I didn't post this yesterday because I was under the impression that it was an illegally copied bootleg. But now I'm hearing word that it was a PR-stunt from Sony pictures, so we'll see what develops. Anyway, the two core problems with the teaser have nothing to do with its low quality embed. First of all, the teaser is scored to a piece of music (Immigrants' Song, I believe), and it is merely a quick, context-less cut every time there is a beat in the music. Quite frankly, this is freshman filmschool trailer editing plain and simple. It may be painstaking, but there is little to no actual skill involved in merely cutting every time there is a 'beat' in a song, especially when using footage that has no dialogue and no connective tissue. It's not a trailer so much as an extended music video, one that required much time but little artistic talent or imagination.
Second of all, and this is a bigger issue, the film basically sells itself as a Daniel Craig thriller, with barely a glimpse of Rooney Mara's title character. One can argue that Sony is merely teasing us by withholding a good look at Lisbeth Salander. But the feeling I get is that Sony feels that they need to hide the marquee character in order to trick audiences into thinking that the film is just another thriller involving a smoldering white male trying to solve a mystery. The character of Salander is the only thing that elevates the original trilogy above the level of sub-par television procedurals (although I'd argue that they remain vastly overrated). Yet this teaser appears to be afraid of the very character that makes the stories worth telling. I may very well be wrong, and later trailers may well rectify this issue, but it appears at first-glance that Sony is afraid to sell the unconventional female heroine at its center and is instead hiding behind its bland and generic male sleuth. As always, we'll see...
Scott Mendelson
