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When I first read Flight 714 as a ten-year-old, I found it gloomy without understanding why. Now re-reading the story after ten years, I discovered the reason: Tintin hardly smiles and doesn't laugh a single time in the entire book! That is really unusual and, in the context of this particular book, inexplicable.

In Tintin in Tibet, it is no surprise that Tintin doesn't laugh very often. But in Flight 714, even in the opening sequence where Tintin is on a holiday with his friends, he looks strangely uneasy. His expressions drift between neutral and frowning. It is Tintin's sombre mood which rubbed off on me when I read the story as a child. I wonder, was he depressed, and if so, why? Speculations as to the cause(s) will be interesting!

Most people would be weary after a long flight, not to mention the argument between Haddock and Calculus as to where they currently are.

Haven't you noticed in the scene where Skut introduces Haddock to Carreidas and he shakes Splading's hand by mistake? When Skut corrects Haddock and points to the real Carreidas, Tintin can be seen behind Skut covering his amusement at Haddock's mistake.

On the next page he even grins at Haddock's unease at accepting Carreidas' offer of a round of his own manufactured drink, rather than a good old whisky.

If Tintin gets moody after that it is mainly due to Carreidas suddenly changing their flight arrangements without even discussing it with them; Snowy wandering off; and his unease over Spalding's suspicious behaviour which turns out to be justified.

Flight 714 is an unusually dark adventure, and it's probably that which struck you as sombre. In the first place, it's a more cramped story than many, all taking place in a dank, doomed island, filled with prisons and caverns and underground ruins. Secondly, there is a fair bit of unpleasantness - from the completely unsympathetic Carreidas who is nonetheless on Tintin's 'team,' to the relentless fuming cruelty of the bad guys and the equally relentless punishment they take. Also, unlike most stories, the heroes don't extricate themselves - they are saved by one of the most absurd deus ex machina in the series, i.e., a flying saucer; and even that remains mysterious and maybe even creepy.

That Hergé is by this point relying on his assistants, with their much less elegant line, doesn't help. The book lacks the deft lightness of 'classic' Hergé.

The theme of darkness, amoralism and deconstruction continues in The Picaros, but for my money 714 is easily the worst of the mature Hergé's work: the unresolved structural problem that requires the absurd deus ex machina to crack is a basic problem, the art is not up to standard, and the story is (mostly) unremittingly dark. It's quite a sharp drop from the greatness of The Castafiore Emerald and Tintin in Tibet, to my mind the master at his absolute peak.

I pretty much agree with Cutts. I like "Flight 714 to Sydney" very much (and I love the title and the cover art), until that awful ending comes along. I maybe could have accepted extraterrestials in the story, if everybody hadn't all been hypnotized to forget about it. I just hate hypnosis, I wouldn't hypnotize my worst enemy, and I hope my brother was right, when he once told me, that you can't get hypnotized unless you want to become so yourself. And I find it a very disturbing element in stories, unless it's used in a good way, which I only have encountered twice in my life so far. And alas, "Flight 714 to Sydney" isn't one of those two times. Hergé only managed to make it creepy, and the 90s animated version made it even creepier still. Brrrrrrr...

And I also really have to agree, that both "Tintin in Tibet" and "The Castafiore Emerald" beat "Flight 714 to Sydney", even though it too has its good moments (although those all took place before hypnosis became a part of the story).

I’m not certain that this actually reflects the facts; the team at the studio had been in place for years, and the working practices were in place. In fact, he was probably freer to attend to work than at any time since the war, and more inclined to do so than he had been in years.

The third volume of The Art of Hergé shows that at the time he set out to produce 714 he had just given up active participation in the Journal after 19 years; he was also apparently aware that he was being eclipsed by the rise of Asterix.

The impression given is that Hergé was keen to pull out all the stops on this book, to regain ground, making him possibly more hands on than he usually was; and it has to be said that there are many – even some who don’t rate the story itself particularly highly – who would say that the art in this book is amongst the best he ever produced.

baltyra.com/2011/11/24/les-aventures-de-tintin-en-indonesie

Note to poster: Hello! Your article looks awfully interesting ... but it is written in Bahasa Indonesia? Can you provide us with a summary of your article in English, please?
- The Tintinologist Team

Iwan Kamah's blogpost was about the relations between Tintin's album "Flight 714" and King Leopold II's interest to Indonesia. It is told that King Leopold II and his wife Queen Astrid was having their honeymoon in Indonesia, and then he visited Indonesia again in 1970s for vacation. It also mentions details in the scenes (such as Kemayoran airport, Makassar radio tower, the bar at Kemayoran airport, and even the language the Sondonesians speak).

You know, it is such an honor for us, Indonesian Tintinologist and Tintinophile, to have our country featured in one of Tintin's adventure (although he only visited Indonesia as a transit).

It was probably the Snowy thing? When he thought they killed Snowy? I swear to God he almost lost his mind. That's probably the reason why.
As to the Tibet adventure, of course he'd be depressed, he thought he'd never find Kang (or was it Chang?) alive.

Well, he was upset, perhaps indeed caused by the long trip and sudden sabotage, but I am not sure that he ever thought that his enemies killed Snowy. And I don't think he was upset until that extent, to where he almost lost his mind.

Anyway, it's Chang :).

Tintin was definitely depressed in Tintin and the Picaros, but not in Flight 714. Picaros even begins with Tintin being a passive character in his own adventure. That's another reason I think it's one of the weaker books in the series.