Tintin Forums

For Flight 714, I would have submitted "Sumbawa: Nothing to Report." or maybe "Celestial Shore." Saying there's nothing and then having a long book makes a lot of people wonder, and "Celestial Shore" is from a traditional Southeastern Bluegrass song.
But then the joke about 714 would have been lost.... and I don't think it's a reference to Bastille Day is it?!? (laughing)
I always thought the "Tintin in (insert place here)" names were the most boring out of all of them. I mean, instead of "Tintin in Tibet" why on earth couldn't he have come up with something inspired by Tibetan Buddhism?

Soviets - Tintin and the Bolsheviks (sp.?)
Congo - Tintin in the Bush
America - Tintin and the Gangsters
Cigars - The Mystery of Kih-Oskh (although I think the original title can't be beaten)
Lotus - Mission Shanghai, 1931
Ear - The Broken Idol
Island - British Chase
Sceptre - Syldavia, Kingdom in Peril
Crab - The Trail of the Crab's Claws
Star - The New Island (although the French title 'l'Etoile Mysteriouse' [sp.?] is absolutely spellbiding)
Unicorn - Sir Francis' Secret
Rackham - Atlantic Search: Oversea and Undersea
Balls - The Revenge of Rascar Capac
Prisoners - In Search of the Inca
Black Gold - Tense Times in the Land of Oil
Destination - To Reach the Moon
Explorers - New Paths on the Moon, or, Earth to Moon-Rocket
Affair - Highjacked Plans
Sharks - Intercepted Cargo
Tibet - Tintin and the Migou
Emerald - The Unseen Thief, or, The Nightingale and the Magpie (Richard was this the title you were thinking of??)
Flight - Detour Before Sydney (I thought your suggestion was excellent, though, Danagasta), or, Detour Java (I just love the word 'Java'!)
Picaros - Tintin and the Coup (Charles I loved the title 'Revolutionary Afternoon'! It is so evocative and somehow suits the South American setting)
Alph-Art - Tintin and the New Art

By the way, I think 'Tintin and the Irritable Millionaire' would be a rubbish title and am glad it was dropped (does anyone know if it was Hergé himself or the publishers?)

It is quite a challenging subject: the rename game.
The Dutch books were faihfull to the original French titles, just translated literally, even Cokes in voorraad is a literal translation of Cokes in stock. There were many sorts of coal and cokes was just one of them.
The only one that was different was Ojective: lune (Target: moon). It was called Raket naar de maan (Rocket to the moon). Quite acceptable and probably chosen because the sequel was called Mannen op de maan (Men on the moon). A nice aliteration.
I must admit that the original French title conjures up more danger, threat, excitement than just Raket naar de maan. Perhaps not in the early fifties, though. It must have been quite exciting in those days. Fifty years later we are a bit blase about rockets and space exploration and we only take notice if a Shuttle blows up.
Of the British titles I think The prisoners of the sun is better than the original title: Le temple de soleil (The sun temple). Again for the same reasons as above and it sets you thinking: How is that fysically possible, being a prisoner of the sun? It is the same with the first Thunderbirds episode: Trapped in the sky...
Of the suggested titles I like The sign of Ki-Oskh and The revenge of Rascar Capac.

I am not very fond of Kuifje in Afrika and Kuifje in Amerika. Too easy.
Although I can't think of a good alternative, something like The ivory hunters for Tintin in the Congo springs in mind.
For Tintin in America I had The Chicago crime wars/The Chicago syndicate wars or The bootleg smugglers.
Flight 714 (one of my favorite Tintin books) would become Detour to nowhere (but I think the original title is very good)

I think there's a lot to be said for having a simple title (Tintin in ...) as opposed to a complicated or mysterious one. Especially for the first books, when the stories themselves are pretty simple. And I personally prefer the English The Red Sea Sharks to Coke en Stock, it does sound more interesting.

thundercars :
I must admit that the orignal French title conjures up more danger, threat, excitement than just Raket naar de maan. Perhaps not in the early fifties, though. It must have been quite exciting in those days. Fifty years later we are a bit blase about rockets and space exploration and we only take notice if a Shuttle blows up.

Didn't Hergé have a bit of an argument over the title of the second Moon book ? He wanted to call it On a marché sur la lune (loosely "we walked on the Moon", pedantically "one walked on the Moon"), but Casterman objected and said it was a dull title. I think Hergé said the alternative was Pas de salami pour Célimène !

the first Thunderbirds episode: Trapped in the sky...

That was probably my favourite episode ! Even in today's Hollywood blockbuster atmosphere, the finale to that episode still blows you away.

It sure does. If only they had found something as exciting as this for the live action Thunderbirds film. I would have suggested Atlantic inferno. I have always found that too much happened in too little time. That story could have been expanded to movie length format. Although I understand that the film has to be acceptable for this generation, my main point of critisism is that they veered away too far from the original concept.
The danger is, of course that this will happen with the Tintin film as well. The sixties films at least were very close to the original books, with a great effort to find look-a-likes. If they update it too much (Tintin with a laptop and a MP3 player???) it will spoil the atmosphere (and dare I say: my memories) of the books.

Pas de salami pour Celemine was the title of a Chlorophyl story, which appeared in Tintin magazine and was published in the famous Lombard hardcover series in 1957. The artist was Raymond Macherot...

I also agree that the "Tintin in ???" are boring titles and that they could have come up with better ones.

Tintin in the land of the Soviets could be "Tintin goes east" or "Soviet Revealed" or "Adventures from the U.S.S.R."

I think that Tintin in Congo could be renamed "Report from Congo" or "The Congo Report" to make more of a connection of Tintins occupation and why he is there.

Tintin in America could be something like "Troubles in the Wild West" though it's only a part of the story and would make a nice connection to the Totor series. Or maybe "The Mafia and the Indians", though I realise the problems with Indians being also people from India, but I don't really agree with the term red indians to describe native americans.

Tintin in Tibet could simply be "In search of Chang" or "The Yeti's secret" the secret being his lair, that he wasn't so bad after all and that he existed at all.