Bordurian Thug:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are extremely minor characters in Hamlet though; literally blink and you miss them.
Quite pivotal in their way, though, and a presence, on and off stage from Act II onward - a bit like Haddock in
Land of Black Gold… ;-)
Bordurian Thug:
I find Calculus's omission the most surprising and disappointing actually.
Is it so surprising, when he’s not actually in
Unicorn? We don’t know what the outcome of this movie will be, and how much of
Rackham is involved, so perhaps he’s just not part of this story?
Again, I’d put this down to dramatic balance. As I mentioned elsewhere, the possibility is that he will be a central, pivotal figure in the next film (whatever it is), and the delay is to give him his due with a decent introduction, rather than just shoe-horning in
another introduction into this film.
Bordurian Thug:
I expect that it will sacrifice Herge's realism upon the altar of sensationalism.
Interesting, because whilst I see that there’s a truth to the way in which Hergé created the world his stories, I (personally) see them as largely fanciful, mostly escapist, and in their own way as sensational as Edgar Rice Burroughs or Rider-Haggard. Inca cults! Telepathic fakirs! Ancient astronauts! Giant human snowballs! Amazing hirsute bubble-blowing detectives! All the fun of the fair! ;-)
What politics he has in them is mostly for plot, and not in any real sense insightful; he uses magic and pseudoscience as much, if not more than hard science, etc. The beauty of what he does is that he draws and writes with an authority which makes the story work, and which imbues truth to what he is telling you, but he makes an atomic rocket which is ultimately no more real to me than a levitating monk, or a divining pendulum.
Bordurian Thug:
of course he often uses a weapon in the books but a rocket launcher?????
But from what we see he treats it in due Haddock fashion - he’s not a cool action hero; he’s our favourite sailor, slightly out of his depth but having a go (and getting it wrong). If anything, it’s a more traditional Haddock-y moment than the image of him on the cover of
714, with his sub-machine gun at the ready.