Go see Tintin!

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I am surprised that there has not been a thread about Tintin already… It was a fantastic movie, and certainly one of the few that are really family-friendly this holiday season, but engages all age groups at different levels.

Hugely entertaining, unbelievable visual style, great voice-acting and direction, etc. The plot is an amalgamation of several of the original graphic novel plots. I really don’t have anything negative to say about this film at all. There are guns and some fights, but nothing gory. One character does get shot (off-screen) and killed early in the movie and his body is subsequently visible, but that is about it.

Particularly enjoyable to those who have read the source material – try to spot all the references.

Anyway, there did not seem to be any Tintin love, so I thought I would recommend it if anyone is in the mood to see a movie.
 
I read somewhere that Church referred to Tintin as a Catholic hero.
 
Yep. Even more, Herge was a Scout in his youth, and Tintin was based on a former character of his, who was also a Scout.
 
I loved those as a kid. Crab with.the Golden Claw was a good one
 
I’m excited about Tintin, it looks great and I plan to see it.
 
Ah… casual racism. A family classic.

Although, because Tintin is a modern boy, not so much anymore. Apparently.
 
A lot of families have (regrettably) avoided other quality films such as The Muppets and Hugo (which join Tin Tin alongside numerous Best Of 2011 lists), so I’m really not surprised Tin Tin hasn’t gotten much love, either. More people apparently chose gratuitously profane and gratuitously violent updates of Sherlock Holmes and Mission: Impossible, leaving the family films out in the cold. Sad.
 
havana1 said:
“Casual racism”? In Tin Tin? Was that a typo? :confused:
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No. It seems you don’t know a lot about tintin. Just google “tintin and racism” and you’ll get it. It’s a very common criticism.
 
havana1 said:
“Casual racism”? In Tin Tin? Was that a typo? :confused:
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I haven’t read the books, but from the interviews I have heard on the radio, they did reflect conventional racial views of the era. Racial attitudes in the West started changing sometime after WWII, and the racial portrayals in the earlier books can be dismaying to modern eyes. The book about Tintin in the Belgian Congo has, for many years, been banned from quite a few libraries.

Presumably, the movie cleans up such matters. From what I understand, Spielberg plans a whole series of Tintin movies.
 
Dale_M said:
I haven’t read the books, but from the interviews I have heard on the radio, they did reflect conventional racial views of the era. Racial attitudes in the West started changing sometime after WWII, and the racial portrayals in the earlier books can be dismaying to modern eyes. The book about Tintin in the Belgian Congo has, for many years, been banned from quite a few libraries.

Presumably, the movie cleans up such matters. From what I understand, Spielberg plans a whole series of Tintin movies.
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I’m guessing he’ll probably take a different route than what Agatha Christie’s book adaptations got. No need to revisit some of her stories (let alone book titles like “Ten Little ____'s”).
 
No. It seems you don’t know a lot about tintin. Just google “tintin and racism” and you’ll get it. It’s a very common criticism.
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It is unfortunate that Herge was not iconoclastic with regards to racial portrayals, but as the poster above said, everything in context – in this case historical. Given the other values within the graphic novels, and the fact that the racism is generally confined, I do not find the situation that complicated.
 
I’m in disbelief - ok, scratch that - not entirely disbelief - that the Bishops Conference gave Tin Tin an “A-I” (General Audiences). The movie features, quoting directly from the Bishops Conference review,* “there are a few instances of fist fighting and nongraphic gunplay.”
*

A *“few” *instances? Really? One of the opening scenes features the boy - and he is a boy who looks no older than 10 or 11 - dodging a flurry of bullets that spray the front door and kill a guy right in front of him. That’s ok for an “A-I” title? :confused:

More credibility lost. Not a kids movie. At all.
 
Tintin the character is a reporter who is self-sustaining, i.e. an adult – Herge has stated his age is 17.

Not a movie for young children, but most children over the age of 10 I would imagine could handle one on-screen death.

I was surprised at the rating as well, given that the USCCB is usually irrationally prone to assigning movies more restrictive ratings than they deserve.
 
Tintin is indeed a fun movie. I only read a few of the books as a kid. I liked the cameo of the author at the beginning. 🙂
As for racism, I’ve heard that was only in a few of the earlier books, that when he was working on one of them he became friends with an Asian man, and thereafter made sure to accurately portray foreign cultures. I also heard he later redid some parts of Tintin in the Congo and others so they weren’t so offensive anymore.
 
As someone who loves the graphic novels I also like this movie, even if it made up some things on its own and made a mix of the different adventures. The real things are better though, as it always is. 🙂 So I recommend the movie, but I would recommend even more to read the graphic novels and see some of the old movies. Best intro ever 😃 youtube.com/watch?v=pDHPS0g8wkE&feature=related

About the racism in Tintin, I don’t think you have to worry so much about it and there is none of it in the movie. In the earlier albums like Tintin in Congo you can see some disturbing and racist things but you have to think about that it was a product of its own time, Hergé himself regretted those things later on and thought it was wrong of him to portay things the way he did. But Tintin also gets better, he becomes a friend with a chinese and even risks his own life to save him, he defends a Native (South)American boy and helps Roma people etc. Since Tintin gets better along the way you can see how the hero improves and changes his attitude to other people together with his author and the society he lives in. The albums also have a cultural and historical value but Tintin is also just entertaining to read as a comic. 🙂

Finally, there’s no reason to believe that one becomes a racist just for reading Tintin the same way that you don’t have to develop a hate for ‘‘Easterlings’’ if you read The Lord of the Rings😉
 
We saw it yesterday in 2D. Very good! For those of us who know the originals it was very close (although I have problems read the most of the original comics and I’m not a huge fan so it’s been awhile). For my son who only know TinTin through this movie, it was just a great movie. Well done effects and a good story.

Loved the singer! 😃
 
Andromedus said:
About the racism in Tintin, I don’t think you have to worry so much about it and there is none of it in the movie. In the earlier albums like Tintin in Congo you can see some disturbing and racist things but you have to think about that it was a product of its own time, Hergé himself regretted those things later on and thought it was wrong of him to portay things the way he did. But Tintin also gets better, he becomes a friend with a chinese and even risks his own life to save him, he defends a Native (South)American boy and helps Roma people etc. **Since Tintin gets better along the way you can see how the hero improves and changes his attitude to other people together with his author and the society he lives in. **The albums also have a cultural and historical value but Tintin is also just entertaining to read as a comic. 🙂
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There’s an idea I didn’t consider before–perhaps all the books are heavily skewed based on the character’s own biases and perceptions. Maybe the Africans in Tintin in the Congo didn’t actually look or behave the way they’re depicted, but that was simply how Tintin perceived it. But as he traveled and spent time in other cultures and met various people, he wasn’t so racist anymore. So basically in the books we are seeing things from Tintin’s own mind. Sorry, I just like coming up with theories to explain continuity problems in various works of fiction. It’s rather an obsession of mine, as you can see from the name of my blog. 🤷😃
 
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