Gingerbread Man on 15/5/2007 at 23:51
Apparently Steven Spielberg obtained the rights to make Tintin movies, and he and Peter Jackson are planning to team up to make
three of them.
The look of Herge's characters and the world they inhabit is evidently a prime concern for the directors...
Quote:
"Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters," Spielberg said.
"We want Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honour the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created."
Jackson said although the movies would be computer-generated, the characters would not look cartoonish.
"Instead we're making them look photorealistic," Jackson said.
"The fibres of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people - but real Herge people."
This sounds potentially very awesome. I wonder which three they'll do?
Personally, I'd love to see
The Secret of the Unicorn and
Red Rackham's Treasure, but then I don't know how I could possibly choose a third.
Tintin and the Picaros? I can't decide... :(
(edit: o wait here's a link duh (
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21735454-1702,00.html) )
Aerothorn on 15/5/2007 at 23:58
I've known Spielberg was doing it for a while. Jackson is new.
I'm neutral on both of them. Spielberg has done a lot of stuff - I can't think of any movie of his that I've loved but he's obviously talented on some level. Jackson...I dunno. I hear great things about him, but the only film I've seen from him is Fellowship of the Ring, which I found technically proficient but rather dull, and inferior to the BBC radio series.
The big thing is the humor. Tintin has lots of mystery, action and suspense - but the humor ties it together and elevates it above a pulp adventure comic. It's funny for little children and clever for adults - it works for everyone. The question is if they can do that for the film. Can they make a film that is considered appropriate for 8 year olds whilst making it fully engaging and intelligent enough for film snob adults?
Here's hoping Jackson and Speilberg turn down the epic drama and crank up the comfy. Tintin, while technically epic, never felt like some massive adventure - it was cozy, something that excited you but never knocked you out of your seat.
I still haven't read all the books.
As usual, I'm skeptical and I probably won't like it (based purely on my own tastes and not necessarily on its quality as a film), but it could be good.
Also, I think this is the first big "realistic computer people" film since Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (which I like, unlike everyone else on the planet). Apart from the fact that their generally not sensible from a budget standpoint, I know Hollywood has been very resistant to it due to actor's irrational fears that they'll be replaced by computers. But good for them for trying - even if the script isn't great they can at least push the envelope visually.
Scots Taffer on 16/5/2007 at 00:13
They need to be able to capture the spirit of the inimitable Captain Haddock!
Inline Image:
http://i19.tinypic.com/6cqth10.jpg"Vermicellis!"Of the books I'd like to see made -
Cigars of the Pharoah: as an origin story. Despite being loosely connected stories, it introduced the Thompson twins and could perhaps be reworked with the continuing opium plotline to merge with
The Crab with the Golden Claws to also introduce Captain Haddock. A big introductory movie that caps off two stories in one!
Red Rackham's Treasure: Abso-fucking-lutely. It was probably the most inventive and brilliant of all the Tintin's I recall. <3 the underwater shark submarine. Also introduced Dr Calculus which is essential as the last of the trilogy would undoubtedly be...
The Calculus Affair: Perhaps one of the weirdest Tintin's but also one of my longtime favourites because of the happenings with Dr Calculus, god, maybe he was the reason I ended up in Mathematics... in fact, one of my lecturers looked quite like him!
Although to be fair I'd love
The Secret of the Unicorn just as much for the hilarious crap about Haddock's ancestry, but perhaps
Red Rackham and
Unicorn could be combined? I can see definite potential for compressing some of these two-part stories into one bigger story.
Aerothorn on 16/5/2007 at 01:32
Unicorn and Red Rackham would work well, but they're almost...too-easy? They'd come off as a cash-in on the current pirate craze and while well-written, they're not the most original/unusual of the Tintin books.
Me, I liked Prisoners of the Sun a lot, though that's also kind of a well-worn genre, just one that's not uber-popular right now.
I still haven't read the black crab/oil ones.
On the upside, this should finally get them to release the Tintin animated series on DVD. Considering that it attempted the seemingly impossible task of compressing an entire Tintin book into 22 minutes of animation, I think it was pretty good. Of course, I haven't seen it since my age was in the single digits.
Gingerbread Man on 16/5/2007 at 02:26
oh god the seven crystal balls
That one actually scared the FUCK out of me and made it very hard to go to sleep for days afterwards on account of that fucking mummy creeping in the WINDOW OH GOD
Also anything with Castafiore, because Haddock really goes up the spout when she's around.
But yeah, I think you could easily do Unicorn and Rackham as one film -- especially given Jackson's recent penchant for SIX HOUR LONG FILMS WHAT THE CHRIST -- and it would seem a bit "lol we capitalise on pirate craze" but it would cement all the major characters so that Movie #2 can speed along quickly from the start. Weren't there some choice Thompson and Thomson moments in Unicorn?
I didn't like the Moon and Oil ones myself, and for some reason I seem to remember the Broken Ear being one of my favourites. I don't recall why, though.
Muzman on 16/5/2007 at 03:04
I can't remember if Tintin meets the captain and he reclaims (or buys) Marlinspike Manor in the same story, but that's be a good aspect to an adaptation. That's been the most memorable part of the books for me (how often do old adventure stories have continuity? Some sneered at Tintin because it was all pictures but they were way more complex than, say, The Hardy Boys).
I actually started reading them in the middle of the series and when I went back to the beginning I found Tintin and Snowy by themselves to be pretty dull. I loved the bizarre cast of characters they'd accumulated over the years.
And we get kids stories with lots of heavy drinking, punching and gunfire!
And opium! How could I forget opium
Scots Taffer on 16/5/2007 at 03:23
I need to look these books up. I haven't read any of them since I was about ten or eleven. Wonder if I can pick them up on the cheap or if they'll be in expensive collector's editions by now. I always loved the art and the little swirls and whizzes that came off people when they were drunk, high or beaten up.
Muz, Haddock was introduced in Crab with the Golden Claws and his ancestry was defined in Secret of the Unicorn iirc, which makes meeting him in the first film that bit more engaging if we develop his backstory in the second!
Fafhrd on 16/5/2007 at 05:14
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
but the only film I've seen from him is Fellowship of the Ring, which I found technically proficient but rather dull, and inferior to the
BBC radio series.Apples and motherfucking bowling balls, kiddo.
I'm not really familiar with the books, the only memory I have of TinTin is an animated movie (I think) called "TinTin Goes to the Moon" or somesuch. I'm thinking this will be good for Jackson, since working with Spielberg should (hopefully) rein in some of his more spectacular impulses that indulged a bit too freely in "King Kong," "The Lovely Bones" may already prove to be the small scale drama that he needed, though.
rachel on 16/5/2007 at 08:51
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
That one actually scared the FUCK out of me and made it very hard to go to sleep for days afterwards on account of that fucking mummy creeping in the WINDOW OH GOD
The only nightmares I remember having as a kid were a direct consequence of that very image. :grr:
I don't know, we finally managed to do a good live-action Asterix movie with "Cleopatra", so they might do good on that too.
