Tintin Forums

Now when you write a comic, thats how its meant to be. Its good in taste, its entertaining me, so whats the problem, enjoy it. Dont look at each and every thing minutely. 'Literature isint meant to be looked under the eye of the microscope', Shakespear said that, or something like that. Im not even sure whether he said that, anyway thats my point.

I don't believe there is intelligent life out in space or UFOs and all that stuff but I do find it interesting. Its because of that reason that I really enjoy Flight 714 (not to mention its the closet Tintin ever gets to Australia).

Yeah but you get to see Australia and New Zeland in various rotations of the Earth as seen from the moon in Explorers on the moon!
;P

Kam

Very interesting thread. I find Flight 714 one of the most disturbing and interesting adventures. I once even had a nightmare vaguely relaed to this adventure where the inner Lava caves in the crater featured in my dream. Its drawings are haunting - the use of lighting and colours is brilliant. Contrast the first colourful half of the sunny, tropical island paradise to the latter half of a dark, desolate, dangerous place.

In fact, I like the fact that this title has loose ends. Many people seem to hate loose ends, but that's what makes Flight 714 even more haunting that it is in reality.

The first half is dominated by the action sequences which provide a perfect backdrop for the thrilling climax that follows. The scene in the crater where the lake is sucked in and then explodes is one of the greatest and most powerfully drawn ones in the entire series.

The aliens' motivation to hynotise our friends is another point which provides for a lot of discussion. Sure, they wanted them to forget events in the last day, but did Mik Kanrokitoff want our friends to be fried alive in sea near the volcano in the rubber dinghy to make absolutely sure that his secret was absolutely safe? Because that's what would have happened had the rescue planes not arrived on time. The fate of Rastapopoulos and the aircrew is again left to the reader's interpretation. So in all ways, this story makes us think more than any other Tintin adventure.

The characterization of Mik Kanrokitoff is intriguing. The lack of appearance of a real alien is also a clever touch. Makes the mystery deeper.


Also Carriedas is shown to be the most heartless of them all in the end when he shows more remorse for the loss of his (admittedly valuable) hat than his missing aircrew and his lost prototype.

All in all, I think this is one of the most brilliant Tintin stories, simply because it provides so many points of discussion and yet has a satisfying, exciting adventure.

In "The Pocket Essential Tintin" the reviewers moan because Herge didn't actually show the aliens (when Herge didn't hesitate to show giant spiders, the Yeti, telepathy and other weird stuff) and accused him of shying away from what could have been the ultimate Tintin adventure - Tintin in outer space!

When I read the book as a kid, I too, was a bit disappointed Herge didn't show the aliens. But now I understand more about science fiction, and the essentials of non-interference with cultures less advanced than your own, I feel Herge was sensible not to show them; keeping them shrouded in an aura of mystery and leaving the rest to our imaginations worked far better. Besides, an adventure in outer space would not have suited the plot. The spaceship was there to rescue our heroes, not take them on a tour.

Now, at the end of Flight 714 there would have been another character who would be even more baffled than our heroes - Walter, the accomplice, who spies on Tintin & Co at the airport and refuses to listen to Spalding's pleas to cancel the hijack because the unexpected guests might mess it up; and, as it turned out, Spalding was right about that.
Anyway, Walter would not have had his memory modified at the end.
He would know about the hijack, and he must have been wondering what on earth happened to his boss, what on earth went wrong, why hasn't he been paid (I presume he wasn't), and a dozen other questions.

But that doesn't explain why Tintin and his friends had to be hypnotized. So what if they had known about those aliens and remembered them? There was never a good reason for that creepy scene to exist.

Like I've said elsewhere, along with all that killing of animals in "Congo", this is without any doubt my least favorite scene in the whole series, because I really hate mind rape.

I don't really think that aliens existing per se ruined the story. Seriously, we don't really even get to see them. The hypnosis thing though makes me dislike the story, even if other parts of it are good. And it makes me hate Ezdanitoff, even though I guess he was meant to be a good guy.

I think the hypnotism and erasing of memory part was to ensure that the existence of the extra-terrestrials remain a mystery to the humans. It could have very well led to a full out war or something. It's a classic science fiction trope, just look at the Men in Black franchise.

I don't suppose that Tintin and Co were particularly harmed by all these. The drifting in ocean part was merely an accident, I guess. In fact, if the aliens weren't there, chances were that they could have very well died anyway.

I did a bit of research and got to know that this memory erasing thing is an actual possibility in the near future due to the plastic nature of our brain. There are some proteins like PKM in our brains that help in formation, retention and triggering of painful (or otherwise) memory via external stimuli. By altering these proteins by shocks or certain drugs, both our associative and non-associative memories can be erased temporarily or permanently. Of course, this is being developed from the medical point of view but I can see the governments of different countries using this in certain cases. For example, suppose you venture into Area 51 in the USA by mistake. They can't kill you for this so they'll just erase your memory.

Scary.