There are parts in the books that can easily be edited out. Now adaptation is not easy, it's not just about reducing 500 pages of prose down to 180 pages in script format.
Caveat: the first book (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or Men who didn't like Women if you take the original Stieg Larsson title) was thought as a 2h movie adaptation before the series format came about. So the first two episodes are to be judged as an inflated version of the first Millennium movie. Actually they just added some scenes that had been left on the editing floor. Anyway the result for this first adaptation really feels disjointed. All the claustrophobic sense specific to this investigation, the slow rhythm of seasons with the long snowy swede winter in the middle, all this is rushed, key scenes are hurried in and characters are bullied around.
Michael Blomqvist is supposed to be the hero in the book, Salander only becoming his sidekick in the process. Fast, she proves to be the interesting edgy character. Less efficient Blomqvist seems dull, predictable, unexceptional. It's a mystery why women find him attractive. But well, in the book you can imagine it's all in his eyes, his smile or whatever. And then the actor they chose just plainly embodies the dull idealist reporter that is so obvious in the book. OK, maybe Stieg Larsson left too much for us to imagine in the book, but that's not an excuse for producers to stick with a character that doesn't go beyond the flat paper-thin Kalle Blomqvist. Either they didn't try harder (best-sellers tight production schedule) or they were not good enough to do a proper adaptation, including rethinking of the storyline and characters to recreate rhythm and suspense.
Now with the second book, the worst in the Trilogy (slow, going around in circles, leaving you time to anticipate everything) there was room for improvement... but the utter failure of the first two episodes, totally missing the Millennium substance transcription to pictures, only left me with the idea to wait for the upcoming American adaptation.
Caveat: the first book (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or Men who didn't like Women if you take the original Stieg Larsson title) was thought as a 2h movie adaptation before the series format came about. So the first two episodes are to be judged as an inflated version of the first Millennium movie. Actually they just added some scenes that had been left on the editing floor. Anyway the result for this first adaptation really feels disjointed. All the claustrophobic sense specific to this investigation, the slow rhythm of seasons with the long snowy swede winter in the middle, all this is rushed, key scenes are hurried in and characters are bullied around.
Michael Blomqvist is supposed to be the hero in the book, Salander only becoming his sidekick in the process. Fast, she proves to be the interesting edgy character. Less efficient Blomqvist seems dull, predictable, unexceptional. It's a mystery why women find him attractive. But well, in the book you can imagine it's all in his eyes, his smile or whatever. And then the actor they chose just plainly embodies the dull idealist reporter that is so obvious in the book. OK, maybe Stieg Larsson left too much for us to imagine in the book, but that's not an excuse for producers to stick with a character that doesn't go beyond the flat paper-thin Kalle Blomqvist. Either they didn't try harder (best-sellers tight production schedule) or they were not good enough to do a proper adaptation, including rethinking of the storyline and characters to recreate rhythm and suspense.
Now with the second book, the worst in the Trilogy (slow, going around in circles, leaving you time to anticipate everything) there was room for improvement... but the utter failure of the first two episodes, totally missing the Millennium substance transcription to pictures, only left me with the idea to wait for the upcoming American adaptation.