Tintin Forums

I definately found that Picaros bit odd, but it didn't bother me too much. The thing I hate most about the entire series is when Haddock tries to "go home" while on the rocket. That entire sequence annoyed me. :\

Yes, I found it difficult to believe anyone (however drunk!) could be so suicidally stupid.

In later stories there's a tendency to dumb Archie down. He is not stupid!

I admit it stretches credability - being drunk enough to want to leave the rocket, yet at the same time being sober enough to put on a spacesuit correctly - yet it does liven up what could otherwise have been an uneventful journey. It was quite an exciting sequence, though, with Tintin's selflessness for Calculus to save themselves.

I don't know what my least favourite parts are ... I find bits of Destination Moon a bit boring, the alien notion of Flight 714 a bit '60s-kitsch ... oh, and Tintin's sideburns in Picaros. Jeans yes - I could bear those, but why did Hergé let him grow those appalling sideburns ?

Maybe he wanted to make him more 'with it'. Although why sporting a ferret over each ear would achieve this is beyond me.

Regarding the two posts preceding mine, I feel that the changes in Tintin appear to more reflect changes in the times and styles as the years went by than did Tintin. Herge made Tintin so that it served as our window into the past by talking about contemporary issues, as he did with "The Blue Lotus", "King Ottokar's Sceptre", and "The Calculus Affair", to name a few. (in fact, issues about inept or unwilling Latin American despots did not arise until after the 1950s, and the scene showing the two guards in Alcazar-suits watching Tintin's plane fly home shows a less-than-flattering view of Alcazar. Before, we could have sympathized with him because he was Tintin's friend. Sigh...)

From what it seemed to me, looking at all the pop-culture from the 60s and 70s, which were tumultous times for both the American and European social environments, people were changing styles that we would nowadays find amusing. For some reason, I saw more pictures or images of people with sideburns than I did for other time periods (think of the characters in "The Paper Chase", "Monty Python's Flying Circus", later photos of the Beatles, Hippies, etc.). Even though I was way too young to have lived through that time, the pictures suggest that people then looked quite amusing : )

Some of my favorite scenes were:

1) In "Tintin in America" when Tintin was threatening the helmsman of the bogus Police boat with a piece of the fake dumbbell ("You must be Billy Bolivar.").

2) In "Red Sea Sharks" when Capt. Haddock was watching their rescue from the submarine by the airplanes and still was holding the phone in his hand.

3) In "Destination Moon" when Professor Calculus was driving and mentioning that he should get a license. Also, when Capt. Haddock was disguised as a ghost while attempting to cure the Professor's amnesia.

From memory I'd have to say one of my most favourite Tintin moments is when they ram through the building with the tank in the Calculus Affair. No idea why, but every time I see it, it cracks me up ^_^

I like the Dumbell part in Tintin in America too, that was really well done!

It's so hard to choose though....... >_<

Hi - I'm new here, and have been browsing the forums before seeing this thread (this is a terrific website, by the way).

I'm not sure about a favourite, but the Tintin moment that sticks in my mind the most is when Woolf exits the rocket in 'Explorers on the Moon', leaving behind a contrite note of farewell :-( It always upset me when I was a kid, lol

My favourite moment is probably the exchange between Rastapopoulos and Carreidas in Flight 714, the part where Rastapopoulos is trying to extract details of the miserly billionaire's Swiss bank account with the use of the truth serum - the sequence when they start trying to outdo each other's wickedness never fails to have me laughing out loud, bragging to see who is 'the devil incarnate'.

What a wonderful sequence that is. In fact, I think Flight 714 is the most humorous story of all, such as the part where Carreidas is cheating at battleships, and says to Captain Haddock, 'I haven't got second sight, you know', which staring at a close-circuit camera shot of Haddock's paper :-D

I'm not sure I have a least favourite moment, in terms of thinking a part of any particular book is rubbish. Calculus can be a bit irritating though, especially in the earlier books.

Probably the sticking-plaster, the Thom(p)son's pendulum, and the Super-Calcucolor.
If I can add number four, I would say the Thom(p)son's wallets.