Tintin Forums

jock123: Were they to be looking at as many films as possible, they might feel it harder to go back and do the non-Haddock, non-Calculus ones later, having already established those characters.

Don´t think any production company has enough money to plan for 20+ films. At least I can´t imagine Tintin (or anything else) becoming something like Bond series, continuing for decades. Huge success could probably mean something like 6 films.

Introducing the characters over three films is a great idea though, maybe something like Crab, Rackham to introduce the characters, then the Calculus affair to finish the story?

Hi there - new here, but am very interested by the movie news and wanted to find some people online who new what they were talking about. I've just posted an article on my website (here: http://www.cinephobia.com/blog/2007/05/tintin.html ) about what I think of the news, and particularly the animation style. However, what I was really interested in discussing was the choice of which 3 they will do. My picks were as follows. (This is all quoted out of the article I wrote):

Tintin in Tibet
I think this one's the most certain. It's often cited as Herge's masterpiece, and certainly its beautiful visuals (with its stark white mountain environments) should look great on film. It also has the strongest emotional centre of any of the books, with the adventure being compelled by Tintin's search for his missing friend Chang. Put this down for Jackson.

The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun
These two have everything: some occult elements, interesting locations (ranging from Captain Haddock's home at Marlinspike to South America), good stuff for supporting characters like the Thomson twins and Calculus, and lots of big action set-pieces. As long as they fix the silly ending (in which the characters are saved by an eclipse) it should work really well. I'm very confident on these as well, and could see either Jackson, Spielberg, or another director doing them.

The Calculus Affair
The third one's a bit of a roughie. I could imagine either of the other double volumes (Secret of the Unicorn / Red Rackham's Treasure or Destination Moon / Explorers on the Moon) being tempting, but looking at them, I'm not sure either would film specially well. So my pick is The Calculus Affair; after Tintin in Tibet it's the one I'd make if I were Jackson or Spielberg. If I'm right about the other two, then I think it becomes particularly likely: its espionage thriller style would make a great change from the more swashbuckling tone of the others. The central plot (about the fight for control of a cold war superweapon) is kind of retro but still compelling. And it has some awesome action sequences, including a helicopter / boat chase and another in a tank. Put this down for Spielberg.

(End quote)

So, in short, I don't think the double albums are anywhere near certain.

To add to my thoughts, we can narrow it down a lot. Several of the early ones are too episodic, and I suspect they would do no more than one (if that) story without Haddock. Castafiore Emerald, while brilliantly done, just wouldn't work, and I think the last two wouldn't be seriously considered. Take out the obviously political ones such as Blue Lotus, and there are really only about half a dozen serious candidates.

Not a lot of new information in this article on a New Zealand website. But dear oh dear, look at this:

With only a few exceptions, Herge gets better and better. The ninth book, The Crab with the Golden Claws in 1942, introduces Haddock and other later characters, including the bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson and the deaf and absent minded Professor Calculus, in Jobbie's opinion completely transform the series.

Nice to have accuracy in reporting, isn't it?
Also check out Haddocks picture. Is it Spielberg or Jackson!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4064399a1870.html

Regarding the choice of books, it wouldn't surprise me to see The Crab with the Golden Claws as the first installment. It's the story of Haddock's redemption so it's got the human aspect, plenty of adventure, exoticism, the lot. It introduces Haddock, the Thompsons are present too - a good first part of the trilogy.

I'd predict the follow-up to be Unicorn/Rackham - it introduces Calculus and has the box-office pull of pirates! Rollicking good story and probably look awesome on the big screen.

For the third part I'm less sure; I'd favour Crystal Balls/Prisoners as it's a very cinematic work which shifts gear at the halfway mark - a supernatural thriller moving into exotic adventure. As long as they don't lose the first part (yes, Belvision, that jibe's at you!) I can't see how it could fail.

I'd love to see Tintin in Tibet on screen (look at the scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring!) but not sure it's eventful enough to appeal to a younger audience, compared with something like Red Rackham and the underwater treasure hunt. The yeti would go down well with the kids, though - and the plush toys would sell! Go well with the bathtime shark submarines ...

Tibet? The Black Island is also a good flick for merchandising, but unfortunately, Haddock's out and will not be turned to film.

I've always wondered but never had a good look how long a Tintin album would take to film, because you read faster than you speak and there would need to be action sequences that are shown in a few frames.

I can't think what adventure would be chosen, they all have their merits

R

If I were Steven Spielberg, I think I might make the first film from three books all run together: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham's Treasure. (I appreciate that this misses out The Shooting Star from the chronological order, but that wouldn't matter.) The advantage of using these three books to make one adventure is that it would introduce Haddock as a drunken wretch but take him, by the end of the film, to the point where he has redeemed himself by captaining a succesful expedition and regaining his ancestoral home.

Obviously, for a satisfying story arc, you'd have to make Allan the main baddie of the whole film, escaping in Morocco to become the power behind the Bird Brothers, and you'd probably want him to remain an active opponent and threat right up to the end of the film, but that could work. The Bird brothers do sort of fade out of Red Rackham in the book, even though the Thompsons say one of them has escaped; in this film, you could have the Bird brothers following the Sirius to the Carribbean in a ship captained by Allan (or a sub, if you wanted to borrow some exciting torpedo action from the Red Sea Sharks!). Allan would sort of be a personifcation of the inner demons Haddock has to conquer - in a final showdown on the rooftops of Marlinspike, maybe.

For the sake of preventing the whole film seeming disjointed, you might need to have Tintin and Haddock stumbling onto the secret of Haddock's ancestor's missing treasure during the Crab section of the film, but that could work well too. Maybe, in this version, the reason Allan latched onto Haddock as first mate in the first place is because he knew something about Francis Haddock's lost treasure and hoped Haddock would have something (like the old sea chest in his flat's attic) that would lead him to it.

The other advantages of this combined three-book idea is that it would also introduce Calculus within the first film. And it'd leave the stage set for film two to be the Seven Crystal Balls/ Prisoners of the Sun adventure - surely an obvious choice.

Should I write to Mr Spielberg, or do you think he's already thought of all this? ;-)

Wow, that's really a very interesting idea. I think that 3 albums may be a bit much for one movie though. I doubt they will make a movie more than two hours long (and that to me is a double album just there).
But it's certainly a great (if odd) idea.

To me, a new Tintin trilogy on film is pretty obvious:

Secret Of The Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure
Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners Of The Sun
The Blue Lotus/Tintin In Tibet

Hey, I like your idea of making one film out of The Blue Lotus and Tintin in Tibet, skut. Would The Blue Lotus be sort of told in flashback memories? It'd be a neat way of bringing in some of Tintin's 1930s adventuring, and would, of course, add to the poignancy of the Tibet rescue story.

The only snag I can think of is that it would emphasise the fact that Tintin and his friends don't age, which might seem odd to movie-goers. Normally in a film, if a flashback section goes back twenty years to a time when the main characters were in their youth (in this case the early 1930s), then the present-day section of the film shows these chearacters aged by twenty years, to indicate the passage of time. In Tintin in Tibet, however, Tintin and Chang are still in their youth, even though it's now the 1950s - fine for Tintin readers, but odd in the usual conventions of film storytelling! However, I suppose with a bit of re-plotting, you could re-set The Blue Lotus in late 1930s Shanghai and Tintin in Tibet in the mid 1940s, making the passage of time much less, and the lack of aging less of an issue. This might reduce the impact of the long-lost friends theme, though maybe a seperation of six or seven years is long enough to work dramatically.