newest book hasn't come out yet, but it's coming out later this year, and it's written by a female author, and I believe she's signed on to write at least two more books past that. So I'll be curious to see if maybe the character kind of diverts back towards a little bit of a quieter piece, or if we're going to get more of like she's chasing down nukes and shit. Because again, like she's not James Bond. Even if Daniel Craig was in Growth Dragon Tattoo, She's not a bondesque character.

But I guess if you're trying to be entertaining, that's the direction you need to go. Yeah, well, if you're going to do that, just do a sequel dessault, you know, right, like there's that's already out there. I mean, people chomping at the bit for that. Yeah, but Atomic Blonde to or right Red Sparrow too, or I'm trying to remember. There was one other female spy movie that came out, like in quick succession.

While there was the oh gosh, what was that? There was the one with the buttercup that it's called. Was that what that was? I thought? Jenner?

Yeah, there was Jennifer Garner. But there was another one too, because there were like the two Russian dancer type movies. Oh yeah, Red Sparrow and the other one I actually liked better. Red Sparrow was not good, No, it was it, But the other one with the model I thought was better. Well, I don't even remember that one.

Yeah, now I'll have to have to search my memory banks. Or just asked my wife because she's seen it many many times. But I want to I want to start bringing this episode to a close with it a little bit of an idea where the series may be heading. So the synopsis the first couple of lives for the synopsis of the new book, Change is coming to Sweden's far North. It's untapped natural resources are sparking a gold rush, with the criminal Underworld leading the charge.

But it's not the prospect of riches that brings Lizbeth Salander to the small town of Goscus. She's been named guardian to her niece Svala, whose mother has disappeared. Two things soon become clear. Swala is a remarkably gifted teenager and she's being watched. And then next sentences, Michael Bloomquist is also heading north.

Yeah. I feel like maybe they're returning back to what made the first book so good. Is a small investigation in northern Sweden. That'd be nice, Yeah, kind of a kind of a what was that one with Alpaccino that was a remake of a Swedish film. I think it was Insomnia?

Insomnia, Yeah, and that other female spy movie was Anna. Oh yeah, Helen Mirren was in there. Yeah, and that was a Luke Bissan joint. And look, I'm glad that Steve Larson's books clearly have more legs than Yo Nesbo's books, because, for Folk's sake, that adaptation of the snow Man that we got. But that's the only other comparison that I have is that because it's Harry Hula and Jonezbo or Harry Hula and Lizabeth Slender, that's it.

And those are the two kind of like Nordic characters that we have and like that Snowman movie was the Dog. It was such a fucking mess. But you know, I will tell you that there are a pair of writers mash stole Wall and per Wahu, And I know I'm just butchering their names, but they came up with the detective named Martin Beck and he's got a whole series of stuff I highly recommend. And they made two movies. Well, I know that they've made a whole series of movies in Sweden, and they've made a few movies that are available here in the US, including The Laughing Policeman with my good friend Walter Matthauen there and one was it was The Man on the Roof.

I think is another one which I have yet to see. But they have a whole series of books and then the versions of them, so highly recommended. Yeah, I'm a fan of this area of the world, and they're kind of crime storytelling. Like Yo Nesbo's book The Snowman is really good. He's a really good writer.

That movie, on the other hand, is fucking night a ghoulish nightmare. The only funny thing about that movie. Do you remember the poster, the poster for that movie, it's it's got a little drawing of the snowman. It's as mister police, you could have saved her. I gave you all the clothes it as a little snowman, and the internet them to the ship out of it.

That was the best part of that movie, but so bad. That's like the only comparison that we, as we Western Americans have to like this kind of story and this world of like Norwegian storytelling outside of the things you're talking about, but like, those are the big ones, and Girl the Dragon Tattoo stands alone because it's way better than those, for sure, for at least for that one. And again, I don't think we're going to see any more Yo Neesbo stuff being adapted, given how hard that stuff failed. But I mean, the Girl at the Dragon Tattoo persists, and I'm sure I can more or less guarantee that we will see something else in the future. It's almost a guarantee.

Yeah. I've got a friend who's very into detectives from other countries, and if I asked him, like, hey, give me seven Swedish detectives, he'd be like, oh, well, here are you going just rattle them off? Because he's very into keeping up with our neighbors and even more than us detectives. So there's some really great detective fiction being written around the world. And if you ask your friend what he thinks of a girl with the dragon tattoo, they oh, that's I'm very good.

And I would probably I would probably believe that that this is probably the most popular, but not necessarily like quality wise. Again, those second and third Millennium books I just a vibe with and there's nothing that they could do to change that because the movies. The movies are very close adaptations of the books. So it's like the story alone, I'm not a fan of. So yeah, probably there's probably way better, but these are the most popular, so and yeah, this Slander character will persist because she's an iconic character, she has an iconic design, she's interesting, and she's been portrayed well enough so far that there is a level of like I wouldn't say gravitas, but like there's a level of like importance to being cast as that role.

They're not just casting somebody as Elizabeth Salander. Even Claire Foy was like, we're making this decision, We're gonna really put our best foot forward to nail the casting but yeah, we'll see. I don't know. It was fun to get to talk about all these but I don't know if I mean, maybe if they release something else, but like if it's unless it's something new, I'm not like I'm returning to the girl who kicked the hornets nest again, Like, no way, no way. So so blame yeah, Mike.

Final thoughts on all of the Girl with the Things. Yeah, we haven't talked about what thirty Days of Night with the Paranormal Girl with the Dragon. Oh my god, is that a thing? There's the thing? Yeah, that was the thing.

That was that a Friedberg and Seltzer joint. No, there's somebody even worse than them, I think. So it's really saying something. I haven't even tried these and there's like multiple of these crazy titles. So it was called sorry, uh oh, it's not even gonna show me.

It's starting starting to show me. The girl with Gifts. I know there was a there was a mashup called how to Train Your Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but that wasn't this Thirty Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Jesus I'm sure it's great. Yeah, yeah, directed by Craig Moss.

Oh he's the one who directed all those other movies The Forty year Old Virgin who knocked up Sarah Marshall and felt super bad about it. He directed that badass movie though, the one that has Danny Trejo in it, Badass Trilogy. Man. Oh sorry, yeah, why is that a thing? Breaking Wind, which was a parody movie of the Toilet Books, which was terrible.

I actually have sat down and watched that. I haven't seen any of the other of these, like The Nightmare, Nurse nine one one Nightmare Let Us in the Charnel House. So yeah, final thoughts about these movies though, If you haven't seen either The American or Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tad too, I would highly recommend that you check one or both of them out and then kind to skip the rest, unless, like I said, you just happen to catch him and you're at home on a Sunday and there's not a whole lot of other stuff going on. They passed the time pretty well, and hey, folks, if you're really about watching things for free, they're all on to b There you go, except for The American one and yeah, the Girl of the Spider's Nest, those are you know not.

But these Swedish ones are the Swedish versions that I watched. I don't know if the ones what ones are on to be. They're probably like the two and a half hour versions or two and something, but I was watching three hours of each of these, like the I guess it was the mini series that they showed in Sweden, and man, oh man, that was quite an investment of time and it was totally worth it. And I've gotten to the point now where I'm like, when I watch these and I happen to come across the shorter version, I'm just like, well, where's this scene and where's the scene. It's kind of like trying to watch the original Lord of the Rings without the special editions.

No, I'm I'm I'm totally with you. It's a I think if you, I think everyone should watch the because I watched the mini series the first time I watched this, I think everybody should watch the miniseries once. If you want to revisit them, I mean again, do so at your own peril. But I'm with you. I think the first movie, the first movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Swedish and English are worth checking out, if not just to see how one story can be told two different ways by two distinct and unique sets of voices.

But I'm with you, like beyond that, it's going to be what do you resonate with? Does this interest you? Are? You? Are you engaged and interested throughout?

I think, if if anything, I could suggest, maybe give the Girl with the Hornet or who the fuck is it called the Girl who Danced in the Spider's nest web. I don't know, the titles are lost his mind. It's been an hour and a half off the deep end. The Girl with the Thing with the Guy in the Place, No, the Girl in the Spider's Web. I would say that one is a weird thing that exists on its own.

That might be for the right person, they may resonate with it more than they resonate with any of these other movies. Because it is an action movie. And if that's your bag and you want to watch another movie with a female heroin kicking ass, you could do worse. You could, you could, you could do a lot better, but you could do a lot worse. So hey, I mean, it gave us an opportunity to sit down for an hour and a half and talk about these movies.

Yeah, yeah, good times. Yeah. So until the next time we do a crossover episode, which maybe a couple of years, because I think the last time we did one was The Justice League. Holy cow, we might have to do one. There is a sequel to this little movie called Dune coming out, so we'll do another one of those.

Speaking of Stellen scars Guard, yes, yes, my Dune. Yeah oh hashtag not my Dune. Yeah, god, I would, yeah, I would. I would do a crossover on that. Yeah, why not, right?

Yeah, I mean I don't want to see that movie, but I'll watch it if we're going to talk about it. Yeah, what did they say? It picks up just where you fell asleep in the last one. Fuck you guys in your three hour Dune movie. Hey, you know what, you know what the Dune movie hasn't come with girl with the Dragon tattoo.

It's very monochrome, very monochromatic. Yes, yeah, whatever, Hey, well when all the furnitures from Ikea, you know, all right, that's fair. How many moms do you guys have on set? We need five more moms please. So until the next time we do a crossover episode or whenever we chat.

Mike, where can people find you? You can always find me and all my stuff over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, including the Projection Booth, The Life and Times with Catain, Barnie Miller, Dreams for Sale, Gosh what Else ranking on Bass Midnight Viewing. There are so many opportunities for you to hear my voice, and you should take all of them, folks, because you know, because you should, and if you're not, what's wrong with you? As for me, you can find this show here at Weirdingway Media or at culturecast dot com. Either way you're finding the show like rate and review wherever you get it.

And yeah, Mike, thank you again for joining me. This was fun. Out of the blue, but fun, a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me man and as always, will catch on the next episode. No