MovieChat Forums > The Adventures of Tintin (2011) Discussion > As a huge Tintin Fanatic

As a huge Tintin Fanatic

posted 12 years ago by michaelhirakida
21 replies | jump to latest

As a Huge Tintin Fan, I was hugely disapointed in this film. May I mind you I didn't hate it. It had fantastic voice acting and great motion capture animation. I just thought the story and characters were screwed up beyond repair. It took the story from Secret of The Unicorn and added Backgrounds from Crab with the Golden claws and added them together and POW! WOW WRITERS! Thanks for ruining the story for me. Also, characters that are important in other books are swept aside for the most incorrect villian in all of cinematic history. This character died like halfway through Secret of the Unicorn and was not a villian but they decided NOPE! LETS JUST MAKE HIM A VILLIAN BECAUSE WE OBVIOUSLY JUST SAW THE COVER OF THE BOOKS! I mean... JESUS! But, I did like the animation, I loved the voice cast, I loved Andy Serkis as Haddock. He was very funny. So there are some positives to this movie but I focused to much on the story which made it hard for me to enjoy. I remembered I was in a short lineup for this movie opening night and I couldn't wait to get in. If you are a huge Tintin fan you will be highly disapointed with the story. But for regular moviegoers its great entertainment for young and old.

So I guess I give it like a 7/10 or 70/100.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] michaelhirakida 12 years ago

My god. Im so jealous of you right now! You having a signature of Herge!

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] Bluedusk 12 years ago

I agree with you, that and the fact that the characters were too unfaithful to their comic book models. In the film captain Haddock never swears - what ? The Thompsons/Dupondt actually help Tintin get out safely from the middle of heavy traffic. No: the Thompsons are completely inept , they can't help anybody starting with themselves ! Hergé made them comical, but they are really as scary as the policemen in Kafka's Castle, because they have no personality and completely lack judgement of their own.

Their scariest aspect is revealed - in a still contorted comical way - in The Castafiore's Emerald when they manage to arrest Gipsies for nothing (just out of racism) and tell their chief that "for once we had caught the perfect culprit, but he managed himself to be innocent !" That's how scary their idiocy is ! Read again Hannah Arendt and compare the Thompsons to her portraits of the Nazi average criminals..!

I would really love Spielberg to explore this dark aspect of their (lack of) personality while keeping the humour. The Thompsons should be portrayed as a benign version of Kafkaesque policemen of the kind that could (and would) gladly collaborate to denounce Jews to the Gestapo in the name of duty, while still being played light-heartedly by Charlie Chaplin.

[–] karana_geldar 11 years ago

As a Tintinophile, I actually liked the changes.film and the comic are different medium, so things don't always worked and I thought it was actually rather clever to have that guy as the villain

Obi-Wan is my hero!

[–] todmichel 11 years ago

You were perhaps disappointed by the movie but for bad reasons.
When you write, for instance:
"captain Haddock never swears"
Well, this is totally false. Perhaps the print was cut in your movie, but I have seen this film in France, both in its original language with subtitles, and later dubbed in French on video and in both cases Haddock swears at different times.
Being given that almost all persons, now, are unable to watch a movie without drinking Coke, eating popcorn, or even texting SMS, their level of attention is next to zero.

[–] cornish_pixie 11 years ago

Speak for yourself buddy. I'm a huge Tintin fan and I LOVED the movie. I thought it was great. It's not always possible to be 100% faithful to source material.

[–] epibee 11 years ago

This film is like a soft malleable dough made from mixing 4 Tintin comic books, and thus it missed out on several details and interesting stuff that are found only in the books. Small things, for example, the character Red Rackham actually looked like Captain Jack Sparrow, not King Edward in Braveheart. Or Mr. Sakharine who was an innocent nerd in the comic books suddenly became the main antagonist in the film... really shocking. Why they left out Rastapopoulos?

[–] davannacarter 11 years ago

Tintin fans don't want to admit it, but making a special effects blockbuster out of such a lackluster comic book is the real problem here. The Tintin stories are just not exciting. Their little vignette adventures of a dull kid that happened to get big. I don't find the Tintin characters interesting, nor do I find the stories interesting. The panel shots were always detached medium shots. Hegre never challenged the viewer with engaging closeups, over the shoulder shots, birds eye view, worms eye view, long shots, etc. It's like he couldn't be bothered to put out anything more than medium shots or detached long shots.

[–] epibee 11 years ago

He also never drew blood, except for only one case in "The Calculus Affair" where a blood soaked hand print was found on a tree. For years that one picture terrified me during bedtime when I was a kid.

I think it is excellent how Herge drew Tintin. From your comments I can understand you have some knowledge in drawing comics for adolescents, but surely it does not apply to the simple minds of pre-teen children.

[–] davannacarter 11 years ago

Calvin and Hobbes were for all ages. I found those comics engaging as a child and they still are now that I am an adult. I just don't think Herge's art challenges the reader enough. He could have done wonders if he had chosen more than the same simple medium shots all the time.

[–] Doodlebuger 11 years ago

Davannacarter,

I take serious issue when you say Tintin stories are boring.
First you are contradicted by millions of young people of all generations (not just mine) who grew up totally immersed in the stories.
You may not like Herge's graphic style, that is your right, but Herge's genius is not only about graphics (this is a recent obsession), but about text. It is not just pictures, it is a story told in images AND written. The style you describe has appeared in comics much later than Herge, I would say in the 70's. Back in the fifties, Herge's style was the normal style, no need for special angles, the kids then were able to imagine the details out of the stuff they were presented. They had imagination.
Herge's genius was also to introduce all sorts of characters the kids could recognize in their own environment and relate with. And the relationship between Tintin and Captain Haddock is simply fantastic. Father and son, one perfect, the other flawed, everything is well balanced, and kids recongnize this. Same with Snowy constantly torn between his good and his bad side (usually depicted as a angel-dog angel and a devil-dog), all kids recognise that as well, they do not need wormshots for that.
As to the stories themselves, what is boring in the preparation of a trip to the Moon ? Or in the search for a treasure in the Caribbean ? All Tintin stories, starting with The Broken Ear (when Herge started scripting his books, before that he was just following his inspiration week after week), are exciting. I read The Calculus affair page after page, one page per week, and could not wait until the next issue of the Tintin journal appeared every Wednesday. Notice how every page of these "boring" frames end up with some suspemse. Captain Haddock's dressing in The Calculus Affair held us in suspense for three weeks, and it is a reference in the common language today, for something you can never get rid of.
So, take a deep breath, read the text in the "bulles", pretend you are ten years old, sit down in your bedroom, on the floor (or even better lie down on your belly, album on the floor on the carpet), and enjoy the fantastic adventures of Tintin.
The movie ? Yes it is good, faithful to the original, but Herge never went beyond a certain degree of disbelief, which Spielberg have exceeded, and it is a pity. Does not make it better to ride a piece of motorcycle on a cloth drying line, or to fetch a piece of paper from a real falcon.
But the movie and the albums are excellent, in their own categories. Quite enjoyable.
I just hope I will be able to read the albums beyond 77 years of age.

[–] denise1953 10 years ago

Sixty one years old here, still reading Les Aventures de Tintin. In fact going through a marathon of the series right now.

Haven't seen the movie yet.

[–] Doodlebuger 10 years ago

Yes, reading them all in the proper sequence is the best way to do it. Same goes for Sex in the City btw, and most TV series. I bought new copies of the whole package (including Tintin and the Soviets which was taboo in my youth) five years ago. Good for the mind...

[–] LinusW 11 years ago

As a huge Tintin fan, I freakin' loved this movie!

[–] MaximumMadness 11 years ago

I wasn't a Tintin fan, so I can't compare it to the source material, but I loved it when I finally saw it earlier tonight.

However, one of my best friends is a fanatic for the character (he grew up reading Tintin, watching the previous adaptations, etc.) and waited his whole life for a film like this (as he puts it), and he absolutely loved the film. (I believe he even went so far as to say it's one of his favorite movies now because he's such a huge fan of the character) He was the reason we watched it. He wouldn't let it go the past few years, and finally got me and our other friends to watch it tonight after pressing for it the past few years.

And FURTHERMORE, this is my signature! SERIOUSLY! Did you think I was still talking about my point?