The comic...the film...the book

Cover 'Time' magazine (31.11.2011)

Like Dr Hook who wanted to get their picture On the cover of the "Rolling Stone", being on the cover of "Time" magazine is a big thing. And the film version of The adventure of Tintin has just achieved that milestone. While I might consider the Goscinny "Asterix" books superior to Herge's "Tintin", the books have been loved by generations and are still popular.
The film is motion-capture animation, to capture the look, the colour and the visual style of the original books.  Taken mainly from the book The secret of the unicorn, Tintin buys a a model ship, the "Unicorn", at a market but a couple of sinister characters are so eager to buy it from him, they are willing to resort to  kidnap and murder. Tintin and his dog Snowy sail to Morocco on an old cargo ship, mastered by the drunken Captain Haddock, to find the real "Unicorn". Haddock tells Tintin that  three hundred years earlier his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock was forced to scuttle the original Unicorn, but he managed to save his treasure and provide clues to its location in three separate scrolls (secreted in models of the Unicorn). With aid from bumbling Interpol agents the Thompson Twins our boy hero,his dog and the Captain obtain the scrolls to fulfil the prophecy that only the last of the Haddocks can discover the treasure's whereabouts.

Conceptual film images inspired by the books

Much of the film's success would lie with the artists at the Weta workshops in New Zealand, and there is a book which explores their achievements - The art of 'The adventures of Tintin'. The artists got the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg to bring the characters to the big screen (Spielberg first decided to turn the stories into film back in 1983 - just as well he spent over 20 years pondering the idea, as the digital visual effects used weren't in existence back then). The Weta people spent 5 years working on the movie. The book shows how the film makers started with the original Herge artwork; features early concept drawings; sequences, models, costume designs; and final stills from the film. It focuses on the creative process, showing the many designs that made it into the movie and others that didn't. It highlights the attention to detail. We gain an insight into the creative thinking behind the film.