Tintin Forums

No, that isn’t what I said: asking you to be reasonable isn’t flaming you.
You are just being advised (I thought that that might be enough, without having to moderate you and issue a warning) that making sweeping statements in which you claim that an average American (one of a population of 304,059,724, as of July 2008) has no taste, is pushing dangerously close to flaming upward of 300m people.

You are far from the only American on these forums, and they may or may not share your tastes, but that is no reason to insult them for it, or demean them.


A good insight! As a fellow old codger, who still thinks of Picaros as the “new” book, finds the notion of Haddock having a first name to be quite novel, and loves the “futuristic” round white TV in Marlinspike, I’m quite sure that had Hergé lived and worked into his second century, he would have added any and every technological advance he could have. I can just see a thrilling chase on jet-skis, micro-lights and such, or the comedy potential of Rock Bottom Insurance spamming the Captain’s e-mail address!
But I can see that there is a vision of Tintin’s world as being sedans with running-boards and headlights on the mud-guards, black bakelite ’phones and prop driven ’planes, because they span they most productive years of Hergé’s work, and they are now indeed period pieces.

And I'm sure a world traveler like Tintin would have loved the modern smart phones with GPS and built in camera. (Of course, the "smart" phone would still reach the butcher shop by mistake!)

If people do stay away in droves then I for one will not hold it against them. My view is that if you enjoy the book then avoid the film! The Harry Potter books had me hooked: most of them I read through the night. Critics have cited various novels as "unputdownable" but Rowlings is the only one to have that kind of effect on me.

If Spielberg and Jackson were working on a film with an original storyline, like the live action Tintin films that were made in the 1960s, then maybe I would be tempted but the fact that by all accounts they are basing them on the original books puts me off. With all the changes in the storyline alone it just would not be the same.

I would think that having some big names associated with it could help the movie, although I think some people are probably turned off by Spielberg, such as those unfortunate souls who for some reason dislike Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

If we look at the animated movies that have been out in the past few years, we find a lot of them that do not follow the typical American (or "Disney") templates for movies: Up, Wall-E, the stop motion one about a girl whose name escapes me.

I don't think that the fact the audience is not overly familiar with Tintin will be an issue - it seems to be the story lines that are drawing people in, lately.

You're thinking of the movie 'Coraline'.

True. But probably every major film maker has his fans or detractors. I'm turned off by Tarantino, but that does not prevent his movies from being successful.


Yes, thanks, that's the one.

You never know really, not every people think the same way.

Probably wont do much in the US.It will do very well in Europe.It should be aimed at a European Audience and not an American one.

I personally believe it will be mixed, purely because of the star personas that are directing and going to be starring such as Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg and heck, even Daniel Craig!
And due to the idea of using Motion-Capture, which as we all know, is very popular with the audience (The Polar Express by Robert Zemeckis for example) for the almost ground breaking technology.