Uncanny Valley is a concern. I’m bothered by his eyes - Hergé drew them as black dots. In fact, Tintin’s face is generally pretty expressionless - the reader inserts his or her reactions into the pictures. Contrast that to Haddock’s explosive expressions.

Bratty - no, I don’t get the gun in that context. Tintin has handled guns, as previous threads have discussed, but the “going out” image that they are using doesn’t need a gun. Without it, it’s more ambiguous - again you can determine if he’s running to something, or away from it. With a gun, the message is more aggressive. Again, Tintin isn’t naturally or violent - but he can be if circumstances dictate.

OK - some observations from the trailer.

1 - evidence of Americanisation of the project. Here are the Thompson twins looking through a news paper:

The prices are in dollars. The story Secret of the Unicorn is set in Belgium - notably Brussels, where the currency at the time would have been the Belgian Franc (now the Euro). So this is of concern.

2 - A curious crossing over of books:

Character to the right is Alan - Captain Haddock’s corrupt first mate who first turns up in The Crab With The Golden Claws (the plane/desert sequences will be from this book too -this is the story where Tintin and Haddock first meet - anything in the trailer on a boat is from this book too). Alan is up to no good (drug running), and has managed to keep Haddock in a whisky-sodden state for probably years. The man on the left is Ivan Sakharine - a model ship collector. He’s quite keen to get hold of the Unicorn model that Tintin picks up in a Brussels market. However, he does not appear in the Crab with the Golden Claws. Obviously, the story is being crossed over the three books (Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s Treasure is one big story split into two volumes), so there is now a connection between the two characters. I suspect the drug smuggling is less prominent in this film (the clue is the Nickelodeon logo), and we’re into major art thievery instead. Ho hum. I bet Alan is pondering the lucrative slave trade.

The thing to do is to see if there is a CGI Hergé kicking around. He sometimes drew himself into crowd scenes, so he may crop up in this film.

Another Trailer - this is from Empire.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/pla ... 6151785001

Extra bits added to the start.

I have an idea that this may be Mr Zolo's favourite subject at the moment

It’s been my favourite subject since I read my first Tintin book - King Ottakar’s Sceptre - when I was about 5. I have a pretty decent stash of Tintin and related material now.

Yes, but do you have a bigger stash of comics and Graphic Novels than pcernie?

Probably not. But I’m going for quality over quantity.

I've got so much 'quality' about, I sometimes struggle to move in here

There is a new trailer. And from the write ups I’ve read about it, I may have wrong about one of the characters in this picture:



It seems that the man on the left is Red Rackham, or a descendent. Now it could be that it still IS Saccharine, but they’ve made him a descendant of the pirate whom Sir Francis Haddock defeated (I am assuming that the good folk here are familiar with the original stories).

Here is the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEj3UsAl0K8Tg

Spot the Indy Jones Jr & Senior moment. Haddock with a rocket launcher?

So - the Tompsons are British (as to be expected - they are generally seconded from Scotland Yard or, later, Interpol), Haddock is Scottish (which squares him up with my vision of Gregor Fisher’s Parahandy).

So far, no sight of Cuthbert Calculus. If they were doing the Unicorn story properly, they would have the voyage to the Unicorn’s wreck and the shark-like submarine. Calculus plays a considerable, and important, part in Haddock’s story in the Unicorn books, so to miss him out seems rather odd. It’s really the first story where the full ensemble cast are assembled by Hergé.

It's looking a bit Porco Rosso, with hints of Sky Captain and Indiana Jones.

Tintin predates Porco Rosso by a few decades From what I’ve found on Google, Porco Rosso uses the same kind of “ligne clair” that Hergé kicked off.

Indiana Jones comparisons are understandable. There is a connection - Speilberg learned about Tintin around the time of Raiders of the Lost Arc and went after the film licensing at the time. I’d happily argue that the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles are about as close to a live action Tintin TV series as you’re ever likely to see. Watching the latest trailer, it’s like Spielberg is saying to George Lucas: “this is what Indy 4 should have looked like”. Anyway, we’ll see how it holds up to scrutiny in October.

To the SNYLT thread !