Colin O’Meara | the m0vie blog

The Adventures of Tintin: Flight 714 (Review)

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the United States later this month, I’ll be taking a look at some of nineties animated television show. Check back daily!

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

Towards the end of his Adventures of Tintin, you could tell that Hergé was growing increasingly experimental, taking the series well outside comfort zone of pulp thrillers and global adventures. Tintin in Tibet was an introspective meditation on hope and faith. The Castafiore Emerald was a combination of plot threads that never really managed to tie together into an adventure. Flight 714 reads as if it were a parody of a Tintin story, instead of one itself. It’s a collection of incredible coincidences, elaborate schemes and recurring villains, all written in a wry style that tends to divide fans. Some appreciate the tongue-in-cheek nature of the story, while other find the inclusion of aliens to be a ridiculously fantastical element. It’s certainly not a conventional Tintin story. And, to be honest, I think this poses a bit of a problem for the team handling the adaptation. They’ve done a stellar job tying together the more straight-forward entries in the series, but seem to struggle with some of the stranger instalments.

And this, I’m afraid, is very strange.

Departure lounging around...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventure of Tintin, Castafiore Emerald, Colin O'Meara, Flight 714, Hergé, Professor Calculus, The Adventures of Tintin: Flight 714, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, tintin, Tintin: Flight 714, United States | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in Tibet (Review)

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

Tintin in Tibet is a wonderful book. It’s probably, despite coming towards the end of the series, the perfect book to give somebody who wants to try to read The Adventures of Tintin. It’s a perfect encapsulation of all the heart and warmth that makes Hergé’s series so fascinating, and an illustration of how appealing and endearing his two leads are. More than that, though, Hergé’s story is one of hope and faith, and it’s hard not feel a little bit warm inside after reading it. So the animated adaptation has quite a lot to work with. While they don’t surpass the original book – which would be quite a considerable accomplishment – they do it proud.

It's Snowy out there...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventure of Tintin, Captain Haddock, Colin O'Meara, Haddock, Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in Tibet, tintin, Tintin in Tibet, Tintin: Tintin in Tibet, United States | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon (Review)

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

After a somewhat disappointing adaptation of Destination: Moon, the series bounces back with a wonderful take on Explorers on the Moon. I honestly think that Destination: Moon and Explorers on the Moon are perhaps Hergé’s most optimistic work on the series, aside from Tintin in Tibet. Although one can detect hints of the Cold War on the horizon, informing his writing, there’s still an incredible sense of marvel at the human capacity for what seems to be impossible. While the adaptation of Destination: Moonseemed to miss the comical whimsy to focus on the sabotage subplot, it does a much better job with the more earnest joy of this space-based adventure.

One small step...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventure of Tintin, Colin O'Meara, Explorers on the Moon, Hergé, moon, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, tintin, tintin in america, Tintin: Explorers on the Moon, United States | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus (Review)

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

While I think that the early run of stories from Cigars of the Pharaoh were among Hergé’s most impressively pulpy output, populated with opium traders and sinister conspiracies seemingly spanning the globe, I do tend to have rather eclectic taste. For example, I am quite partial to The Black Island and The Shooting Star, two of the oft-malign chapters in The Adventures of Tintin. Similarly, I’ve found myself slightly underwhelmed by widely-praised instalments like The Secret of the Unicorn or The Blue Lotus. It’s not that I think they’re bad (far from it), merely that I feel they aren’t as good. Still, the animated adaptation of Tintin in America managed to construct an engaging little adventure from a disjointed story, so I wonder how this episode will handle its source material?

Shang-hai Noon...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventures of Tintin, Black Island, blue lotus, China, Colin O'Meara, Hergé, japan, Orient, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the adventures of tintin: the blue lotus, the blue lotus, tintin, tintin in america | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America (Review)

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

I remember catching a few of the animated Adventure of Tintin when I was smaller, and really enjoying them. They were a series produced to adapt Hergé’s stories into easy-to-digest half-hour instalments for kids. Naturally, the early adventures (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo) weren’t deemed suitable for this form of adaptation, so the series jumped right in with the third entry in Hergé’s long-running saga. Which is grand, because I started reading The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in America.