Tintin Forums

I'm actually not sure. I think it's to do with the eyes. He loses his sarcastic intelligence, and a little of his cuteness. I suppose he wasn't bad.

I hope to get the book, it looks fantastic! He must have been tricky to animate.

They had to do over 1,000 iterations to nail down the development of Snowy and the look Spielberg and Jackson wanted.

I saw the movie on the 12th, and I'm sorry for posting my review after close to a fortnight.

I'm a little mixed. I liked the movie overall, but there were a few things I didn't like.

Most have been mentioned here already, the music from the Ellipse-Nelvana series was better, I didn't like Barnaby as an American, or Captain Haddock's speech at the end.

However I love how it full of references only a true Titinophile would appreciate, such as the newspaper on which Barnaby spells out "Karaboujan" being Le Petit Vingtième or Hergé being the caricature artist.

The people I went with were not Tintin fans (two of them had never heard of him before), and they didn't notice any of it.

But I think Spielberg and Jackson did an excellent job of making the movie appealing to everyone, from an American kid seeing Tintin for the first time to a seasoned Tintinologist like Michael Farr.

I give it 8/10.

My take on the Tintin film...

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, is directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg. In his twenty-eight film career, made over a course of more than forty years, he has gone from making the terse Jaws (1975) to the action-escapade of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), from the charming E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) to the harrowing Holocaust drama Schindler’s List (1993) and from the awe-inspiring Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to the relentlessly visceral and brutal World War II film Saving Private Ryan (1998).

This is indeed a rich career, diverse and brilliant, constantly taking on new challenges. Here, Spielberg has made his first animated film; however this is no ordinary animation. He has used the process called motion capture whereby computers map the movements of genuine actors to make the characters flow and move realistically while at the same time still being able to create fantastical worlds only possible with computer generated animation.

Here, he has adapted and combined three books from the cult Belgian comic series The Adventures of Tintin by Georges Remi (under his non-de-plume Hergé) which started in the 1920s and continued on into the late 1970s.

While Spielberg has taken large liberties with the plot, combining and contracting various details to form a harmonious whole, it is still true in spirit to its sophisticated source material.
The stars, Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis (as Captain Haddock) and Daniel Craig (as the villain of the film, Ivan Sakharine) are all more than adequate, investing their roles with real conviction that blow away any preconceived notions about how the characters should be played.

The direction of Spielberg is excellent as always, again showing how he is the best mainstream director in American cinema, and like all auteurs, brings his regular crew on board: cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Editor Michael Kahn and film composer John Williams have all worked multiple times with Spielberg; in the case of Williams, he has scored every Spielberg film bar two.

The 3D is well used throughout the film, never becoming a gimmick and always employed imaginatively and in the service of the overall picture.

The main problem with the film is, alas, with the screenplay, written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. It lacks the verbal erudition of the original comics, one of the main aspects that make them so treasured. The development of the story too, is disarmingly straightforward and lacks the requisite twists that one would expect in such an adventure. All this prevents it from being perhaps the classic it was intended to be.

However, this does not negate the excellent direction; acting, photography and editing which all combine to make this a superior example of its kind.

As a purist, I want to highlight three points:

1. The animation was amazing and the production of the film, flawless. Well done Spielberg, you have truly created a Hollywoodesque Indiana Jones version of Tintin.

2. I am really disappointed with the mixing up of the plots. I can, for the life of me, not understand why Spielberg did not stick to the plots of The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure? Those three books in sequence contain enough action and story to sustain the first blockbuster Tintin movie.

3. And why, oh why did Spielberg transform Sakharine into a fully-developed character? I think Spielberg sees himslef as Sakaharine - he needed a way to work himself into the film. You see the resemblance now?

No, Spielberg - your interpretation reminds me of a "La gazza ladra".

I didn't like the movie one bit. reasons:
1. it was somewhat similar with raiders of the lost ark.
2. spielberg did not understand the character of haddock,allan and many other.
3. haddock is not short-tempered and appears like a comedian in the film.
4. he did not show importance to many characters especially allan.
5. dumb background music which affected the movie a lot.
6. he did not stick to the books at all !.
7. no professor calculus.
8. looks of the characters in the film did not match the looks of the characters in the books at all!(examples : thompson and thopson, bianca castafiore)
9. the movie was a bit too comical and spielberg did not place the time of the comedy very well.
10. many scenes were dumb and boring especially the first half.

and to crown everything - Steven Spielberg Did Not Understand TinTin Very Well !

I thought the movie was rather well done. It must have been difficult to make a comic book character like Tintin into a life-like movie character. I liked the beginning the best, I think, when they were still showing the credits. I was disappointed that they didn't put in the Nelvana Tintin theme song, but what can you do? I had actually brought in my copy of The Secret Of The Unicorn to the theater, and was trying to show my cousin the comic book the dark! Not my best idea...

Just curious, since I haven't seen any other mention of this... Did anybody notice that there was an Asterix book in Capt. Haddock's quarters?

I think the movie was actually really good. The only part I didn't like was in the begining. The intro took about 3 to 4 minutes. I LOLed through out the movie. Espesally when haddock lit the boat on fire.

I loved the movie. It was a fun, fast paced, rollicking adventure, and thankfully it stayed true to the source material. It was full of excitement, though I preferred the early scenes when there was a little more danger and suspense. It’s undoubtedly the best use of motion capture to date, through it’s still 100% perfect. I liked that elements of the actors were visible in the character models and their mannerisms.

Positives

-Opening credits were amazing, reminding me of Casino Royale and Catch me if You Can.
-Casting was excellent and all were well suited to their roles.
-Snowy was adorable.
-Herge cameo <3
-Fanservice, such as the newspaper articles framed on Tintin’s walls, were appreciated.

Negatives
-Mo-cap and animation-style inconsistencies; such as the difference between the characters in terms of realism/caricature balance (e.g. the realism of the hands compared to faces, or Snowy compared the rottweiler)
-Bianca Castafiore’s model looked weird. She had double chin, but wasn’t big enough in the body…
-Haddock was a little too campy in his mannerisms at times.
-Fancy transitions, while sleek and pretty, were a tad overused. Every time there was a reflection or a glass distortion, I knew it was going to transition to a new space.
-Tintin’s socks weren’t white… :P


I didn't see that... Will have my eyes peeled for it when the DVD comes out...