The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg, 2011)

[Spinal]

Why are you opposed to the protagonist having a personality?

[Grouchy]

Why are you opposed to the protagonist having a personality?
Because the protagonist is Tintin and he doesn't have a personality.

[Spinal]

Because the protagonist is Tintin and he doesn't have a personality.

Ah, so you're not interested in explaining yourself. Got it.

[Morris Schæffer]

Grouchy, I'm not sure that mentioning that Bond movie as a poor example strengthens your argument. Surely, there is logic in the decision to attempt something different with Bond after five movies? Indeed, those final moments are amongst the best of the bond franchise. This is also what Casino Royale attempted and I would say pulled off with moderate succes. What about videogame adaptations? Their celluloid counterparts are frequently as boring and vapid as their pixelized versions. Should we place them on the highest pedestal for the wonderfully uninteresting protagonists that they are?

[Grouchy]

Ah, so you're not interested in explaining yourself. Got it.
What? It was an explanation.

[Grouchy]

Grouchy, I'm not sure that mentioning that Bond movie as a poor example strengthens your argument. Surely, there is logic in the decision to attempt something different with Bond after five movies? Indeed, those final moments are amongst the best of the bond franchise. This is also what Casino Royale attempted and I would say pulled off with moderate succes. What about videogame adaptations? Their celluloid counterparts are frequently as boring and vapid as their pixelized versions. Should we place them on the highest pedestal for the wonderfully uninteresting protagonists that they are?
I didn't mention OHMSS as a poor example of anything - I love that movie. What I was trying to provide with Bond is an example of a character who can't really change too much without becoming something else. I mean, you can't have a canon movie with Bond battling capitalism. Or a canon movie of Superman where his rocket lands in India instead of the US. You can have those things as parodies, Elseworlds, whatever, but you can't have them as the real thing.

Well, same with Tintin - he's a reporter who loves adventure. That's exactly as much as Hergé wanted to reveal about the character. If you make a feature film about Tintin and you give him conflicts, traumas, a past, whatever, you destroy the character. It's doomed to fail because it's not Tintin anymore, so what's the point in making it at all?

Your videogame example sounds good, but I don't think it's valid because most videogames don't have fully developed dramatic storytelling. When they're adapted to film the writers are expected to flesh out the story. Of course, there are exceptions, but action videogames such as Resident Evil don't really feature complex characters.

[Morris Schæffer]

Well, same with Tintin - he's a reporter who loves adventure. That's exactly as much as Hergé wanted to reveal about the character. If you make a feature film about Tintin and you give him conflicts, traumas, a past, whatever, you destroy the character. It's doomed to fail because it's not Tintin anymore, so what's the point in making it at all?



Well, he'd still be a reporter who loves adventuring and depth doesn't mean the movie would suddenly have to go all Tsarkovsky or Bergman, but I'm going to stop the discussion here. Not because you piss me of, but because I'm not even sure this blank slate is the chief reason why I thought Tintin was merely a very enjoyable romp and nothing more.:)

[number8]

There are literally books written by essayists and literary critics analyzing the meaning of Herge's deliberate blank slate characterization of Tintin and the mystery behind his inhumanity. I should think that millions of fans would flip a lid if he's suddenly given one, and it would be seen as classic Hollywood-ing, I guess. Like Ron Howard explaining why The Grinch hated Christmas.

From a book review of Tom McCarthy's Tintin and the Secret of Literature:


Tintin was a word before it was a name; it means “nothing,” and the phrase faire tintin loosely means “to go without.” Hergé’s boy reporter does not bear this name by accident: “Tintin,” McCarthy says, “is pure negative, the whiteness of the whale, the sexlessness of the unconsummated marriage. . . . Tintin both offers and withholds.” Indeed, for all his crime-solving prowess, there is something strangely absent about Tintin, something strangely unyielding. He does not age, he has no sexuality, no desires of any sort, no past, no family, no first name. The mystery of Tintin has been in plain view all along: It is Tintin himself, and the secret of his mystery is that it has no solution. “Guardian of the silence at the heart of noise,” McCarthy writes,

[Spinal]

What? It was an explanation.

"Tintin has no personality. That's the way it is."
"Wouldn't it be better if he did?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because he's Tintin."

All right then.

[number8]

One of the most interesting critiques I've read of the movie is one that references the Tintin chapter in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. McCloud said that a huge part of the draw of the Tintin comics is that Herge would photoreference the shit out of the backgrounds. The exotic locales that Tintin visits are all rendered realistically in very high details, but the characters are drawn simplistically and in clear lines, with faces that have very little details, giving a contrasting effect that McCloud theorizes, along with Tintin's blandness, make them nothing but placeholders for adventurous readers to insert themselves in those picturesque landscapes in place of characters that McCloud says are more "iconic." The film, however, renders the characters just as photorealistically, so they blend into the backgrounds, thus eliminating Herge's contrasting effect.

[Grouchy]

"Tintin has no personality. That's the way it is."
"Wouldn't it be better if he did?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because he's Tintin."

All right then.
Well, it's an explanation. You just didn't understand it.

I've always remembered that chapter in the Scott McCloud book but, until now, I hadn't thought about how it related to the film.

[Morris Schæffer]

Nice post 8!

[Spinal]

Well, it's an explanation. You just didn't understand it.


Because you have no interest in conversation. Just smug dismissals. So, well done, I guess.

[Grouchy]

Because you have no interest in conversation. Just smug dismissals. So, well done, I guess.
No, no. It's a perfectly sound explanation, like number8 has showed with his quotes.

[Qrazy]

Here you go Spinal. A Tintin with spunk.

xZ4RzQXi-x4

[Spinal]

I guess they pushed him too far.

[baby doll]

Accepting that Tintin is purposefully bland, does that mean everything else was bland on purpose as well?

[Morris Schæffer]

http://www.ulujain.org/images/tintintehran.jpg

This looks edgy as well, but I don't think it's real.:)

[StanleyK]

This is certainly a very enjoyable film. It's witty and funny and the action is spectacularly orchestrated (some sequences I feel are Spielberg's most ambitious in quite some time). I don't feel it was particularly memorable- I must echo complaints about characters not being very compelling and the film being ultimately slight- but it's entertaining without once insulting my intelligence and I felt satisfied at the end.

[KK2.0]

went to the IMAX today hoping to catch this before it leaves theaters, to my surprise it was packed. hate to sit at the front rows but there was no choice.

yes, it's very enjoyable, despite never reading any of Herge's books i was aware of how it was supposed to be and it didn't bothered me, I think Spielberg sucessfully captured the charm of the characters, Serkis was a great choice for Haddock, he fits these over the top roles perfectly. Despite the non stop action, I love how spielberg adds little details like the scene which the Dupont bros meet the pickpocket guy, focusing on each characters' hands first. But the action also had it's highlights, some setpieces were stunning, the pirate ship attack put a smile on my face, so over the top. The ending was a bit strange though, i think the final showdown was a tad disappointing and the epilogue seemed rushed.

I'm glad the film is doing well overseas, i want Peter Jackson's version asap.

edit: Let me put this better, I want his version right after the Hobbit films.

[Watashi]

I just watched the episodes of the cartoon that the movie was based on, and uh... it's pretty bad.

[Grouchy]

I just watched the episodes of the cartoon that the movie was based on, and uh... it's pretty bad.
Eh, the movie is not based on a cartoon.

[Morris Schæffer]

Eh, the movie is not based on a cartoon.

Well, not strictly speaking, but don't the stories correlate? I mean, the cartoons must be based on the books after all right?

[[ETM]]

The cartoons are like the first two Potter movies.

[Grouchy]

Well, not strictly speaking, but don't the stories correlate? I mean, the cartoons must be based on the books after all right?
Yes, obviously. Watashi must be talking about this TV series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin_(TV_s eries)).

They did every story except for Tintin in the Congo.

[Qrazy]

I really wanted to love this but as it stands I merely liked it okay. I'm surprised to hear all of you praising the action because frankly I thought that to be one of the weakest links. This is a recent problem for both Spielberg (clearest in Skull but evidenced in some of his weaker efforts like Lost World also) and Jackson (King Kong but a little in the later Rings films) of overcrafting their set pieces. They push them way too far over the top to the point of absurdity. It's no longer thrilling because it's just impossible and ridiculous. In Skull you had that idiotic crystal skull juggling act in the jungle which Spielberg repeated here with the scrolls. In Kong there was the dinosaur falling through the vines. The freedom of CGI has absolutely destroyed these filmmakers ability to tell the difference between what is exciting and what is stupid. When a set piece merely clicks into place like a piece of clockwork something has gone wrong in it's construction.

I don't think Tintin needed any backstory, but I could have done with a few more quiet moments between him and Haddock or Snowy or whoever. The most fun comes early in the film when Haddock and Tintin are verbally sparring, getting the keys to the alcohol, etc. Also not enough weight is given to death... oh the guy died on my doorstep and left a message in blood, no biggy.

All of that said Spielberg is still a top class visual storyteller. I simply admire his ability to move from shot to shot. There's almost always a visual cue which allows him to properly cut away. For instance when Tin Tin is looking for his magnifying glass the camera follows him around the room and then Tin Tin moves away and we cut between all the framed stories on his walls... then back to him and to Snowy with the magnifying glass, etc. There's a fluidity to the visual progression here that very few filmmakers can match.

[DavidSeven]

They push them way too far over the top to the point of absurdity. It's no longer thrilling because it's just impossible and ridiculous . . . The freedom of CGI has absolutely destroyed these filmmakers ability to tell the difference between what is exciting and what is stupid.

I think this has become a problem for the vast majority of CGI-era filmmakers in addition to Jackson and Spielberg. I'm reminded of the train crash sequence in Super 8. I was immediately taken out of the film by the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Spielberg's most effective use of VFX probably came nearly 20 years ago (in Jurassic Park) before the "evolution" of CGI allowed him to put anything he wanted on screen. It's funny that the one major blockbuster director who has mostly avoided the CGI trap, Chris Nolan, is the one who is most frequently criticized for his staging of action sequences. Honestly, I'll take confusing close-ups of real action over wide-shots of filled-in green screen any day of the week.

[Qrazy]

I think this has become a problem for the vast majority of CGI-era filmmakers in addition to Jackson and Spielberg. I'm reminded of the train crash sequence in Super 8. I was immediately taken out of the film by the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Spielberg's most effective use of VFX probably came nearly 20 years ago (in Jurassic Park) before the "evolution" of CGI allowed him to put anything he wanted on screen. It's funny that the one major blockbuster director who has mostly avoided the CGI trap, Chris Nolan, is the one who is most frequently criticized for his staging of action sequences. Honestly, I'll take confusing close-ups of real action over wide-shots of filled-in green screen any day of the week.

I haven't seen Super 8 yet but yes, it's a widespread problem. Verbinski, Raimi, even Cameron a bit in some of the Avatar set pieces and all those other action tentpole filmmakers.

Agree with the bolded, although I think Nolan does have some room for improvement in the action staging department (the winter level in Inception was poorly handled), but he has improved a lot. And I too much prefer real acton over CGI content. Although I do think a CGI set piece can be good (Spielberg himself has put together plenty of good ones in Minority Report, War of the Worlds, I'm sure he used some in Munich also) but you have to reign it in conceptually. If you throw in everything and the kitchen sink it's going to suck.

The crane battle at the end of Tin Tin for instance, just way too ridiculous to me. Personally I think the goal in this kind of animated action adventure should be to make the cartoons feel like flesh and blood, not like cartoons. Don't just scuff up your characters. Injure them (a la Die Hard, Kill Bill, or Raiders). I've been much more concerned for the well fair of characters in 2D Miyazaki films than I was for anyone in this film.

[Watashi]

I don't understand the criticism. Tintin is an animated film. It's not trying to be grounded in realism. Of course a lot of goofy slapstick action will look implausible. If Tintin was traditionally animated, would you also complain about the action sequences? I think it's more of the staging and choreography of the action rather than the CGI itself.

[Qrazy]

I don't understand the criticism. Tintin is an animated film. It's not trying to be grounded in realism. Of course a lot of goofy slapstick action will look implausible. If Tintin was traditionally animated, would you also complain about the action sequences? I think it's more of the staging and choreography of the action rather than the CGI itself.

This is what I am talking about, yes. And if it were traditionally animated I would still complain.

Then Seven and I started talking on a tangent about the larger issue of CGI in live action which as I said has been done very well but imo has ultimately done more harm than good because it allows filmmakers to become very self-indulgent and push things way too far over the top.

[transmogrifier]

Yeah, I saw this and it was okay. Way too frenetic in its A to B to C to D plot mechanics, and the action scenes were over-crafted, but between all the noise it looked amazing and Haddock was an interesting character to tag along with, once he finally showed up. Unlike some, I wasn't put off by Tintin's inherent unchangeability - he was suitably curious and intelligent and that was enough of a gateway.

Not nearly enough T & T though.

[number8]

Also not enough weight is given to death... oh the guy died on my doorstep and left a message in blood, no biggy.

I liked that, actually. It gives the impression that Tintin is such an adventurer that this shit is normal occurrence to him.

Also, I bet that was a Moffat scene since the joke they made (Tintin asking the landlady to call the cops because of the dead body and the landlady just going "Not again!") is so Sherlock-Mrs. Hudson.

[Dukefrukem]

I think this has become a problem for the vast majority of CGI-era filmmakers in addition to Jackson and Spielberg. I'm reminded of the train crash sequence in Super 8. I was immediately taken out of the film by the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Spielberg's most effective use of VFX probably came nearly 20 years ago (in Jurassic Park) before the "evolution" of CGI allowed him to put anything he wanted on screen. It's funny that the one major blockbuster director who has mostly avoided the CGI trap, Chris Nolan, is the one who is most frequently criticized for his staging of action sequences. Honestly, I'll take confusing close-ups of real action over wide-shots of filled-in green screen any day of the week.

Does Avatar fall into that category. It's the only movie I can think of where the green screen fill isn't distracting. Compare Avatar to a movie like, Attack of the Clones and it's night and day.

[number8]

Avatar is actually fairly muted in that regard. It mostly uses CG because they had to create alien creatures and flora, but the action staging themselves are fairly simplistic.

I think what Qrazy's talking about isn't strictly a CG problem. It's just the culture of CG freedom has opened up these directors' imaginations to think that any action shot they can imagine in their mind is now fair game to depict, without any regard to physical or tonal consistency (as long as it's a cool shot!). Legolas shield-boarding in The Two Towers wasn't CG, but it's part of that same mentality.

[number8]

I'd wager that it's partly The Matrix's fault. Those movies deliberately tried to reproduce anime-style shots/staging in live-action, and once you introduce that point of view into a culture, then it seeps into the cinematic language of all action movies. Nobody cares anymore that the Wachowskis actually wrote in an in-narrative reasoning for their cartoonish style.

[Qrazy]

I liked that, actually. It gives the impression that Tintin is such an adventurer that this shit is normal occurrence to him.

Also, I bet that was a Moffat scene since the joke they made (Tintin asking the landlady to call the cops because of the dead body and the landlady just going "Not again!") is so Sherlock-Mrs. Hudson.

The little you gain with that throwaway joke you lose a great deal more of Tin Tin's humanity. That character (the American) was way too much of a plot device anyway.

[Qrazy]

Avatar is actually fairly muted in that regard. It mostly uses CG because they had to create alien creatures and flora, but the action staging themselves are fairly simplistic.

I think what Qrazy's talking about isn't strictly a CG problem. It's just the culture of CG freedom has opened up these directors' imaginations to think that any action shot they can imagine in their mind is now fair game to depict, without any regard to physical or tonal consistency (as long as it's a cool shot!). Legolas shield-boarding in The Two Towers wasn't CG, but it's part of that same mentality.

Yeah or the CG one of him taking down the oliphant in Return of the King. Oof.

[number8]

The little you gain with that throwaway joke you lose a great deal more of Tin Tin's humanity.

Isn't that fitting with what we've been discussing about Tintin being an emotionless adventure machine? Even in the comics, that dude is an asexual without any relatives who doesn't have any hobbies whatsoever and his best friend is a dog.

[Morris Schæffer]

Isn't that fitting with what we've been discussing about Tintin being an emotionless adventure machine? Even in the comics, that dude is an asexual without any relatives who doesn't have any hobbies whatsoever and his best friend is a dog.

I think some were arguing that canon isn't, or shouldn't be, sacred and it's allright, perhaps even more satisfying, to have a cinematic Tintin who would care more about such matters. I think Grouchy was the most vocal supporter of having a Tintin who's exactly like in the books.

[Qrazy]

Isn't that fitting with what we've been discussing about Tintin being an emotionless adventure machine? Even in the comics, that dude is an asexual without any relatives who doesn't have any hobbies whatsoever and his best friend is a dog.

That doesn't mean he's emotionless. When the lives of Haddock and Snowy are threatened he dives in after them. Although that scene was somewhat poorly handled and the full weight of the moment didn't exactly ring home.

[Dukefrukem]

Avatar is actually fairly muted in that regard. It mostly uses CG because they had to create alien creatures and flora, but the action staging themselves are fairly simplistic.

I think what Qrazy's talking about isn't strictly a CG problem. It's just the culture of CG freedom has opened up these directors' imaginations to think that any action shot they can imagine in their mind is now fair game to depict, without any regard to physical or tonal consistency (as long as it's a cool shot!). Legolas shield-boarding in The Two Towers wasn't CG, but it's part of that same mentality.

That's a good example. Or the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull swinging through the jungle scene. Oof that was bad.


Edit: weird that Qrazy and I both used "Oof".

[number8]

Another non-CG example: the car-helicopter thing in Live Free or Die Hard. Completely over the top, and given no thought whatsoever on whether or not it's a John McClane thing to do. They just figured, what the hell, it's an awesome idea, so let's do it. It just reminds me of this (http://youtu.be/pCNAvG06E6U?t=2m2s).

[Dukefrukem]

Another non-CG example: the car-helicopter thing in Live Free or Die Hard. Completely over the top, and given no thought whatsoever on whether or not it's a John McClane thing to do. They just figured, what the hell, it's an awesome idea, so let's do it. It just reminds me of this (http://youtu.be/pCNAvG06E6U?t=2m2s).

:lol:

"This mission, it just got a hell of a lot more... Impossibler."

[Morris Schæffer]

Another non-CG example: the car-helicopter thing in Live Free or Die Hard. Completely over the top, and given no thought whatsoever on whether or not it's a John McClane thing to do. They just figured, what the hell, it's an awesome idea, so let's do it. It just reminds me of this (http://youtu.be/pCNAvG06E6U?t=2m2s).

Dude, he was out of bullets.

[KK2.0]

I guess that's why some action set pieces in asian movies, with only elaborate stunts, can still be more thrilling than anything with over-produced CGI fx. The knowledge that they are just people and they can get hurt or die doing that crazy shit, gives everything a lot more weight.

That said, the absurdity didn't bother me in both Tin Tin and King Kong, maybe because despite the realistic direction they took with Tin Tin's visuals they were still kinda cartoony and with Kong, to me 30's serials and pulp stories have a certain sillyness to them, much of that spirit is also in the Indiana Jones movies.

And i agree with the criticism to the Crane fight in Tin Tin, but i guess it's more a problem with staging and editing than with CGI abuse.

[Skitch]

This movie is the comic book equivalent of getting Jack Kirby to illustrate a Hardy Boys mystery.

I would watch the fuck out of that! :D

[Grouchy]

By comparison: the characters in and around Treasure Island, Captain Blood, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Escape from New York, and hundreds of other pulp and comic stories didn't need long backstories or complex motivations. But: every action they take tells you what kind of people they are. Every action Tintin takes reveals nothing about him. Even his reactions are soulless. He is rooted in nothing.

Because Tintin is such a blank, the movie has no stakes. If everybody in this story said, at any point, "You know what? Fuck it. Let's go get a beer," nothing would change for any of them. Their lives and their world would go on as they did before the movie started. So who cares?
Ok, you already circumvented this criticism on a later paragraph of your review, but still... "that's just like the comics". Tintin has no personality. He's a blank for other characters to bounce against.

[Morris Schæffer]

As a fan of the comics, I've read them all, the movie's true to the source. Great fun, but slight. Energetic, but without real stakes. I think the visuals are really amazing though and they did a lot for me, even when I re-saw the movie. Nostalgia helps too.

I re-read two comics a few weeks ago in fact and was surprised to discover that they were somewhat poor, replete with happenstance and facepalm coincidences, one silly slapstick bit after another courtesy of the dumb as fuck bad guys allowing Tintin an easy escape or an easier catchup time and again. Others have probably stood the test of time much better from what I recall.

This sort of thing you see below is somewhat common in the Tintin comics. Of course, people survive plane crashes in live action movies too, as they do in real life, but I guess the illusion of tragedy striking is more convincing in a live action film? You know, the Indiana Jones movies have similarly silly moments like Indy killing 3 nazis with one bullet in The Last Crusade or his hat magically returning to him after the tank fight, but such moments are admittedly relatively low-key, possible even. There is a similarly silly scene in Spielberg's movie where, after the plane has belly landed in the desert, Haddock's beard is trapped in the propeller and his whole body is crazily contorted around the prop, swirling around it at improbable speeds. It's somewhat funny to watch seeing Haddock go crazy, but with that you basically said "fuck anything bad happening here." Do we automatically assume and expect that a (Spielberg) movie should be more palpably engaging than something which we read when sitting on the crapper or when taking a bath? Are movies more than comics? Can they be more than comics when done right? Should they aspire to offer more because they're movies? I've a strong feeling that no comic out there will be more thrilling and engaging to me than Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that's a blanket statement. I cannot be 100% sure.

You make a good point though Irish about these being 2 different mediums and they need not be treated similarly. I guess there's a part of me that wished Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn was, well, a bit more real, a bit more gripping, less slavish to the source. A Battlefield TV show was recently announced by Paramount, based on the games, and I've already read numerous reactions of folks saying that it makes no sense. Why would they base a TV show on something maligned for its poor narratives? To me the answer seemed obvious, namely why couldn't the TV show move beyond the games and replace bombastic spectacle with an interesting plot and memorable characters? Doesn't mean skepticism doesn't have its place here, but again two different mediums. One does not have to be like the other. All it takes is effort and a willingness to do things a bit differently.

https://futureblue.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/plane-crash.jpg?w=547&h=374

[Dead & Messed Up]

This was fun!