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The landing part was very dramatic, and I think that "Flight 714" seems to reflect the changes in times. Before the 60s and 70s there weren't quite so many graphic action movies. After then, however, action and other films without intricate plots became the predominant product of the movie industries. Even at the stage of "The Red Sea Sharks", action started to play a larger role in the Tintin series, even though most Tintin plots (possibly with the exception of "Flight 714") remained very complex and entertaining. By and large, I consider Flight 714 to be both the most action-filled and the weakest of the stories, although it was still well-done in terms of drawings.

Welcome to the forum, Rich !

Thank you :)

I just wish I'd found the forum sooner - it's terrific!

The landing of the jet on the island, for example, is phenomenal - for speed, excitement and tension, I don't think much comes close to it anywhere else in the series. I also find the volcanic eruption to be incredibly exciting

I couldn't agree more. Both of those action sequences are so beautifully, and thrillingly, constructed. If anyone hasn't got it, and can lay their paws on a copy, Benoit Peeters book 'Tintin and the World of Herge' has a wonderful two page illustration of the Carreidas 160 jet, designed and drawn in incredible detail by Roger Leloup for 'Tintin' magazine. The level of sophistication at which the Herge studio was working on Flight 714 is quite staggering, whatever anyone might think of the book's qualities as a Tintin adventure :)

Rich

Sorry there is so much in Tintin that stretches the imagination, I never really understand why this above everything else is deemed a step too far?
Probably because some people don't stop and think that it's a fantasy anyway. The lines are blurred for some people more than they are others. These are books, fiction....not news reports. Now if it was a newscast doing that, we'd have War of the Worlds all over again ^_^
I love Tintin, don't get me wrong, but I also take it for what it really is.

Courtney

Danagasta
Probably because some people don't stop and think that it's a fantasy anyway.
I think you also have to consider that people know it’s a fantasy, but they might consider that the constraints of that fantasy have been breached.

An author sets up the world in which their characters operate, and that is the world which the reader pictures; it has a set of rules drawn up by the author, and by which the reader follows the narrative. Pushing the edges of the envelope can be stimulating, and produce interesting conflicts and dilemmas in the narrative. However, if the author breaches those rules, and defies the internal logic of the world pictured, he can easily lose his readership.

As an extreme example, imagine if Hergé had suddenly decided that Tintin could fly like Superman - he’d have strayed outside the terms of the world he’d invented for many readers I’m sure.

For many readers, the events depicted in 714 are that step too far, too outside the Tintin-world picture, that they jar, and break the willing suspension of dis-belief. They are judging it against the other books, and finding it wanting.

True, but as the world outside us changes,and the world the author lives in changes, readers can only expect change. I liked 714 as a refreshing change, one that was just strange enough to be great. It was obviously influenced by the beginning of the Information Age as well, if you look at it. Film distribution worldwide, the introduction of satellites and so forth, the obsession with space--it all makes logical sense to me, looking at the period in which it was written/drawn.

Courtney

Flight 714 is my favourite book, followed closely by The Calculus Affair. I was surprised to read the topic, I actually got the feeling Flight 714 was very popular amongst Tintin fans.

Danagasta
but as the world outside us changes,and the world the author lives in changes, readers can only expect change

Oh yes. I agree, but there is a difference between making a change gradually, and taking the audience with you, and changing abruptly, and losing them. This thread is to discuss the reason why some people don’t like 714, and I think that’s the reason - the change in tone was too great in this instance, and many of the audience felt lost. Add that to the distinctly ragged ending, and it isn’t the most satisfactory of reads (although, in mitigation, much of the art is fantastic…).

Same here, Muller, Flight 714 is one of my favourite Tintin books too. I don't what it is, I just like the mood it has.

Flight 714 is not one of my favourite Tintin adventures but it still has quite a good plot. I think one reason why it is critsised is it's different from the other adventures and aliens in a Tintin story seemed a bit strange.

I feel that the plot is a little more raw than the other stories.
In most other books, the plot contains multiple villains (like Mitsuhirato and the Japanese Army in "The Blue Lotus" or the many different gangs in "Tintin in America") and very complicated changes in the story line (like Calculus changing hands multiple times in "The Calculus Affair").
In addition, there aren't too many really big surprises (like Rastapopoulos finally appearing as the villain in "The Blue Lotus" after appearing as a benign person in "Cigars of the Pharaoh").
Nor is the adventure particularly humor-filled and more laid-back (think "Red Rackham's Treasure") or emotional (like "Tintin in Tibet").
Perhaps that is why the story has not been quite popular, and why the story does not have a particularly high rating among self-selected Tintinologists in a previous thread ("Flight 714" is not my favorite, but its plot is still not bad)...