Tintin Forums

I pre-ordered the Moulinsart Shooting Star Yellow Plane Resin Model in March and was disappointed to learn that the model has been delayed due to substandard quality production problems. Does anybody know any specifics about the quality problems or if the model will indeed be available later this year (September/October)? Does Moulinsart have a website with any details?

Hi i heard it will be released in October 2009.
Ilike to get my hand on one too.
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This has left alot of people dissapointed i think there was something wrong with them moulinsart fixed the problem and i guess it will be out in September. you can preorder at www.thetintinshop.uk.com.

September is here... Any news on the status of the yellow sea plane model?

Yea and it will be hard to get hold of aswell had a lot of pre-orders on file.I think its out the last week of September if i can remember right.

Well, September has come and gone with no word from Moulinsart as to why this piece was delayed or when it will be released. I sent an email to the Tintin Shop UK but they have no information either (& frankly, they are getting tired of my email inquiries). I am disappointed Moulinsart doesn't have an official website with information to share with fans who are willing to pre-order models.

Could Moulinsart be delaying the release of this model until the Tintin movie is released? If that happens, we won't see it until 2011!

This may be a completely mad theory (it's certainly not based on any inside knowledge of the situation and I don't collect these models personally), but is it possible that Moulinsart have decided to quietly drop this model, given that the seaplane in question - the Arado Ar 196 - was a German war plane commissioned by the Nazis and operated by their armed forces throughout World War II?

Maybe Moulinsart's Hollywood partners in the forthcoming film are sensitive about anything that draws attention to the still controversial matter of Hergé's and Tintin's wartime records? The Shooting Star, with its German-equipped expedition, largely staffed by academics from Axis-powers and pro-Nazi neutral states, up against an evil Jewish American banker (in the original newspaper strip at least), is probably the book most often cited by those claiming Hergé had pro-Nazi sympathies.

To take a more balanced view, The Shooting Star can be seen as Hergé simply making a rather nervous and pragmatic pro-German U-turn after his pre-war anti-Nazi-Germany books King Ottokar's Sceptre and The Black Island, rather than being indicative of his actual beliefs. But even so, the fact that the European expedition in the book is equipped with a Nazi warplane (albeit painted yellow) may be something that no-one wishes to draw attention to now with a scale model. With the controversy over racism in Tintin in the Congo having been all over the media recently in numerous countries, maybe it's been decided that any other politically embarrassing aspects of the Tintin books ought to be played down.

I reiterate that as a reason for the non-appearance of the model, this is pure guesswork on my part and is most likely completely wide of the mark. The model may simply have been delayed in production and be available shortly. It was just a thought.

And I'm certainly not suggesting that models of the Arado seaplane ought to be banned. My brother and I had numerous German planes among the Airfix kits we built as children, without either of us developing Nazi sympathies! (Mind you, Airfix always omitted the tail-plane swastika markings from their models of German wartime planes, so there was sensitivity on the matter, even back then.) I guess if Moulinsart doesn't release their model of this plane, people could buy and build an Airfix one (if it's still available) and paint it yellow. It'd certainly be cheaper!

Well that is one theory I hadn't thought of. Whenever I read Tintin over the years, I don't recall ever suspected Herge showed Nazi sympathies. Of course that could be my own naivety. Nevertheless, despite Naziism, German ingenuity and engineering have long been widely recognized so I doubt mainstream world would frown upon a model depicting a classic Tintin scene with a German-made plane.

If your theory is correct, why wouldn't Moulinsart have simply cancelled the model by now? Is there a history of other Moulinsart models that have been promised but never released?

To date I only have a few models. The shark sub, the moon rocket, and Tintin & Snowy Jar. The Yellow Sea Plane caught my attention and I couldn't resist pre-ordering it. So I hope the Sea Plane is released soon.

I'm sure you're right, Duke Snowy. It was just an idle thought that led my mind to ramble a bit, as it so often does! No doubt the model will become available soon.

It will probably come out next year then i don't see why there's all the big fuss.It should of come out early this year.